David Cameron welfare reforms-no family will receive more than £25,000 a year.

[Hammy02]

Good idea? I think so. I can't believe a single family receives this much already in benefits. It is about the same as the average income so it would be ridiculous for any one family to have more in benefits than someone that works?

Yes but if you ahve say a couple of kids and take home £18k you can claim HB, WTC etc

Thats already included in cap

So the mean wage thing doesn;t work as it is not inclusive

Caring isn't shit, I don't hate being a carer and I am grateful that I live in a country that supports, albeit ina small way, carers to actually be able to care. If I hadn't had the financial cushion of DLA and carers allowance then my life choices with regards to caring may have been different. I gave up a well paid job in order to care for my severely disabled child, no-one else was going to do it, I couldn't even get a childminder due to her disabilities. So the choice is we all do what that lady did and put our children in care which is mega money for the taxpayer and the government or we care for our children within a home environment with appropriate schooling or the government puts their money where their mouth is and they provide people like me and peachy with suitable and affordable childcare, like everyone else has access to, so that we are able to work. I have a degree (I don't know about peachy) but it's not that I am unable to work, or that I don't want to. I just don't have a choice.

Peachy- The 25k mean wage is before tax though

Degree and most of an MA, find out tonight if my research ahs passed panel.

I find caring shit eprsonally becuase ds1 is so aggressive and yet agin I am bruised. With ds3 it's not, it varies.

Yes it is

But the argument is used repeatedly on here that it's more than eman wage

It's probably not dissimilar once additonal benefits are put nin place but no evidence it's more. We got more than that in tcs / child benefit for sure when dh was earning £25k

The actual caring is fine. Apart from the times I start getting a bit resentful at not even being able to go to the loo without using the downstairs one with the door open so I can keep watching the kids (they cannot be unsupervised AT ALL). It's the other shit. It's the red tape, paperwork, getting to appointments and dealing with prejudice in RL and online.

Anyone who thinks council tenants always have it better should check out this documentary

www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/search?q=Poor%20Kids

The conditions in the Glasgow flats were horrifying.

I think part of the issue is that any benefits system is open to abuse which generates a them and us culture. There are very many people for whom benefits are necessary, vital payments to help them survive a lifestyle they did not choose. However, there are others for whom it is a choice.

It is also, by it's very nature, unfair. Until very recently dh earned v well - way above national average (about £40k), and supported me and our 3 dcs in a good lifestyle. Our choice was that I didn't work - he worked away from home and we have no family locally. Therefore all childcare was my responsibility and having tried several times, it didn't work as when they were ill it caused huge problems with any job I had.

However, in Nov 2010 dh lost his job - totally unexpected. We went to sign on. What I discovered was this: if you have worked, it is a total nightmare to get anything. Other than quite a lot of scorn as we had been earning lots more than the people we were now asking for money.

Also, the system is so complicated and slow that for people who have been on benefits for a long time it can not be worth their while to get a job. If you got a job which paid barely more than you were getting in benefits but (as all new jobs) it's touch and go for a few weeks, would you risk your regular income for a punt and then what if you only keep the job a few days? You have to sign back on. There's no fast track so it could take weeks for you to get your payments up again. In the meantime, you and your family need to eat and be warm. Benefits may well provide an income but it is only a week to week income - it doesn't provide savings for a rainy day.

So some of those I mentioned earlier who choose to live on benefits may well not like the choice they may but feel forced into it as they cannot risk their income by looking for a job.

I don't have any answers, but I do have a little more understanding that there are all sorts of people on benefits, and although some have a choice, some have a choice on paper which is actually no choice at all.

"However, in Nov 2010 dh lost his job - totally unexpected. We went to sign on. What I discovered was this: if you have worked, it is a total nightmare to get anything."

This is true. It lets you down after contributing. This is my experience also.

Not my experience at all.

Contributions based IS easier to access than non. IME only.

Of course what would I know, we've only clocked up 40 years work between us

We're massively better off wiyth dh working, even part time. Better off again when DH works full time.

Apparently that makes us an anomally, I am not so sure.

However WRt to sstem being so slow absolutely; my friend ahs a zero hour contract (work o Satan) and has to sign off and on again regualrly, can go weeks and weeks without any income for the priveledge of working. that's absolutely wrong and an aspect of UC I agree with wholeheartedly. It's clearly silly that a single mum offered an occasional cover shift can;t take it (in the hope of getting more) without running risk of rental non payment and being unable to feed kids due to no income.

