Also the demographics argument looks weak – the population is ageing which normally leads to an increase in dependency figures.

Complete red herrings I’m afraid!

As for the reduction in dependency – here is what the report actually concluded:

“The proportion of families receiving more in ‘net state support’ than from wages and unearned income rose
from 25% in 1979 to 31% in 1996-97, before falling back to 28% in 2008-09.”

I’m sorry that you don’t think that this is good news – and doesn’t represent a sharp reduction, but given what happened in the past and the historical trend it looks a pretty sharp reduction in my eyes. I wonder what your explanation is for the increase in the figure from 1979 to 96/97 and its subsequent reduction – makes you wonder what the Government was doing between 1979 and 96/97. My guess if Labour had been in power in those years you would have pointed to those figures as evidence of their inherent Marxism or worse – and you know that I’m not wrong!

I used to teach economics so don’t embarrass yourself by explaining elasticities. You claim the first study says nothing about causality (which it doesn’t), only to then claim that Labour should be credited for lowering the number of people who supposedly rely on benefits – even though there is no discussion from you of what other factors may have been involved. One rule for me and another rule for you, apparently. For you to claim that “there has been a sharp reduction in the numbers who rely on benefits for the majority of their earnings” is hilarious. If you consider a drop from 22.1 million to 19.9 million over 12 years to be a “sharp reduction”, I think you need a little help. Yet again, with this figure you failed to provide any context e.g. the number of immigrants families has massively increased over this period but they are often ineligible for state benefits (particularly those from outside the EU), which would massively distort the figures – but you clearly ignored such inconveniences that don’t support your ideas.

To claim that the dependency culture has been reduced without even attempting to look at other socio-demographic changes over the same period is laughably weak on your part, unscientific and frankly dishonest. You didn’t even bother to address the fact that Labour have left 19.9 million families depending on the state for at least 50% of their income, which is the most shocking example of a dependency culture I have ever heard. Your second study only looks at those families who rely on the state for at least 50% of their income and totally sidesteps the problem of families who are forced to rely on the state for anything from 1-49% of their income. This is a major consideration because families are taxed to oblivion by Labour, only to get a small proportion back in the form of tax credits i.e. Labour leave these families considerably worse off than they would be if the tax threshold was increased (also covered in my letter) yet they claim success for giving them some of the families their money back.

Your dishonesty and inability to see the bigger picture, despite providing evidence of how catastrophic Labour have been, is truly enlightening. Like it or not, your evidence proves nothing other than Labour’s failures.

The way in which you (and the Daily Telegraph) have misquoted a serious academic study in order to try and support your political views really is nothing short of scandalous. To then compond this by your observation on loan parents really just compounds your unscientific approach even further – if you look at the first study (by the same author) he finds a negative elasticity between benefits and births to single parents – so whatever has increased the the number of loan parents he doesn’t think that it is increased benefits.

Of course you ignore this point and the main conclusion of the 2nd study namely that under Labour there has been a sharp reduction in the numbers who rely on benefits for the majority of their earnings. Like it or not the dependency culture has been reduced under the Laboour Government!

The academic concerned would certainly not agree with your conclusions – and to pretend otherwise is to be dishonest. The empirical research is not mine – I just provided the links.

And while we’re on the subject of lone parents, your second link showed that under Labour, the number of lone parents has rocketted from 459,000 to 791,000 – an increase of almost 60%. Feel free to embarrass yourself with more misguided criticisms of my letters in future.

As it turns out, my supposed “prejudices” have been beautifully supported by your empirical research, so many thanks for the links. It seems as though you are just as susceptible as the Daily Telegraph for not doing your research diligently enough.

http://www.bristol.ac.uk/cmpo/publications/papers/2007/wp177.pdf

It does not reach the same conclusions that you or the Telegraph reached. The 40,000 figure you quote is double the 20,000 figure mentioned in the report – but even that isn’t that surprising – it is a fairly natural thing for people who are already in a relationship to want to have more children when they get extra support through tax credits – but a 10% elasticity is actually a pretty low figure The researcher certainly didn’t load his report with all the value judgements that you attributed to him. The report also mentioned that there is a negative elasticity for those who are single – so the answer would appear to be give such people more support so that they do not become single mothers – I look foward to you and others esposing this empirically based finding as future Tory policy.

It is also interesting to look at another piece of recently published IFS research by the same researcher – which shows that the proportion of families receiving the majority of their
income from the state declines under Labour – see http://www.ifs.org.uk/pr/state_private.pdf – which of course again flies in the face of the usual Tory view.

Back to the drawing board – old bean – if you want to use academic studies to support your predujices in future – could I please suggest that you do so a little bit more diligently rather than relying on the unreliable filter of the Daily Telegraph. In the meantime, in the spirit of Christmas, could I perhaps suggest that you read a bit of Dickens – I think you will find that many Tories had the same view in those days about how benefits encouraged the feckless poor to breed. Perhaps you might wish to look at movements in birth rates and state benefits since Dickens time – if you want some long term empirical evidence!

Let her choose her menfolk wisely and be aware that the benefits well will run dry after,say, a third child. This is suggested to encourage replacement breeding – that being 2.1 or 2.4 or whatever it is, because higher populations in positive sum societies such as polities of freedom actually INCREASE wealth. Specialisation increases production and the variety of products/services available. Higher populations lead to higher specialisation, so we surely don’t need our country’s population to decline.

Take it from one who works in, and blogs about, the Welfare State: make girls and women responsible for their actions, make them the budget-holders of whatever modest benefits you pay for families, and tell them that it’s going to end when Tertius or Trinity hits five years old, and you can wave goodbye to MOST serial bastardy and MOST bed-hopping doley fast-breeders..