If today’s crop of post budget threads are anything to go by…

[CurlewKate]

we should just go straight back to work houses. I’m sure we could boost the economy by having children working in factories or making mass market clothes.

This polarisation is part of the problem. No one wants to see children in poverty but it feels like gaslighting when people refuse to acknowledge that there are too many people gaming the system and benefiting financially by not working (or working a specific amount) and claiming benefits, or defrauding the system in any of the multiple ways people do. Plenty of us know cases in our own lives where people are doing these things and as soon as people start denying it happens it just shuts the conversation down.

i want to see the vulnerable protected but people are sick of having so little to show for working.

The people I see complaining on here have plenty to show for working. Houses, pensions, private schools……

people are sick of having so little to show for working.

And when anyone tries to talk about the causes for that – especially the price of housing – that too gets shut down.

Or rather, talking about solutions for the price of housing gets shut down.

There's plenty of talking about the cost, but suggesting property prices should go down is anathema to a lot of people.

I agree Op. The money would have been better spent on education. Some kids are safer at school than home. It doesn't matter what anyone says but some of these kids will not see the money. The parents will blow it on alcohol, drugs. This will happen. The money should be diverted to where it can actually make a difference to the child.

I thought people were being ridiculous complaining about people getting benefits until I realised someone with three children with a take home pay of £1800 per month gets £4629 per month benefits. This is equal to a salary of £77000 pa.

Fuck me. That's more than my husband gets on 80k

Or the ultra rich avoiding paying taxes , and huge companies not paying the tax they should because of loophole exploitation.

And that's assuming they don't have student loan deductions.

Yeah. It's grim
How can one person be paying. 40% tax and losing child benefit because their income is "so high" but someone else in the same town is deemed to need the same income just to keep them off the poverty line .

It can't be both at once! It's the same amount of money whatever source it comes from !

that combined income is very close to what we get on our joint income of £120k, as we have student loan repayments.

What do you mean “gets shut down”? How does that happen? Are you sure you don’t mean “Some people disagree?”

Im pretty sure that's not an average income for someone on benefits, though...?

I agree with you here. We lost child benefit for 3 kids years ago because my husband was on 60k. Take home pay of around £3300. How do we need the money any less than a family on more in benefits? They need to make it make sense, and if it doesn't, which it doesn't, they need to come out be honest about why they think working families can live on less. I need to hear it.

Personally I am amazed at how many penniless people there are living in houses worth £2 million. Guess I should have known after learning about all the skint farmers on the verge of homelessness.

Private rent is horrendous.

You may misunderstand. I live in an ex local auoriry house and still have a huge mortgage. It's band C. That is how most people on 60 to 100k are living now unless they bought their house 20+ years ago or came into a fat inheritance.

Exactly. It doesnt make any sense at all. if you need xyz benefits top up to not be in poverty then how can someone else be a higher rate tax payer with CB removed on a lower amount of money. It's unhinged.

I was a proper died in the wool leftie till I realised how utterly fucked up this whole system is.

I volunteered for a charity only to realise (through looking at bank statements) that most of the people we supported were getting huge amounts in benefits and had a bigger net income than I did and I earn £60k in a hugely responsible job that it took me years of training and working for promotions to get.

Exactly. As much as people are moaning about having to prop people up they don’t like any of the alternative solutions either.

Increasing minimum wage is bad
decreasing house prices is bad
rent caps are bad
cheaper childcare is bad if it isn’t for everybody
taxing inherited wealth or capital gains is bad

Wouldn't it be nice if there was more money in the system? Perhaps big corporations could actually pay some tax instead of using every dodge and bolthole to avoid it.

It's so much easier to point at vulnerable people instead of arrogant and amoral corporations.

Exactly.
This isn't about the mansion tax.

People pay obscene mortgages to own teeny tiny run down houses in the SE

In which case the issue isn’t the budget or taxation. It’s the underlying principle that house prices should only go up and up and a lack of investing in infrastructure throughout the rest of the country that means that a lot of wealth is concentrated in the SE.

I don't think house prices should keep going up. It's ridiculous. Blair started this in the 90s with his BTL empire. However, flinging thousands of pounds in housing benefit every month isn't going to keep house prices lower.

Why are you exaggerating so much?
No one has talked about child labour and workhouses

unemployment benefit was set up to support people temporarily while they got back on their feet. It was never meant to be for years, decades or life and given without question. Also it makes absolutely no sense, and is not in the slightest bit fair that people who don’t work get more than those who do, ever. That should not be allowed to happen, period.

To deny that’s what people are saying makes you a gaslighter at best, a liar at worst

Which corporations don’t pay tax? You can shop them to HMRC you know, just in case they don’t know

What’s your definition of vulnerable and deserving?

I'm quite happy if house prices stagnate. I think most people just want a secure home

But noone should be being asked to pay higher rate tax and forgo child benefit for a net salary less than their neighbour gets from universal credit