Promoting Corporate Welfare
Unemployed without Benefits | 26.09.2009 11:55 | Globalisation | Social Struggles | Workers' Movements | Sheffield | World
Unemployment Benefits give Businesses a 90% wage bill reduction. While Unemployment is at high, benefits rates are at an all time, historical low. This is resulting in a nett transfer of wealth from private individuals to shareholders.
People on average salaries receive just a tenth of their earnings if they lose their job and claim Jobseeker's Allowance (JSA). The value of out-of-work benefits compared to earnings has declined steadily and is lower now than in previous recessions.
During the 1980s recession, unemployment benefit rates were around 17% of average earnings. The rate fell to around 14% of earnings in the early 90s recession and in 2008 JSA reached a record low of 10% of average earnings.
Currently £64.30 a week, the UK has one of the lowest out-of-work benefit rates compared to wages in the developed world, according to OECD figures.
In May-Jul 09 there were 28,891,000 people in "work" reflecting 72.5% of the adult population. In the same period 2,470,000 were Unemployed and claiming some form of means tested benefit, representing 7.9% of the population. In the same period, 7,986,000 of the adult population or 21.1% were Economically Inactive: that is not in work and not Unemployed. Due to sampling errors, the percentages do not ad up to exactly 100%.
Those Unemployed are getting paid 10% of what those Employed get paid, on average. Which suggests that 2,889,100 people, on average, are working to pay the Unemployment bill. The statistics also suggest that those people earn £33,436 a year.
Overall, there has been a net transfer of, on average, £30,000 per person made unemployed from workers to bosses. In the three months to July 2009, 246,000 people had become redundant in the three months before the Labour Force Survey interviews: so a net transfer of almost £8bn from private individuals into providing dividends for shareholders pockets has taken place in the last three months. Almost £3.5 Million pounds an hour - a thousand pound a second.
Given that the single source of welfare benefits is the taxation of individuals through the National Insurance scheme, there is a serious question to be asked about why shareholders are being allowed to extract a thousand pounds per second from the economy while forcing the economy to contract. The Banking Crisis was created in exactly the same way: extracting marginal value from the economy where no such value existed.
Unemployment is creating a new "credit crunch" - and this one will not be escaped from by bailing out the banks. With claimants being predominantly from the 18-49 age group, this crunch is coupled with a growing skills gap.
The 28,839,000 UK Employees splits into 25,104,000 UK born Employees and 3,730,000 non UK born. Of these Non UK 91,000 are US citizens employed, predominantly in financial services and managerial roles.Their taxation is returned to the US and makes no impact on the UK Exchequer but provides receipts or $0.8 billion to the US IRS, representing a net earning of $2.6Bn in the last quarter. This is, yet again, a next export of capital that brings pressure onto the other 28,748,000 workers to also subsidise the US economy as well as the Unemployed. As the EU states have reciprocal tax arrangements for their citizens, this is a unique advantage that the US IRS is being given. Given that the real wages of US Workers are falling while the US IRS receipts from the UK are rising, the clear indication is that US Managers are coming to the UK in order to accumulate both at the expense of US workers and UK workers simultaneously.
The much vaunted "invasion" of foreign workers from Europe amounts to 1,192,000 people with contracts ranging from three months to two years. Many of those contracts will be coming to an end in 2010 and this will result in another loss of Income to the HMRC in the UK. The balance of the Immigrant Working population are, for the most part, from the Commonwealth with entitlements based on colonial occupation. Their contribution to the economy is as 883,000 workers - less than a million earning below the National average.
The British Chamber of Commerce is forecasting, in annual average terms, a very large UK GDP decline of 4.3% in 2009, followed by positive growth of 1.1% in 2010 and 1.9% in 2011. This will leave the UK Economy where it was about 2001. While the net disposable income of the average worker will be substantially lower, the economy will have grown to the size it was around the middle of the sustained growth from 1997-2007. In other words, the net capital transfer from Worker to Shareholder will have completed.
While this capital transfer is taking place, the BCC is making complaints that Public sector borrowing is forecast to total some 12.5% of GDP in both 2009-10 and 2010-11 and that Public sector debt is set to rise to dangerous levels, in excess of 80% of GDP. What is not being mentioned is that 80% is part of the capital transfer to shareholders.
For a country with an increasing Graduate population created by issuing loans for fee and living expense cover, this nett transfer represents an additional burden that will negate the additional earnings of being a graduate. The UK will, by 2020 be a white collar sweatshop with a structural inability to disentangle itself from creating nett capital flows to the US economy.
