To think some posters need a "reality check" re. views on benefit changes

Well he can do the childcare then.

Alouisee - yes, in a perfect world, my twatty Ex-H would get off his arse and go out to work and pay maintenance - but he has told me that he will let the DWP stop ALL his benefits, and him live under a bridge, before he gives me a PENNY for DS1. .

So no, I CAN'T get him to support me. . If I could, then maybe we would still be married. He worked right up until I was 6 months pregnant, then gave up his job, and told me it was my place to look after the dc, go out to work and do all the housework. While paying for childcare for the dc because it 'wasn't his job'. While he screwed some other woman in our bed. .

He hasn't worked since,and DS1 is almost 10yo. But this benefits cap STILL won't make him go out to work. He'll just carry on doing dodgy deals etc. While it's people like ME that will suffer. I am disabled and I have worked for 4 out of the last 8 years. He hasn't worked in a decade.

'Who will it affect? Families with a child under one will no longer have this element included from 6th April 2011. The details of how this will work are not yet known, but anyone who has a child born after 5th April 2010 may see a reduction in their tax credits from April 2011 rather than from the date their child?s first birthday.'

'The 'baby addition', which was paid to families with children under the age of one, stopped from 6 April 2011'

From Directgov.

Remains - how is it, then, that I have been getting it until this week, and will not be getting it NEXT week, because DS3 has turned 1yo?

Oh and methe I'm so sorry I meant huntycat!

And if you are able to pay for childcare without any help from Tax credits, then you are obviously on a better wage than those who are on NMW that are earning £228 BEFORE TAX for a FT working week. If their childcare is, even more conservatively than my area, £40 a day in school holidays per child, for a 5-day week for 2 dc that would be £200 a week. Out of a wage of £228 a week before tax. Where's the money to GET to childcare and work? The bus fares, even if I discounted my 13yo DD with SN, (who should, obviously, stay at home alone...) for me, DS1 and DS2 to get them to childcare and me to work etc would be £3.40 a day for me, and £2.30 a day EACH for the two DS's. So that would be £40 a week.

SO the childcare and transport to work take up MORE than that person's PRE-TAX earnings. Without a thought to such luxuries as rent or food. And no-one thinks that there is just a slight problem with expecting all these 'workshy scroungers' to go back to work?

IMO it's the fact that so many employers pay less than a subsistance wage that is the problem. NOT that benefits are too high - they aren't, wages are too low. At least, they are too low to cover the basics of childcare, travel to work, rent, council tax, gas, electric, water and food.

No they weren't huntycat

DD was born in Sept 2010 and the baby element stopped for her in April 2011 whe they scrapped it.

From what you've told me in the past Hunty the Father of some of your children is unemployed. Any chance he could pull his weight while you get yourself sorted. If he is now working then he can support you while you raise his offspring.

AND the 'childcare' at the leisure centre ISN'T a full-day,8am-6pm childcare. It is SPORTS-BASED (so not suitable for anyone with severe asthma / muscle problems), NOT run by Ofsted registered childcarers (as it is SPORTS-BASED), so ISN'T SUITABLE TO CLAIM TAX CREDIT HELP WITH. So Alouisee, I think, is trying to muddy the waters.

Alouisee - would you rather try to denigrate ME personally than admit that, yes, Ofsted registered childcare that you can claim for HELP with the costs (UP TO a maximum of £175 a week for one child, and £210 a week for 2 or more children) from Tax Credits is expensive, and hard to come by, because it doesn't suit your argument?

I am NOT exaggerating.

I often had to ring up the day before and ask the YMCA if they had any spaces left, when work chucked something at me. Luckily the YMCA take credit card bookings, and luckily I had a credit card, and luckily they usually had spaces left.

I think for many lone parents, though, this wouldn't be an option.

I know that I have paid more in childcare over ten years than it would have cost me to pay off my mortgage. I have no savings and a ramshackle house.

The baby element was scrapped last year - but anyone whose baby was born BEFORE 31st January 2011 will have been getting the extra baby element of their child tax credits. I was getting the extra £10-ish a week for DS3, this week will have been the last payment that included it as he was 1yo yesterday, so next week's payment will not include that £10-ish. So some people may still have one more payment of £10-ish left to go before it stops being paid to ANYONE in the country.

Alouisee - if you are offered a job tomorrow, that wants you to start next monday, that you only found out the hours for when you applied 2 weeks ago, HOW exactly do you plan ahead and book holiday care for february half term? If you can't,then you can't take the job. I would have thought that was glaringly obvious?

I haven't actually, because I really would find the reality very scary. It especially pisses me off that childcare isn't even tax deductible - even though it's essential to enable you to work! To get back to the op- this is the kind of thing that is really grinding down those who don't receive any benefits. They are often paying rent/mortgage, all childcare, all council tax, all utilitybills, all transport costs, prescriptions, dental treatment etc etc out of TAXED income. They are often living pretty much hand to mouth with nothing in reserve for when things go wrong.

I did have to pay for nursery callmemrs, because my ExH did a runner when the DCs were very small and I was in a new job. Tbh childcare changed its permutations nearly every year as they grew, and they started/left various phases of school, and my hours changed and shifted at the whims of various bossmen. Holiday care was marginally more expensive than nursery - but not by much, I have to say. I can see your point, for sure.

I hate to think how much I've paid in childcare over the past ten years.

Have you ever added it up, callmemrs? It must be scary amounts.

SN is of course relevant - but it does not explain:

46% of children in towerhamlets are born to workless households.
unemployment is higher than liverpool.

how can unemployment be higher in central london than liverpool?

What if Granny's got dementia?

Or will she do at a push?

Linerunner- my point is that school holidays only seem expensive If you have stayed at home until your children are school age. If you have paid all year round childcare for a baby, believe me, school holiday care is a blessed relief in comparison

i tink the SN issue is very relevant. Because so many on MRC are simply unable to be left. These can be kids with autism, even those who are quadriplegic and on oxygen. As long as they dont wake for more than 20 mins at night.
And those parents will be expected to go out to work or workfare. No excuses.

The criteria is too vague

The Big Society = grannies.

Well of course I have had to pay childcare all year round, as I work all year round. But the school holidays have been particularly expensive.

Peachy - i dont know why they dont have jobs so i dont know what the fix is.

how can there be higher unemployment in central london than liverpool?