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?

I want to know exactly how many people in the UK are KNOWN to actively choose a life on state benefits over working. Does anyone actually know?

Because I think all this hate mongering of the poor is slowly leading to a removal of any benefits over time. We are being brainwashed into thinking there are millions of lazy scroungers.

There are definitely some chancres and they should absolutely be dealt with but there are overtones of all benefits being seen as undesirable to this government.

Nobody seems to ask for facts on numbers anymore. It's just instant belief in whatever politicians say. They are POLITICIANS.

I think it's very frightening for genuinely poor families on hard times.

They haven't scrapped the DLA exemption have they?

I doibt its the majority madamecatifiore. Given many women didnt work. My own mum has never worked. Never built up a pension. Yet she gets housing benefit plus council tax benefit plus pension tax credit plus attendance allowance.
Its adds up to mkre than dh earns and we have a mortgage to pay and 6 people to support.
Not saying its wrong but just reminding people that pensiners are the biggest proportion. Plus many many people claiming JSA or IS worked and paid taxes etc. The proportion who have never had a job is smaller than the daily mail would like us to believe.

Dooin- what do you propose we do for people who choose a life on benefits rather than working?? just leave them too it to spend their days watching jeremy kyle while we pay tax to support them? and allow another generation of children to grow up thinking its normal not to work???

I wouldn't give my foster son pocket money without doing basic chores so why is it ok to do this with the aforementioned?

winkywinkola- from my line of work I would say it is a sizeable minority. For every ten interviews I do I would say one or two will not turn up as they decide work isn't for them.

So is the £25k including housing and council tax bnefits, or what they actually receive in cash?

And does it includ those who work and receive FTC or DLA?

Yes, they will have included everything to make the amount as high as possible.

the majorirty of people who earn dont see a lot of there wages either once mortgage/rent utilities council tax etc goes out

I do wish people wouldn't be so easily distracted by Dave's 'blame the poor' tactics. It wasn't people on benefits who bankrupted the developed world - it was the rich. It wasn't people on benefits who plunged this country into disaster, it was the rich.

£25k must only apply to households where someone is disabled and/or they live in London. And the poor are being swept out of inner London under the housing benefit 'reforms' anyway - there isn't a single property in the Borough of Kensington and Chelsea that you could rent under the new housing benefit restrictions, according to the Evening Standard. That's thousands of people who will be forced out of their homes, including disabled people forced away from the social and healthcare they rely on. (And for anyone who assumes Kensington means 'posh' this is London - the borough is the size of a city anywhere else in the country and includes posh and rough areas.)

He's just trying to make hating people on benefits ok again. I can't stand the guy. Nice for him to have three kids. He can afford a fourth. So he's alright jack. [bucket of sick]

that £25k will include housing and council tax benefits.

But Riven I bet your father supported your mothers choice to stay at home and supported the family financially - they didn't get handouts every month of WFTC or CTC.

David Cameron has four children because he can afford to have them. My foster sons birth mother has just had her 5th child despite never having worked a day in her life. This child has also been removed and put into care at a cost of probably £1000 a week. I don't think David Cameron is the one to be directing anger at.

My mum died last year, age 82. She was claiming income support and carers allowance as she had no pension. My dad died at 79, having worked every day of his life from 14. He paid tax, NI, etc, and claimed a basic, no frills pension from age 65 after his company went bankrupt and ran off with the pension he'd been paying into for years. My family raised 6 kids into adults wiht a really strong work ethic, none of whom have claimed benefits. Yes, my mum was one of the many pensioners taking money from the pot, but she and my dad worked bloody hard, lived on next to no money and we scarcely had food to eat, but she finally died living in a warm, dry house with plenty of food.

I know Cameron is playing the 'hate' game with the unemployed. He is a tory. Did anyone really expect anything else?

