Which would be worrying, if it weren't a load of utter garbage.
IMF research has shown that the UK is towards the bottom of the list of generous countries when it comes to the value of their benefits. In fact it is downright grippy. Unless of course you are talking about the benefits paid to members of the royal family or the House of Aristocrats.
Here is the truth.
Country
|
Gross Replacement Rate year 1
|
Ranking
|
||
Netherlands
|
0.7
|
1
|
||
Switzerland
|
0.687
|
2
|
||
Sweden
|
0.685
|
3
|
||
Portugal
|
0.65
|
4
|
||
Spain
|
0.635
|
5
|
||
Norway
|
0.624
|
6
|
||
Algeria
|
0.612
|
7
|
||
Taiwan
|
0.6
|
8
|
||
Ukraine
|
0.56
|
9
|
||
Italy
|
0.527
|
10
|
||
Denmark
|
0.521
|
11
|
||
Russia
|
0.505
|
12
|
||
Tunisia
|
0.5
|
13
|
||
Finland
|
0.494
|
14
|
||
France
|
0.479
|
15
|
||
Bulgaria
|
0.473
|
16
|
||
Canada
|
0.459
|
17
|
||
Romania
|
0.45
|
18
|
||
Hong Kong
|
0.41
|
19
|
||
Austria
|
0.398
|
20
|
||
Belgium
|
0.373
|
21
|
||
Argentina
|
0.354
|
22
|
||
Germany
|
0.353
|
23
|
||
Greece
|
0.346
|
24
|
||
Azerbaijan
|
0.338
|
25
|
||
Egypt
|
0.329
|
26
|
||
Venezuela
|
0.325
|
27
|
||
Belarus
|
0.313
|
28
|
||
Israel
|
0.307
|
29
|
||
Japan
|
0.289
|
30
|
||
United States
|
0.275
|
31
|
||
Kyrgyzstan
|
0.255
|
32
|
||
New Zealand
|
0.254
|
33
|
||
Latvia
|
0.253
|
34
|
||
India
|
0.25
|
38
|
||
Korea, South
|
0.25
|
37
|
||
Uruguay
|
0.25
|
36
|
||
Uzbekistan
|
0.25
|
35
|
||
Ireland
|
0.238
|
39
|
||
Hungary
|
0.235
|
40
|
||
Poland
|
0.226
|
41
|
||
Czech Republic
|
0.225
|
42
|
||
Australia
|
0.21
|
43
|
||
Turkey
|
0.206
|
44
|
||
Albania
|
0.202
|
45
|
||
United Kingdom
|
0.189
|
46
|
||
Brazil
|
0.152
|
47
|
||
Estonia
|
0.132
|
48
|
||
Lithuania
|
0.117
|
49
|
||
Chile
|
0.115
|
50
|
||
Georgia
|
0.09
|
51
|
||
Look, there is the good old UK, just under Albania. Didn't someone once say that Scotland without England to look after it would be just like Albania? So, if they were right, we can look forward to a little step up.
Data taken from: Mariya Aleksynska and Martin Schindler
(2011) Labor Market Regulations in Low-, Middle- and High-Income Countries: A
New Panel Database. IMF Working Paper.
Iain Duncan Smith is bent out of shape about it. He looked positively ill as he decried the Council of Europe (not the EU: this has 47 members) for criticising the UK for its niggardliness.
Nothing serious I trust.. It doesn't pay to be sick here. Better off in Uzbekistan.
Update: Niko drew my attention to this story about the way Finland deals with redundancies and unemployment. Oh to live in a country like that.
Update: Niko drew my attention to this story about the way Finland deals with redundancies and unemployment. Oh to live in a country like that.
IT'S NOT JUST THE VALUE OF THE BENEFITS IT'S THE EASE IN WICH THEY GET THEM
ReplyDeleteOr the ease with which they are withheld:
Deletehttp://stupidsanctions.tumblr.com/
Can you use lower case, please.
