I claim tax credits and could work more than I do but choose not to. I'm also pg with #5 which was unplanned and so will be claiming even more tax credits soon. Who wants to come and lecture me?

[KidderminsterKate]

I claim what I am entitled to and what the government says I can have......this seems to get peoples knickers in a twist AIBU?

thankyou xenia....I totally agree with what you are saying (obviously). And I do have aspirations for my career but as a public sector worker the opportunities for promotion are almost non existant. Hence why I'm not rocking the status quo.

It is very hard to get a welfare system which cares for the poor and particularly the chidlren of the poor and does not take those children away from their parents and yet does not reward the idle.

My own preference woudl be a £200 a week payment to all adults over 18 and no pensions, benefits, housing benefit et and you get it whatever you earn and nothing extra other than a universal child benefit if you have children and then you choose if you work or not and you lose nothing by working. Universal benefits work very well. We mgiht have to make more cut backs to fund that. We could abolish all tax credits, tax reliefs and the like too and ideally combine it with one simple tax rate of 20% for everyone.

Why on earth should the state give money to people like me, I can earn it for myself. I would much rather see them continue to tax people like me at 40% and focus the money on those who need it.

Perhaps in agreement with you I think philanthropy should be encouraged but even for middle earners like myself.

Agree xenia a universal 'citizens wage ' which everyone gets would be a good idea.

I think the argument is that it encourages everyone to go out and work to improve their income. You don't get people falling into the benefit trap, where it's not worth their while to go and work as they'd see a reduction in income as benefits are taken away. With a universal benefit, everyone would be better off by working, but could survive if they were not in a position to work (carer, sick, disabled, sahp or lazy).

There's also a considerable saving to be made in admin costs as everyone would be entitled to it, so no means testing, minimal forms, less helplines etc as you do away with virtually all other benefits.

what a load of poo! you dont have a clue what your talking about, IGNORANCE! citizens wage! what a fecking laugh!

The thing is that £200 would not be enough of a wage for anyone. So you would need to pay people out of work more otherwise they would be caught in the benefits trap. Or you have to be a living citizen's wage to everyone which would be huge

£200 a week to sit on your arse and you'd be complaining ?
The whole point is that people get out there and work if they want more money not whine it's not enough like some immature teenager.

providing they can find a job that is

I have often wondered how a universal citizen's wage would work. Surely in practice, if everyone got it, it would cause inflation and push prices up so that eventually, that £200 buys less for everyone and we are back to square one.

Problem is 200 a week wouldn't be enough for single parents not working if there was no housing benefit, two bed houses in this area are 500 a month, more children living in poverty again

loveicecream - i got corrected on another thread. The going rate for a private house is far higher in some towns. £500 is the average where i am but a lot more i believe in other areas. Most of the £200 would be eaten up in rent

I misunderstood and thought it was £200 a month, I am clearly have much lower expectation than anyone else.

Surely we could not afford to give everyone £200 a week.

Dont think so but from what i could gather from another thread some peoples rents are ridiculousy large so £200 would go no where in helping them keep a roof over their heads. I am fortunate as i have a council house after being on the list for over 5 years.

Ishani I misunderstood the £200 a thing but when I was on benefits I did not sit on my arse all day. Almost as soon as I was out of hospital I started doing voluntary work. I wanted to work for my benefits and did not want handouts even though I was medically unfit for work. I will also pay back every penny I took. Most people on benefits are like that, we don't want something for nothing, we just want timw to put our lives back together.

I was on benefits for a few years, I am now a higher rate tax payer who takes no cash payments from the state and works in the public sector.

I am not, nor was I ever some kind of leech.

I think it depends on the individual, I had my 1st child at 16 and spent 12 years of his life (he's 16 now ) as a single parent, in all that time I only spent 6 months on income support and that was while I finished an access to nursing course, I did spend quite a few of those years on tax credits as the job I had while training to be a nurse was realy low paid, I know people who had children at the same time as me that still haven't gone to work or to college, I've never understood this as college places are free for people with children on income support and so is child care

Ishani just posts on benefits not having a clue what she is talking about

She sees it

Benefits = Vicky Pollard

and thats all.

fifi Surely if the parents were receiving 1600 citizen's wage per 4 weeks and the rent was 500 pcm then actually they'd have 1100 left over. Can you please tell me why that's not enough to live on?

blueshoes I think you're probably right, hence they mess we're in right now. "Such high value benefits" thrown at the inactive, so that we end up with those working low-paid jobs are the ones who are really suffering.

Why would a citizens wage not work? Apart from the obvious fact that if you didn't work and supplement your citizens wage, you might not be able to afford to live wherever you like in the country regardless of rent, in whatever size house. Oh- a bit like most working people!

Alpine pony - what about single parents?

I woudn't pay them more than £200. They'd have to squeese into their mother and sister's house. they'd have to sleep in state dorms. Theyd' have to use soup kitchens. They'd even heaven forfend have to live with and share costs with a partner or adult children. You make out of work less attractive and you don't reward the idle and you give the £200 even to the working rich. Universal benefits are great but no party is behind them so there's no point in my writing about them.

I was not idle when I was on benefits.

Methinks Xenia is Being a bit provocative !

Of course not everyone on benefits is idle.

And of course being in paid employment should make one significantly better off than being unemployed- that's plain common sense

I know she is trying to be provovative, it is just rather tiring to see people using the most vulnerable in society in an attempt to appear witty or controversy.

Universal benefits work well. £200 a week if you have a man and woman together is £400 which is £20,800 a year. Now that is the maximum housing benefit never mind your benefits on top of it so you won't be able to rent in central London but you can rent in lots of other places within that and if you can't you'd have to move in with youir mother or sister or 3 other families or actually get a job. No one has to bother with assessing if you're entitled to it and you get it whether you stay home to care for your disabled mother or you work 70 hour weeks on £1m a year. It is very very cheap to administer. You do no t then get any child benefits or credits so if you choose to have 10 children then you will need to eek out yhour £400 a week fairly carefully as your own family is your own responsibility.

The only unmiversal benefit we have had (child benefit) which has worked so well is being got rid of in current form so the thought that IDS might make his "universal credit "into some kind of universal payment is not at all likely. I will have to wait until founding my own state to get this on the statue book. Can I declare independence on my island....