Scrapping EMA

[TrollinaTrollpants]

will poor people really miss it?

Booze and fags of course!! ROFL

Only I would hate to see public money being squandered on your kids

Don't worry - I share it with them!!

Booze & fags is fine at least all these EMA claimants and you Violet were putting quite a bit of money back via taxes on the booze & fags. Not those that spent it on bus fares and food.

Exactly my thinking christmas - glad we agree!

Well, I'm on EMA and I really need as my mum doesn't get that much from working and my dad who has mental health problems and arthritis, he gets money from the government but he really needs it as do I. My mum can't give me money so yeah I do live off EMA (£30) and thats all I get; food, things for college and yeah maybe if I can stretch it that much I can go out on a fiver. So the minority (1%) as you like to say do need it, so stop complaining and get on with you lives!!

I know that this is an old thread!! However when I was at school (I completed my A-levels in 2003) the EMA didn't exist, my family was on the breadline they couldn't give me any money, do you know what I did? I got a job, I did 12 hours a week in a shop, as well as study. I really don't get this sense of entitlement.

What sense of entitlement?! There are no part time jobs out there ! my Daughter has been looking for months , she is in 6th form, no free transport , Her EMA goes on travel and lunches that is all, no boozing, Fags and nights out, not all teenagers are living the "skins" life , we are on a low income in a rural area what should my Daughter do then? just leave school and sit all day doing nothing? Is she not as entitled as higher income children to better herself and actually want a future? It is so easy to say "get a job, I had to" but if there are no jobs she can't get one.

"My Mum got free school meals and both her parents worked!!!(poor but working).Now you lose it as soon as you start working."

Not true. My brother's family get free school meals and he works. As I understand it your total household income had to be below £13k, although the mimit has recently been raised. So you do have to be in low paid work.

I got a grant (can't remember what it was called) during the 70's for staying on in school. I don't remember anyone then staying on just because of the grant, but then you used to get job seekers benefit at 16 and 17 years of age.

Maybe someone needs to look at why employers won't give jobs to 16-17 year olds, despite the minimum wage being significantly lower at that age?

Are we raising children without any work ethic, or indeed, without even the concept of what "going to work" actually means?

The grant I got in the 70's was very helpful. But I guess when people talk about the sense of entitlement, they mean the assumption by many that if something costs e.g. transport to college, that the Government should pay for it.

Under some of the old unemployment schemes labour funded, unemployed young people got incentives for taking park e.g. extra monies every week or free driving lessons. This is all being scrapped.

Met some young people who were being told about the new scheme and how they will be helped to find work. One young man asked in all seriousness what was in it for him? What do you mean the tutor asked? Well how much extra money will I get per week? The answer obviously is none. The benefit you will get is help to find a job. It is this attitude many people object to.

Of course poor kids will miss it, how the fuck are they supposed to get a train to college without it, the fares for my son are £19 a week.

Luckily for him he finishes this year, but he has always said it is too much as he only uses £20 of it, he forgets about having lunch and buying additional books though.

A lot of places won't take them on because of "insurance" that's all my DD has heard for months, she had a caravan/chalet cleaning job last summer and has a glowing reference from them but that is 1 day a week for 5 weeks, minimum wage so not really any chance of saving that wage for term time.

When I was 16 I put a card in the window of the local shop, advertising my services for cutting lawns, clearing rubbish out of gardens, cutting hedges etc. I was overloaded with interest, and could have worked every day if I'd wanted. I started 6th form with about £2500 in the bank from money I had saved.

The problem is today's kids have been raised to think the government is there to do everything for them, there is no need for them to think, or save, or plan ahead for the future. This IMO is 100% the fault of Labour, who rely on people that are desperate not to lose their benefits to vote for them.

I'll second that RobF. My parents weren't badly off but I always had Saturday/holiday jobs. I did all sorts of jobs, working in a bakery, pub, postal work. I went to school with kids whose parents were doctors, architects etc but almost all of us had Saturday jobs. Nothing was beneath me and I think that is the problem nowadays. People are so used to handouts under the bottomless public purse Labour government, that they are struggling now that the money is no longer there.

When I had my children I didnt realise that by the time DS1 was at college our lives would be like this.

I stupidly thought me and his dad would still be working full time. Infact I thought I would have my degree and be in an even better paid job.

His EMA finishes in a couple of months AFAIK. I can assure you, we WILL notice.
I dont expect others to pay for my kids, they are my responsibilty but yes, honestly we will notice.

I don't think EMA is a good idea at all. I do, however, think that children attending school ought to have their transport costs and lunches subsidised, on a means-tested basis.

People can take packed lunches to college. But yes transport costs should be provided on a means tested basis.

I would much prefer my DS to have a part time job tbh. He is at college full time but that is only two and half days a week!
I think a job would do him the world of good but there arent any. All the traditional student jobs are taken by adults who are desperate.

Its getting so teenagers and young adults are being forced to stay dependant on their parents. That is not how it should be.
I was able to leave home at a very early age. It was fun and I learned a lot. I lived in crappy rented places and had some dodgy jobs but that was all part of it.
Now that doesnt even seem to be an option.

next year it's going to cost £50 a week to get my DS to and from his catchment school.

"next year it's going to cost £50 a week to get my DS to and from his catchment school."

Where do you live?

Sorry £30!

More fucking right wing shite being spouted on this thread I see

Of course they will bloody miss it

Bloody hell THERE ARE NO JOBS !!! not even shop bakers pub cleaning, and there is no way my 17 year old daughter is putting a sign in a shop window , I dont care what anyone says , in this day and age that is not safe. my daughter has a good work ethic and nothing is beneath her either, yes we will miss the EMA when it goes it goes a long way to my daughter, fed up of the assumption that all kids that get EMA can't be bothered to work or expect the goverment to hand it to them on a plate !

No-one is arguing that they won't miss it. If someone gave me £30 a week and I got used to it, and then they stopped giving me it, I'd miss it. The question is, why do we need to pay kids to stay on in education? No other country in the world needs to. What is it that Britain that makes people think it is necessary?

There ARE jobs, it's just that employers are preferring to employ adults at a higher wage to do them, because they don't feel that under 18s are mature and focused enough to do the jobs properly. IMO a lot of them have serious issues regarding addiction to mobile phone and PDA use and find it very hard to concentrate on other things.

EMA creates the mentality that just turning up and being there is enough to get paid, which does not bode well for the future employment of those that have this mentality.