Question 3: The tabloid press refers to them as benefit scroungers. Politicians might not use these words but refer continually to 'hard working families' Do you think there are too many shirkers? Is this economically sustainable?

The people of the United Kingdom, in recent years have been seen to become increasingly reliant on the governments welfare system, this may be because of the 2009 recession that most felt the effects of. Or it may be because of the changing attitude towards hard work, many now see the current welfare system as a cushion preventing them from living in absolute poverty. The welfare system is now becoming stretched and stretching the UK financially and therefore the question of whether it is sustainable has come to the forefront of many politicians and people minds.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/budget/11727751/Budget-2015-
George-Osborne-slashes-welfare-but-gives-Britain-a-pay-rise.html

In some ways I feel that there are too many shirkers rather than workers in the United Kingdom. One factor that could be affecting this is the how easy it is to claim Benefits and the amount of money given out to them. The average amount of money a benefits claimant gets per week is £72.01.  This, per month is 288.04 and per annum £3456.48, whilst this may seem a very small amount it is in some cases more than what could be earned in a part-time minimum wage job, this is where the issue because controversial. In 2012 a staggering 2.53 million (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10604117) people (16+) claimed this type of assistance. Using the statistics above this meant the government were spending £8.745 billion in 2012 on this specific type of benefit alone. Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne has recently been quoted as saying "Welfare spending is not sustainable and it crowds out spending on things like education and infrastructure that are vital to securing the real welfare of the people”. (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/budget/11727751/Budget-2015-George-Osborne-slashes-welfare-but-gives-Britain-a-pay-rise.html) Supporting my argument that economically our welfare spending is becoming too much. People also have pre-conceived judgments about people doing certain jobs roles that they do not want to associate themselves with. For example, people look at bin men and dinner ladies in a very negative way. People feel they have a social status to live up to and instead of getting a negatively looked at job and ruin their status, they would rather get benefits and not have a job instead. I feel this could be partially due to the country becoming more materialistic and judgmental of people who are lower than ourselves.
(http://tabulation-tool.dwp.gov.uk/100pc/jsa/ccdate/deps/a_cawklyamt_r_ccdate_c_deps.html)

Even though the amount of money spent on welfare is very high, it is not always given continuously to the same people. Most people who require welfare only need this support for a short amount of time. People go in and out of poverty quickly because they are only temporarily unemployed and requiring help from the government through welfare benefits. This means that although the amount of money spent is very high, it is being distributed to the people who need it most at that point in time and not always a way of living forever. Some also work hard to try and get themselves off welfare benefits as the look to improving their future and in turn their family’s future too. Also because of a lack of adequate education, children from a poorer background are being forgotten and, therefore, left behind in the education and employment systems that schools are trying to prepare them for. A lot of people in high up roles within the education system look at young people who are from a family who do claim benefits and ignore them rather than encouraging them to expand their learning to get them out of the vicious circle of going  onto benefits themselves. Head of the Commons Education Committee said "Poor white British children now come out of our schools with worse qualifications than equally poor children in any other ethnic group.” (https://www.theguardian.com/education/2014/jun/20/dont-blame-poor-children-for-poor-education) This provides evidence that the government and education system are both letting down the younger generation of this country, leaving them unable to provide benefits for the economy and their own futures.

To conclude, I feel that the amount of shirkers are not making it economically sustainable for the country to carry on developing, but instead will fall backwards once the younger generation becoming working age. This will be due to the amount of money that the government will be paying out in welfare benefits as it will be higher than the amount of money being paid in through taxes, due to less people will be willing to work or have the qualifications to do so. I feel that the government, education system and the parents who are consistently on welfare have the blame for this. The education provided under the current system and curriculum is not beneficial for poor children to progress to gain qualifications as they are being ignored by schools and left to fall back on benefits that the government hand out instead of gaining qualification to help secure preeminent work. I also feel it is partially the parents fault as they do not seem to want to help their children succeed when maybe they fell down in their own lives, instead they carry on not looking for work and claiming benefits. Parents are the biggest role models to their children and letting them think it is ok to not work and instead redeem benefits the whole of their lives is not economically sustainable a the amount of government money spent on welfare will only rise from £8.745 billion to even higher in years to come.