to think that there are people who choose to live a life on benefits?

[autumnlights12]

the recent threads about George Osbourne made me wonder..
A high number of posters say that people don't choose to live like that, they stumble into it, hate it, what a miserable existence it is, nobody would ever choose it etc..
but if you have two or three children through choice, whilst at the same time having no job to provide for them, or if you turn down the job at the local factory (as I know someone who did) because it pays £7.50 an hour and a full time job there doesn't give you the same unemployment rights and benefits, isn't that choosing to live a life on benefits? Or being trapped on benefits? I'm not talking about people who can't work, disabled people, ill people, women dumped by feckless ex and left to fend for herself etc.. of course they should be protected.
I was watching 999 What's Your Emergency and I know that area. And I know people like that exist. And it's often a second, third generation who have never worked a day in their life, even during times when work was freely available. In the town I live, we have numerous Eastern European immigrants who all seem to be working, but mostly in low paid work the locals wont do
What say you?

(Personally I have to say I don't get why ANYONE would have more than two children. Not just for expense reasons although that sure is a factor. I just don't get it...at all!)

in that case outraged you're on a hiding to nothing... the only people who get tax cuts in the UK earn over £150k regardless of who else suffers

No, the state does. It pays you more just as it pays the non-working parent more

Not if you earn just over the cut off for tax credits they don't. And if you earn just over the cut off, you end up no better off at all, especially because you then have to pay work costs and for your child's lunches while they are at school.

The fact that anyone can be better off out of work needs to be stopped.

Surely though you give a bit of thought about possible contingencies when deciding to have a child? When we got our dogs we were aware it was a long-term committment and talked about what if we split up, what if one of us loses our job, what if there's an unplanned pregnancy or illness - of course you can't foresee everything, but things like divorce and redundancy are so common that it's incredible to me that people imagine they'll never happen.

I agree that the notion of 'fairness' is an unhelpful one. Life isn't fair - never has been, probably never will be, and government spending is unlikely to change that (though the attempt may cause a whole lot of other unintended problems along the way).

I don't really have a problem with working tax credits, except the fact that they are needed at all. I have a problem with income support and child tax credits. Child tax credits are basically free money for having children.

I realise I'm not going to get any tax cuts any time soon, but I think the additional rate taxpayers pay their share, so I'm not bothered about them.

I doubt it is a major Coalition plan - it was just something that would go down well at the Tory conference. I don't think there are that many benefits families with lots of children although I don['t hvae the stats. Most people in the UK don't want a lot of children. It's one of the biggest differences today from in my grandparents' day who on one side were one of about 9 and on the other one of 14.

A much bigger issue is how to get the economy moving and many more private sector jobs for the poor. There are large numbers who would love to work even if they were not much better off to do so and they can't find work. We need to get them working first as they are keen to work. We can move on to the lazier ones after that.

Yy to xenia.

DP wants to work desperately but there really are so few jobs. Ofcourse there are some. But there are also a lot of others applying, and because of his age hes at a disadvantage.

I want to work early next year, but the reality is, with the cost of childcare it might not be possible. I would be looking at part time work to fit around DPs hours or else I would simply be going to work to pay childcare.

Usual, no, I wouldn't pay higher costs, I want to pay less tax so that I can continue to provide for my own children and not have to support people who are long term unemployed having children.

You're a nursery nurse? You don't pay enough in taxes to support the long term unemployed.

wannabe I would say that you would not actually be working just to pay childcare cost- IF you think of the cost as coming out of both your income and DPs and also consider the financial impact to your long term career of not working.

I have never been able to understand why women don't stay at work myself, when I had the dcs I was always DESPERATE to go back to work after 3 months. But maybe that's just me and my unmaternal personality...

Toothbrush, on the BPS model. It's used as an excuse to deny structural problems, to deny reality! They say, it's not a wheelchair you need, it's a positive mental attitude. They say, it's not costly financial support you need, it's a kick up the bum! Well, how handy it is that all the right answers have become the cheapest ones. (Sometimes the right answer is also cheap, of course.)

Just anecdotally, our old GP repeatedly put DP on antidepressants because he wasn't going out and couldn't sleep etc. She blamed his physical problems on his, what's the word, psyche? and blocked our every attempt to get practical support (wheelchair etc), on the grounds this would only encourage him. She refused to even investigate his severe pain, bladder problems, muscle weakness, twitching limbs, etc, saying he just needed a better attitude. She stonewalled us for so long by the time we got through to a specialist neurosurgeon, it was too late to do anything, the nerve damage was too extensive. The neurosurgeon showed us the hole in his spine and where the spinal cord sort of kinks over - it is clearly visible on an x-ray, but she'd refused to order one. Even now, DP still blames himself sometimes for not being able to "get over" his physical problems, this woman did such a blame n' shame number on him. I have great sympathy for "malingerers" because for many many years, we were malingerers, according to the state.

To give you an example I was working at HALF childcare cost if you counted my salary alone up to the point when ds2 was born. But it was worth it long term as now at least as a single woman again I have a job I can (probably) rely on for a decade or two, until higher education completely breaks down....

