Angela Rayner’s employment law forcing ‘stealth tax’ on workers - "The Office for Budget Responsibility, Britain’s independent fiscal watchdog, has said they will have a “probably net negative” impact on a range of economic indicators, including employment, prices, and productivity. The Government’s impact assessment found that the reforms will result in £5 billion higher costs for businesses, which the IEA said would be passed to workers in the form of lower wages... The professor of economics at the University of Buckingham said: “Politicians love to announce new employment ‘rights’ because they think employers pay the bill – but that’s an illusion. “Every mandate, from parental leave to holiday entitlements, acts like a stealth tax that gets passed back to workers through smaller pay rises than they would otherwise receive. The only difference is that no money is raised for the Exchequer,” said Prof Shackleton. “The Employment Rights Bill will make this much worse, imposing billions in hidden costs that workers will ultimately bear themselves."
Proof work DOESN'T pay under Starmer's Labour: Sickness benefits to be worth £2,500 MORE than a minimum wage job - as Kemi warns UK is becoming 'welfare state with an economy attached' - "Living on sickness benefits will soon pay £2,500 a year more than a minimum wage job... Earnings of the unemployed who claim ill health payments will overtake those of workers on the national living wage next year, warns a think tank. The shocking finding comes after Keir Starmer capitulated to a backbench rebellion and failed to secure reforms to the benefits system that would have saved £5billion... Tory leader Kemi Badenoch will warn Britain faces becoming a 'welfare state with an economy attached' in the face of a rapidly expanding benefits bill. In a speech on welfare reform she will warn that the country is sitting on a 'ticking time bomb' of spiralling state dependency. Analysis by the Centre for Social Justice found that a Universal Credit claimant who is not working and takes the average housing benefit and Personal Independence Payment for ill health will receive £25,000 in 2026-27. However, a full-time worker on the national living wage of £12.21 an hour will earn around £22,500 after paying income tax and National Insurance. Writing in the Mail, former work and pensions secretary Sir Iain Duncan Smith, founder of the CSJ, said: 'This isn't a swipe at claimants – many of whom are trying to do right by themselves and their families... 'A system designed to protect those in genuine need now appears to disincentivise work, trap people in long-term dependency, and leave them without meaningful support to recover.' The report lays bare the generosity of the system. Labour's climbdown leaves a £5billion gap in the public finances which it is feared Chancellor Rachel Reeves will have to plug with a wealth tax. On Wednesday, the rebellion continued with 47 Labour MPs voting against the Third Reading of the Government's watered-down welfare reform bill as it passed the Commons. Leading rebel Rachael Maskell branded the bill an 'omnishambles' while others said it was morally wrong for the party to cut benefits for sick and disabled people. Sir Iain said: 'Before lockdown, we had the lowest numbers of workless households since records began. 'However, figures from the Centre for Social Justice show how damaging Covid was and that, since then, the scale of the disincentive to work has grown dramatically. 'That's why the Bill's failure to look at real reform of the system is more costly than just the billions lost to the Chancellor, the real loss is that of the wasted lives trapped in a system of dependence rather than one of independence and achievement.'... a jobless single parent claiming for anxiety and for a child with ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder) will get nearly £37,000 a year – £14,000 more than a worker on the national minimum wage takes home. Last week the Office for Budget Responsibility said the bill for sickness benefits was due to hit £100billion by 2030. PIP payments to assist those with disabilities and health conditions have more than doubled since the pandemic, from 13,000 to 34,000 a month. The increase has been driven by a rise in the numbers claiming for anxiety and depression as their main condition. The CSJ has previously said Britain would save up to £9billion a year targeting mental health benefits to fund NHS therapy and employment support. It said PIP and the health element of Universal Credit should be withdrawn from those with milder anxiety, depression or ADHD... Mrs Badenoch will argue that projections of one in four pounds of income tax soon being spent on sickness and disability benefits is a crisis that could 'collapse the economy'. Ms Badenoch is expected to say: 'It is not fair to spend £1billion a month on benefits for foreign nationals and on handing out taxpayer-funded cars for conditions like constipation. 'We should be backing the makers – rewarding the people getting up every morning, working hard to build our country. Our welfare system should look after the most vulnerable in society – not those cheating the system.'"
