The Benefits Cap : is it working ? BBC 1 , anyone watching ?

[HalfShellHero]

I'm preparing to feel quite depressed by it all,

[GplanAddict]

Yes! So far feeling really saddened.

Watching her child walk for the first time and she says "aren't you sexy!", and the fruit shoot and juice in bottles. Need to put my judgy pants away :(

[CactusFred]

I am watching.

I just feel that these things deliberately pick people that the general public are not going to have sympathy for e.g single mum with 7 kids half in foster care rest now 'living with others ' and not worked for 17 years and full of excuses why she can't work now.

I can just hear the DM readers !

[HelenaDove]

50p a week HB. I bet this programme wont feature a carer.

[Frouby]

I really really try not to judge. But she only had to get a job for 16 hours a week to keep a roof over her dcs heads. And keep them with her.

With 4 at home it would have been difficult. But doable.

I would do 60 hours a week to keep my kids.

[ProphetOfDoom]

The first example was hardly a sympathetic case: 35 yrs old mother, 7 dc (3 in care, rest living elsewhere since she was evicted after they dropped her £400+ benefits per week, hasn't worked for 17 years, er..so since 17 yrs old then. She's living on her sister's sofa but if she works 16 hrs she can get her full benefits and presumably a house & her dcs back - but her reaction was 'how can I?'

I would have thought how can she not?

[CactusFred]

Cap doesn't apply to people on Carers Allowance

[Ihatethedailymail1]

Me too. What exactly is stopping her working? They need to push them further when questioning them.

[HelenaDove]

Maybe so Fred but with many ppl losing their DLA in the PIP switchover their carer will lose the CA.

[HelenaDove]

I suspect this programme is only going to focus on extreme cases /multiple kids.

[Ihatethedailymail1]

His beer is £40 a week!!!! Ridiculous!!!

[EffinElle]

Me too Helena

[Mummysh0rtlegs]

£40 a week or a month on fags and booze? FYI we spend almost nothing, so if that is a week it sounds huge.

[Crispsheets]

The Liverpudlian guy is a tosser.

[Frouby]

Ffs. Am turning over.

£40 a week on ale and fags.

I really hate these programmes. They make everyone and anyone who is on benefits seem like scroungers.

[HelenaDove]

If hes taking that much out of their budget he is being financially abusive.

[CactusFred]

That's true Helena - but it could then be argued that the care is not 'necessary'. Therefore they are not carers.

Not by me I should add, but as someone who works in the sector and spends all day arguing with 'panel' over such issues I know how the thinking is going!

But that's another thread.

[Mummysh0rtlegs]

Their problem isn't the cap, it is the £2k a year he smokes and pisses away.

[JaneEyre70]

I watched something similar on channel 5 the other day, and I just felt so sad that these women are having large families but are completely unable to parent. What chance do these kids have? The parental neglect upsets me the most.
Society scares me. My youngest DD is an apprentice, works a 37 hour week for £6000 a year. And she's proud to be working.
The couple on now won't pay their difference in rent but smoke and drink. They don't deserve those kids.

[ProphetOfDoom]

They've chosen some really poor & unsympathetic examples! £40pw on beer is his right? 29k it's for the boys extra curricular activities?!

It's going to reinforce the benefit cap is just.

[gamerchick]

I suspect this programme is only going to focus on extreme cases /multiple kids

Yep, handpicked.

[CactusFred]

I just wish they'd feature people who do everything 'right' e.g. Not blowing a load of money on fags and booze - he should not get discretionary help if he's spending that (and poss won't when this is aired!)

[HelenaDove]

In which case Fred hospitals/teachers wont need to ring up parents and/or carers saying that their disabled partner or child needs care.

And a carer cant therefore be prosecuted for neglect or refusing to care by the system after the system has said that care isnt needed.

Im just waiting for a case like this to hit the headlines.............because it will!

[8dayweek]

I'm sorry but the woman with the SRO for her Grandkids getting £49k in benefits... Does she not see that it BENEFITS the children by having a roof over their heads?!

[TheFifthKey]

I switched over at the £40 a week on beers because it's obvious they have chosen people who just make everyone look like scroungers and I hate it.

[BubbleBed]

£40 a week on fags and beer is not on. Having £29k a year guardianship allowance and getting into rent arrears is not on, but I fear she has just been rather misinformed, and doesn't realise that for the boys includes a roof over their head.

I struggle to understand a lot of these programmes. I claim benefits. I work 27 hours a week as a single mother, with a disabled child, and disabilities myself. I'm not a martyr, but seriously there just seems to be extremes here.