There is something evil about the politicians in power in the UK. I include all the UK parties.
ReplyDeleteThatcher was mad, but present day politicians seem worse. At least in Thatchers day, some of the opposition politicians seemed to have principles, and an alternative view of how life could be.
It's all about power now, and convictions are what you get your wife to take for you.
I suspect in all honesty that it is because Thatcher knew she had massive opposition to what she was doing both fro the country and the opposition in parliament.
DeleteShe was breaking ground.
On the other hand Cameron knows that many of the things he is doing would be exactly what Blair would have done.
Scarily there is a bit of shouting and moaning from the opposition, but there is no serious challenge. Most of the drastic measures they are taking will not be reversed by Labour if they get in.
Thatcher fought with unions and socialists. Cameron's oppositions are neutered unions that Labour doesn't really like and centrists or right of centrists, like Jim Murphy and Tom Harris.
As many have said before there are really 3 parties of the centre right. The Tories are the farthest to the right, with some out and out nutters in the UKIP, BNP wing, The Liberals are whatever gets them some power and labour are centrists.
There is no representation in parliament now for the underpaid and unemployed.
And so no one cares about the benefits. It doesn't affect anyone who matters. And so Bulgarians and Egyptians and Azerbaijanis get a better deal than Brits do.
Because no one much cares.
Love the line about convictions, Jutie. Wish I'd said it.
tris
Deleteperhaps the truth is we only have one party at Westminster and the argument is only over who is in power ,The right wing or the very right wing
We have been saying that for years Niko and glad to see that you have at last realised. UK = London = UK in most unionists eyes only the will not admit it publicly.
DeleteIt looks that way, Niko.
DeleteWhy can't the UK afford the standards that Azerbaijan can much less Finland or Norway, Switzerland etc.
And that spic IDS is OUTRAGED at the Council of Europe saying that what they pay isn't enough.
But the minimum wage isn't enough and the reason our social security billis so high is that rents in Londond and the South east are GIGANTIC... much more than most people earn in a week.
Rent controls... And a minimum wage that reflects what it costs to live in Britain.
Someone once told me America had a right wing party and a very right wing party. As Danny has said on here now they have two far right parties, one fiscal right and the other religious right.
Britain has joined them. There's no votes in the poor and the dispossessed any more, and as Bomber harris pointed out it's not Labour's job to look after them.
We need some left wing politics. Not nut job left wingers that look for a fight anytime the management appears, but left of centre politics that recognizes that not everyone has it to make it to the top, and if they did it would be a disaster anyway... because who would empty the bins.
We need some people who don;t think that it is wrong to give people a decent living if they are sick, or if there just aren't the jobs for them.
And most of all we need someone who will say. if your rent is £200 a week for a small apartment, and your take home pay is only £220, then there is something wrong with the way the country is being run.
Up for it anyone?
Miliband, Lamont, Salmond, Davidson, Cameron?
Anyone?
tris
ReplyDeleteThe only way or more the Tory way to bring welfare ???
as opposed to social security into line with being a
wage slave.
Is to make the life of the low waged and poor so
hard and unbearable that they are forced to sell
themselves on the plutocrats market.
It doesn't have to be like that.
DeleteAfter the war we started to get it right...
We could get it rough again. If we had a proper Labour party.
Tris,
ReplyDeleteYou appear to have an unhealthy interest in that Tory tosser. No, I don't mean Niko, I mean IDS! Every time I log in HIS HEAD IS SHINING AT ME. STOP IT!!!
Hmmmm....Yes I think you're right.
DeleteHe seems to fill the pages of this blog uncommonly often.
It must be that warm friendly smile, almost a father figure really.
OK. I am sorry. I'll try to resist putting his picture up so often. I really will.
But could you write to him too and tell him to stop killing off the sick. Then there would be nothing to write about, except his warm fatherly smile, and there's only so much copy you can do on that.
Brownlie
DeleteAnd good morning to you