"Cruelty" is intolerable, so benefits need to be increased and expanded to even more people, and paid for by taxing the 'rich'
Rachel Reeves warned 'fantasy' wealth tax would drive away investors and fail like Spain's - "Rachel Reeves has been warned a 'fantasy' wealth tax would only succeed in driving away investors from Britain. Alarm is growing about Labour targeting entrepreneurs as the government frantically tries to balance the books... tax experts and economists have pointed to the example of Spain, where a similar policy brought in a fraction of what had been hoped... Tax lawyer Dan Neidle told the Times that the suggestions were 'fantasy politics and impossible to take seriously'. 'Wealth tax advocates talk about everything except the actual wealth taxes that have existed across the world. Almost all raised a pittance, hit the middle class more than the ultra-wealthy, and were abolished,' he said. Lord Macpherson, a former Treasury permanent secretary, said wealth taxes were 'great in theory but never work in practice'. 'Why would a government which has almost certainly lost revenue on its non-dom reforms open up a new front on footloose billionaires? It would lose revenue, and is no substitute for taxing income or consumption,' he said."
Left wingers want to impoverish the "rich", so not bringing in as much money as is hoped isn't necessarily bad
Britain Counts the Mounting Cost of Taxing Wealthy ‘Non-Doms’ - Bloomberg - "As the pace of wealthy individuals leaving London quickens, the numbers are starting to stack up: Labour’s flagship “tax the rich” policy risks becoming a net drain on the UK economy. Barely a day passes by without a big investor or entrepreneur exiting after the government abolished a two-century-old tax break for non-domiciled residents — well-heeled residents hailing from overseas. Billionaire Checkout.com founder Guillaume Pousaz and Nassef Sawiris, Egypt’s richest man, are among those fleeing to European and Middle Eastern financial centers with promises of a lighter tax load, as what began as a trickle of exits quickly turns into an exodus. A Bloomberg analysis of 5 million company filings shows a big spike in departing business leaders over recent months, with more than 4,400 disclosing an overseas move in about the last year. A wave of recent studies warn the UK will lose thousands of jobs and as much as £12.2 billion ($16.5 billion) over the coming four years if non-doms leave at the pace that many advisers are predicting. It’s all setting the stage for the biggest exodus of wealth in the UK’s recent history as a nation that once prided itself on being a hub for the global elite risks a potentially serious — and unforced — economic own goal. The government bets the changes for non-doms will bring about £33 billion in extra taxes, but dissenting voices are giving far harsher predictions on the hit to jobs and economic growth. For now, much of the debate hinges on a key point: If more than one in four of the typical non-dom population exits, the policy will start to backfire — costing Keir Starmer’s Labour government money and creating further economic pressure. Given the quickening clip of departures, to many that looks like a realistic number among the small but deep-pocketed group whose financial clout makes them capable of swaying government spending forecasts... April exits were up 75% from 12 months earlier and the highest in four years, with the pace even higher in the finance, insurance and real estate businesses popular with non-doms, according to the analysis of company filings. A Labour decision to expose non-doms’ overseas assets to inheritance tax has only added to the impetus. Those catering to Britain’s private wealth sector — an influential part of the nation’s services-heavy workforce — are witnessing the fallout first hand. More than a dozen lawyers and other advisers to the ultra-rich who spoke with Bloomberg said anywhere from 15% to two-thirds of their non-dom clients are out or are making plans to depart the UK. The individuals who have already exited command or share part of fortunes totaling at least $110 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index... Supporters of the non-dom regime point out the more than £8 billion they do pay in taxes each year, as well as other benefits for the UK such as job creation and philanthropy. Detractors call it an anachronism in a world that needs to tackle tax minimization and distribute wealth more effectively... Many rich foreigners who’ve already left are Baby Boomers or part of the Generation X cohort, an age when passing on wealth is often top of mind. Leaving before early April curbed the risk of staying liable for UK inheritance taxes for up to a decade after quitting Britain. The UK’s loss has been the gain of European hubs such as Switzerland, Monaco, Italy and Cyprus — some of which have introduced their own regimes to attract the wealthy... Before Britain finally decided to scrap its non-dom perks, it had about 10,000 individuals who had previously claimed the status but had become full tax residents, according to the latest official data. That cohort of former non-doms have typically paid more than £2 billion annually in taxes... Non-doms contribute about £120,000 each a year in employment, capital gains and income taxes on average, and account for more than 1% of Britain’s total tax receipts, despite making up about 0.1% of the nation’s population, according to Bloomberg calculations. That financial clout means even a small number of them leaving has the potential to upset the government’s revenue projections. And it’s not just well-heeled foreigners who are shaping Britain’s wealth exodus. A survey of 2,000 high-net worth individuals in the UK from wealth advisory firm Saltus in January found almost a third of rich locals are also considering leaving permanently."
