Friday, July 30, 2010

Government still clueless on welfare

The government claimed to announce "The biggest overhaul of the country's now-''antiquated'' benefits system in decades" today.

In reality, they released a report which notes that some think tanks have produced ideas for reforming benefits without saying which ones the government prefers, asks roughly the same questions as every other government consultation of the past decade on reforming the benefits system, and notes that it would be nice if the administration of the benefits system were more efficient.

Things which aren't mentioned include:

1. What the cost of the different proposals mentioned in the report would be.
2. What levels the benefits would be set at, and hence what the impact on poverty would be.
3. Anything about increasing the number of jobs.