Bloody W**NKing Tax credits! Or Government should I say

[Hai1988]

Just had my new tax credits award and have just found out that my DH's Working tax credits are being stopped as he has already had his lot for this year, £800!!!

My DH does not have a very well payed job at all and after rent and bills we have f**K all left and the weekly income of £140 really helped that is now just over £50.

So angry We need that extra £80 a week, I know it may not sound much to some but it did make a big difference to out life's.

Who ever voted Tory I hope your happy with yourselves that now so many family's are probably gonna struggle now.

Sorry not really an aibu but really needed to vent and wondered if anyone else is suffering with tax credits this year because of the dam government.

A rather daft response.

Who else is is responsible for increasing their pay then? Who?

Who in the world didn't get ahead in life by assuming some personal responsibilty?

If your adult then ultimately the buck stops with you.

Thanks Joy.

Yes, my job does pay very well, no argument.

It certainly didn't start out that way though, for many years, that's the point I'm making. I really do think that there's a very fine balance that affects the choices people make.

In the midst of all this, I have to say I'm all for finding a way to make people less reliant on benefits (or tax breaks, or whatever else we choose to call them). I just don't think that a huge increase to NMW is the way forward.

coco Thank you it was sopposed to be daft!

If you honestly think they just need to change things things by taking personal responsibility then I really can't say much more.

if you are an* adult would have made more sense...just saying

shelly yes,I really do see your points ...as I said I personally could change things,in my set-up we normally do...I just have concern for those who are stuck.

Oh now we are moving onto spelling & grammar mistake hunting are we?

Classic sign thread is going downhill.

I give up. So many posters have tried to explain the same point over, and over and over....

I would certainly read this thread again and hopefully you will learn a lot.

My head hurts now from banging it agaisnt a brick wall

This thread has been really interesting. Bottom line is that there is no easy solution, otherwise it would have been found and implemented long ago.

In a global market where companies are free to employ in a variety of countries, no-one can rely on that 'job for life' any longer. Certainly very, very few people now have a final salary pension in a private sector job that would have made it worth giving 40+ years of service to a company in the past.
There are huge downsides to this, but the flip is that now workers are free to carve their own path. My DH has no degree, no professional qualification and is now working for something like his 10th employer (he is 40). He has tripled his salary in the last 4 years, and just accepted a new job which opens new and higher horizons. He could have sat and kept doing the same job, or not bothered to work at all back when he was earning NMW, but he didn't and is now reaping the rewards.
He has been entirely responsible for increasing his own earnings, as of course he should have been. Who else ought to have done it for him?

"He has been entirely responsible for increasing his own earnings, as of course he should have been. Who else ought to have done it for him? "

Nail on the head!

Coco, yes,go to bed.

I don't need the point explained ...I have a different point of view.

I am interested in other opinions ...and I will read them out of interest and respect.

Sigh. You very much do need it explained. Your economic model would collapse society for a start.....

Nighty night coco sleep tight :)

I'm hearing an awful lot of talk about how the rich man got where he is by blood, sweat and tears. What I want to know is whose?

does bugger all ...good point.

Lots of talk about the global economy and suchlike. I know all about economics but what you lot have to grasp is that our economy is not perfect. Much of the economic framework and regulations are created by the rich and powerful to suit their own selfish ends. Not all economic actors have equal access to capital and markets. There's much talk about certain professions paying so much due to the training and skills needed. Rather less mention of the fact that the professions are operating a monoply on who can operate in their professions and raise many unnecessary barriers to entry to protect their monopolistic abuses.

Read the thread - particularly shelleys posts- they explain economic theory very clearly

doesbuggerall
" I know all about economics but what you lot have to grasp is that our economy is not perfect."

Oh dear!

Me personally - Bad choices galore, bad choice in parents (crap upbringing), bad choices in men, bad LUCK that hormonal contraception doesn't work for me due to other meds I'm on, and a coil doesn't work for me due to a womb that 'pushes them out', bad choices in being kicked out of school for being pregnant blah blah blah.

I know I've made bad choices, but figure this one out - My DP left me 6 weeks ago (tired of having no monry to spend on Xbox games etc despite working FT for just above NMW). He left me with 4 dc, (2 are his), one of whom is only 5 months old. I also have uncontrolled epilepsy. I have had to claim Income Support and Child Tax Credit to feed and look after my dc. I asked to be given forms for college courses and help with the fees for this, so that in the 4 years before my youngest goes to school, I could get some (ANY) qualifications, and get a job then that will support us all. I was told that there is no fundimg for college any more, the Government expect any unqualified jobseekers to take (NMW) care work. 1) Care work is so low paid I would be paying out MORE than my wages in childcare 2) I am barred by law from doing care work due to my disability...but I can't claim DLA (disability benefits) as (according to the Tory Government) my epilepsy is not 'severe' enough.

I WANT to work, but equally, I want to be able to pay for my childcare, pay my rent & council tax, pay my childrens' transport to school (2.99 miles away, and 7yo has a muscular disorder that prevents him from walking that far...again not meeting the criteria for disability benefits OR help from the LEA for transport to school - don't get help even now I'm on benefits, costs me £48 a week to get my 2 older DS's to school), pay for my electricity, gas and water, pay for the dc's food and clothing, and have the money for my internet connection. (And for all those that feel that an internet connection is non-essential...try having a dc at secondary school where 75% of their homework HAS to be submitted online, and the school don't even have textbooks to work from any more...the textbook information is all on the school website, DD cannot do her homework without the internet, therefore to not have internet would mean she was constantly in detention AND not able to complete her education effectively, therefore not breaking the cycle of benefit dependancy...)