I saw some left wingers cheering this, and advocating that land be taxed since it can't be moved or that they pay a hefty exit tax, at the same time others claimed people wouldn't leave because London was a wonderful place to live and their children were in the schools there. Presumably they want the Revolution to come sooner, and triggering economic collapse is the way to do that
Britain Loses 276,000 Jobs Since Reeves’ Tax-Raising Budget - Bloomberg - "UK employment plunged by the most in five years and wage growth slowed more than forecast, in the clearest sign yet that Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves’ budget was fueling a deterioration in the British jobs market. Tax data showed the number of employees on payroll tumbled 109,000 in May, the biggest decline since May 2020, the Office for National Statistics said Tuesday. The fall was much worse than the 20,000 decrease predicted by economists, with the largest contractions coming in sectors most exposed to Reeves’ policy moves, like retail and hospitality."
Time to "tax the 'rich'" even more to plug the gaps in the budget
Long-term sickness has made economy 10pc smaller - "The long-term sickness crisis means Britain’s economy is 10 per cent smaller than it otherwise would be, according to a report produced for the NHS."
More sick and disabled people must work, says Liz Kendall - "A bleak report from the Office for Budget Responsibility recently warned that the UK’s national debt is on track to spiral from just under 100pc of GDP to 270pc in the next 50 years if nothing is done to reduce the benefits bill... The remarks come after the Government’s botched welfare reform, which had set out to save £5.5bn a year by the end of the decade."
Britain must cut the benefits state - "If a quarter of the working-age population is “disabled”, does the word still have a useful meaning? The answer offered by Kemi Badenoch is clear and correct: it does not... We must be considerably more discerning about which conditions are judged to merit state benefits, and the extent of the support offered to those appearing with mental health conditions. Helen Whateley, the shadow work and pensions secretary, was on the right track with her suggestion that sickness benefits should not be offered for common mental health disorders such as anxiety or mild depression. Equally, as Mrs Badenoch says, we need to restore the work ethic which once drove people to “get a job, look after yourself and look after your family” as a default. Today, the outlook of a growing number appears to be instead that Britain owes them something, and that they are entitled to the fruits of the labours of their peers and neighbours. This is not so, and policy should reflect this."
This pensioner perk must go in the battle to save the NHS - "In the mid-1950s the government spent about 3pc of its GDP on healthcare. Today the figure is 9pc (excluding the private sector), amounting to almost a fifth of all government spending. If nothing is done, by 2070 we could end up spending more than a fifth of our GDP on the NHS. This is unacceptable. If we allowed this to happen, other sorts of public spending would have to be squeezed and/or taxes would have to be raised to eye-watering levels. This would have a devastating effect on incentives and therefore a materially depressing effect on the economy. The funding system is the first of the NHS’s major problems. The second is inadequate quality. Many British people think that the NHS delivers a first-class service. Yet, it is clear that the NHS offers neither the best nor the worst healthcare in the world. Admittedly, at its best, it is superb, but the standard is hit and miss, and at its worst, it is pretty bad. Among a group of countries of comparable economic development (Australia, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Singapore, Switzerland and the US), on both life expectancy and healthy life expectancy the UK comes in second to last. Only the US scores worse. On preventable and treatable mortality, the UK again comes in second to last, ahead of only the US. On the proportion of patients waiting over a year to see a specialist, the UK is the highest in the group. We also perform badly on the ease of securing an appointment with a GP and access to GPs out of hours. What is to be done? Whenever someone criticises the NHS and suggests that we need to move to a different model, a chorus of voices loudly proclaims that we must not become like America... Under no circumstances should we consider copying the US. But we don’t have to. There are many countries in the world which operate a different system for funding healthcare and enjoy better average health outcomes than the UK. The essence of their approach is to combine charging and co-payments with a system of social insurance... Doubtless many people will say that these proposals destroy the essence of the NHS as it was established in 1948. But the provision of healthcare in this country cannot be treated as a sort of museum exhibit. We can adhere to the spirit of the NHS in creating a system that delivers excellent healthcare for all within a funding framework that is right for the 21st century."
