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 :(

Colditz - the OP says she DOESN'T have rich parents.

SMI is only paid on the interest of the first 200K.

ONLY - that's worth £900 a month

i recognise the point the OP is trying to make about feeling like working poor. there was most of last year where, between H and my salary, after paying direct debits (bills only) and work fees like bus money plus childcare, we literally had £22 i think it was left over. that was meant to cover non-normal bills like car repairs for our old banger which H needs to use for work (he works on an industrial estate with zero public transport)... money for haircuts, anything needed for school, basically £22 every month to cover non-monthly bills. Needless to say that despite being frugal as hell we ended up putting some money on credit cards.

There was nothing to cut back on. We didn't have any insurances that we could cancel, we can't downsize (literally live in a 2 bed house on the outskirts, because it's cheaper), we need that 1 car for DH to get to work. It's not possible to cut back when there's no luxuries to cut back ON!

so i get what the OP means in that sense.

however, things have recently improved for us this year, to the point where i was able to go part time. we got so used to living frugally that increases in wages/etc have meant any extra money is a massive help!

the person i feel most sorry for is my sister and BIL. i know they earn about £18k between them, but you wouldn't believe how much of a struggle it is - her DH works all the hours god sends in a manual job (outside), my sister works part time whilst nan looks after the kids, and for the amount of stress, hassle and effor they put in, it is HARD to see them living in the area where i grew up. i have friends living 2 roads away from my sister who talk about their benefits, free prescriptions, free school meals, free glasses, free IT courses from the job centre.... and i can't help but feel a stab of despair when i next talk to my sister and she's crying because her oldest needs £10 for a school trip and they don't know where it's coming from.

that is a situation which i know i shouldn't juge on, especially since my friends from school back home aren't scrounging, they are entitled to their benefits and hopefully will get the help they need long term to get out of the benefits cycle (because i genuinely believe they need this help to prop them up but they will evetnually contribute back).... BUT i totally understand working class anger that there is such a thing as the working poor.

i've seen it too often, first hand, to deny there isn't a problem in this country.

I thought this thread was going to be so much interesting than it is.

I think there is a good argument to be made that people who need to work for a living (including those to can't find work) are becoming an underclass, while those who employ them receive stratospheric rewards that put them effectively outside of society - different schools, health systems, completely different access to the law etc.

So YANBU, but your overlords are not people on benefits.

They are there to make sure you keep your nose to the grindstone.

Although did anyone else read the Observer article about the reduction in SMI and the case study where the woman quit her £34K job to go on benefits and have £900 interest only mortgage paid by tax payers for upwards of 2 years and think - um you should have sold your house before quitting your job if you couldn't afford the mortgage.

Spidookly, you might enjoy this clip:

vodpod.com/watch/4203302-the-other-guys-end-credits-giving-a-silly-comedy-a-serious-message-video-inside-movies

It gets more interesting as the clip goes on. From about 1 minute on there's some really good stuff. I don't know if it's all true, though - but DH and I saw this at the cinema about 3 weeks after a job promotion meant that we had more than £22 a month left over for non-essential bills. So I remember it being quite painful to watch!

spidookly - if that woman had been renting he'd still have been eligible for that money in housing benefit anyway, surely? i presume the reason she was eligible for it was she had children (as most jobsekers bens are not applicable if you leave your job voluntarily)

i don't get why you'd have a problem with HB being paid to fund a woman on benefits mortgage and not with the same amount being paid in rent towards a landlords mortgage

I have a problem that she gave up her well-paying job.

She has left her family in an extremely vulnerable position because she thought paying off an interest-only mortgage was more important than staying in work.

I have absolutely no problem at all with people being paid housing benefit if they qualify for it.

I do have something of a question mark over making yourself voluntarily unemployed so you don't have to sell your house.

I think the government were wrong to decrease SMI so suddenly, but I think the old rate at which it was paid was too high, and that there should have been a limit on how long it was paid for (except in situations of illness or disability) so that if you lose your job and ability to pay, there is only so long public funds are being used to pay your mortgage interest.

I also have questions over whether people with interest only mortgages should qualify. She was not paying off any capital, the state was meeting the entire cost of her mortgage.

The state was meeting the entire cost of her accommodation expenses. It does that for plenty of people, and she is no less entitled than anyone else just because she had a decent wage. She was better off that way, and it's a sad fact that lots of people are better off on benefits of some kind. Rightly or wrongly, it's true.

