Too Many Cuts...come join the #Frothers and have your say

Breadandbutterfly - If one person is under the 35hrs/wk group, and has een put on workfare - theother person in the couple is meant to be looking for 20hrs/wk work TOO, and they could face their OWN Workfare if they don't. Each person in a couple will face their OWN conditionality levels UNLESS one person earns MORE THAN £17,389, or the couple's combined income is more than £17,398.

Right - I'll try to answer as many questions as I can!

Santa - They don't take the whole lot of your earnings off you. Your household will have a particular earnings disregard. Anything you earn OVER that is taken OUT of the UC at 65%. It's a bit complicated, but I've worked out how it works.

Lone Parents have to earn the equivalent of NMW@20hrs to avoid Conditionality. NMW for 20hrs is £121.60. No Tax or NI off that because that is the threshold. So a LP has to earn a minimum of £121.60 to escape Conditionality.

A disabled person will be allowed to have NO Conditionality if they are in the SUPPORT GROUP of ESA OR HRC on DLA. A disabled person will have the 20hrs/wk thing if they are in the WRAG of ESA OR on LRC on DLA. A disabled person will have the full 35hr/wk expectation if they do not get either ESA or DLA.

Your conditionality levels do not accumulate if you are disabled AND a Lone parent - you can only either be in the NO Conditionality group, the 20hrs/wk group or the 35 hrs/wk group. No other concessions for multiple difficulties.

OK. Have writted a post about student fees. Can one of you more experienced frothers cast an eye over it before I publish it? It's in Drafts, "But What About The Children?"

yes - that was pre MW. a 12 shift now would cost over £72 and realistically you'd have to include an unsociable hours element to it. i think you'd be looking at minimum £90 pay plus employer contributions on top. not very viable for average night shift worker is it?

do think!!!

It is all a moot point, provided the Household earns over £17,389 pa.

So does that mean if you earn that much no-one will be forced onto workfare/second job etc? DH earns 17K exactly. Its people under that much who will be penalised?

it's funny actually how they started out wanting to encourage and help sahp/wohp married couples by letting them pass over part of their tax allowance when now they've gone this way which seems to totally contradict the values they were allegedly peddling at election time.

Yes Santa, I don't get the married couple's allowance either, even as one.

yes, Peachy. Not to mention CRB checks, income tax, etc etc

Besides, a CM that comes to your home is a Nanny.

And must be paid minimum wage surely?

Boffy
One of the main points that this thread has outlined is that childcare is expensive.

I challenge you to find a person willing to do "nightshift" care for £20 a night.

And you would be in trouble if you tried to do so as that person would be working illegally.

I don't doubt that you know some workshy scroungers, and I agree that they shoudl be made to work.

But for the sake of a few benefit cheats, who cost the country less than eg tax evasion, we are going to plunge thousands of families into poverty.

i'd like to see a single parent given a 50% higher tax free allowance personally. that would make a big difference. instead we want to give a tax break to married couples

i'm laughing at the idea of being able to get a police checked, passed standards, childminder to do an overnight shift in ones home for todays equivalent of £20. times are TOTALLY different now.

(Actually more accurately if Dh does not manage to turn over 35 hour sprofits- he always does far more in actual time)

Santa - Yes, if you as a lone parent can earn £212 (POST TAX, it's £228 PRE-tax) in 10 hours - then that is fine. If you can do it, then YAY!

Hunty, as main carer if I manage to find 20 hours work, but Dh does not manage to turn over 35 hours, what happens to me as a result?

No, you HAVEN'T got the wrong end of the stick, I am afraid. Yes, childcare costs can be claimed - but there is a chance that your Workfare placement is at a time when no childcare is available - night shift anyone? - and if you DON'T do your Workfare - they can stop you UC for 3 months (1st time), 6 months (2nd time), and 3 YEARS (3rd time).

Oh - and the placements right now are up to 6 months, but they are talking about extending that to 2 YEAR WORKFARE PLACEMENTS.

The Workfare participants don't ever actually come off JSA/UC - their income is NOT paid by the business using them as slave labour - in fact, the government pays the JSA/UC, and THEN pays Mr.Tesco to HAVE unpaid slaves Workfare participants working there...Pondland and Matalan also do this, amongst others...

And YES, it WILL have a huge knock-on effect on the AMOUNT of NMW jobs available - it's already happening. There hasn't been ONE job advertised at my local Tesco's for, wait for it - OVER A YEAR.