Clearly, the problem is Conservatives underfunding the NHS, and spending 20% of GDP on it should be welcomes
Quoting Canada as an alternative to learn from is... odd
This is how we reboot Britain’s decimated economy - "Whatever its other faults, and there were plenty of them, over the past 20 years the British economy was at least very good at generating lots of jobs. They were not necessarily very skilled, or productive, but they were plentiful. This is not the case anymore... The welfare rolls are the only metric that is booming. The public sector is still expanding as if money would keep flowing forever. But the private sector has stopped hiring. The reason is simple: GDP is barely going up, and yet the cost of employing workers is rising. The minimum wage has been pushed too high for many companies and the Chancellor made a catastrophic error of judgment when she increased employers’ National Insurance contributions and lowered the threshold at which these have to be paid. NI is a tax on jobs; it is no great surprise that we now have fewer of them. It is only going to get worse over the next few months. It takes time for the companies to slim down their workforce, as most of them prefer “natural wastage” to risking the hassle and expense of an employment tribunal by laying people off. As people leave they won’t be replaced. And the Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner’s draconian extension of employment rights will further undermine the economy. Why risk hiring someone if you can’t get rid of them? Without new jobs, the economy can’t grow; while it will be impossible to shift people off welfare benefits, the tax base will shrink; and the burden on the Treasury will grow ever larger. Britain will be tapped in a doom loop where taxes crush employment, leading to lower revenues, which in turn means taxes have to be pushed even higher, starting the whole dismal cycle all over again. There is only one way to fix the malaise. The Conservatives and Reform have to make the case for a free-market revolution. It is not exactly hard. The time has come to stop pushing up the “living wage” by more than the rate of inflation every year. We need to deregulate the labour market, repealing Rayner’s idiotic reforms and also blocking the madness of judges effectively setting wage rates by using equalities legislation. It is better to be hired and fired than to never be hired at all. We need to rein in the public sector to reduce the deficit and allow room for supply-side tax cuts. We need a radical programme of liberalisation to fire up the animal spirits of entrepreneurship once again. Net zero should be scrapped. The lower capital gains rate for entrepreneurs should be restored in full, and the lifetime limit put back to £10m. We need a better monetary policy that actually targets price stability. Planning laws should be genuinely liberalised so that firms can start building. Ridiculous laws left over from the European Union, such as the GDPR rules (perhaps the worst piece of internet legislation ever devised), should be repealed to allow start-ups to flourish. “Opportunity Zones” based on the successful experiment from president Trump’s first term should be launched, with lower taxes and lighter regulation, to reboot run-down urban areas. Each one of these policies would help fix some of the damage from Labour’s disastrous first year. Taken together, they would get the economy moving again, laying the foundations for the long project of restoring the nation’s prosperity. The campaign needs to start now. For too long, the British political establishment has complacently assumed the economy could withstand whatever taxes and regulations were thrown at it. We learnt this week that is no longer true. Like much of the rest of the country, it is now broken."
