{"id":437675,"date":"2010-03-17T05:00:26","date_gmt":"2010-03-17T09:00:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.oxfam.org.uk\/applications\/blogs\/pressoffice\/?p=11553"},"modified":"2010-03-17T05:00:26","modified_gmt":"2010-03-17T09:00:26","slug":"benefits-and-the-robin-hood-tax","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/437675","title":{"rendered":"Benefits and the Robin Hood Tax"},"content":{"rendered":"

Moussa Haddad discusses how the <\/em>Robin Hood Tax<\/em> <\/em>could help benefit reform in the UK.<\/em><\/p>\n

We’ve already told you<\/a> quite a bit about what poverty looks like in the UK. But, you may well ask, don’t we have benefits, welfare and social security, in short, a safety net<\/em>, which tackles that very problem? Allow me to point you to 13.5 million people<\/a> who might well query how effective that safety net really is.<\/p>\n

Of those millions in poverty in this country, there is pretty much a 50\/50 split between those in working and in non-working households – so the solutions are not clear-cut or one-dimensional. But one of the biggest culprits is the very thing that was set up to keep people out of poverty – the benefit system. It traps people where they are, and means that the move into work costs too much. For example, the Centre for Social Justice’s (CSJ) recent research<\/a> concluded that it is common for people going in to work from benefits to keep a quarter or less of what they earn.<\/p>\n

We’ve had year after year of welfare reform from governments<\/a>. Over thirty years, benefit levels have been halved relative to wages, while the number of hoops people have had to go through to claim them has mushroomed. It’s time to accept that these approaches have reached a dead-end. Governments have failed to tackle the benefit trap, while an increase in means-tested benefits has exacerbated the in-work poverty trap, so that people become stuck where they are – whether that be on benefits or in low-paid work. Reforms have tinkered round the edges of a system that assumes people enter full-time work from unemployment in a single step, which has long since ceased to be the reality for most.<\/p>\n

So, how could a Robin Hood tax help? Well, there are a few issues that meaningful benefit reform needs to tackle, which include:<\/p>\n

financial disincentives, which mean that being in work (particularly in the type of short term, part time, low paid jobs that tend to be available to people coming off benefits) often pays only marginally more – and occasionally even less – than being on benefits;<\/p>\n

the high risk of financial difficulties and debt caused by cash <\/ins>flow problems between benefits stopping and wages being paid, or vice versa. The complexity and slow administration of benefits also add to the costs of preparing for and entering work. The combined effect of this is that taking work can make people more vulnerable and insecure, rather than protecting them;<\/p>\n

non-financial costs and the challenges of moving to work. This may include difficulties and costs in meeting caring responsibilities; less time to maintain the social networks upon which all people, especially those living in poverty, <\/del>rely; and the potential to cause or exacerbate mental and physical health conditions.<\/p>\n