Who really gets £500+ weekly state benefits?

[vivizone]

I find this shit so hard to believe. Reading the media, you would think this was a common figure on life on benefits.

Yesterday and today's Metro newspaper - people writing in saying they agree with the cap of £500 and why should people be sat on their arse and be rewarded by £500 per week. . Why should they earn £200 per week working and people are getting £500 a week doing nothing.

Seriously, who gets this £500 per week that is being peddled out of the media? I spent 7 months out of work after redundancy and I could not live on the pittance I received for me and my children. I do not know how people do it. I really don't. I had a decent redundancy package and that was the only way I could make it.

How many people do you know (forget the newspaper stories) that are RECEIVING £500 or more every week? I thought so.

How come if life is/was that cushy on benefits, not enough people are/were packing in their jobs to join a life of riley?

We have been had. Life on benefits is HARD and DEMORALISING. I have tried it and I can tell you you get PEANUTS.

The reason why stories run on people living in million dollar homes/getting thousands a week in benefits is because it is RARE. It is SO rare, that it gets reported on.

This is a great thread but where are you O.P?

Are you okay? :headtilt:

Thanks for that, Rhonda. I lost the will to live when I was trying to keep track of what happens with people who need a carer to sleep over, have children who can't share for health reasons and so forth - did you do studies on those, too?

I'll have to tell the council, Sock, as they've already sent a pre-advice! I hope you're right!

Mumstonic, I was going to find the docs for you but have got to go to bed this minute!

Here's a forum post from a man whose part-time employee keeps having to go to JobCentre-related activities.

Here's a page from The Void, who does do his homework, and another from him about the farcical online jobsearch.

Beat me to it, audrina, thank you :)

Hope this works.

www.cpag.org.uk/sites/default/files/CPAG_universalcredit_factsheet_July12.pdf

And you can be sanctioned if the job centre think you don't dress smartly

Garlic read this

www.dudley.gov.uk/advice-benefits/benefits/important-changes/#changes

Scroll down till you get to the bit headed bedroom tax it clearly states only social housing tenants will be deducted

www.dudley.gov.uk/advice-benefits/benefits/important-changes/#changes

My sister's long-term unemployed friends and boyfriends all seem to have a large number of facial piercings and offensive neck / hand tattoos. I've wondered if they were deliberately making themselves unemployable and then castigated myself for having right-wing thoughts.

Dressing smartly will be the least of it where I live if that's true.

'What worries me is that HB will go directly to the claimant and not the landlord...recipe for disaster? how many people will not pay their rent and lose their home?'

It already does if you are a private renter, although in some councils you can elect otherwise.

If you lose your home through deliberate non-payment of rent you are classed on non-intentionally homeless.

Expat I expect lots of people who get sanctioned for not dressing how the DWP want you to,or not taking a 1 hour job offer because it clashes with your other employment, or not going to a DWP meeting because your actually at work and don't want to be sacked, will blow there hb as that won't be sanctioned when your other money has been.

Audrina its true.

You can be sanctioned for not following the advice/ instructions given during a DWP meeting, these meetings partly focus on making you more employable and appearance is actually mentioned as one of the things to advise on.

When I needed HB I could opt for it to go directly to my landlord. Is this option not going to be available now?

I really worry about my sister. She has "good" weeks and "bad" weeks because tax credits / income support come in either weekly or fortnightly. I have tried and tried to explain that she still has the same amount coming in and there is no need to overspend one week and be in debt to everyone the next but she won't have it.

I've tried to get her to budget over a fortnight but no, if it's there it gets spent and fuck the next week because my pensioner Dad buys food and puts money on the meter. I shudder to think how it will be when the rent payments land in her account like a lottery win and food and fuel for the next three weeks will have to be paid for.

I can appreciate the rationale behind it - to encourage responsibility, but people are being set up to fail and as ever, the vulnerable, the children will be the ones who will suffer the most.

I completely expect it, Socking. I know people who've been sanctioned already. Still others, in full-time work, who are not earning enough, apparently.

They do seem to be bringing in U.C rules before the dubious legislation has even gone through. We know a newly self-employed person who is busting his guts to start up but because he isn't earning much in a fucking recession yet HMRC have decided he must be doing less than ten hours a week so have cancelled his WTC and reduced the DW's CTC to pay back the "overpayment"

Garlic we were told where a room is needed for an overnight caree it where one child has health needs that would disturb the sleep if another child then that could be allowed as a needed room. That was verbal though.

Sorry if there are typos, am on phone and rubbish at typing.