And the Workfare participants have NO employment rights - no right to sick pay, no rights to breaks, unlike paid staff, no maternity/paternity rights. It's indentured slavery by another name, breadandbutterfly.

Not everyone with a large family could not afford them when they ahd them: life throws things at you. A two working parents family can become a family with very limited means almost in an instant.

Is all.

Not wanting to fall out with people, so I'll reply to your points and then leave the thread.

1. No, possibly not on this thread, but in real life there are millions of people who could work but don't want to. I myself know quite a few and I'm from a small rural area.

1. It was years before I was allocated council accomodation and it was a 2-bed flat which I gratefully accepted. The private rental I lived in was not cheap, it was comparable with today's rental costs.

1. I have hardly any family, both my parents died when I was a young teenager. For childminding, I used a rota of my one remaining family member/friends/students from the local college (who I interviewed and requested references from). I paid all these people the going rate for a sleeping nightshift, which was about 20 quid a night in the 80s. Why don't people today do the same?

1. My child was never home alone - I stated that I took him to school, then went to bed for 5 hours, then got up to collect him from school and cook the tea etc. The childminder arrived just before I went to work, when he was already asleep in bed.

5.Yes, I'm physically very healthy. My social phobia, though, was so severe that I was terrified and shaking before doing work related things such as training days, role-play, meetings, presentations for my degree. I had to leave an all day interview (for a promotion) very recently, as I just couldn't handle the talk I was expected to give or the fact that it was a sort of communal interview (neither of which would have been necessary to do the job).

6.I have only one child because that's all I could afford. I would have loved a second child, but I believe we should not have children if we can't afford to pay for them. This is where I have an issue with parents who have one, two, three or more children when they are struggling to cope - either financially or because they or one of their children has a health issue.

FWIW, my son has a good job but is not yet a high earner. He has a stay at home partner and two children. I've told him pretty much what I've said on this thread - that if he wants a higher standard of living he needs to get off his arse and take a second job, or send his GF out to work a couple of nights a week.
It's irresponsible to have children you cannot afford - and then to keep on having them.

I do appreciate though, that people these days have higher expectations of what life should be like - but maybe that's a large part of the problem?

In a couple, they will expect one person to be 'nominated' as the 'main carer', who will be treated with the same conditionality levels as a Lone Parent (e.g. expected to find 20 hrs work a week). The other person in the couple will be expected to find work for 35 hrs a week.

So EACH person in the couple faces their own conditionality. So if SAHM doesn't get 20 hrs a week work then she could be made to do 20hrs/week Workfare. If the Dad doesn't get 35hrs/week work, then HE could be made to do 35 hrs Workfare...

It is all a moot point, provided the Household earns over £17,389 pa. Once you hit that income, there will be no conditionality applied to your UC claim.

So it's a case of fuck you NMW earners - you just aren't working hard enough. If one person earns £17,398pa+, then you are 'worthy', if not - you're scum!

Home town a bit notorious anyway but like many places you knewwhich children would go to what schools and could place a fair bet on what they would be doing in twenty eyars (not always I know; I went to one of those same sinks chools, but I know the reality as a result).

They- and their aprents- should be encouraged to mix as much as possible. Build notions of achievement and break down self imposed barriers on one side, build compassion on the other.

it's one i've been using a lot lately kate so sorry if you've picked it up from me - made up but effective i think.

thanks for that link peachy. they've caged it in very polite and tentative language but it's all in there isn't it? that it is discriminatory, that it will lead to destitution for some - mention of government not doing equality of impact assessments AGAIN hints at least at the fact it is yet again disproportionally effecting women, mentions disabled people in connection to underoccupancy and housing caps.

Yes I hate the idea of ghetto-isation (is that a word?).

That link I made was to a human rights assessment of welfare changes, sorry didn't say

TeWi hah, I am MNing as a break from graphing my own figures with EDF.

They are bastards. Fact.

You can refuse to allow the DD they want and threaten to change provider if they whinge. As you say, you are supposed to be in debt to them for this part of the year if you started from 0 at the beginning of winter; then they're in debt to you for the rest of the year.

They will never, ever admit this.

Harry very different to where we worked; no soft play or anything like that: lots of deprived people acccessing resources.

I strongly belive that SureStarts vary hugely but we can learn from the ones who do their jobs best.

I rana family group within the set up for my clients and most of them went on to utilise the other areas; however we did have a few MC families and I see that as a positive as it encouraged mixing. Our area was notoriously poor WC though.