to think benefits should be capped at minimum wage

[moogster1a]

A little idea that all benefits should be capped at a weeks worth of minimum wage; so 37 and half hours times whatever minimum wage is now ( £6 pounds odd ).
That way no one gets paid more for sitting at home than they would for going out to work.
Out of this, all rent prescriptions etc. should be paid, the same as most people in low paid jobs have to pay for everything.
it might also provide an incentive to go out to work to up your wages if you progress in a company.
Just think it would be a lot fairer.

Tenderly:
When I was on IS the LP lady did a breakdown for me based on a job which I was applying for that was 20 hours a week (I had a baby) @ £8 ph.
I was still eligible for some HB on that, plus child tax credit, and working tax credit. I would have to pay around 50 % of my council tax, and council tax benefit would cover the rest.
Obviously that was only working p/t, and was a few years ago, but I seem to remember that even with having to pay £15 a week for a bus pass, and 20% of my childcare costs, the programme worked out I would still be £30-£40 a week better off.
Considering that on IS, after bills and the extra rent not covered by the housing allowance, I was living on about £60 for me and ds's food, travel, clothes etc, that brought the money we had to live on up to around £90 a week after outgoings.
Definitely better.
However, since the government changed, if I was doing that now I would get £12 a week less housing allowance (so add that to the amount I would have to find out of my benefits/income) and only 70% of my childcare costs would be paid, which narrows the gap between working and not somewhat.

TenderlyLovingly you can use www.entitledto.co.uk (the address has changed but it links you to the new address) to run varying scenarios through. I did this earlier, as I posted in my previous post. For my situation (lone parent of 3, currently on IS) it worked out as £100 per week better off in FT (39jr NMW work with no childcare costs, £50 pw better off in PT (24hr) NMW work with 30 hours childcare costs, £60 pw worse off in FT (39hr) NMW work with 45 hours childcare costs.

My income has gone down by about £20 a week due to benefit cuts.
Bus fares however have gone up to £18 per week for an adult pass and £8 for a childs. That works out at about £100 per month for me and ds to get to and from work/school.

I have found entitled to to be never ever right! I have done calcs on there, panicked, and then rung the tax credits who give me the actual figure. Seriously, dont rely on it. Call tax credits instead.

Not everyone on benefits has dependant children though

It is the same as with part time work it doesnt make sese to be on a low wage and do more hours as you have to pay it all back in childcare. I was offered it but tcs said I would be worse off so I didnt do it. Its the system its mental

I think you are probably worst off if you are unemployed, with no dependent children tbh.

Just worked out how much net salary we got before we left the UK - both civil servants with 36 years service and less than 10 sick days between us, one full time, on 2/5 time, 4 children. We got a net salary of 28, 000 per year. I have left out child benefit as we would be entitled to it, if working or not.

Just worked out what we would have "earned" on benefits, it totals to 22,000 per year....... so we worked for a whole extra 6,000 pounds a year. The gap would be even smaller if we were paid even less. The system of benefits stinks.

Benefits are worked out to pay the minimum a human being needs to live on in this country.
I have lived on IS and it is not possible to live on less. It just isn't.
It's not benefits that stinks, love, it's wages that are insanely low.

So JSA, child tax credit and child benefit for a family of 2 adults and 4 children, on published rates is 19,420 pounds per year, those are the benefits you'd get in cash, before adding on HB, CTB. Then there is housing benefit / mortgage interest relief, council tax benefit, free school meals, secondary school uniform grants, free adult prescriptions for adults which cover costs those not entitled to child element of CTC would not be entitled to...

So am I misinterpreting the published CTC, JSA, CB, HB, CTB rates? If I am not, that's a pretty high income, don't you think?

I must be calculating CTC wrong, well I'm using the published rates of 2555 per child + 545 family element, but as one non working parent + 3 children, one year of IS, CTC, CB = 13,438 pounds.

What an absolutely ridiculous state of affairs. Just look at that list of all the different benefits and tax credits that natation listed. There are dozens if not hundreds more.

