Welfare and Religion in 21st Century Europe, Term Paper Example

Identify and Summarize the research evidence presented in Chapter 3 of Mirrlees Review titled ‘Labor Supply and Taxes’ which is most relevant to the reform of the benefit and welfare system?

One of the most essential part and function of the system of taxation is ‘Wealth Redistribution’. The reason is that this aims to shorten the gap of wealth and income between the poor and the rich and can also lead to dependency and entrenched behaviors. The makers of policy strive continuously to reduce the negative impacts of this core function and create reform to the welfare and benefits systems. These systems are implemented and proposed from time to time. There are many studies and research based on the relationship between the labor supply and taxation. We can see that in Mirrlees Review of the 3^rd Chapter ‘Labor Supply and Taxes’. The summary of this chapter suggests that the benefits and tax system reforms can lead to the enhancement of incentives of specific people group.

In order to understand the impacts of welfare and revenue on taxation, it is important to understand the labor supply study. There are many labor supply dimensions that are relevant to various people groups. The tax system of Mirrlees considers hours or work per year and per week, participation of the labor force and the taxable total income. At different time points, there are various reforms that transformed the system of tax and the benefits it provides. It is possible to estimate the benefits and effects of taxes when keeping in mind that this income can fluctuate depending on the individuals and time for work preferences reason that are non-related. It can be assumed that the reforms in the policy could be confounded with the shift in aggregate hours of work. Mirrlees (2011) said that the reforms impact differently to different individuals (Mirrlees, 2011). With the above discussion, we can say that there will be a differential substantial impact on the benefits entitlement because of the reforms in various other parts of the country.  Apart from using the income measures and in-work, there are predictions based on the average types of different educational and religious groups. It is a well-known fact now that the work preferences do not exhibit across the groups’ variety trends.

The survey of Family Resource (FRS) has been specially designed for researching the socio-economic with the employment, expenditures and income focus (Mirrlees, 2011). These reforms corresponded in the work probability to increase the unit in the measure of income. Every individual has two measurement of income. One is the income that is predicted (Work income) and the other is the income that is unpredicted (Out of work income). The mergers of these two measures reflect the work return with their coefficient for each person. Thus, the probability of participation doesn’t depend on the income differences, but on the measures of income. Each income has a weight that is different due to the difference in income values when out of work or in-work. The renew tax system and the Welfare benefits can have a tremendous impact on the behavior of the worker. There is no comparison whether is a skilled worker or an unskilled one. As it is argued earlier, simple elasticity can be misleading when evaluating the reforms that are specific. Additionally, the reforms are more likely to be taken into practice and may impact on the income at different parts of the budget constraints and this may have a link with other systems of welfare (Mirrlees, 2011).

One of the most essential tools for fiscal policy in the country is the income tax. Mirrlees examined the social taxation model. According to the system of tax, there were a set of parameters differences for the married and single individual. This reform predicted a positive employment substantial impact for cohabiting the low wage men with some of the negative small impacts of employment for high income workers. The principle of Mirrlees has been disregarded by many others. As there is nothing like income tax optimal, that is why the suggestion of Mirrlees is subjective whereas the second suggestion is contradictory.

Summarize the shortcomings of the existing benefits and welfare system identified by the document titled ‘21^stCentury Welfare’.

The State Secretary for the Pensions and Work commanded by Her Majesty highlighted the new program of ‘21^stcentury Welfare’. This program was presented to the parliament and is considered to be efficient and simpler. It has lesser bureaucracy layers and lesser benefits. The support of finance in this program is based firmly on the making of pay of work. The major reforms duties were reducing the family breakdowns, poverty, failure of education, and drugs and alcohol addiction. This 21^st century program of welfare aims to serve the dependency of the economy and the debt personally (Lavinas, 2013).

The reforms of welfare can make the system of benefits to work efficiently. The people who are vulnerable will be given the help with this program and the government will not abandon them to live a life absent of benefits. However, it is very crucial to know that how will the government make this new system of benefit work and how the transformation will impact the people. It is quite evident that this new system of welfare aims to serve the people. According to the ‘21^stcentury welfare’, for many years the people left on diseased. The government assumed before that these ill individuals will not work again. There is a fact that sickness alters the person and to improve, it cannot be accounted (Lavinas, 2013).  So, the new benefits in this system allows the people to live in the homes that they weren’t able to afford earlier by themselves because they were not on these benefits. It will make their children to assume that without job the life is possible. These parents were never seen by these children on going to work. In short, the best way to avoid poverty is to work. It is a hard fact to think that an individual going to work can be poor. When an individual foes to work, this gives the person a chance to build career, earn money and in short prevent poverty. So, if the government give them the benefits, all of these conditions are impossible to achieve then as nobody would go to work as they all already getting the benefits.

For this reason, the reforms were implemented to save money. The credit Universal is a new reforms part. It take from the national income an extra £2bn (Bennett, 2012). Sometimes, this Universal Credit grants the individual more help than the present system. Such kings of implication would not allow the people to be anxious regarding their condition at work. They can bring the system of benefits and also get the money they used to get when they were working. The system of benefit is a great idea to safeguard individuals who are in dire need. Admittedly, the working ways of these reforms needs to be altered. It is crucial to have some tests and rules for the individuals to determine if they are applicable to share this kind of work. This kind of system determination is very crucial for the communities. All transformations in the country comprising reforms have an impact on society that is doubtful. In one case, this new system of welfare supports the people to save their health and avoid poverty (Royston, 2012). On the other instance, we can see that this approach can lead straight to the disaster of the country. A very high taxation without reason may destroy the consciousness of society.