I CAN'T get out of the trap that my previous bad choices and bad luck (I DIDN'T CHOOSE to have crap parents and be in and out of the care system...) have left me in, no matter how hard I try.

NMW NEEDS to be at least £9.50 an hour for people to just SURVIVE without government assistance.

Thank you for contributing loudlass .

From you in black and white, is an example of why just taking personal responsibility is just not going to be enough.

I am sorry,your situation sounds really soul destroying :( I hope you get some help/decent job soon.

I have been avoiding this thread like the plague but finally gave in and read a few of the first few pages and the last page.

I personally think it is a very interesting topic but highly believe the OP was a troll to begin with.

As for the rest, I love how the rich use all sorts of rules of conforming for the greater good to turn some people against the truly underpriviledged in our society. "If you can't conform and work yourself to the bone to live a meagre lifestyle then why should I help you?" instead of "let us stand united against those who would use our blood sweat and tears for their own enrichment while keeping us unequally at the bottom of the pile".

None of us have control over the family we were born into or any health issues we (or our children) are born with. (NB the 'born with' is very important there, as people certainly do have personal responsibility for many aspects of their health)

We could all point to the inadequacies of our own upbringing - poor parenting, crap schooling, etc etc. This has already been discussed at length on this thread, as has the fact that we all continue to have some level of responsibility- choosing who to have sex with for example ( I can't use hormonal contraception either- it's certainly affected some decisions I've made,) and choosing who to have relationships with,how Many children to have etc. As has been pointed out, often children raised in the same family have very different outcomes- I bet most of us know families where there is a 'black sheep' - a family member who has perhaps made poor choices.

Anyway, this thread has on the whole been interesting; though its a shame that those who make wild assertions such as 'pay cleaners and teachers the same amount' or 'for one person to be rich, another has to be poor' have spectacularly failed to explain the economic reasoning behind their points.

We can all make wild assertions - the intelligent part comes in explaining how our ideas would work on practice. Some good points from various posters though- particularly shelly.
No reason to think the op is a troll btw

Not every one is in the enviable position of being able to improve their lot for various reasons, too many and complex to mention here.
And I find it surprising that while many are banging on about how if you work hard, you'll get a well paid job.
That's bollocks.
I know many people highly qualified who cannot get decent jobs or jobs for what they trained in (me included at the moment)

I also find it surprising that no one has mentioned the 'jobs for the boys' scenario where a simple pat on the back means you are within the fold and promoted to a higher level. Or because Daddy has greased a few palms.
Nothing to do with what you know but always who you know.

Some people seem to live in a bubble

No one chooses to be made redundant do they?or the 1000s of other reasons why life doesn't work out exactly as you planned

"From you in black and white, is an example of why just taking personal responsibility is just not going to be enough."

I can only assume you are being disingenous. For a start your example of someone already in employment absolutely demonstrates that person has no barriers to working which is a totally different scenario to someone meeting barriers to even gain employment.

I despise this attitude of "it's someone else's problem to sort my life out; not mine!". The poster above clearly is taking responsibilty anyway by looking into college courses etc.

Well I will ask again if its not your problem- who's problem is it?

Can you imagine if everyone took this attutide in society. It would crumble.Why should I not also adpot this attitude then?

Oh and no-one chooses to be redunant. DH got made redundant 2008. Should we have not done anything to get a new job and declared it somone elses reponsibilty to pay for us?

This society is so divided! Them and us.
It seems to be that some have a very B&W attitude about what should be done, what is/isn't done etc to improve ones lot.
It isn't B&W, there are too many shades of grey.

Now while we all like to think we are important because we have a well paid job, nice house/car and so on. It might bode well to remember that without the less skiilled or ambitious within our society, society would crumble.
(e.g. if the nations 6 million unpaid carers-,yes, me for one, hence the name- were to down tools and leave their carees to the hands of social serives, the NHS system would collapse inside a week, yet unpaid carers get maximum of 30p per hour and are not classed as making any impact on the economic structure, being largely ignored at best)
No job is more important than another. Not really.

So how can that be? I'm a bank manager/doctor/CEO and so on...
So how would you get to work in your nice car if lorry drivers who deliver petrol to the garages decided they were too good for that and stopped, or the cleaner left the place you work in such a mess that you were unable to work or became ill through germs, or the bus driver stopped driving buses...

If you put your hand in a bucket of water, you make a difference, once you take your hand out the gap closes and your hand might as well have not been there.
Nobody is indispensable and nobody's job is more important than the next person.
The only difference is some are ambitious and have opportunities, others don't.
It doesn't mean that those who don't should be forced to rely on tax credits or other benefits to top up their income.
NMW should be liveable standing alone.

My DH has been made redundant twice. No it wasn't in the plan, but he has picked himself up both times and found better jobs. Now I appreciate that to some extent he was fortunate in his choice of career because there is the possibility to move around, but he has adapted, learnt new skills, done courses and got himself to where he is through sheer hard work and determination. No help, no paid for education, no palms greased. Nothing.
The insinuation that people only do well if assisted and by somehow tilting the playing field offends me hugely.

I love the way people assume those of us capable of grasping economics, or believing in taking control of our lives must all be rich doctors in fancy cars....

Yeah right!

"The insinuation that people only do well if assisted and by somehow tilting the playing field offends me hugely."

Here, here Alibaba!

We have gone through redundancy it was horrific.Four years ago before I met DH I was a single, homeless mother who couldnt even afford nappies after being abandoned by a violent and abusive ex.

Perhaps I should have just left it to someone else to work my life out for me... all that hardwork, time and stress I wasted.....