No expert, I've heard basic welfare payments are under the poverty line. How are we meant to improve the standard of living if we can't support people out of the cycle of poverty by having a system that essentially guarantees poverty?

The major drain is aged pensioners. It will only get worse as the 'baby boomers' retire. The other surprising one is family welfare. What does this entail? Childcare support payments, payments to single parents?

Edited by bethfc: 28/7/2016 10:35:13 AM

I don't mind some of tupacs songs although there's better, but his rise from being a pathetic bitch to full west coast thug is laughable.

I would argue terms like cultural marxist and virtue signalling have lost all meaning.

Edited by mcjules: 28/7/2016 11:48:57 AM

:lol: prep school gangsta thug.

Have I used these terms have I?

I would think people that constantly whinge about them are more obnoxious.

Edited by mcjules: 28/7/2016 11:50:18 AM

To your credit you have not, however I'm responding to the thread of discussion not you specifically.

On Pac. Nas is streets ahead.

I'm glad you recognise that because they are rubbish terms. Culture is fluid and ever changing.

Also Biggie, Eminem and I'd say Ice Cube too.

Tupac is good but some people treat him like a god. That's why I say he's overrated.

Agreed. I find it highly hypocritical when people have a go at people using terms like "racist etc" and then they themselves use terms like "virtue signaller etc" to basically do the same thing they're accusing the others of doing.

It's a pity because these terms probably should have value but because of their overuse when things fit the description it gets dismissed.

Same thing can be said about the afl actually

Outside of Victoria (Melbourne even) there really isnt much of a heartland, interest for it

Its the same as Irish Football, while everyone in the UK plays soccer, the Irish love their GAA but its been the same for the last millennium, so whats the difference if it stays the same for one more?

case in point, 95% of all the players in the AFL are from Melbourne/ Victoria

The poverty line is a slightly odd concept in a rich country like Australia. Others may understand it better but I thought it was defined by a person's income relative to others (the median). So "Poverty" is the wrong word as it doesnt necessarily reflect how much income is needed to provide the basics.

#batsoutforhughes or whatever the fuck that was.

#dicksoutforharambe

aww see we agree :)

And the teenies and wannabee gungstez want to throw pictures up with 'quotes' of Pac and pretend they are hard done whilst writing on a laptop with internet access on a cumfy couch with the citation of 'iz tuff deeze daiz'.

Fuck off, Brad, you don't know squat.

That is fair - the "poverty line" itself is arbitrary, in that there is no universal definition. I have seen both the "relative" poverty line being used (as per your comment re income relative to the median), and also "absolute" poverty line - what income is required to survive in Australian society.

But I agree with BETHFC's point that the welfare system often does a lot to reinforce poverty, rather than alleviate it.

I think quite often the general perception of how much welfare people get paid, and how much the govt spends on welfare as a percentage of tax take, is not in line with reality.

Ima let this slip just once.

I like mcjules flag.



Got it saved on my ipad

Edited by iridium1010: 28/7/2016 01:56:48 PM

Same with foreign aid.

Wish it was my idea but it's really a modification of the unity flag

It's my preferred design as well.

Isn't the first time :)

I'm guilty of looking at 'total welfare costs' and reinforcing my former ignorant opinion that it's significantly too high.

Thanks for posting that article to which quoted by the way. Very informative and very easy to understand.

If we were smart, wouldn't paying welfare recipients more to improve their lives reduce welfare dependency?

Oh, so that's a boomerang - thought it was a subliminal message that we should 'lurch to the right'...so typical of you.

You can't make comments like that unless you look at what the spending actually is as a percentage of tax revenue

FYI



http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-10-14/do-eight-of-ten-taxpayers-fund-welfare-bill/6822840

Now that's a huge chunk of the income tax revenue of the nation.

Sure, welfare is paid from consolidated revenue ie PAYG plus other taxes.

The issue isn't the "dole bludgers". The issue is the middle-class welfare introduced during the mining boom that now is seen as entitlement and acts as a disincentive for people to support themselves.

It depends ultimately on what people expect welfare to to be-help to get people back on their feet, or something else.

In the article Azzamarch posted I picked out family welfare being a significant amount of money, the second highest use of welfare resources. Is this what you are referring to? The article does not clarify what family welfare encompasses.

Yes - I agree that middle-class welfare is a problem. BETHFC - I think a lot of it comes from the Family Welfare portion. Some of the spending in that area is valid, but I agree that much of it isn't.

The other aspect is the money spent on the elderly. Not critical of it, but that is a large chunk of welfare spending, and will increase as time goes on as the population continues to age.

As mentioned by a lot of people, superannuation tax concessions to the very rich means that a lot of income taxation is not collected!

Edited by AzzaMarch: 28/7/2016 03:04:51 PM

One of the things that disturbed me is payments to families for children in day care when the family has two full time incomes. What a joke.

Um, I don't quite agree with that. I think as a society we have made the decision that we want to enable people to be able to work, as we want to increase the labour market participation rate. That means we need to subsidise childcare even when both adults work. Because if you didn't, then the cost of childcare would be more than the 2nd wage.

I would put childcare costs in the same bucket as maternity leave - something that we need to help ensure adequate labour market participation by women.

I know this viewpoint won't be very popular on this forum, but there it is.