Oh the thing about people having more kids on benefits.

Well just from my perspective, even if we hadn't decided ages ago we were done (and that been reincofrced by subsequent threatened dx's):

We have 4 with SN, including 2 who do not sleep

They need constant supervision

It took 18 months serious banging to conceive ds4 (ah the memories )

Anyone see the slight problems there?

An occasional snog n'blowie is possible in the interests of marital love and keeping some intimacy but we like our sex to be of a certain quality and I can assure you, pregnancy is not a risk for us!.

Perhaps that's another systemic failure then - the differences people find in obtaining benefits?

Oh absolutely- that's a postcode lottery that affects every area of state provision.

25k is the same as our household income for working 70 hours and all benefits included in that. I definitely dont think anyone should be getting more than that, unless they or their children are disabled.

there is more money held because people dont claim what they,re entitled to; than is lost by fraud. Government figures say this

Well.

not sdure what I think about the £25k to be honest.

I'd rather see a lower figure set that didn't take housing into count. I hate that the cap will place many people into ridiculous situations that actually add to state costs. Carers will be moved from those they care (not all carers are resident after all, Grandad lives 3 miles from Mum and it's already all she can do- mum pushing 70 after all, Grandad in nineties- to afford bbus out every day), people from the family who help with childcare, vulnerable kids from the people who keep an eye out.

That doesn't mean i think the state should finance high end housing either but I do think the rent should be enough to cover available housing within a 3 mile radius of where the tenant currently resides. Maybe 5 miles in areas served well by public transport. That makes a huge difference in how people can access services.

And I don't think the HB cap should affect famillies with disability as they often have extra hosuing costs caused- adpated housing or extra bedroom.
I don;t think the removal of the council's ability to make extra awards on their own basis of merit is useful either. If paying an extra £50 saves £100 for a kid's SN taxi costs for example, to to the nearest school with a palce available.

Yes I think that's what I believe on the issue.

Anti cap? no. Think it's been done in a very cackhanded manner? yes.

the real problem is that the right to buy scheme saw thousands of council houses being sold with no view to replacement. A growing population coupled with rising house prices has created an impossible situation for the majority of people in this country of a certain generation. Is any of that debatable?

Why shouldn't it have to take housing into account? We couldn't afford to live where we were as, taking housing into account, we couldn't afford it on my husbands salary.

I can't see any justification at all for families on benefits to be getting £25 grand unless there really is a dire circumstance. But banging kids out when you're already on benefits shouldn't bring extra income. Sure do it, but know you will have less money to live on - like the rest of us!

I've never voted tory and suspect I never will but I think Cameron is right on this one!

Agree with Roger; it's outrageous that buy to let landlords get so many breaks when tenants are badly let down.

Peachy, do you have 4 children, all with special needs?

I would love to have the option of living within 3 miles of my elderly infirm parents. In fact I would love the option of living within 50 miles. Sadly buying or renting has never been an option in the area where I was born and raised and where many of my family members still live. I do find it astonishing that anyone thinks this is an entitlement for people on benefits, when there isn't even a cat in hells chance for many working people to do so!

Somehting deeply wrong with house prices if people cant live where they grew up

Emsies I didnt say it was OK to stay in expensive areas

I would like to see a figure though that does not reflect regional sits that is used as a base level

that is different to allowing people to stay anywhere

And lyneham

apols for yeling

but working? again?

BUT 80% OF PEOPLE ON hb ARE NOT UNEMPLOYED

MOST PEOPLE ON BENEFITS ARE WORKING- THE CAP INCLUDES WORKING TAX CREDITS AS PART OF UNIVERSAL CREDIT

Argh!

Oh and I live 60 miles away from my aprents, have no choice-

and you know what?

if they need care the amount it costs the state will be far more what the HB differential was

I am talking about [people activelyc aring for a non resident disabled parent but maybe not foing 35 hours and getting CA

FT residential care costs the state 1-2 hundred K a year

I am talking finance over emotion

lyneham, your post reminds me of chatting to a group on holiday years ago. One person was originally from "Summer Wine" country and was bemoaning that it was impossible for them to live close to their family as there was NO accommodation in their affordability bracket. One posh young student type told them that they should be positively grateful that their parents houses would be worth so much more and, never mind, they would get to inherit all that dosh one day. We were all .