not lack of jobs - lack of ambition!

[eggs11]

I know very, very little about politics, and if you can help me see this from a different perspective, please do!

A friend is a labour party member, and we recently had a row.I have a good friend (I like her for her personality, not for her life choices) who had a baby at 16 and is on benefits. She has a now 4 year old, starting school in September. She has a huge two bed flat in london (we would love to live where she does! but couldn't afford it), sky tv, the child has a nintendo ds, new clothes all the time, constant days out. I said it makes me angry that me and DP work (we also had a baby young) really really hard. Firstly, I had to go back after 9months, while she gets to sit on her bum until her kid is 5. Secondly, she gets free childcare! She had 2year old funding and 3 year old funding, while the £50 a day to put my 1year old in nursery makes it barely worth me working.

This is the point where we had a row. My labour friend said that it's not her fault that she's on benefits, there's no jobs to make it worth her working. However, if you spoke to my other friend, she has never even considered working. She said to me last week, when her daughter goes to full time school in sept, she has two options: 1) have another baby and get another 5years 6months, which she's planning on doing. 2)Wait until sept, then she has another 6months on job seekers to get pregnant. HOW IS THAT FAIR????? she isn't even looking after her daughter for the past two years, because she's in nursery. Why does this woman get to sit on her bum with free childcare? Why isn't she made to do voluntary work as a fully abled 22 year old with 10 gcse's, or at least made to go with her daughter to nursery and learn parenting skills, which is what I assume they think she lacks if her daughter gets so much funding!

I'm not saying that everyone on benefits/job seekers allowance isn't looking for work. I know how hard it was for DP to find work, it took months of hundreds of applications. I'm saying that while a life on benefits is so cushty and just relies on a baby every five years, no one has the incentive to work! labours answer was increase the working wage. I disagree, she's comfortable, why would she go out to work just for a few extra quid a week?

No, Sara I don't think I am.
Aside from the tube costs, which I dont think can be offset, if, after paying rent and childcare costs you can't afford to live, then yes, you would be entitled to some HB/tax credits.
And I agree with sock-the things that you might consider essential may be things someone couldn't even consider on jobseekers or on a lower wage.
Like home insurance or life insurance for example.

I know a lot of people in exactly that position btw, living in London, working in the public sector for around the national average wage, paying a mortgage or rent, 2 kids etc. They manage. And they do better than me because there are two of them to split the gas bill and the council tax, and the rent.
They are simply not as poor as someone in the same position who is unemployed, which is the question raised in this thread in the first place.

You are resolutely burying your head in the sand here and refusing to see the issue being discussed. No, you are not given benefits on the basis of saying 'oh dear we're both earning and we can't afford to pay all our rent, bill and other essentials like dentist bill. If you are considered over the threshold you get nothing- regardless of whether you can afford the above. Sara has given a clear example, not in any way unusual, of a family who would not qualify for any top ups. Your response is that they are mismanaging their money of they can't afford holidays and nights out. That's either plain ignorance or a deliberate insult. Yes, they will have more actual money coming in than someone unemployed. It doesn't necessarily leave them with any more disposable income.

Exactly what IfNot says, it's not comparable.
Being unemployed or mw is not comparable to being on or over 50k!
Even with the benefits included, you are still way better of earning that kind of money than ever being on benefits.

if they can't afford afford holidays

How are you better off pumpkin , if your essential outgoings (by which I mean rent, council tax, childcare and commuting costs for work, and basic food and clothing, leave you with no more disposable income than if you weren't working?

I cannot fathom how that is even possible though op?
Do explain how because even with those outgoings you are still better off.

ifnot your statement "if after paying rent and childcare costs you cannot afford to live then you would be entitled to TC/HB is simply untrue.

A couple earning 30k each would take home 3,800 PCM. Based on the position 10 years ago an unglamourous flat in a rough round the edges area would be 1,400; council tax 200, childcare, 1,200. Allowing for one person to use public transport @ 300 and 350 (80pw )food bill I am working out that they have a grand total of 350 PCM between 2 for their utilities, clothing and everything else.

Ain't getting many meals out and holidays on that

And of course that is with one DC - heaven forbid you might want more....

I'm not the op, so I'm not sure whether that last question was to me pumpkin!
But a good example of how is Saras example above, though if you were talking about two children in full time childcare in the south east then you'd be talking nearer £2000 per month rather than the £1400 she quotes. Then around £1400 rent , £200 council tax, plus commute, other bills, then things like dentist fees, prescriptions.. It's really not hard to see how a family with mum and dad on £25 each would struggle to pay the essentials and would have no more actual disposable income than someone not working. As for suggesting that if that family can't afford holidays then they must be rubbish with money... Well, unbelievable!

