workers are an underclass?

[soggy14]

Does anyone else feel that we are heading into a society where anyone working is becoming a poor underclass whilst the "well off" are those on benefits? Okay not as bad but approaching the Downton Abbey type senario where those of us in paid employment are downstairs and (some of) those on benefits upstairs.

And yes I know that some people on benefits need them and genuinely cannot work but many I think do not need them. And I know that I will now get flamed by hundreds shouting that they are struggling on benefits :) but we are struggling on our incomes but also need to work all the time and seem to be worse off than those doing nothing yet are having to support them :(

violethill - they have to be 26, or you have to have severed all contact i believe. One of my brothers was treated as an individual for funding purposes on the latter basis.

this thread is et another pile of rubbish let me put it this way

first 10k - worth earning
next 10k - less worth earning, (real benefit 3k)
further 10k - well worth earning....
any more 10ks - totally worth earning.

people in the 10-20k bracket who have children don't profit that much from their income, but still profit enough. Most benfits are cross-tapered (so, eg. the amount of tax credits you get reduces council tax relief...)

if you just pump the figures into a calculator you will get a false good impression of the amount you woud receive in ebenfits (according to our local housing bens calculator, e.g. we'd receive £800pcm housing benefit. this is bollocks, we receive £0 because 1) we own the house and if we didn't 2) the other benefts we receive would reduce that amount to very little)

Having to go to a home university because of finance limits the choice for anyone in that position, not just higher rate taxpayers.

I would argue that someone earning £50K with a child entitled to 72% of the maintenence loan is in a better financial position than a person on benefits whose child is entitled to 100% of the loan. The difference in the loan is about £1400 which is not peanuts but its smaller than the difference between benefits and £50K. A person earning £50K should be able to afford to stump up £30 a week to bring their child up to the level of the child of the parent on benefits. If they should have to in an ideological sense is a different matter but the OP is saying her dcs can't go to university because they can't afford it whereas they could afford it if they didn't work. I think she is overplaying it enormously. Not overpaying for her septic tank would more than bridge the gap.

Don't think I'll need the heating on today: I am so enjoying the warm glow that comes from feeling that I am one of the downtrodden middle-class workers. 'this the best of all worlds: I get a pension, I get a house that is all mine once the mortgage is paid off, I can afford my Christmas shopping and I get to feel hard done by

We do earn rather less than the OP, perhaps that's why we're doing so well. Admittedly , we had to wait 10 years before we could afford to buy and lived in some pretty grim rental accommodation, but that's normal around here. The point is that we got there and that we couldn't possibly have done that if we hadn't been able to work. So I won't be chucking my job in anytime soon, just for the chance of living the life of riley on benefits

You're higher rate tax payers with rich parents.

Can't you add up?

Move to a smaller cheaper house. Get a smaller cheaper car. If it's costing you more in childcare than you vcan earn on your own, then the non breadwinner must quit their job.

Do you have masses of insurances? Life insurance, house insurance, pet insurance? People on benefits don't have that. Get rid of it.

When you have reduced your living standards to that of people on benefits (real ones, not daily mail benefit theives), and you STILL have less disposable income than them, THEN bloody moan.

You have a house with a mortgage. You are BUYING something that you can then leave to your children to give them a head start in life. Children who live on benefits will never have this. In fact, many children will never have this.

You are comparitively well off. You feel poor because you are trying to live beyond your means.

If you are a higher rate tax payer, you have what, £2500 after tax PCM? How the fuck are you not managing on this? how much can your mortgae possibly BE? It's a LOT of money! It kicks the crap out of Income support at £270 pcm!

People need to stop with the 'move house' solution. It costs a hell of a lot of money to move house, many people are in negative equity and in some areas the house market is completely stagnant.

There are people who have been trying to sell their homes for over a year.

So sell it to the highest bidder and move into a much smaller rental. that is what someone on BENEFITS would have to do and the OP is convinced she's even worse off than someone on benefits, so I thought a drastic solution would be fit for her allegedly drastic situation.

Nancy66 - They both work from home. They could live anywhere within plane commuting distance of London for meetings in the office. They could RENT out their house and rent a smaller one nearby/bigger one overseas/further away.

You don't need to sell your house to downsize.

coalition - those solutions rarely save money when you do the maths. Their mortgage is high - so let's assume they can get a tenant to cover the mortgage, maybe even give them a bit left over - they'd then have to fork out to rent overseas, get the insurance and fly back when needed.
What about their kids? Do they educate them in a country where they don't speak the language and they're not following the Uk curriculum?

