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Families set to lose £100 a week under 'chilling' new benefit cap...
The Government has been accused of “chilling callousness” over a tough new benefit cap that could lead some families to lose more than £100 a week.
From Monday. the annual limit on welfare payments to unemployed households will drop from £26,000 to £23,000 in London and £20,000 outside the capital. The move was announced by George Osborne last year and has been described as a "monstrous" assault on struggling families that will shatter the life chances of the poorest children. Around 20,000 families are currently capped by an annual limit of £26,000 (or £500 a week) on total household benefits, introduced in 2013. But the new lower caps are set to bring an explosion in the numbers affected to around 64,000 households. Nearly two thirds of those affected are single mothers, according to the general union GMB. For single people without children the cap will fall at £15,410 in Greater London and £13,400 across the rest of the UK. According to the Department*for Work and Pensions, the 23,500 households who previously had their benefits capped have moved into work since 2013. But analysis by the Institute for Fiscal Studies suggests that "the majority of those affected will not respond" to the tougher cap by moving into work or moving house. "For that majority it is an open question how they will adjust to the loss of income," it said in a report. The Liberal Democrats argue the new cap will “rob the poorest families of £6,000 a year” and claim Prime Minister Theresa May has abandoned her promise to help the poor, following her vow in her Conservative conference speech last month to “make society fairer for families”. Leader Tim Farron said: "Theresa May said one thing on the steps of Downing Street and is now robbing some of the poorest families of £6,000 a year. She just misled the British public and is now clobbering those who can least afford it. It makes her party look like hypocrites. "Attempts by the Conservatives to somehow re-brand themselves as the workers' party are now looking absurd. This is disgraceful." GMB National Secretary Rehana Azam said: "Just four months ago, Theresa May stood on the steps of Downing Street promising to fight injustice and to ensure every person regardless of their background would be given the chance to be all they want to be. Today she is unleashing a monstrous new assault on 40,000 single mothers, which risks shattering the life chances of children up and down our country. "This has echoes of the staggering hypocrisy and chilling callousness that saw the victimisation of single mothers in the bad old days of the early 1990s. Theresa May once said she would change the 'nasty party' but the mask has slipped again." The move comes amid warnings that the poorest half of households face flat or falling incomes over the course of the Parliament. Lower wage growth and higher inflation could reduce typical earnings by around £1,000 a year by 2020, the Resolution Foundation warned and has called on Philip Hammond to use the Autumn*Statement to reverse the "damaging cuts" to work welfare allowances. "With the uncertainty of Brexit, there could be fewer well paid, secure jobs to go round - not to mention problems of access to nurseries with closures and cuts to public services,” Ms Azam said. “All the while food prices are going up - and the evidence shows that single parents were already skipping meals to provide for their children, even before this latest attack." Work and Pensions Secretary Damian Green said: "Each statistic represents a person who has moved into employment and can now enjoy the security and dignity that works brings. "By making sure that those people who are out of work are faced with the same choices as those who are in work, the benefit cap has been a real success. "By lowering the cap today, we are ensuring the values of this Government continue to chime with those of ordinary working people and delivering on our commitment to make sure work pays more than welfare." http://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/uknews...cid=spartandhp |
Yup cull on target.... Evil warmongering bastards!
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...:laugh:..I shouldn't laugh I know but it's not even 7am yet, you hit the ground running there Kizzy...(I'm not laughing at the content of your post as such or the topic...)....
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Just finished work Ammi, like to check in before I hit the hay :)
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...awww you on a nightshift atm...keeping Arista on his toes in keeping up 24/7 with world events live as they happen....
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This is why i've never and never will vote Tory.