It's the system that's wrong, not the people that claim what they are entitled to.

well, i think the system is crap too - they should assess you for the amount, not what you are paying (be it morgage or rent)

though she'd presumably have been eligible for the whole of her rent, so why not all of a mortgage?

giving up job voluntarly = a bit dodge, but possibly depending on childcare costs/ childrens needs not unjustifiable?
SMI is a funny thing for people on repayment mortgages anyway....40% of the interest is a v. small amount - and you have to wait 3 months before they give it to you (if at all)

Unless you have in excess of 5 kids everybody struggles on benefits.

That's me booked in for IVF then.
Dp had the snip..

"She was better off that way, and it's a sad fact that lots of people are better off on benefits of some kind."

But that's the whole point the Tories are making - you shouldn't be better off on benefits than you are in work.

It's incredibly unfair to people on low wages if they are barely getting by (as fr describes above) and other people they know are better off then them because they don't work.

And when you get to the stage that your benefits system incentivises giving up a well-paid job like the woman in the story had, then it needs to be fixed.

But all that is beside the point, because I don't believe for a minute she was actually better off that way.

She gave up a very good job to be on benefits for a few years so that she could keep paying off a mortgage she clearly couldn't afford and that wasn't even paying off the capital.

She made herself (and her children) MASSIVELY financially vulnerable to any changes in interest rate, in benefits, in other unexpected outgoings in the long term.

If she'd sold her house a few years ago and gone into rented accommodation and kept working she would not be about to need hostel accommodation.

When people do the sums and decide they're better off giving up work, they so rarely seem to be sufficiently numerate to fully evaluate the financial value of wage over the long term.

Now she's unemployed, benefits are being cut and there are fuck all jobs. She's totally shafted herself.

It's very sad.

my kids are at school. The fact that anyone suggests that this means that childcare is no longer an issue shows that they must either be very lucky or have parental support. They are not old enough to drive themselves home from school :) and trying to get well paid work which allows you to do a school run is just about impossible. It actually costs about the same to pay for th enursery to have them before school, take them to school, pick them up and have them after as it does to have a younger child looked after all day.

My point is that given that dh works such stupid hours then we should, I feel, be able to feel reasonably well off rather than cold, unable to afford anythign except a cheap camping holiday and unable to afford heating or a decent car.

We do not pay over the odds for our septic tank :) we are not loaded so do no thave enough land for a workable soakaway which means that we need a maintained system which costs a lot more than a standard tank.

We do have insurance but mainly just life insurance to protect our children shoudl anythgin happen to us as we have no relatives that will take over.

Re smaller house - we'd stuggle as we'd have opposite sex kids in the same room which would not be ideal as the oldest is 9.

The reason I mentioned people on benefits is partly as my sister and all her friends are and I've just been to see them and theri house is warm and full of toys and flat screen TVs which all theri friends apparently also have and partly because the benefits bill is so big a percentage of national spending that it must be cut or things will get worse.

Soggy maybe your sister is just better at budgeting than you are!

yay! and theres the flat screen tv

As an aside, why is a flat screen TV always the thing that people suggest someone should do without and it will make all the difference? It's a one off purchase and does not make the difference to, for example, someone being a WOHM or feeling a bit skint, over the course of 10 years

An elderly lady with a warm bungalow!? The sense of entitlement on this thread! .
I can't afford to eat so why should people on benefits eat...

And "fancy" holidays. I always think they sound horrible -sort of blingy. I like them nice and plain.

lovelyopaque - because it's become a cliche that's all.

Having said that, I do think a flat screen TV is a luxury, not a necessity, as are iphones, laptops and pre cut fruit.

As for fags - well I wouldn't describe them as a luxury, but they certainly aren't a necessity either!

Of course they are a luxury. It's just that over the course of twenty years, having one or not does not alter most people's finances that much either way!

You have a car and a holiday.

Stop complaining. You're manageing. You could probably get a flatscreen tele from a (shock!) catelogue if it bothers you so much.

stuckinthemiddle and many others - the reason that I'm complaining is that my dh and I are paying for all of the benefits. Admittedly not single handedly :) but it does feel like we are sometimes. There is a lot of suggestion that we budget better but why should we have to budget better so that some others can sit around doing nothing? As I said before we had no parental support either finaniaclly or non financially (ie no help with childcare etc). We have got where we are through sheer hard work adn a lot of sacrefice and would like to sit back and enjoy life a little now but we cannot as we now feel that we need to work even harder just to stand still and a lot of the reason appears to be the massive benefits culture (and I would include children's tax credits here).

No one is, or should feel, entitled to anything. I'm not sure where this idea comes from.