Financial Times

More than 20,000 people, who found their benefit payouts capped, have subsequently found work or claimed less housing benefits. According to the IFS, those subjected to the cap are 41pc more likely to enter employment than those not subject to the cap.

Nobody likes living on welfare. Capping it or not doesn't really make a difference in my eyes, because they're getting rid of a lot of welfare in Spain and unemployment is around 30%.

People getting out of welfare is more likely to do with growth in the economy.

I agree, but I don't think we can just avoid the obvious poor incentives involved in welfare. In both the UK and the US, the systems are so complicated that working more will mean you end up with less money because you lose your eligibility for some of the programmes you were previously on.

Some will probably be honourable enough to work anyway, some will find jobs which pay even better than the money they'll lose. But, in the end, some people will always be lazy cunts.

Welfare has its issues, but cutting and capping aren't the solution. Jobs are.

Sure, but you still need a welfare system that heavily incentivises employment and is actually good at alleviating poverty. If I had a choice between welfare and then having a job with less money I would choose welfare. This cap is only good for the sole reason that it seems to be incentivising employment to some degree; even if it's through a cap.

Ideally the welfare system would be based on wage subsidies like the EITC in the US, because they seem to actually work.

And that's a wage problem.

It's a consumption problem; whether or not I get paid Β£6 an hour or Β£2 an hour with a Β£4 subsidy is irrelevant to me.

Higher paying jobs allow for less warfare to be claimed.

And can also slow unemployment growth and encourage automation.

Not to mention, a single programme of a wage subsidy (with a few extra benefits for the likes of the disabled) would be administratively much cheaper and help slim down costs by actually not incentivising people to remain on it.

Although, I'll have to do more research on it before I form a solid opinion. All I really know is that the EITC works very well, and an expansion of it seems preferable to a higher minimum wage.