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"that could lead some families to lose more than £100 a week."
or could not "The move was announced by George Osborne last year and has been described as a "monstrous" assault on struggling families that will shatter the life chances of the poorest children" By who? "But analysis by the Institute for Fiscal Studies suggests that "the majority of those affected will not respond" to the tougher cap by moving into work or moving house. "For that majority it is an open question how they will adjust to the loss of income," it said in a report. " why wont they? "Lower wage growth and higher inflation could reduce typical earnings by around £1,000 a year by 2020" or could not "With the uncertainty of Brexit, there could be fewer well paid, secure jobs to go round" or they could be more "and the evidence shows that single parents were already skipping meals to provide for their children" which evidence? Work and Pensions Secretary Damian Green said: "Each statistic represents a person who has moved into employment and can now enjoy the security and dignity that works brings. "By making sure that those people who are out of work are faced with the same choices as those who are in work, the benefit cap has been a real success. "By lowering the cap today, we are ensuring the values of this Government continue to chime with those of ordinary working people and delivering on our commitment to make sure work pays more than welfare." :clap1: |
This is one of the many things as to policy why I turned my back on the Conservative party.
This is just one of a good number of badly thought out, heartless and truly rotten plans directed at the most vulnerable in society. Reducing an already guaranteed cap should be a national scandal. Shocking and shameful in my view. |
I am not commenting on this article or the underlying points in it, because I have not the time at present, but I will say, that there are certain TRUTHS that A LOT OF people seem to overlook;
There are thousands upon thousands of hardworking ordinary families with children who DO NOT EARN anywhere NEAR £23,000 pa. the 'rising costs of living' mentioned within the article affects THEM just as it does those CUSHIONED by benefits. Most of these families have NO disposable income and could NOT afford to live in London or a thousand other locations South of Watford, which seem to be the locations where much of these 'statistics' are centred on. |
Dont worry it will all go to the immigrants :idc:
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We do however have a welfare state to be proud of and the tories do love to mess with it. |
How people are unemployed in London is a mystery there and jobs all over the shop
idgi |
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It scales in this way across the range of earned income so the idea that "hard working families" end up worse off than those not working is nonsense. The only way it could be even vaguely true is if the person working has absolutely massive travel costs. |
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Only 30% |
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It's £1660 a month. Take off (easily) £600 for rent and £120 for Council Tax/water, household bills realistically another £150, that's £790. "Little" school costs (they're always wanting something) another £50, then throw in a little debt (because whilst it's avoidable, let's face it, most people have some and you can't just wish it away) so another £50 and you're at £690 a month, which is about £160 a week to support 4 people - £40 each for food, clothing, toiletries, travel... You could just about scrape together an existence I guess but throw in an unexpected repair or emergency plumber callout and you're screwed. You're one bad week away from going under. That's without even considering little things that are sort of essential these days like TV license, mobile phone (even if it's a cheap one on pay as you go) etc. Put it this way... without wanting to give away too many of my own details, we have a family of four and our monthly household income is almost double that figure. Slightly less rent (Scotland), slightly more debt (lulz) and we run a car which all things considered probably costs about £200 a month. We don't struggle and, being honest, we probably "waste" a fair bit on frivolous / spur of the moment things but hardly living it up.I have absolutely NO IDEA how we would survive if our income was cut in half. I literally don't think the math works out :shrug:. The absolute lowest "all things considered" income we've been on as a family was just under £22000, and that was with only one child (aged under 2 so very little expense)... and at that point we were struggling, badly. "Ripped jeans and holes in the shoes, raiding the change jar to scrape together £5" level bad. "£80 bill lands on the mat and it's panic stations" sort of bad. |
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Ammi I have Power Solid Nap (PSN) set at 2 hours max. alerts on Screens ready 24/7 is Good Feel the Force |
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A single mother of one "normal" (not disabled) child, working 16hrs per week at minimum wage, will be getting approx £12.5k in benefits and £5.5k take-home earnings totalling £18k. If she works more hours than that, earns more than minimum wage, or has more than one child, then the total will be higher. If she is genuinely struggling by on £10k then she's not filled in a form in properly somewhere. Unless she's simply not claiming anything out of some twisted/misplaced sense of "pride". |
