Scrapping EMA

[TrollinaTrollpants]

will poor people really miss it?

You can't just turn up and get EMA ..its performance and attendance related

mamatomany

those young mums made a mistake and got pregnant. Now they are trying to improve their life circumstances by going to college.

Would you rather they just went straight onto income support for the rest of their lives.

Semi rural here to bus fares £6 a day no free dinners and ds1 is job hunting

As a family we will miss EMA my daughter goes into 6th form next year so we then have to pay for the school bus at a cost of £300 a term which would have been covered by the EMA.

Yes we will still get family allowance for her at £17 per week, she is the eldest, so that will have to go on the bus.
Its crazy that we have to pay for school transport when she is 16, but thats what they do in Gloucestershire, I'm hoping they will change that now we lose the EMA.

My daughter has always been prepared to work, she has 2 paper rounds, wants to get good grades at school so she can then go to uni. I'm self employed and trying to get more work and my husband is a civil servant now working in an office with 5 staff where there used to be 70. It makes me wonder what the future holds, we aren't poor but will have to be careful next year.

I had a saturday job that paid £30 a week during my a levels. I then did all my essays etc on sunday. It was hard, but do-able. This has only been in place for a few years and even the guy on BBC Breakfast this morning who was there to argue against the cuts could only quibble over 2% difference between the gov estimate that 90% of those who receive it wuld carry on studying anyway and the "independent figure that said 88%! It does encourage a sense of entitlement very early. It has only been in place for a few years - transport issues may mean people have to chnage schools, well ok, thats what adult life is sometimes.

weird that scrapping EMA is deemed ok.....but tuition fee's aren't hmmmmm wonder why

Yes,we will miss it.
Ds2 gets a train to college every day.
There is no other way for him to get there other than me driving him.
He gets £30 pw which covers his weekly train fare almost exactly.

'sense of entitlement' always the same old same old trotted out ..sour grapes more like

Excuse me?
Do i sound as if i have a sense of entitlement?
We are on a low income and are going to find it hard to cover £30 pw.
The op asked if poor people will really miss and my answer in our case is 'yes'.

I had cleaning job when I was doing my A levels too. I don't begrudge EMA to kids from poor families though. There aren't enough jobs to go around. It's not about entitlement it's about need. Funny nobody is trotting out sense of entitlement lines about the loss of child benefit.It's always something the poor are accused of.

Till what age are parents allowed to keep Child Benefit if they qualify?

Does it matter? Why should poorer families have to struggle to pay their transport costs?

Gawd, I hate that 'sense of entitlement' line.

How would people like it if everyone was saying that families with an income of £30,000 should have child benefit taken away from June 2011. After all it's only an average of £30 a week and I've heard that lots of families spend it on mobile phone top-ups, lattes, expensive wine, cigs and even drugs and it doesn't go on their children.

If we can afford to lose £30 a week then someone on double my income can also too.

Think of the savings for our deficit.

Not nice is it?

Child benefit is payable until aged 19 or when they come out of education but not uni, whichever is the latter, so usually 18.

There was talk about cutting it at 16 and this may be on the cards one fine day.

If 'children' are still in full time education then you can get CB until they are 20.
This does not include University but does include college for 'A'levels.

bubbleOseven - no i'd rather they didn't get pregnant in the first place but if they do they are their parents responsibility not mine. Or better still the father of the children could step up and pay imagine that.

EMA is performance related

Its not only A level students that get it

By "sense of entitlement" I suppose I mean it cannot but help foster an expectation that you will get help that previously was not available. Why should "poorer families have to struggle to meet transport costs?" because we live in a capitalist society where some people earn more than others. I struggle to afford things that others don't, I live in a smaller house than some, the car is 12 years old - its all a sliding scale. The stark fact is that cuts HAVE to be made and you can make a great argument for every single cut not to happen but they have to happen somewhere. If students have to move their studies to a place closer to home to avoid transport costs or use libraries more instead of buying books then so be it - if they really want the qualifications they'll do it.

Trixie, I reckon our 16 year olds are becoming accustomed to the fact that won't get help that was previously available.

The problem is it was cruel to introduce all these benefits in the first place, people cut their cloth accordingly and if they thought that EMA was going to be available and now it's not of course they are angry but it was never sustainable, people do not want poor children to have the same opportunities as the children of parents who've done well for themselves.
Argue until your blue in the face but that's what it comes down to.