£25,000 benefits cap

[Xenia]

Average family has £26,000 to live on including housing. So from 2013 the most benefits available for one family will be £26,000 including housing benefit. Sounds like a sensible plan. Well done George Osborne. How did we ever get to a contrary position in the first place?

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-11463435

[whyamibothering]

It's the beginnings of a sensible plan.

For families with one adult member it's not a bad scale. It's harder to juggle life and to be on the average wage as a starting point isn't bad.

For families with two adult members - I think the threshold should be lower. Many working families don't have £26,000. It's an average figure. Why should unemployed families have more than working ones. There are plenty of families with receipts from work being around £20,000 to £25,000 - so the incentive to work still isnt really there.

[TheCoalitionNeedsYou]

It'a limit. Very few families on benefits get that amount of money. What it will do is stop the drip-drip of stories about people getting 'vast' sums in benefits.
The 'incentive to work' will come from the benefit reforms that are yet to be announced in detail.

[Wallace]

I would think most families on benefits get barely half that including housing anyway.

[AlpinePony]

What so many "reds" don't seem to understand is that the value of these benefits is so much higher than some arbitrary figure is that those of us who work have to pay for (with cold hard taxed cash), but not limited to:

Dental visits
School lunches
Prescription charges
Free sport
Council Tax Benefit
Free Transportation

For me personally, it's somewhat less about "benefit scroungers" and more about taking personal responsibility for one's own life and I think this is where benefits fail us. We have a shocking number of people (prevalent on mn also :( ) who have "rights" and "entitlements" but very little sense of rolling up their sleeves and achieving something on their own merit.

"Nobody will give me a job" I hear them whine - yet if I were so full of self-importance - I'd make my OWN job! Where has the initiative gone?

[Igglybuff]

Alpine how many people, in comparison to the total number on benefits, do you actually think have that attitude? How do you know how many people there are with it?

I don't believe it's a majority of people on benefits with that attitude, I think it's an unfortunately vocal minority.

And I say that as a higher rate tax payer with "my" taxes being spent on "these" people.

[usualsuspect]

I think people are falling for the life of riley bollocks that this goverment and the media spouts about benefit claimants and don't have a fucking clue about the reality

[Chinghehuang]

Some people do well on benefits some do not, I know people who can afford Sky TV packages and other people who go on package holidays to Spain who are solely on benefits, so somewhere there must be surplus benefit money to pay for these luxuries imo. It does annoy me that I have to pay over £2000 a year in Council Tax and these friends don't pay a bean but can have some of lifes luxuries thrown in without lifting a finger.

[Miasma]

It ought to be no more than 2 people working full time can earn if they are paid minimum wage.

[bubblerock]

Does it include HB and council tax benefit? I don't get these but I would imagine that takes up a lot of the £25k in expensive areas - it wouldn't leave that much left to be able to claim other benefits - ctc, wftc, cb would it?

[Ronaldinhio]

my disabled cousin with 3 children gets ctc of £240 pw for nursery fees
wtc on top makes it up to £490 pw
she also gets child benefit and dla
works 16hrs a week £110 her hard earned cash

she doesn't get hb or is

will the cap stop some of this?
i don't begrudge her a penny of her benefits
she's pretty amazing

[Tortington]

does the figure include disability benefits though or is that exempt?

[2shoes]

All households with a disability living allowance claimant will be exempted from this measure, as would war widows.

[emskaboo]

Exactly bubblerock, in my area Housing Benefit for a three bed house is £13,000 a year, and that doesn't get you the best areas or good catchment areas for schools, add council tax to that and that's £15,000. That leaves £11,000 a year which is £211 a week for a family of anything from four to six people depending on how many you've crammed in the house.

Let's not forget as well that caps on HB will see many people topping rent up out of income benefits.

I do understand that something needs to be done but I worry that if a main earner in a family looses work and the family become reliant on WB the family could loose their accommodation and become homeless. The local authority would then have to accommodate them if they are not intentionally homeless and this places a further burden on the tax payer, my LA are already seeing this.

[2shoes]

wondered how long it would be until people started bashing the benefit claimants

[nobodyisasomebody]

usualsuspect Tue 05-Oct-10 08:01:21
I think people are falling for the life of riley bollocks that this goverment and the media spouts about benefit claimants and don't have a fucking clue about the reality

I agree, walk a mile in my shoes, then judge. I have already walked in the shoes of hard working taxpayer.

For the record I worked hard in a good job for twenty five years putting lots into the system before circumstances forced me to rely on benefits. Whilst looking very hard for work I fill each and every day with voluntary work to put back into the system.

I live on 11 386.745. I have just worked it out.

I have one son with special needs. I don't have a tv or in fact a radio, computer or any media stuff, nor do I expect to. Neither do I expect for benefits to fund a luxury life style.

I wonder just how many of the "benefit bashers" were on the other thread whining about losing the child benefit as their household income is too high.

FFS get a grip..

[pagwatch]

I am interested in the concept of personal resonsibility and not burdening the state by taking benefits that one doesn't need.

So i am sure those on here who want us all to be personally responsible do not claim for child benefits unless in great need?
Or is that different...somehow....

[Stretch]

Alpine, what people like you don't realise, is that people who work also get some of them benefits. They may be working all hours god sends in a miniumum wage job. The benefits are to help them live. But no, you carry on in your own ignorant way and believe that only scroungers claim benefits.

[TheCoalitionNeedsYou]

nobodyisasomebody - so this cap won't affect you at all, as it won't affect most claimants.

The main effect will be to reduce bashing benefit claimants as the Daily Mail won't be able to find absurd edge cases and present them as the norm in order to make money out of peoples indignation.

[gramercy]

I agree that it is the "fringe" benefits that can add up. Free school dinners for three children - that's £120 a month for a start.

You really can't blame many benefit claimants: they're making a basic economic decision.

[bubblerock]

I disagree coalition - I think it's going to affect a lot of claimants and not just people who sit on their arses expecting handouts. It's the working families that rely on help as others have said here, not for luxuries but to actually live on.

[expatinscotland]

That's if they keep their DLA in the next review, 2shoes. Wouldn't want any scroungers getting away with being disabled now, would we?

[2shoes]

well if they scrap it I can't see a lot of people giving a shit on MN.

[expatinscotland]

I agree, 2shoes. It'll somehow be all their fault for being disabled. They're just making it up to get benefits.

[2shoes]

well dd is a bloody benefit scrounge, why can't she go to work down a mine or something(when she leaves school_)

[Stretch]

2shoes, there are a lot of people on MN who give a shit. Not just parents of children with disabilities either.