£25k each

Like most people holidays and trips are normally saved for by going short most of the year.

I could see where you are coming from if you were talking of mw vs jsa, as me & my dh are on near enough the same off as we were on mw, even with top ups included.
But i can tell you, that we have only ever had one holiday in 8 years and my large tv was a swap with my mothers smaller tv and our sky tv is on the lowest possible payment.

My dh was made redudant, and if it wasn't for benefits etc my children would starve & we would be homeless, its as simple as that.

We are on jsa, any luxuries are funded by saving and this years xmas gifts were bought in advance on a weekly basis. We eat cheap food so that the kids can have nice things and we have tabs etc, which were all paid for in installments from littlewoods. Trips to cinema or zoo etc are a rare yearly occurance as we cannot afford them.
We were in 5k of debt until the redundancy money came through, there is none left now.

My dh & i have been looking for work for 4 months solid yet all he could obtain was a one off holiday job, we WANT to work but cannot get anything, its depressing

So when you see your friend with all this stuff and think her life is all fluffy marshmellow like. It isn't, just because you see what you think is a good thing, it doesn't mean it is.

I was shocked at how little jsa is when we first applied for it 4 months ago, its shite basically.

A couple get £111 a week before any bills that are not rent/ct

If they private rent they probably won't get all rent covered due to LHA they obviously have to travel to DWP meetings and sign on,

Pumpkin- it must be truly depressing to be in your position, and hats off to you to both keep plugging away trying hard to get jobs

But you have identified yourself what many of us are saying. When you and your dh were on NMW jobs, with the top ups that go with it, you werent, in real terms, any better off than now. You were struggling to get by, eating cheaply, forgoing treats.

It shouldn't take a huge leap of imagination to see that likewise, a family on very ordinary incomes, both working and not qualifying for top ups, can often in reality be in the same position. Yes, they have more money coming in, but it's cancelled out by them having to pay all their own bills including childcare which is an essential cost for two working parents.

So- in a nutshell, govt policy over a period of years has created a situation where a family can both work full time, or someone can work part time, or there could be no employed adult in the family , and in REAL terms, ie the money left in their purse at the end of each week is hardly any different.

How does that work? Where is the incentive?

But pumpkin what do you go short on in my example?

Rent, council tax, public transport and childcare are non negotiable. An £80 a week food/nappy/toiletry bill is hardly extravagant.

Conservatively water@15; gas@25, electric@25, some sort of tv/Internet package @ 15 clothes for a growing baby @10 say one each of them has either contacts or a mobile phone@ 15 each you suddenly have another £120 out of their 350 gone = £230

This imaginary couple have no car, only one child, assume one has no travel to work costs, they have no weekend travel costs, no house insurance, life insurance, clothes, shoes or make up trips to the dentist, haircuts or activity costs. No birthday presents or savings for Christmas, nevermind savings generally. All that has to come out of the £26 a week each they have.

They may well be better off in terms of prospects and finances than many others but I am struggling to see how it is poor money management that is keeping my fictitious couple from living it up on hols and nights out

Jsa is used entirely for our bills and even then it doesn't cover them.
My gas and elec bill is more than £200 a month, water £50, tv lisc £11, sky £20, phonebills £75 (couldn't cancel 24m contracts after redundancy) extra rent £100=£486
We get £440 in jsa a month.
My foodbill is covered by tax credits as is the the extra £46 needed for bills. All we have left really is childbenefit which i use to save for holidays/presents or to buy clothes.
My eldest gets maintence from her father but its very rarely paid & even when it is, its paultry

Someone on Jsa does not have the option of considering a £80 pw bill for food nappies cleaning stuff as not extravagant its more than there whole Jsa/ is pays each week

"Yes, they will have more actual money coming in than someone unemployed. It doesn't necessarily leave them with any more disposable income."
No, honestly, it does.
And yes, if you pay your rent and then are left with less than the law says you need to live on, you get HB, based on the local housing allowance in your area.
Like I said, most people I know are in exactly the position you describe Sara, or earning less than that, and paying large rents/mortgages in London and the South East.
And yes, they have significantly more disposable income than if they wernt working.
I am working, and get tax credits (so, as such, am on benefits) and, after bills and rent have around £80 for me and one child, to cover food, clothing and commuting costs.
I don't have:
Home insurance
Life insurance
A car
Savings
Because I can't afford those things. I am still better off than I was on IS.

