Unemployment and Benefits

[SteveH]

DaveR, how I categorically agree with you!
I do not yet receive a State Pension, or 'benefits', but I do receive the Private Pensions that I (highly) paid for, for 40 years from taxed income, that I am now taxed on, those taxes, which I have paid twice, going to fund 'benefits'. When I do receive a State Pension, it will, as Dave R says, have been paid for by my NI contributions.
Lets please separate Pensions from 'benefits', at least for this discussion. 
By the way B2R, how's the juggling shop doing?

Hi Bosun,  The separation you mentioned above needs to be more permanent, rather than just this discussion, while the government continues this policy , and I am sure they will, it makes them look good and the pensioners the "baddies".
I heard a number of comments on a TV " benefits show" ..........."why do pensioners get so much, if you stopped it, we could get more"......."if you cut pensions you would not need the bedroom tax"........ it shows the way people are misguided ............

[Hugo]

Personally,  it doesn't bother me what Pensions are described as so long as I receive mine.    I've paid into the system for more than 50 years and am still doing so,  so I have no qualms about what the Government call it.
As for the cuts in Tax Credits the Government are spot on with them.   The initial system of tax credits was good in principle but has been abused over the years and the abusers are actually the employers who engage staff on restricted hours knowing full well that the Government will make up the income  for those employees.

[Ian]

I think the problem lies in the way the ONS uses the definitions. The government itself (as I've said) doesn't include Pensions as a benefit, yet it seems the ONS does. Your Pension is no more a benefit than a visit to the GP; both are contractual components of a deal made in 1948 between the UK working people and the government of the day.

[Bosun]

I might be being pedantic, but having paid many tens of thousands of pounds for something, I do actually happen to have a view on what it should be called and I am uncomfortable with it being termed in the same manner as welfare support which is a different facility entirely. 

[Ian]

I agree.

[born2run]

I might be being pedantic, but having paid many tens of thousands of pounds for something, I do actually happen to have a view on what it should be called and I am uncomfortable with it being termed in the same manner as welfare support which is a different facility entirely.

They are both in the National Assistance Act 1948. So how can they not be in the same 'family'?

[Bosun]

Again, not wishing to be pedantic... but I wrote 'facility', not 'family'...

And, my private ''pensions' have nothing to do with the state 'pension', but both are called pensions... and some in society have difficulty in accepting and/or understanding the difference.