to think benefits are a safety net against poverty, not a cushion against an uncomfortable life ?

[TalkinPeace2]

Prompted by a thread where somebody said "DH has lost his job, what benefits are we entitled to?"

Sorry, but its the duty of ALL those on more than average wages (£26k per household) to put money aside for a rainy day.
No wonder the country is up to its eyes in debt if people first think about benefits rather than self reliance.

The benefit system should be to prevent true poverty, no more.

The American system has too many gaps. Most European systems, including that in the UK, provide far too comfortable a cushion, at far too high a cost to the next generation (as historically current over generous benefits have been kicked down the road to be paid for by our children who will never be entitled to such things).

theinets Lavish Benefits-where abouts are these benefits you talk off?
The only time benefits become lavish is for those that get full housing benefit for million pound houses and have 10 kids-those types are much in the minority as most people in my area are lucky enough to recieve jsa & a roof over their heads if they are out of work.

Benefits are not a way of life as the money isn't substantial enough to live comfortably on.

Presumably they didn't sell it because they didn't have a Crystal ball, didn't know they'd be stuck with a squatting tenant etc? So it's OK that their kids health can suffer?

no they were greedy in thinking prices would continue rising so of course they didnt want to sell,it back-fired on them

your words "Highly educated"that dosent mean much by the sounds

the only people i know that kids have sufferred is crap parents that a guilty of neglect,are you saying their kids were on a very poor diet because with their credentials im very suprised they didnt have the sense to make sure this didnt happen,there is no need for a child to be that ill in this day and age

i no quite a few very low income familys and their children are well feed and the parents manage to provide good meals on a tight budget,it can be done

relatives,food banks,cooking from scratch,

tax credits are they recieving them????cutting everything to the bone

so their lifestyle has change,welcome to the world of many others

What needs to be done;

Cut tax credits which is a subsidy to big corporations (Tesco, Sainsburys etc). If tax credits are cut, big business will have to pay a living wage, not get other low paid taxpayers to subsidise them.

Cut housing benefit which is a subsidy to rich landlords. If housing benefit is cut it will bring down rents (eventually) as there will no longer be a floor to rents which there currently is. No longer will taxpayers subsidise the investment/pension of rich landlords whilst at the same time being priced out of rental properties by those claiming housing benefit and not having to worry about the rent themselves.

Introduce a land value tax to bring down the price of land and stop people speculating on property. Make property a place to live in rather than an asset.

Close all the loopholes which allow big business and rich individuals to avoid paying tax in this country.

Cut red tape for small businesses and cut employers NI. Cut stupid punitive taxes that make having a small business not worth it.

At the same time that tax credits are consigned to oblivion raise the tax threshold so nobody in work is paying tax/NI until they earn over £12k.

Just a few things that should happen but won't.

In 1965 the "personal allowance" was equal to the average wage - ie all those earning less than the average (today's figure is £26k) did not pay tax.
And in 1965 average house prices were three times average wages
many things have changed - not all for the better.

I'm no economist, but I would have thought that if they cut housing benefit then the only people that would struggle would be the claimants themselves. The people that need to be given that money on order to house themselves. You have no guarantee that LLs would automatically accept less rent if HB was cut. Especially as many LLs won't or can't rent to people that claim HB anyway. How would you go about forcing rents down between private individuals or companies?

Housing benefit (local housing allowance for private rentals) means that there is a floor to any rent since any landlord knows there is a minimum they can get for any property. Housing benefit distorts the "market" with this floor. There are other factors too which are distorting this currently artificial "market" by protecting (BTL) landlords such as low interest rates, low taxes on unearned income, ability to write off a lot of taxes, beneficial laws for landlords etc. This prices out first time buyers and makes buying up properties attractive to those already asset rich. The country has regressed into a feudal system of landlords (lords) and tenants (serfs) with some inbetween (home owners). This means that all the serfs cannot save for their own pension since in order to live, they are paying sky high rents so that the landlords can have their cake and eat it.