Acumens absolutely. Atos love the BPS model. It gives them an excuse to kick any old shirker out of their wheelchair and into a job (which is not available usually, but they don't let that stop them).

Yeah of course your DPs problems could be got over with the right attitude don't you know he could 'manifest' himself a new set of nerves out of the ether maybe.

The BPS model as currently used has a lot to do with very dodgy new age philosophy. Think of something good really hard and it will come to you! etc.

If wanna's DP is not in work then can't she work full time and he does the childcare?

I don't think the squeezed middle is spin. It's just bills bills bills. Why should people earning £10,000 a year pay tax when people on benefits are getting a lot more than that. I think the tax threshold should be raised.

Your employer doesn't pay you more when you have another child, true. But the state does by way of extra cb and ctc or is if they deem you need it. You don't get extra if you are higher earners because the state deems you not to need it.

Whether it's London or not, the squeezed middle on 42K maybe the wife works for 25K is a great income to me and I'm sure another mouth could be fed from it.

/me nods and agrees with Xenia

(I often agree with Xenia, at least partially, but then people shout at her and I get afraid!)

Everyone has bills that go up. The poor struggle more so when bills go up as they don't go up in proportion to your income, unfortunately.

I'd love it if they raised the tax threshold. I work full-time and struggle on less that national average wage. We are not all posting about our own circs though, are we?

If he couldnt get a job and I could then yes ofcourse we would do that.

But he is qualified where I am not, and his earning potential is double what mine is. So its preferable for him to work and me fit around him.

If he could get a job in his field I wouldnt actually have to work. It would be enough to support us all even without TCs. Which are being cut anyway.

I cant work now as I am pregnant.

Exactly what Xenia said at 17:25. We are not so much suffering a surfeit of scroungers, as a paucity of business. That is 100% down to governmental cock-ups - Brits are entrepreneurial to the core and it's barmy to stifle this as current policies do.

The key to this skewed perception of the problem, I think, is that it has arisen from colossally bad government decisions (both governments) and they're willing to demonise their own electorate in order to shift blame.

I'm also very angry about continued over-allegiance to corporate giants, who siphon huge amounts of public money out of the country. They're not relieving unemployment or stimulating any economies at all; the wealth merely circulates around the international community of billionaires. You probably wouldn't agree with me this far, Xenia, but I'd like our leaders to have the balls to tell 'em to fuck off! Pandering to the super-rich isn't doing the nation any good whatsoever. Unfortunately, I don't think our leaders give a shit about the nation.

Wonderful animated excerpt.

You're a nursery nurse? You don't pay enough in taxes to support the long term unemployed

I pay plenty of tax and so does my family. My vocation isn't my only income, but thanks for assuming you know everything about my life.

I worked until I went into labour. I don't accept people who are pregnant can't work but that's a side issue. I was even hired at 5 months pregnant. I suppose the key to a lot of this is encouraging our daughters into well paid careers so they are qualified at something and earn mroe than minimum wage jobs so they aren't in the position of people who cannot find work. (Huge relief my two are in jobs)

We seem to be agreeing around the back as it were for different reasons. We need to get the economy going and then there will be jobs for those who want them and we can kick into jobs those who don't want to work. I don't agree with most of the comments above about where we are and where we got there but there is a lot of inaccurate propaganda in the press at the moment about various whipping boys from benefits scroungers to bankers which takes people's minds off their troubles so probably psychologically works even if it is mostly inaccurate. We did the same 200 years ago in demonising Napoleon.

We have done hugely well in the UK by being a home for wealth and we are lucky to have it. It trickles down. When the rich leave adn those keen to work hard and build up businesses the poor are not left with anything. The idea that somehow God will sprinkle money on the poor once the last entrepreneur has left this last is laughable. One a few of us make the money that pays those on benefits so don't annoy us too much as we will simply leave and you can bet your bottom dollar we won't be the ones suffering. I can work anywhere with an internet connection. The UK has been a relatively low tax place at 40% although even that is higher than I think is reasonable 20% is better, but has got worse and worse recently.
It is also untrue to say the rich have had tax cuts any more than the poor. The rich 's tax rates haev gone right up - Labour put them up as its very last bit of spite when it was on the way out; they have seen massive incerases in stamp duty - paying 4bn now I think at 20% rates for some properties so high it is putting off people buying; meanwhile the single person allowance is increasingly much more than it ever did with the coalition wanting it to get to £`10,000. Thiat is a pattern of taking the poor out of tax and screwing the rich.

I enjoyed my maternity leave sitting eating m&s cream cakes, walking the dog, reading and watching films on dvd.

and xenia if you have a heavy physical job, like men do, then it's not usually advisable to carry on until you drop the baby on the factory floor. Lots do though mind, but usually very early

The top tax rate has come down by 5%. Putting personal allowances to £10,000 takes lower paid part time workers out of taxation, everyone working a reasonable amount of hours will still pay tax. Even the rich get this higher personal allowances though it's peanuts to them, but can help other workers to put a little more food on the table.

Stamp duty is a tax on buying property that even low cost housing attracts. I doubt it will put the super rich off if they have that sort of money.