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I will say though, that as far as my statement on these cuts go, I did base it on the very information given in the OP and linked article: "From Monday. the annual limit on welfare payments to unemployed households will drop from £26,000 to £23,000 in London and £20,000 outside the capital." Thus, I assumed that £26,000 is THE current amount in London. "The move was announced by George Osborne last year and has been described as a "monstrous" assault on struggling families that will shatter the life chances of the poorest children. Around 20,000 families are currently capped by an annual limit of £26,000 (or £500 a week) on total household benefits, introduced in 2013. But the new lower caps are set to bring an explosion in the numbers affected to around 64,000 households. Nearly two thirds of those affected are single mothers, according to the general union GMB." Thus, I assumed that this means that over 43,000 SINGLE mothers are currently in receipt of total benefits of £26,000 pa. Now if this is the case - as the article states it is - then I do not know of any single working mothers who enjoy incomes of £26,000 pa. Take into account that from single working mothers incomes HAS to be deducted mortgage/rent payments, Council Tax, working expenses - food and travel etc - unlike non-working single mothers, and I am still of the opinion that the average working single mother is a lot worse off in real terms than her non-working counterpart. I am here to be educated T.S. - and that is NOT me being sarcastic or facetious but totally genuine. |
..these cuts/caps are awful in the impact they'll have...even a much lower cut of £10 or so a week would have a huge impact on those who are unfortunate enough to have to claim benefits because their budgeting is so tight with no room for any amount to be less...I know for working people, it's a struggle with no salary increases but cost of living rising but this really is impacting on some of the most vulnerable in society...we have so many more ever increasing families in crises, those who desperately need help in their struggles and in lots of cases their crises developing and situations/issues from unemployment/loss of income and all of the emotional pressures and then their is no help their either in the help they need so pretty much in hopeless situations and being kicked everywhere and from every angle....and the thing as well is that it's taking every way whichever fro those most vulnerable because of not thinking things through themselves and making so many mistakes in the implementation of stuff that has been abandoned or changed or turned around so penalising for their own errors and failure to think through and implement properly because of their own cut backs...yes we need to do this and this and have this person and that person...and oh, well cut staff../oh no we might have to have a re-think....
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£26k is the current maximum, the vast majority would not be near that amount, especially as (I think already?) they cap Child Tax Credit to the first two children so even large families don't end up with the massive payments they used to if, say, they had like 8 or 9 kids. A single mother or couple in most areas of the UK with one or two children won't be at the "cap level" anyway. I don't necessarily disagree with there being a cap overall - but I think the current levels (£26k London, £23k rUK) is actually as realistic as the cap can be without causing major hardship in many cases. Lowering it further is needless. A large enough number affected for it to be a real issue - but (in economic terms) saving an amount of money that is completely negligible. The cap also doesn't include earned income. This is an important factor. E.g. the "household income" cap for someone EARNING £10k would be £33k (£23k benefits + £10k earnings) but again that's a cap not a "guaranteed amount", it all scales in various ways, but basically for the mostpart it is ALREADY the case that it is impossible to be better off out of work than in work - again, with the exception being, having a job that requires running a car (whereas an unemployed person could take it off the road) or a job so far away that travel costs are prohibitive. It's not an easy system to comprehend but personally I think that's why it makes such an EASY target for politicians - they know that most people don't know how it works. It's a double-edged sword. This will sound a touch judgemental maybe, but... in my opinion, for the mostpart, people who CAN comprehend it aren't often in the position to have to deal with it extensively... and the people who DO have to deal with the system over the long term, to be blunt, tend not to have the education level to be able to untangle it all (because the system is a disjointed shambles) and just accept that they get whatever the latest letter says they get. In fact, the main reason I know it all so in-depth is because we used to run a parenting forum and there were families in all sorts of circumstances. Single mums, or families that had a good income but then Dad decided to leave and left Mum in a panic (a worryingly common occurrence), and there were countless threads with people asking for help because they simply couldn't understand all of it, so me being me (a kindly know-it-all :hee: ) I went through it all extensively. We were also still open when the very first caps were announced and there were a lot of people absolutely terrified of the consequences... although on THAT front, I do have to admit, the headlines are always sensationalist and it more often results in people being £10/£20 a week worse off rather than hundreds. The papers obviously focus on the most extreme examples, not the average family (as will be the case with the title of this thread; very few families will realistically lose "£100 a week"). If you have time / inclination, I'd recommend going here: http://www.entitledto.co.uk/ And simply "invent" a few scenarios to enter into the calculator. Single mum of one, unemployed. Family of four, one in work on low income. Go back and change it to medium income. Add an extra child. Factor in a disability. etc. and see how it affects the totals. One thing to always remember though, when the totals seem high at the end, is that these figures usually include Housing Allowance / Council Tax Allowance. It seems like a larger figure until you take £6-to-10 thousand out straight off the bat. On that note, it's true that the figures are skewed (extensively) by inflated rental prices in London and the South of England. Worth remembering in those cases though, is that saying "If you can't afford to live in London simply move away!" is a total non-argument. Social effects (moving people away from their support network, and therefore their ability to build a self sufficient life AT ALL) aside... what do people imagine happens to London if all of the low-wage workers migrate North? The city functions on the back of people who "can't afford to live there", and would grind to a halt without them. Major issue. There needs - NEEDS - to be a HUGE investment in good quality social housing around London that belongs permanently to the local councils and CANNOT be bought up by rich investors. I have no idea why this isn't a priority. It would cut the "London housing benefit bill" by literal billions. |
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I could not agree more about a permanently State Owned MASSIVE portfolio of Social Housing properties, but I strongly suspect that the reason no Government has implemented such a scheme is that it will stop that 'money rinsing' scam which I wrote about on another thread - that where taxpayers hard-earned money is 'funneled' into the greedy grubby little hands of the really wealthy land-owning and powerful corporate landlords via over inflated rents for substandard cramped hovels. Anyway, thanks T.S. |
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The main landlord set-up around here that I have issue with, is actually the "one house" landlords. Basically people who were council tenants back during the sell-off, bought their council owned property for peanuts, and now rent that property out at a higher rate on short term contracts, to people who desperately want a permanent home outside of the private sector, and use the money to pay their own mortgage on a better house :umm2:. Then once their mortgage is paid off, they sell the rental property for 5x what they bought it for (most likely to a bigger landlord / company, as families are priced out even here). And it's entirely down to "right place, right time". I mean being honest, I would have done exactly the same thing given the chance, of course... I don't blame original residents for exploiting it, I blame the flawed logic that allowed it to happen in the first place. |
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Maggie Thatcher converted traditional 'grassroots' Labour voters to Tory voters almost 'overnight' by; a) relaxing the Consumer Credit Laws and thereby enabling them to have 'instant' better standards of living, whilst in reality 'trapping them' in a situation where they dare not 'strike' because of the amount of 'debt' which they now had to 'service'. b) Floated deliberately undervalued Public Owned Assets such as British Telecom etc at knock down subscription prices whilst encouraging 'Ordinary Joe Public' to become 'shareholders' - even being seen to bar multi applications from her Multi National Corporate buddies and backers. (What did it matter - the amount and scale of the undervaluing, enabled very quick profits to be 'taken' by most of these 'green' nouveau shareholders, and there was now no bar now to those same corporations buying up those STILL well undervalued shares. So in one fell swoop, old Maggie had delivered almost instant profits for her new ex-Labour now Tory supporter friends, AND delivered our Nationalised Industries into the hands of the top Tory faithful at still bargain basement cost) 3) Encouraged the tenants of Social Housing to Purchase their homes and provided huge unrealistic discounts and changes in the Law to help make such conveyancing as 'smooth' as possible. 4) Barred the funds raised from these Social Housing sales from being utilised to build new replacement Social Housing stock. This of course - enabled the BOOM in Private Landlords and 'Levered' property acquisition with further 'gearing' and re-investment, and therefore saw public money, via Housing benefits, actually FUNDING further 'Buy-To-Let' property acquisition by Private Landlords. Now, my point is - and has always been - that NONE of the above would have been possible without the opportunistic 'grabbing' by one-time 'Socialists'. But it is 3) and 4) which have had the most damaging and longest lasting impact to the Social Housing market in this county, and is majorly responsible (not solely though) for the current and increasingly worsening crisis. And a lot of one-time Council house dwellers have great culpability, because they have elevated their status and grown wealthy by initially exploiting one of the most blatant and mercenary sell offs of the VERY type of Social Housing which 'saved their bacon' and kept them off the streets. Oh - and :laugh: to the length of time you spent writing that post. It was worth it, because at least I benefited from your graft. :hee: |
Its a ****ing joke to be quite honest. The Tories and the rags have done a fantastic job of demonizing benefit claimants..the amount of people going on about how Joe down the road currently gets 100k per year in benefit income for doing nothing (impossible) is truly bizarre.