The poster who said that the piper will need paying is absolutely right. The younger generation are screwed because the politicians do not want to disrupt the status quo because they want to be re-elected. But this means the country is going to be financially fucked very very soon.

I agree with what you say Orwellian. And I would raise tax thresholds to £15,000 per year. And I also would think about a partner being able to claim at least part of the other person's tax allowance if that person elects to stay at home and look after children.

The worst thing of all is the rent subsidies which are keeping rents artificially high. If landlords were not getting those rents then they would probably have to sell the property which would result in more properties on the market.

I am fortunate to have not personally experienced the benefits system and I genuinely do not understand how there are some people on here who are clearly struggling despite being very deserving yet there are others who chose not to work and seem to have enough to live at a standard higher than some working families.

Constructive ideas? We stop the pensioners heating allowance and put the same amount on pension tax credits, meaning that everyone who needs it gets it with no additional means testing.

We are benefit dependant; I am a carer (£58 pw) and we have 3 disabled children, although we only claim atm for two. But Dh works, I plan to go back next year when hopefully the youngest should be diagnosed and all the paperwork sorted, dh also studies FT and me PT, post grad. We are far from lazy but something we could not control came and bit us quite harshly.

I know ds1 will work as an adult, and the state help he gets- DLA and a place at a specialist school- will be the difference. DS3 inmo doesn;t stand a chance simply because of his autism, it will be benfits or starve for him. He does not realise this (no self awareness) and plans to work, we encourage him because we feel we should even though it's probably unrealistic. They have grown around working people, there is no culture of dependency in my family at any level, just a shitty genetic issue.

If they cut the small % of HB we rely on, we would be homeless. As the children can;t go to the homeless housing unit, we have been told they will go into foster care. We will lose the SN placements that took several years to get as we would be out of area and the waiting lists for others is 3 years plus. We would be the collaterel damage. I am not willing to accept that. I am not willing to lose my children to someone else's economic philosophy.

(should also point out that when the boys were born the family income was £60k; then dh's employer decided to change direction completely and he was made redundant and the the boy's disability made the 2 hour commute I was facing impossible due to an absolute lack of childcare; dh is now self employed but the income is still far less, if rising).

(I always do this sorry- repeat post- our savings lasted a year before we started to claim, I wonder how many here could manage that?)- walking away and doing last of the 4 school runs. Then going back to bed as I had less than 4 hours sleep all weekend, and have been up since 3.15am.

how
do you expect people to have savings on£ 26000 i dont claim benefits [ other than chid benefit] never have done but if i suddenly lost my job i would also ask what iam entitled to

And that x2 would be why you have been paying NI for many eyars no?

If you went to claim on car insurance and they said 'are you morally entitled' you could take them to court!

NI is national INSURANCE.

If we had enough jobs I would happily say that all those healthy / NT enough and with access to childcare* should absolutely be in work. But we don;t. And no matter how many economic policies one may shout about, if you can;t work out that more unemployed people then jobs = a surplus of claimants, then it all means nothing.

Including childcare for disabled children, something I didn;t realise was as lacking as it is until I needed it! The majority of myc arer friends want to work but childcare prevents it; and as much as the DDA might help, if your child, like one of mine, is violent then childcare is not an option- especially as they hit their teens and places stop providing it anyway! We managed with childcare when he was small, but at 13 and not able to be unsupervised have hit a brick wall; the solution is that when DH finally qualifies next year he will do school runs (of which we have 4 separate ones) and I can work again; but it takes time.

**Extra time in fact as DH should have qualified last Spring but a complete lack of support and help for me from any agency led to me having a breakdown and he had to care for me for a while, luckily enabling me to avoid hospitalisation.

'I am fortunate to have not personally experienced the benefits system and I genuinely do not understand how there are some people on here who are clearly struggling despite being very deserving yet there are others who chose not to work and seem to have enough to live at a standard higher than some working families.'