How Labour’s private school VAT raid sparked a barrage of abuse - "For months Ben* was heckled by local school children on his way home. A group of them targeted him on the bus, shouting “posh boy” whenever they saw him. The taunting was so relentless that for a while last year the 15-year-old changed the time he left school to avoid running into his aggressors. He has asked that we don’t use his real name so that he remains unidentifiable. His mother says that this happened in autumn last year, when Labour’s anti-private school rhetoric was at its peak. In October, Bridget Phillipson, the Education Secretary, tweeted a viral post in which she caricatured private schools as out-of-touch institutions with embossed stationery and AstroTurf pitches. Ben is far from the only child who has faced abuse in the wake of Labour’s VAT raid. The Education Not Taxation group, which includes more than 25,000 private school parents, said it is aware of dozens of examples of children who say they have been abused on their way to and from school. Private school children have often been a target of bullies in the past. But the group says the language and rhetoric used by Labour ministers in the past year to justify adding VAT to school fees has poured fuel on the flames, and created a reason to accept this behaviour. Phillipson’s viral post on X, seen by more than six million people, is one of many examples of language some have deemed to be divisive and creating an “us vs them” mentality. Conservative MP Luke Evans said her comments “reeked of prejudice and propagates a class war”, while shadow minister Nigel Huddleston said they were “shockingly ill-judged”. Both called for her to apologise. In April, the Education Secretary accused private schools of “crying wolf” over the impact of the 20pc levy, despite more than 75 institutions closing since October, according to the Independent Schools Council. Recent figures from the Department for Education also revealed four times as many pupils have left private schools in the past year than the Government’s forecast... In a recent meeting with other state school parents, Mary says she was heckled and told “you are part of the problem” because one of her children attended a private school. She says: “In my role as a governor, we had to explain the financial difficulties to parents. I was in a meeting and a mother stood up and said I was part of the problem because I had denied funding to the school by moving my child to an independent school. “There were 30 people in that room and nobody said anything. Nobody stepped in, that was the shocking part. People afterwards messaged me to say she was out of line, but the fact nobody wanted to speak up… I felt publicly shamed.” One private school family putting their heads above the parapet are Sarah Lambert, 59, and her 14-year-old daughter Ava. The Telegraph revealed in February that the local council is now spending more than £8,000 a year in taxi fares to take Ava to the nearest available state school 25 miles away, after the family were no longer able to afford her school fees. Lambert, a nurse practitioner, says the fallout from appearing in the media has been “brutal”. While more juvenile comments focused on cliches about their supposed wealth, she says that at its most sinister, online trolls trawled through her social media accounts to find images of her daughter. “They found a picture and said ‘well she deserves it because she’s so ugly’. Another one said ‘who would want that child in their school?’. It’s been horrendous. There have been things like ‘oh dear so your poor child has to mix with normal people’. “Don’t talk to me about normal people. My sister works in retail. My mum is a retired social worker. I’m a nurse. How much more normal could you want?” She adds: “I found myself thinking, how is this normal for people to be able to feel like they could attack a 13-year-old child? I truly believe it was the rhetoric that the Government gave at the time. They wanted people to think we all drive Chelsea tractors."
"Stigma" is only bad and justifies radical policies which will supposedly address it when it's against "minorities", and the left hate "rich" people anyway
So what's the deal with Zoomers ditching leftist ideas? : r/AskBrits - "Alright, so let's get one thing out of the way immediately, I'm a salty millennial leftist and I’m well gutted watching so many Zoomers swerve hard into alt-right edgelord territory. What’s the deal? We’re all collectively getting rinsed by neo-liberalism: sky-rocketing rents, 1.5 million unused homes while second and third home ownership is rife, an economy that pays peanuts, an NHS on its knees and migration to keep wages suppressed and profits high - instead of uplifting and training your own people. Yet instead of raging against the Tory machine or extreme tax evasion, I see Gen Z memeing about “woke cringe” or stanning crypto bros and far-right YouTubers. Now they're about to vote Reform, which will be capitalism on steroids and leave many of you who are already behind completely in the dust. Where’s the energy for dismantling the broken system itself? Back in my day (2008-2012 uni days), we were out there occupying, disrupting, doing the work your wage mindset, marching for tuition fee cuts, 2011 riots and hyping Corbyn’s nationalisation dreams. Zoomers, you’ve got the same raw deal as we did, make no mistake. Uni debt, no hope of owning a flat or house, climate catastrophe looming,etc... but it feels like the right’s slick TikToks and “own the SJWs” bait are stealing the show. Leftist politics, like taxing the 1%, rebuilding public services, or smashing corporate monopolies, should be your jam, no? So why’s it flopping? Is it the preachy vibe of some lefty groups? Too much Twitter exposure where you digest misinformation? Or are you just done with any type of institutions led state altogether? I’m not here to lecture, I just want to understand why the generation that’s screwed hardest by inequality isn’t linking arms to burn this neoliberal mess down. Is the alt-right wave as big as it seems online, or is it just a loud minority? UK Zoomers, millennials,etc... hit me with your takes. Let me find out where my disconnect is stemming from as I can't wrap my head around it and it's been gnawing at me for months now. I'm contemplating selling up and starting over again in Europe so need some perspective I guess. Posting here as it got automatically removed on askUK!"
