I remember not long after I started (1984!) one of my managers saying that the mass unemployment of the Thatcher era meant that a lot of people learnt to get by on what was the Supplementary Benefit and were no longer motivated by the extra they could get by working, so its something that has been going on for a long time.
But I can see how it can make sense, I haven’t worked ‘full time’ for a good many years, largely due to childcare reasons.
If you are on benefits of course the marginal tax rate is massive and I can see that you can easily end up worse off.
Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen nineteen and six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result misery. The blossom is blighted, the leaf is withered, the god of day goes down upon the dreary scene, and—and in short you are for ever floored.
Wilkins Micawber, Ch12 David Copperfield