Examples? Who are all these people who 'chose not to work' and what evidence is there that they live at a standard higher than some working families?

'We stop the pensioners heating allowance and put the same amount on pension tax credits, meaning that everyone who needs it gets it with no additional means testing.'

Here, here! All this, 'But they paid into the system!' And we don't?! And we'll be paying for even longer and get FA out of it. So why are they being spared any sort of cut at all? Ditto the automatic free bus passes. For over 60? That's not even old, IMO! Raise the age or means-test it, it's costing councils a fortune and those of us who use the bus have to absorb the cost no more how able we are to afford it.

What's the point in giving examples Expat? I see the point you are trying to make, but I think there are a lot of us that know people whose only income is benefits who do seem to have a financially comfortable life.

I could give you names and situations I know of, but that would obviously be wrong and you would have no idea if I'm making it up or not anyway. Plus, anecdote isn't data.

But, like I said earlier on the thread. I put all my details into the entitled to website as if I were a single parent to see how much I would get, and I was stunned that I would receive so much free money based on my income. I wouldn't need it! If I split up with DH, I'd be able to save £400 a month because of CTC and council tax discount. That is a lot of money that I could spend on shoes, without my children missing out on anything that they currently do.

I think a lot of people in the uk do think they 'need' certain things to live

For example on here a measure of so called poverty is a plasma tv, having a car of x years old and eating meat evey day

We are fortunate to have a decent income. We can afford holidays and nice restaurants. However, we choose to live in a one bed flat ( london) instead of scrimping and getting into debt with a 2/3 bed which is what we would get if we had a council house. We eat veggie half the week as we feel it's healthier, we don't own a car as its pointless in London, and we don't own a tv as work a ridiculous amount of hours that we barely have time to watch.

None of the able mean we are in poverty. It means if we spent £1000 a year on car insurance, a £1000 on petrol. £120 on tv license and say £300 extra a year on meat every day. Then we would be almost £2500 worse off. Upgrading to a 2 bed flat instead of one bed and using lounge with soda bed as sleeping space would easily be £3000 min a year more for our location.
That's £55000 in savings that many people could make by choosing a different lifestyle. That is why we can afford holidays/ nice clothes and meals out without worrying

That is also why many immigrants work for less and still don't moan as they don't expect everything thrown at them. They know try have x budget which may only be a two room place for 7, but don't demand a bigger place as their 7 year old has to share with 12 year old.

Im not benefit bashing. People can choose to do what they like, ( or not choose if unfortunate circumstances). But I think that saying nobody can poss save for a rainy day is a tad ott. Many could lose car, downsize dramatically until circumstances change again.

Outraged, can you break down the sums please? I know many single parents, some fully on benefits, some working part-time and some working full-time. Absolutely none of them are in a position to save £400 a month.

Outraged, I don;t know your finances but entitledto is well known for being frequently wrong and doesn't take many factors into account. or rather turntous as it is now known; also worth remembering that a lot of cuts do not happen until later this or next year anyway so it doesn't reflect current situation.

I shall give an example; couple I know who have a 4 bedded council house because they were allocated an extra room due to a disability one of their children has. The new LHA rent does not take that into account so they will made to pay the spare room tax, despite it being a used, needed room. They will lose half of the tax credit disability portion as that has been cut. They will lose a significant portion of the CTB as that is being done differently- overall they are going to lose hundreds a month, and that is a family theoretically exempt from the caps.

Figures right now are NOT relevant beyond the next few weeks as universal credit trials are staring shortly in selected areas.

Forever true many could make cuts but also you are availing yourself of London infrastructure too; DH needs a car to get to his office, being rural; I need a car to get to the boys' SN Schools, which are each several miles away in opposite directions. We are trying to work out atm if I can stop driving as my eyesight won;t allow me to forever and the answer has been nope, not yet. Luckily there's a plan to build a train station here, which means I can absolutely dispose of the car keys (I hope, depending on work).