The solution to failed left wing policies... is even more left wing policies
Capital gains tax update: Treasury loses £1.4bn in tax revenue after Rachel Reeves's raid as rich flee UK - "The Treasury has lost out on more than £1.4billion in capital gains tax (CGT) revenue in the 12 months to March 2025, according to new figures. HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) reports a sharp decline, representing a more than 10 per cent drop from the previous year's total of £14.5billion. This significant reduction in tax income comes at a challenging time for Chancellor Rachel Reeves, who is struggling to balance public finances. The fall in revenue has been attributed to wealthy individuals leaving the UK to avoid increasing tax burdens on their assets and earnings... The recent drop in CGT revenue follows changes implemented in Chancellor Reeves's October Budget, which saw the rate rise from 20 per cent to 24 per cent for higher-rate taxpayers at the start of April... non-domiciled individuals who live in Britain are now having their worldwide earnings subject to UK tax for the first time, following changes implemented by Labour last year. These tax reforms appear to be driving wealthy individuals to reconsider their residency status."
Clearly, this proves that they need to raise it even more to earn more money
More than half a million NEETs have NEVER had a job - "More than half a million young people not in work, education or training have never had a job, a shocking analysis has found. A staggering 13 per cent of all 16 to 24-year-olds in the UK are not in education, employment or training (NEET) - equating to nearly one million young people. New research by the Learning and Work Institute (L&W) showed that three in five (58 per cent) of NEETs have never had a paid job. The study also warned of how it is much harder for young people to get back on track once they have been a NEET for a sustained period of time. Almost half (48 per cent) are still not in education, employment or training a year after they first become a NEET. Sir Keir Starmer has said the number of inactive young Britons is a 'moral issue', with the Prime Minister warning of a 'wasted generation'. The L&W analysis showed how the majority of NEETs are economically inactive (59 per cent), meaning they are currently unavailable for work or not looking for work . This is primarily because of a long-term health condition or disability (27 per cent of NEETs), looking after their family or home (13 per cent), or for other reasons (19 per cent). The research found the percentage of young people in England who are not currently seeking employment or are unable to work because of health reasons has more than doubled in the past decade... even for NEET young people over the age of 18, a substantial proportion have never had a paid job. Two-fifths (39 per cent) of NEETs have never had a paid job and left full time education before the age of 19."
Majority of Britons receive more in benefits than they pay in taxes - "A total of 52.6pc lived in households that received more from the state than they paid to the Treasury last year, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS). The figures underscore the challenge facing Sir Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves as they try to tackle a ballooning sickness benefit bill and pressures from an ageing population... The latest findings have been released as Britain struggles with stagnant growth, faltering public services and a tax burden heading towards a post-war high, inflicting ever greater pain on workers. These pressures are only set to intensify as the population ages and more people become so-called net recipients in retirement, with the number of over-85s set to double by 2045 to 3.1m... The ONS said: “Disability benefits in the UK have been increasing since before the coronavirus pandemic with an increased number of claimants. “Spending on disability related benefits is now more in line with other OECD countries, where previously the UK spend was lower.”... The ONS’s analysis also suggests that despite the cost of living crisis, Britain is becoming increasingly equal in terms of income, with inequality at a 10-year low. This in part reflects the fact that high earners have seen their incomes grow at a far slower pace than low-paid workers in recent years, fuelled by successive increases in the minimum wage."
This won't stop the calls to "tax the 'rich'"
Idle young people’s endless moping is getting boring - "rates of depression and anxiety among young people have been soaring in recent years, suggesting that rising unemployment or a deliberate lack of ambition isn’t leaving anyone with a spring in their step. For many, this deliberate tapping out of adulthood won’t feel like real freedom at all... nothing will shift while hard work is considered a failure. Geoff Butcher, who runs several care homes in the Midlands, told my colleague last month that most UK job applicants never turn up for interviews, while the few who do end up failing probation or quitting in the first three months. “The majority of them just find it too hard work,” he said, adding that the benefit system is a large part of the problem: “It’s a way of life, kind of bumping along the bottom.” Many British workers simply don’t fancy these demanding roles. But the state cannot step in and give everyone a friction-free life, and nor should it. While the reasons for some young people wanting to snub hard work are understandable to an extent, giving in to a life of idleness can lead to depression, loneliness or... a drift towards entitlement which can become hard to shake."
Only fascists expect people to work!