Just think of the cost actually administering it and the nightmare of claiming it. Surely to goodness a Universal Benefit would be better than all that?

I have just sat down and looked at what I spent last year on our family - removing rent, council tax. We do live now in Belgium and electricity, gas and food are all quite a bit more expensive than the UK so our costs are higher than we would have in the UK, so it has put our expenses up a little bit more than we would spend in the UK. So our outgoings on utilities, food, clothing, children's activities, cheapo camping holidays, running a cheapo car, it all came to a terrible £15,500 for the year, we live comfortably, that's just under £4000 less than we would receive in cash benefits, were we not to work and receive the maximum benefits possible (without claiming DLA even we could possibly get for one of our children with SNs or any other extra benefits). Is anyone seriously telling me a family of 6 (where there are no specific needs which would require higher spending) could not live on £19,420 per year, after housing / council tax costs?

I dont know about a family of 6, but I do know that my HB does not cover my rent. I add £100 out of my tax credits.
And that on full benefits we had £60 per week to live on (thats food, bus fares, clothes) for two people, after bills.
It's no life, believe me.
And that is even before you factor in the grind of being home all the time (where you are cold because you cant afford to have the heat on all day) and the shit feeling of having no status at all.
I just can't believe anyone is jealous of that life.

Northernwreck is absolutely right though, if you are single and no dependants and not working, they are far worse off than those with children. The labour government might have had good intentions in inventing the child tax credit / working tax credit system, it has lifted many children out of poverty, but at the same time it has created a system where it pays better either not to work at all if you have children, or to work the minimum for maximum WTC/CTC combination, but not to work more, as you lose in child care costs and less WTC/CTC and can end up with a lower net income.

The other issue they are looking at is making those who work part time work more hours. At the moment I believe there can be quite an incentive not to work many hours and then the state makes up some of the difference in income. The person above saying they had been working very hard all week just for an extra £6k a year compared with a life not working - that is the calculation a lot of people make. It is similar to the part time issue too.

So the Government is trying to make it less financially sensible to work a few hours and get benefits to make up the difference.

It is a very difficult issue though - if you decide families need X to live on and you want a welfare state then if they don't have X then you make it up to X which is then not fair on those who work full time with perhaps two parents in full time jobs on shift patterns to save on child care who end up having the same income. We have never really solved this problem.

You can solve it by making everyone work for benefits.
You can solve it by making benefit income less generous - one room flat for family of 4 (as a lot of people across the planet endure), forced to live with your hated mother or 3 sisters, state hostels with dormitory beds for the poor but I don't think most people would accept that in this country yet. We would need to be further into receission and the hard working low income people would need to be less happy than they now are about the current system before that could be introduced.

So if you are better off with children then that is the encouragement to have a lot of babies if you are young and unemployed as it is those with children and out of work.

Oh good grief, Xenia, you've just brought back the idea of the workhouse.
Go back to work love, and leave the discussion to people who actually have both compassion and a real sense of the world.

I don't think it's just people though that chose to work part time hours, there is very much a culture within certain low skilled/paid sectors who only want part time staff who will work under 16 hours as it makes their workforce more flexible and means they don't have to sort out NI/tax and pensions etc

Just want to remind people who are working out their benefits vs salary calculations. Just remember that you have to pay tax on your earnings so that a £24k in benefits, is more like £30 in salary because of tax/ni etc.

I have just plucked those figures out of my head before anyone jumps on me but receiving £15k in benefits is not the same as earning a £15k annual salary.

What is wrong with making people work for their money? Doesn't mean xena's advocating the return of the workhouse, just suggesting that rather than sitting doing nothing ( sorry, training and actively seeking work) people could do something useful for their free money. Might stop some of the resentment from the huge numbers of people working a full week for less than people get on JSA / IS

I live in central London. the only families who can live in my area are on benefits. most working people cannot afford it. a 1 bedroom flat costs app £1300 per month to rent.

its not being uncaring or unrealistic to say that system is needs changing to incentivise work. it is deluded to think the current system can be sustained - let alone enhanced for those in receipt of benefits

and anyone paying for the current set up is going to have an opinion!