The overwhelming message of recent economic statistics is that the Unemployed are now the tool of choice for social engineering. What happens down Jobcentre Plus today will be happening in the workplace soon: because it makes rational economic sense.
During the 1980s recession, unemployment benefit rates were around 17% of average earnings. The rate fell to around 14% of earnings in the early 90s recession and in 2008 JSA reached a record low of 10% of average earnings.
Currently £64.30 a week, the UK has one of the lowest out-of-work benefit rates compared to wages in the developed world, according to OECD figures.
In May-Jul 09 there were 28,891,000 people in "work" reflecting 72.5% of the adult population. In the same period 2,470,000 were Unemployed and claiming some form of means tested benefit, representing 7.9% of the population. In the same period, 7,986,000 of the adult population or 21.1% were Economically Inactive: that is not in work and not Unemployed. Due to sampling errors, the percentages do not ad up to exactly 100%.
Those Unemployed are getting paid 10% of what those Employed get paid, on average. Which suggests that 2,889,100 people, on average, are working to pay the Unemployment bill. The statistics also suggest that those people earn £33,436 a year.
Overall, there has been a net transfer of, on average, £30,000 per person made unemployed from workers to bosses. In the three months to July 2009, 246,000 people had become redundant in the three months before the Labour Force Survey interviews: so a net transfer of almost £8bn from private individuals into providing dividends for shareholders pockets has taken place in the last three months. Almost £3.5 Million pounds an hour - a thousand pound a second.
Given that the single source of welfare benefits is the taxation of individuals through the National Insurance scheme, there is a serious question to be asked about why shareholders are being allowed to extract a thousand pounds per second from the economy while forcing the economy to contract. The Banking Crisis was created in exactly the same way: extracting marginal value from the economy where no such value existed.
Unemployment is creating a new "credit crunch" - and this one will not be escaped from by bailing out the banks. With claimants being predominantly from the 18-49 age group, this crunch is coupled with a growing skills gap.
The 28,839,000 UK Employees splits into 25,104,000 UK born Employees and 3,730,000 non UK born. Of these Non UK 91,000 are US citizens employed, predominantly in financial services and managerial roles.Their taxation is returned to the US and makes no impact on the UK Exchequer but provides receipts or $0.8 billion to the US IRS, representing a net earning of $2.6Bn in the last quarter. This is, yet again, a next export of capital that brings pressure onto the other 28,748,000 workers to also subsidise the US economy as well as the Unemployed. As the EU states have reciprocal tax arrangements for their citizens, this is a unique advantage that the US IRS is being given. Given that the real wages of US Workers are falling while the US IRS receipts from the UK are rising, the clear indication is that US Managers are coming to the UK in order to accumulate both at the expense of US workers and UK workers simultaneously.
The much vaunted "invasion" of foreign workers from Europe amounts to 1,192,000 people with contracts ranging from three months to two years. Many of those contracts will be coming to an end in 2010 and this will result in another loss of Income to the HMRC in the UK. The balance of the Immigrant Working population are, for the most part, from the Commonwealth with entitlements based on colonial occupation. Their contribution to the economy is as 883,000 workers - less than a million earning below the National average.
The British Chamber of Commerce is forecasting, in annual average terms, a very large UK GDP decline of 4.3% in 2009, followed by positive growth of 1.1% in 2010 and 1.9% in 2011. This will leave the UK Economy where it was about 2001. While the net disposable income of the average worker will be substantially lower, the economy will have grown to the size it was around the middle of the sustained growth from 1997-2007. In other words, the net capital transfer from Worker to Shareholder will have completed.
While this capital transfer is taking place, the BCC is making complaints that Public sector borrowing is forecast to total some 12.5% of GDP in both 2009-10 and 2010-11 and that Public sector debt is set to rise to dangerous levels, in excess of 80% of GDP. What is not being mentioned is that 80% is part of the capital transfer to shareholders.
For a country with an increasing Graduate population created by issuing loans for fee and living expense cover, this nett transfer represents an additional burden that will negate the additional earnings of being a graduate. The UK will, by 2020 be a white collar sweatshop with a structural inability to disentangle itself from creating nett capital flows to the US economy.
The overwhelming message of recent economic statistics is that the Unemployed are now the tool of choice for social engineering. What happens down Jobcentre Plus today will be happening in the workplace soon: because it makes rational economic sense.
Unemployed without Benefits