ScarlettsMummy, my friend is a foster carer and she currently has a little girl who is 8. This girl is one of 6 and all her siblings are also in care. I suspect that this costs quite a lot of money. But money asides, it's so sad to think of all her siblings in care and who she hardly sees.

I have already states above that this is an emotive issue and that I have a huge envy of anyone who has had more than one child, regardless of what benefits they receive. I think it is understandable.

Scarlett how many children would you allow the poor to have?

Err I can't afford a 4th child Bandwitch,I certainly wouldn't expect the state to pay for one for me.So we should all have the state paying for kids we can't afford?

Yes DC can afford a 4th along with the rest of the rich population.So along with the rich you're saying the poor should have as many kids as they want which the state will pay for but the good old squeezed middle should just poke up with 1 or 2.Now that my friend is what I call unfair.

You have the amount of kids you can afford and pay for them yourself-period.If you're on benefits you don't have the luxury of having kids you can't feed. Sorry but you don't.If you can stretch your benefits and feed and clothe 4 kids than all power to you but if you can't you poke up with less like the rest of us have to.

God the rest of the world must laugh at us if people seriously object to capping benefits at 25K.

I hate DC but there is something seriously wrong if families without disability are getting above 25K in benefits.

I think a £25K cap sounds great.

I earn about 26K as a teacher. I'm a single mum of 2 living in the home counties. No financial support from the girls' father. Rented house. The standard in child benefits. And it's ample. We can't afford luxuries but we are very much okay.

I don't know shit about other people's finances but purely using my own situation as a yard stick £25K sounds like a good figure to give almost all families everything they're likely to need.

No madamecastiofiore. My dad fecked off and my mother raised us on benefits. She had no qualifications (left school at 15) so couldnt afford a job that would cover childcare. The one time she did work - in tescos - the neighbours reported her for leaving her kids home alone.
But ctc didnt exist. It was just supplemenatry benefit back then. We went without food, shoes and heating cos under the last Tory govt the same thing happnened and the poor were attacked. Yet did the Tories chase feckless dads? Did they fuck. Just like today. Attacking the single parents but making those on benefits PAY to use the CSA to chase parents who dont pay up.
Ffs.
Where are all these jobs and all this childcare?

We need more council housi g with aggordable rents

Mila we couldn't afford a second child, it is my one huge regret in life. I have admitted it winds me up when people have large families on benefits.

I was asking how many children we should allow the poor to have?

I saw the article earlier, what he says makes sense. We do need to reverse the mentality of benefits, they were always meant to be a safety net for those in need not a lifestyle choice.

The article states over 100,000 on benefits have four or more children that other tax payers are paying for. Yet those who ensure they can afford to have children are penalised by the current system and I would imagine no where near have four each. We should have a country where working pays, not the other way round.

£25k is more than enough for a family to survive on. It may mean some cant choose to live in expensive areas but that goes the same for working people who have to live within their means. It will also stop people adding extra children into the household that they cant afford to have.

These reforms are long overdue.

Have we not said it is very unlikely that familes without a disability are very unlikely to get the 25K? The expeptions may be in areas with very high rent - places I could not afford to live - in that case the money is going to the landlord.

We do need more places with reasonable rents and safe long term tenancies.

Look on the bright side. Dave's games have brought crawling out of the woodwork those who would see the sick and disabled starve in the gutter.

They were masquerading as decent people, but now we know what they are don't we.

What we have to accept is Britain has more net takers than net contributors. Until that balance is redressed there is less money for the very needy. Pension age needs to rise significantly for starters and absent parents need to have maintenance taken from their wage packet at source by HMRC. If they are self employed it can still be recouped through the tax system and if they are unemployed then their jobseekers allowance should go to their offspring.

These are some of the biggest costs in our welfare system, the biggest cost is the NHS.

The money thrown at the banks in the banking crisis was utterly shameful and totally anti capitalist and anti competitive, but I have a feeling that if it hadn't happened the country may well have been thrown into anarchy in a flash.