It's no different for those who live here and are elderly or out of work- transport is poor and shops so limited you won't get an apple without a 45 minute uphill hike! As our population is quite elderly, not always an option.

WRT to fuel costs- there was a proposal back along to remove it from older people living in places where the mean winter temp was warm- 20 degrees IIRC. It was shouted down by the Tory failthful. I can;t for the life of me work out how that is a justified expense. It was removed from the severely disabled some time back, yet if you are a certain age and live in a hot country with your fortune (we shall paint a stereotype here and say inherited fortune) you can get it? pathetic.

I don't know that I know many who choose not to work by the way, and I grew up on a council estate classed as deprived and worked for a charity that meant I got to know a lot of the finances of young, often poor, families. I can think of 3 individuals who meet that criteria, all acquaintances socially, but two of them have a working partner; the other has a partner who is a carer, I also happen to know via means I would not dream of specifying (not illegal- small town chat) that he is impossible to actually employ and a risk to the livelihood of any business. AS small business owners ourselves (or rather DH is) we certainly wouldn't want him anywhere near us, and we are happy for our taxes to keep him far away!

LMAO at measures of poverty!

We have an ancient cathode TV gifted to us; that is fine, we will replace sometime as sound is going but will be for a cheap one. No interest in expensive ones at all. cars are old- over ten years. That is also fine. We doe at emat every day, but becuase we are dairy intol (4 of us are anyway) and well, you don;t get to choose what you feed ASD kids!

I don't know ANYONE who defines poverty like that! We are struggling, esp. as DH's student loan is late- we should be benefits free by now but an admin cock up has delayed it- but not poor. Poor was the lady I knew who was a single mum and working a 0 hour contract who had to re-enter a 3 month wait for help every time she worked less hours than she would have wanted. Dad works in a sausage factory and we ended up feeding her from his freebies at one point, poor lass. She's ended up sending her son to live with his dad abroad as she couldn't keep a roof with the unpredictability, and is heartbroken.

'I think there are a lot of us that know people whose only income is benefits who do seem to have a financially comfortable life.' and that is called dignity; it's the last thing they will take from me.

And now I must sleep. G'day.

I can appreciate that entitled to may be wrong, but I have seen many people mention it on here in the past, so I was just having a look to see what it would say. It asked plenty of questions that I thought were relevant, I had to get out pay slips to be able to fill it in accurately. Even if it is wrong, I doubt it would be wrong to the extent that its telling me I would get roughly £80 a week when I would get nothing. Even if I were entitled to a tenner a month it would be too generous, I don't need it!

I also realise that the figures will be changing soon, but if I'd done it two years ago, that's still a lot of extra money for nothing.

Sorry, but I'm not prepared to post my personal finances all over the Internet.

Eh? Dignity?

There is only so much hiding you can do of your financial situation. You can either afford stuff or you can't, there's not really much more to it.

the free bus pass age to my knowledge has been raised in my area. It was 60 & i think its now 64/65. I know this because my fil turned 60 in January and he can't get it. My df is 63 & he got his at 60, so it must be a recent thing.
My dm & df need the winter fuel allowance yet my gp (who are in their 90's) don't as the fuel bill is included in their rent package (they are in sheltered accommodation) & they still automatically receive winter fuel allowance each year. due to their age its slightly more too.
It would probably cost the government more money than they would save to see who needs it and who doesn't. Same as child benefit having a top wage earner cap. It does not take into account two people earning 40k just the top earner can't earn over 44k. So in a one income household with main wage earner bringing home 46k they wouldn't get it, yet two earners of 40k would.
It seems very unfair but the logistics of sorting it by joint income would negate the savings the government are making.

abitwobblynow USA barely has a social security system so how can you blame that on their financial situation? They got into debt because GWB cut taxes for the rich and spent billions on wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

How do you explain that the countries that had the highest social security payments eg Scandinavia have not felt the global recession to the same extent as uk/USA/Ireland/etc