To precise it all up, the welfare reforms in Britain are developed on the basis of the feedback of the disabled persons. The major reforms that took place in the system of tax in UK is the results directly of the comments the government got from the persons who are disabled and the welfare organizations supporting them. Moreover, every group of society needs to face the tax system reforms. This is because there can be differences of opinions in a diverse set of people.

Summarize the proposed changes to the welfare and benefits system with reference to the document ‘Universal Credit: welfare that works’ and other documents available on the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP), Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs (HMRC),  Directgov websites and any other publication which are relevant.

UK’s government has particularly designed a new document that builds a platform that is affordable and also introduces a different system radically helping the working age individuals. This program is named as ‘Universal Credit’ and these reforms were initiated by the speech of the Queen. It is said that the benefits and the tax system would be simpler and easier for all the claimers. In every way, the credit Universal is new and long range absolutely and is a robust approach to the creation of a system of welfare. It is expected to include various from of supports related to income. It aims to give the benefits that are integrated for both the in-work and out work persons. This credit comprises of the basis or additional personal amounts. The amount that is additional means the housing costs, disability, children and their caring responsibilities. The fact is that this credit applies initial to the forms of claim that are new, No one has seen the benefits reduced when this credit system was launched  (Duncan-Smith, 2010).

It is crucial to note that the Universal Credit amount directly depends on the income monthly of the family and its circumstances. The core function of this credit system is to enhance the incentives at work. According to this system there are complicated rules which are present and will be gone when people initiate or exit their jobs. The benefit reforms of the Government comprising of this ‘Universal Credit’ will help both the people to be supported and also to work when in need. This system of credit is 12 month away from nationally launching. In most case, it is a half of the year from the rollout in specific pats of the country (Duncan-Smith, 2010). However there are some issues for the welfare reforms viability. One is that people are bothered about the Universal Credit system and the way it will impact people. If one make a single claim to this credit system, one can get six mean-tested advantages and credit of tax. In other words, it can be said that the Universal Credit system comprises of the tax credits as well as the housing benefits. In addition to that, it will be possible to get the online credit. Most of the people who don’t have access to the internet will also be able to make the claim face to face for the credit.

The biggest benefit of this system is that it gives the people the benefits when being at work. There is also an evidence of abundance that most people see reasons to stay on these advantages instead of working. In accordance with the Credit system, if an individual takes a job on benefits, especially a part time, he will get a rate that is lower. This system pays out more to those workers who are on support. As soon as the individuals start working, they can see their profits monthly.

This system of credit is paid monthly and depends on the time of the salary. Additionally, it is convenient of the individual on benefits to get the regular payments and manage their money. The core aim of this program is to support the people in need and make them know that it is much better to work it they can rather than to be on benefits only. This credit system is a support type which is so called a helping hand of the government. This prompts people to get full time work as quickly as possible to reap the full benefits of this Universal Credit system. In order for the government to reach their goal, the government has placed various conditions on those who are working part time and those who are working full time. This act is negligible if there are important reasons for the person who is unable to work for full time. If there are no significant reasons then the individual is asked for a job that is full time to be eligible for credit.

The welfare program opponents generally and the credit system partly insist that these programs were designed, created and realized in a complicated manner. On a global scale, the basic principles and the IT programs to grant the reforms are right. Nevertheless, this is a level of reform that is challenging and has a chance to fail. To conclude, there are no other projects that have such a high scrutiny of public or attention as the Universal Credit system has. It is assumed often that this system of credit is a money saving project (Bennett, 2012). However, in the start the government has to bear the expenses to make this program to run smoothly and efficiently in the beginning. This system of credit will help almost 3 million people but the rest of the people are worse under this system.

References

Bäckström, A., Davie, G., Edgardh, N., & Pettersson, P. (Eds.). (2011).Welfare and Religion in 21st Century Europe: Gendered, religious and social change. Ashgate Publishing, Ltd..

Bennett, F. (2012). Universal credit: overview and gender implications. Social policy review, 24, 15-34.

Brewer, M., Browne, J., & Jin, W. (2011). Universal Credit: a preliminary analysis. Institute for Fiscal Studies, IFS ESRC.

Duncan-Smith, I. (2010). Universal Credit: welfare that works. London: Department for Work and Pensions.

Feldstein, M. (2012). The mirrlees review. Journal of Economic Literature, 781-790.

Garthwaite, K. (2011). ‘The language of shirkers and scroungers?’Talking about illness, disability and coalition welfare reform. Disability & Society, 26(3), 369-372.

Lavinas, L. (2013). 21st century welfare. New Left Review, (84), 5-+.

Mirrlees, J. (Ed.). (2011). Tax by design: The Mirrlees review. Oxford University Press.

Mirrlees, J., Adam, S., Besley, T., Blundell, R., Bond, S., Chote, R., … & Poterba, J. (2011). The Mirrlees Review: Conclusions and Recommendations for Reform*. Fiscal Studies, 32(3), 331-359.

Mirrlees, J., Adam, S., Besley, T., Blundell, R., Bond, S., Chote, R., … & Poterba, J. (2012). The Mirrlees review: a proposal for systematic tax reform.National Tax Journal, 65(3), 655-684.

Royston, S. (2012). Understanding Universal Credit. Journal of Poverty and Social Justice, 20(1), 69-86.

Wiggan, J. (2012). Telling stories of 21st century welfare: The UK Coalition government and the neo-liberal discourse of worklessness and dependency.Critical Social Policy, 32(3), 383-405.