I won't go into all of the reasons I think this is cruel and unneeded, but lets chose one. Most people hit by this will be those with high rents. Who cares, they can move?!?!?!?! But as TS said above, these expensive places couold not function without lower paid workers, so shift all the unemployed/low wages out of one place, its a bit ****ed. But even ignoring that..it costs a load of cash to move house. If you are on benefits you would need over a grand just for the deposit. A months rent in advance. And to be actually able to move your stuff, so lets say 200 quid there. On top of that 99 times out of 100 you will also need a guarantor, which is getting harder and harder to find given so few people own their houses these days and even if they do, they are unlikely to want to take the risk of your benefits being stopped for whatever reason the jobcentre makes up that month as if this happens your guarantor is responsible for paying your rent. So, we are expecting someone with no disposable income and facing having even less income to find maybe 2k from thin air to move house. Its just unrealistic. This also hits disabled people. Even though its made out it does not. Those on ESA are included in this cap. Along with having their ESA slashed at the same time to bring it into line with JSA..as an 'incentive' to work. Those in the support group of ESA are not included. However those in the 'work focused' group are. Remember these are people who have already jumped through a ridiculous amount of hoops, no doubt been told they are liars, their doctors and consultants are liars, been cured by the miracle workers at ATOS, then gone through a grueling stressful tribunal before its finally acknowledged that ATOS workers do not actually have the healing hands of Jesus and they actually are ill enough to not work right now. The lie that people are better off on benefits than in work is just that, a lie. If this has happened to you, I can guarantee that you are not claiming something you are entitled to. Especially given 13bn worth of benefits go unclaimed each year. I could understand the cuts left right and centre if it was only able bodied working age people AND there were an abundance of jobs (real jobs, not commission only and 0 hour contracts...) that were going unfilled. But this isn't the case. Jobs (regardless of what the rags tell you) are so few and far between. A friend who works there told me a few days back that a 16 hr per week shelf filling job in Iceland here had over 100 applicants within 2 days of being advertised. You cannot 'incentivize' someone into work if there is no work for them. Along with DWPs own records showing cutting someones income makes it less likely they will get back into work. And in the long run, none of these cuts even save ****ing money. The bedroom tax that some people still love...the benefit bill went up because of this and now we have a bunch of larger properties empty...while their previous occupants are living in B&Bs which cost the public purse even more. And why? Its not saving anything, its wasting more accommodation and its uprooting families. The clear answer to this all is not more bloody cuts. It is investing money into more social housing. Yes it will cost more right now, but in the long run its best all round. While building these properties, so many more people will actually get work. Builders and such...so more tax payed along with more employment. Affordable rents for more people. More properties available...private landlords will have to lower their prices and the benefit bill will ACTUALLY go down..as you are looking to the future instead of just demonizing those on low incomes. And stop the ridiculous right to buy scheme. I mean, I can benefit from this if I can save up 40k. I can buy my house for a lot less than its worth. But why is this an option for me? When we are short on affordable housing why the **** are we still selling it off? Its madness. |
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I have loved reading ToySoldiers as to this issue. However yours made me think, I likely would have supported Margaret Thatchers aims had I been around then,(obviously not the way I think about things now though),you lost there so much that started clearly a downward spiral of really bad decisions and also the erosion of how a decent society should be. A very thought provoking post,it would be nice to think it possible to hope that someday modern parties and governments will come to avoid such bad decisions and errors of judgement when in power, as you outline so comprehensively in that post above. Really insightful,full credit to you for it. |
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I don't agree with the cuts by the way, because I believe that no cuts are necessary IF the Government starts spending TAXPAYERS money in a correct manner. But that's another post. :laugh: |
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