The reasons for potential sanctions are very vague. I'm working with some terrified people just now. There is very little work in the area.

Rhonda there was a high court case a few months ago disabled children needing there own room the la lost but have appealed .

It's compleatly discretionary and based on disturbance to the none disabled child, not risk not privacy nothing other than sleep disturbance.

And at least 4 ls's have sent out guidance letters that state disabled people with carers are also subject to the change.

From what I read, money can go directly to a landlord if the tenant is vulnerable in some way, so there will be some safeguards in place.

There shouldn't need to be safeguards against people just not paying what they owe though, individuals have to take responsibility for that themselves, and rightly so. There is nothing wrong with making people dress in a way that is going to increase their chances of employment. What's sad is that an unemployed person wouldn't do that anyway and needs to be told. It's just common sense.

Also, not all part time workers are going to be expected to attend interviews etc, only the ones that have to claim top up benefits. People who also have financial income or support from elsewhere, or who work enough part time jobs that they do not need to claim benefits, will be left alone. I don't think it's that unreasonable that if people are going to be given money that the agencies that facilitate the benefit money check up on people to make sure they really need it. If we are in a situation where people deliberately make themselves highly unemployable by having facial tattoos and piercings, then unfortunately these checks have to be made. That's not the fault of the government, it's the fault of people who cannot be trusted o take responsibility for themselves.

It's possible for HB to go directly to a landlord, but I think only in cases of vulnerability and/or arrears. Of course, part of the reason for this is tacit acknowledgement that lots of HB claimants are renting from private landlords whose insurance doesn't allow it.

I wonder if that has gone some way to address housing fraud? I once rented privately via a well-known agency and my landlady was claiming H.B for it and had gone to live with her boyfriend. I had no idea until two people from the council knocked on my door one day.

I suppose everything has its good and bad points.

It does worry me though. The people who have no idea how to earn a living, or even why they should will find a way to get the money they need and the vulnerable will sink.

They need to devise a way of working out who is genuinely vulnerable and who is just unwilling. There is a big difference, and we can't just class people as vulnerable and support them unconditionally if the only reason they are vulnerable is that they are unwilling to make enough effort to take responsibility for themselves.

It was pointed out to government when the bedroom 'tax' was dreamed up that it would stop foster carers taking in children - because they need a spare bedroom, foster children can't share. So if they are between foster children when it's assessed, they will be penalised. The Lords amended the legislation to prevent foster parents being hit, but the govt. reversed it. Yet another sign that they are acting out of spite against social tenants, not out of any real principle or reasonable policy.

It's unbelievably stupid, because there is already a massive shortage of foster carers and children's homes are far more expensive, even without looking at the suitability for children and risk of exploitation.

Edam foster carers will be hit even if they currently have foster children. Foster children are not classed as children by hb.

outraged you are just picking an extream it is entirely probable that you could get sanctioned because the job centre staff member does not approve of your shirt because its red.

Of course it's not all part time employees only the poor ones or the low paid. I know we often clash on threads like this but even you must be able to see one of the glaringly obvious problems that being

A nmw employee lets say she's worked for many years in a shop she works the same hours every week as her boss won't change her hours due to several other staff needing the hours they do. She gets told she has to attend a interview elsewhere but on a day she's ment to be working, if she refuses she gets her money stopped if it happens more than once she could be sanctioned for up to 3 years .or she goes and risks pissing her boss off he could sack her, she gets offered the job but its a 0 hour contract that obliges her to keep herself free just incase they need her does she quit her job that she knows gives her 16 hours for 0 hours?

Also why would anybody assume a part time employee would need lessons on how to be employable they are already employed so surely they already are employable.

We were told on Monday that local authorities have a discretionary fund. I forget the name. At present it's used for disabled adaptations but it could be used to top up hb where required. Every local authority in Scotland has said they will do this and foster caters are their top priority.

To put it into perspective, they named a few las where the total fund is 70-80k per year and the gap from the hb changes is 600k - 1 mill. But they have set foster caters as priority.

I'm not sure if England is the same.

I would like to add that the DWP is under no obligation to make meetings,groups or interviews on days when you don't work,

You can not get any assistance with childcare if you are not actually at work at the time if you do use childcare to attend an interview/ meeting and ask for it to be taken into account by hmrc or hb you are committing fraud.

"The Lords amended the legislation to prevent foster parents being hit, but the govt. reversed it."

This sort of thing shows it's not an oversight or unintentional. It's completely deliberate: failure by design.