Quote Originally Posted by lucy View Post
The disgusting detail was that the one with the job - hence actually paying tax, though only a little of it - had a lower income than the non-working one paying nothing to the government.
That totally annoys the hell out of me too. When my brother already had three kids and was doing a doctorate while his wife stayed at home for two years coz of the kids they'd actually been better off if he had stopped working on his doctorate and not done any work at all.
How fucking stupid is that? Work should always pay off, compared to not doing any work.
Now see, you're not using "work" the way an economist or politician uses it.

You and I think that "work" is something that takes time and effort and produces a useful result. An economist says it's what you get paid for. If you're studying, no matter how hard you may think you're working, from the point of view of a conservative you're goofing off, beause you're not getting paid. So you ought to starve.

UK governments tie themselves in knots over volunteer workers. On the one hand, our society couldn't run without them, and our conservatives like them because it's a cosy tradition. On the other hand, the tax and welfare offices don't know how to account for them because unpaid work is a contradiction in terms.
Now, several years later and thanks to his doctorate, they both earn roughly 200k a year and pay more in taxes each year than he ever got as subsidies while he was on his doctorate.
A piece of logic that's apparent to every government that looks at it logically, but conservatives cannot get their heads around it because they can't get past the horror of someone being paid by the government to read books. The fact that society is far better off in the long run as a result is not as important as the fact that someone is getting SOMETHING FOR NOTHING and this has to be bad.