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Comment by tonyedgecombe | Hacker News Reader

A lot of the people in the UK you hear complaining about benefits are pensioners, the pension budget dwarfs that for benefits, it's the largest part of our welfare state. They don't complain about that gift from the government.

The reality is we have had a rather rabid right wing press for some time, this has led to some people having a distorted view on these things. There was a survey recently which asked people how much is lost to benefit fraud, the answer people gave was 25% when the reality is 0.7%. I don't know about the costs but I can imagine you couldn't get lower than that without spending more than the return.

I try and empathise with their attitudes but I don't want it affecting policy.

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Anecdotally, the people I know that complain the most about benefits also are on some form of benefits themselves (pensioners as you say, but also oddly enough some people I know on SSDI and Medicare / Medicaid).

Generally speaking, the complaints tend to be tribal oriented. I wouldn't be surprised if tribal-type attitudes are involved in the Guardian poll (eg a sample person might think tax loopholes as themselves sneaking in less taxes, but might think of benefit loopholes as others stealing money that comes out of their pocket.)

The thing is that, though, I feel that a lot of these people actually do care about the "billions lost to the rich" too. With this recent round of populism, there indeed has been a strong "anti-elite" sentiment. Unfortunately, too often, the "anti-elitism" is masked in the same sort of tribalism that typically fuels a lot of anti-benefit outrage, so it's not necessarily focused (MHO) on the right places that it should be. But it's there.

'gift from the government'?! These are people that have worked their whole lives from times when benefit scrounging was not a viable life plan. There's plenty of poverty in retirement.

Also quite apart from fraud there are peversely generous incentives for people not to work, and thus we end up with the spectacle of multiple generations having never worked, and having no intention to do so.

Incentives not to work: a real problem. The only way out of that is methodical reform of the system; what Universal Credit could be if it wasn't a disaster being run by IDS.

Multiple generations never having worked: very rare, this is a common piece of anti-benefit propaganda that's rarely rooted in fact. https://www.jrf.org.uk/report/are-cultures-worklessness-pass...

I don't think IDS is involved anymore, May didn't like his face.

The welfare state (in the UK) has existed since people who are now 87 were entering the workforce. It used to be a lot more generous.

There is no test for having worked your whole life needed to get an old age pension. Unemployment benefit claimants get a National Insurance stamp.

> There is no test for having worked your whole life needed to get an old age pension.

Isn't there? I think that you need to have shown at least 10 years of national insurance contributions to get the pension: https://www.gov.uk/new-state-pension/your-national-insurance...

Granted, 10 years is not "your whole life", but there is a test.

As @underwoodley says, you get a credit if you are unemployed, from https://www.gov.uk/new-state-pension/your-national-insurance...

You may get National Insurance credits if you can’t work - for example because of illness or disability, or if you’re a carer or you’re unemployed.

> there are peversely generous incentives for people not to work

No there are not, and claiming such shows how ignorant you are of the current benefit system.

Name one situation where someone is better off on benefits.

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