Totally unworkable knee jerk 'solution'

Agree Nancy- sell your house, get another job.... And these are 'solutions ' put forward by people who in the next breath are complaining there ARE no jobs to move to and the housing Market is crap! Also, many people have been screwed by negative equity. Anyone who was fortunate enough to buy a house many years ago, before big rises and falls, needs to realise they are bloody lucky in comparison

Moving may be prohibitivly expensive but there are things that can be done such as extending the mortgage term or paying interest only for a few years.

Someone on that income with over 20% equity should be able to get a 25 year repayment mortgage at around 3% which would save about £300-£400 a month. Not many people o benefits can gain that sort of saving from tweaking.

Loudlass NO sorry my post wasn't aimed at you at all! I meant it for the OP, I totally agreed with everything you said. I should have made myself more clear I'm sorry, I was just so shocked by the original post I guess! No it was defintely them I was referring too as living on another planet, I mean if they can't live on £50,000 plus a year then how the hell would they manage to live on benefits!!

The kids aren't at school yet presumably, otherwise the childcare would not be such an issue. It is not an unreasonable target to pay for a month in cheaper parts of the country/overseas a what you pay per week in the south-east. Commuting on easyjet might well be the same or less than train fares from commuter towns to London.

Totally knee-jerk dismissal of a possible solution.

When you do the maths, these solutions might WELL save money.

Ignoring the oversea option, renting out your house and renting one in a worse location is very likely to make you money and means you get to keep an asset.

I do agree nancy66 that moving is not necessarily going to help. However, the OP has only recently bought their house. They knew what the payments would be when they bought it but is complaining about it. It doesn't sound like they have factored in any safeguard for the inevitable interest rate rise either.

I understand that it may not be possible to sell a house in the current climate and that anyone who had to take out a mortgage during the recent high prices had a hard time. But that doesn't really excuse them from the minimum basic sense it takes to realise that life on benefits is not a bed of roses.

Dh and I were young during the previous phase of high prices. We lived in grotty rented accommodation and put off getting married for 10 years until prices came down. I can work out for myself that there is a difference between making sacrifices and having them work out and being in a position (unemployed or severely disabled) where no sacrifices are going to make any difference.

So I do not think my own early experience puts me in a position to look down on other people or feel sorry for myself because of the sacrifices I made. It does give me slightly less sympathy with the OP. Only because she started it though.

And following on from Riven's post: OP, if you are unwilling to give up job and go on benefits because you would end up losing your house- does that not mean that you recognise that you do actually have something that is better than what people on benefits tend to have?

Of course the OP is better off than people on benefits, and not just financially either. However, it does not mean that she does not have a point hidden away there underneath the self pity. That point being that it is really, really expensive to get by these days, and that can leave people feeling disgruntled. Moving house is not a simple solution. The OP has already said that she has only 3 bedrooms, so not a mansion and they have 3 children. Yes they could squeeze into a two bed, but they should not need to on that income and it would not save them that much money. Walking or public transport is not always a realistic option, leaving to get the 5.30 bus is awful for family life, and I think it is terrible that some people have to do that too. The OP has already said they have 12 year old car - doesn't sound "fancy" to me. I know we find transport a killer in terms of costs for two of us to work. Other things add up. In the last month, DH and I needed glasses, eye tests and he needed a filling. All that came to just less than £400. So the OP is unreasonable to think it is cushy on benefits, but others are unreasonable to not realise that life is expensive for everyone and if work is getting the OP down, then it can feel worthless.

OP - it's a grey area. Whilst some undoubtedly need benefits, sadly, even on MN I've seen loud protests of "it's not easy on benefits" - but give suggestions on how a person might improve their lot/find work and you get a string of "yeh but, no but, yeh but" - they simply don't want to work. What can you do?

I agree she has a point but why take it out on people on benefits? why not look at the government, businesses, banks etc etc rather than being blaming being poor on people who are probably on less than £100 a week and are struggling. Where did these misconception come from that everyone on benefits is loaded? Do any of you stop to think that this is what the government and their newspapers have lead you to believe so that they can put all their crappy cuts in place etc and get you to put up with it and blame the poorest in society rather than the richest? Open your eyes.

Agree Mrs Scoob, she is making the wrong point, aimed at the wrong people, but there is still a valid point in there.

I don't think "Wahhhhh we are on a higher tax rate and ave rich parents but we are worse of than people who are in measurable poverty wahhh the bastarrds" to be a very valid point, actually.

The OP has choices.

No that isn't, but don't think people have full and easy choices a lot of the time either.

I like it when people here always say 'nothing special, only a 3 bed semi in SE'.