But even if we're quibbling over whether there is £80 or £60 for the weekly family food shop, and debating whether sky or internet are essentials or not.. the point which has been clearly exemplified from many posters (who are coming at this thread from different stances) is that you can have several families all in quite different situations - ie working full time, part time or not at all, and in real terms, ie what money they have in their pocket, the difference can be virtually negligible

To someone who is unemployed, the thought of being in a NMW job with top ups is probably a dream come true. As pumpkin said, in reality, it wasn't a great deal better than being on JSA, because in their NMW jobs they still scrimped and had to eat cheap food etc. Someone on NMW no doubt looks at a couple earning enough to not get top ups and thinks it would be a dream come true... as has been exemplified it may mean in reality their standard of living is no better.

That's the real issue at stake here. Not about making people on benefits starve or anything ridiculous like that, because clearly benefits should cover the essentials. But the economy needs to function on the basis that work pays. And by that it doesnt mean a family bringing in more but having it taken away because they have to pay more of their essentials. People need to see that they are tangibly better off the more they work.

And the incentives of working full time are many, once you get into the earning bracket that you are talking about. If they werent, you wouldn't get so many thread on here about the "mummy track" of women who have gone part time and now can't get promoted etc.
Yeah, childcare costs are high, but only when kids are really small and at nursery, then then go down, so it does take the pressure off.

I agree that it can be a struggle for ft workers, but again, who do these "hardworking families" and the media choose to blame for that?
The lack of rent control?
The low minimum wage?
Overpriced childcare?
Nope. The people who are a couple of rungs below them.
It's so predictable and depressing.

FWIW I wasn't arguing that you are better/worse off in any situation. I simply do not know.

My argument was that it is ludicrous to suggest that if you cannot afford to live after childcare/rent you will automatically get TC/HB. It's simply not true.

Also to be clear I'm certainly not advocating a lowering of benefits, certainly not in respect of those who are unemployed. I appreciate this may sound patronising and that is not my intention but I honestly don't know how people manage. It must be soul destroying at times.

That being said as a society we have to give people the incentive to work. It makes no logical sense not to and it must be equally soul destroying to know that if you are employed and working 40 hours a week in a NMW job with no prospects and barely see your DC that sonare in real terms no better off than if you stayed at home.

Ifnotnow - you are choosing not to accept what people are saying, because you have already decided in your head that everyone is blaming those a couple of rungs below them.

I blame the lack of rent control, inflated housing prices and the pathetically low NMW. Childcare costs, less so, because actually compared to many things I don't think they are particularly high, and most people prioritise quality childcare above other things. I do however think all childcare which is directly needed to enable a parent to work should be tax deductible. It's ludicrous that if you have a nanny, a butler or a gardener they are tax deductible, but a nursery isn't.

.... anyway, I think once again the nail has been unwittingly hit on the head. There is as much evidence of people blaming those a couple of rungs above them as below them. There seems to be a lot of resentment towards couples living on a joint income of £50k and paying all bills themselves, and even the absurd suggestion that if they can't afford a night out or a holiday they must be crap with money.

I am not remotely interested in benefit bashing. I think it must be soul destroying to rely heavily on benefits. But as sara rightly points out, it is at least equally soul destroying to be working a full week, with all the pressure that entails (including time away from home and children) and see no tangible financial advantage than if you worked less.

I do kind of know what you mean op but then anyone who gets pregnant for an 'easy life' is quite frankly barking mad! Being a single (working) mum is the hardest job I have ever had so I am stopping at one until I meet a supportive dp.

Despite the flaming op is getting, I see what she is saying. There is a lady on my street who did some cleaning for me. When I asked if she was paying her own tax/NI etc or did she want me to sort it she told me neither. She said that it made no financial sense for her to be in paid employment as that amount would be deducted from her tax credits, essentially meaning she is working for free. Her husband dropped his hours to part time when they discovered tax credits would make up the shortfall. She fully admits there is no incentive for them to work hard.
She lives in the same house as me. Is there for all her dcs needs, drop offs, pick ups, school plays etc. Gets free school dinners, free school trips.
My dh and I both work full time. We have less disposable income each month than her family (and I know this because she told me).
The benefits system in this country really does not give people incentive to work.

You were quite happy to pay her cash in hand though?

No, I asked her during her first session. It was a trial and did not employ her and told her exactly why.
You can relax those judgey pants now.