[Gllug] VACANCY: Junior Systems Support

[Hari Sekhon]

Lesley wrote:
> On Wed, Sep 09, 2009 at 10:52:37AM +0100, Hari Sekhon wrote:
>   
>> Chris Bell wrote:
>>     
>>> On Wed 09 Sep, Hari Sekhon wrote:
>>>   
>>>
>>>   
>>>       
>>>> Except that people want to earn money and have recession proof (or at 
>>>> least resistant) jobs and steady incomes, if you build it and market it 
>>>> properly they will come and you will reduce shortages in those positions.
>>>>
>>>> -h
>>>>
>>>>     
>>>>         
>>>    Unfortunately there is a poverty trap which can mean that people do
>>> better by not working harder, or even at all. Any additional earnings
>>> require some effort, and result in equivalent loss of benefits or additional
>>> taxes
>>>       
>> The solution being? Remove benefits and make it an even playing field to 
>> encourage people to work hard and compete. This would also allow people 
>> who have worked hard to actually be financially better off rather than 
>> some getting free property and others struggling their whole life to get 
>> one by paying for it, which would be much fairer on the decent folks.
>>     
> I think you are confusing 'decent' with 'employed' here. Just because somebody
> is employed doesn't mean they are (a) decent or (b) not living in socially provided 
> accommodation.
> Equally just because someone is unemployed doesn't mean they are not
> (a) decent or (b) living in their own property.
>   
You can find exceptions to almost everything in existence, not worth 
discounting a general trend for it though, we're not talking about some 
unfortunate people who got made redundant and will get back to 
employment as soon as possible, of which many of my fellow IT peers are 
unfortunately prominent ...

Still, working and having a council property is a hugely uneven playing 
field against the rest of the hopeless young professionals spending 
their lives living in shared accommodation...

>> There's also this trap in the upper tax band, it's so hard to earn 
>> anything more because half of what you earn goes in tax anyway... so any 
>> improvement is so marginal as to not justify the effort, so tax should 
>> also really be a flat rate percentage as it is a percentage after all... 
>> you earn more you pay tax more anyway but at least the gradient doesn't 
>> become even harder.
>>     
> I think most employers take into account the tax situation as best they were able to
> when grading salaries.  Even when salaries are merely increased in line with inflation
> someone earning £60K gets triple over someone earning £20K and the tax is only taken off
> that over the upper limit for base rate.  So if inflation is at 1% one gets £600 the other 
> £200.  At 20%/40% tax rates one actually receives £160, the other £360 or an increase in 
> take home pay that is about two and a quarter times the lower paid colleague.
>   
Not talking about inflation readjustments which are trivial beyond the 
worth of mentioning, I'm talking about the incentive for working hard 
towards your next £5K pay rise (and you really need to count in at least 
fives if you want to get anywhere in England these days with house 
prices as they are now)


> The current benefit system is complex.  Having benefits is almost not the problem.  Yes
> it makes it easier for the workshy but there'll always be an element of that in society.
>   
3 million people in council estates and growing is not a small element 
though, it's a future generational disaster unfolding.
> It can be difficult to get off benefits when any money you earn reduces your benefits to the
> point where there is a shortfall - i.e. going to work actually causes a loss of income.
> On a small budget with dependants and/or health requirements that loss cannot necessarily be
> contemplated no matter how much one might one to get out of that rut.
>   
That in itself shows the system is broken, but alas we have diverged too 
much already...

-h

-- 
Hari Sekhon
http://www.linkedin.com/in/harisekhon

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