to think that 20 grand on benefits a year is loads

[MrsBucketxx]

considering they dont pay any income tax.

just watching we pay your benefits program and worked out that this is over 30 grand if it was a normal tax paying salary.

why was this not mentioned.

40K in a rural area could go a fair way. £40k in London wont.

It would be interesting to see what an individual pays in tax. I dont use the education system, and very rarely the NHS. I was educated in the state system and it was rubbish for me. Both my parents worked which was fairly unusual back in the 60's as did my DH's parents.

I think the uni issue has backfired. When I went to school 5% went to uni. Now its 50%. If we ALL have degrees they become worthless. Everyone has them, what is the difference between this candicate and that one. Nothing. Why dont we give out the same salary to everyone, the same grades when you sit a exam. There will be no running races at school. Everyone comes first.

I would say the average salary is about 19k here so anyone on 40k is more than well off.

petey - you lose entitlement to free prescriptions/dentistry/eye care etc at a surprisingly low amount. Despite earning way less than national average earnings for example, the only time I ever qualified for help was as a student and then when in possession of a maternity certificate. The threshold varies because it takes into account housing costs, but it's about £16,000 I think.

Niether me nor my dh went to Uni.

If we were well off my dh wouldn't be working minimum of 60 hours per week of doing physical hard graft with me working on top of those hours as well.

By the way what is "household income"?

I dont get free prescriptions, help with rent etc. You hqve to have a very high wage to not be entitled to childcare. Dh and I are pretty well off in comparison to most of my peers and we get 30k and still get lots of help.

Then if you added what that 19K could get on top of that in tax credits or the like and extra help with different costs then take into account someone on 40K won't be getting anything on top of that and they will be taxed an awful lot more. It would probably average out with not much difference between them.

Why do people forget that income is taxed, over a certain amount (30K?) it goes up to 40% tax. No one takes home 40K if that is their annual income (not mine btw)

We are on 30k as I said but get lots more than our friends on 19k.

The issues surrounding women who have multiple children without ever having worked is a complex one. It's not as simple as 'scrounging'.

Although while we're at it, I'll point out that only 2% of single mothers are teens. Most are mid-30s and divorced/separated from a relationship with their children's father that was long term. - you did ask...

1 in 4 women experience abuse and 1 in 9 have been raped. Anyone working with young people now will tell you about the prevalence of STDs because certain groups of young men refuse to wear condoms and certain groups of young women lack the emotional resources to insist on it. That's a social problem. These people may be irresponsible on the face of it but they are just as much victims - sabotaged by their own family upbringing and a society that judges more than it cares. Education and greater intervention in families at a much earlier stage is the only solution to this, not a curb on benefits or housing, which simply hurts the children most and condemns them to repeat the cycle of deprivation.

Even for those who have actively made a choice to 'churn out another baby' - tell me, would you be happy if that was your own 16-year-old's daughter sole ambition in life? Do you not feel that it is a crying shame if a young woman seriously believes that a life of sleepless nights, crying babies, screaming toddlers, homework, domestic chores and no money is her best option for the next 20 years while she keeps having babies to keep herself out of the workplace?

Get lots more as in top ups etc?

I work 48 hours a week, and dh works 40. We get about 60% off our child care costs paid for us. Then we use our child benefit and wage to make up the rest and we take home about 1800 to spend so thats a much better income than most of our friends.

Sorry and an extra 2k a year on top of that bonus

I am not sure where you are going with this Petey - of course you will be better off if you get 30K and your friends get 19K?

You said it wont make much difference when you take in account top ups but of course it does.

Education and greater intervention in families. Agree. We have a free education system in this country. You dont need to have paid in at all, yet its not working. We have the Human Rights Act that is not fit for purpose. People are using it to claim all sorts of things. There is little disipline in some schools. The kid know their 'rights'. And you are also correct. The women choosing to have a child at 16 HAS been sabotaged by their own family and their way of living.

So, if you offered 2 bed council houses as a maximum, and hostels for young teenage girls with an opportunity to learn a trade or skill. Why is that so wrong. The benefits cap has proved extremely popular, the economy is on the up, mortgage rates have never been lower. I am feeling optimistic about the future.

Is your take home 30K or is that pre-tax? If it was pre-tax then when you take off tax and NI etc it would be less than 30K. Someone on 19K would still be taxed but only on about 8K of that plus they would be entitled to alot more in top ups and benefits etc then someone on 30K if they took their full entitlement. So there wouldn't be much in it in comparison.

You can't really compare anywhere because alot depends on where you live and what your outgoings are.

Dh earns 18k I earn 6.75 an hour in one job, and 6.19 in the other. I live in mortgaged property in south, but I feel very well off. I was much poorer a few years ago, but now I am better off than most.

I see a trend where regardles of your decisions you will be excused.

Poor upbringing, mother who had children very young, no one in house working, strong peer pressure from gangs in certain parts of London, men who dont want to wear a condom, girls who dont ask them to, so if we dont allow people to make their OWN decisions and learn from them then the cycle will just continue and continue with no self responsibility.

When all the CB hooha kicked off someone did a comparison on an income of 44K and and income of 25K (or therabouts). Once you took into account the 44K tax, NI and the fact they do not get anything in benefit (they weren't suggesting they should either) then took into account the 25K payed alot less tax and were entitled to benefits/top ups etc - it was said they both averaged out the same because one had alot taken away from it's salary in tax & NI etc and one had less tax taken away but it got replaced with benefits and top ups. The 44K went down and the 25K went down but then went right back up and beyond again.

It was interesting. I don't think it would be the same now with the changes etc.

Remember I am still paying 40% of my childcare costs and both children are in full time. I am entitled to childcare partial help but no other top ups. I still feel very well off.

handcream - the trouble is the collateral damage. Children. If we were only making adults reap the consequences of their own bad decisions that would be one thing. But you cannot do that without hurting their children. Hurt children beget more damaged members of society. The problem actually becomes self-perpetuating.

Before the advent of the workhouse we didn't have a situation where everyone behaved wonderfully because there was no safety net. We just had dreadfully prevalent death, sickness, malnutrition and deprivation.

Petey - people on your hourly rate should be getting the help you need. It's people on much higher hourly rates in good jobs but choosing to work 2 days per week and getting there annual salary topped up who need to be tackled. The system is there to help the ones like you in low paid jobs doing all those hours not so part time sally can choose do 2 days a week in her good, high (hourly rate) job.

Dh and i are on a higher hourly rate than you which is why doing the hours we do pays more at the end of it. It would be taking the piss if we decided to go very part time (still on the same hourly rate) thus gaining a lower annual income so we can get help with everything.

If we were well off we could go part time and still not need any help from the state - that is the difference.

PeanutButterMum - it's the same at a lower level as well. I know when mine were very young that by the time you added up my salary, CB and childcare element, and then deducted my overall childcare costs and bills (all of which were bare minimum), I was worse off than my single parent friend on benefits despite the fact I worked full time.

The difference was, of course, that I had the opportunity to lift myself out of poverty if i continued working. A hopeful future. My friend, who had no qualifications to speak of, had none, save a future of life on NMW once her child started school.

Despite being poorer than her in those days, I know which position I'd rather be in. And, of course, these days my life is enormously improved, so my gamble paid off.

handcream - I don't think we should excuse people's bad behaviour either, but if you really want to change things (as opposed to appeal to the mass's sense of justice), you have to offer people the means to change their lives before you penalise them for not doing so. This at a time when resources for education (in real terms, not this ring-fenced rubbish), children's services, sure start, refuges, community outreach projects, CSA, etc are all being cut.

There is a middle ground I am sure between the workhouse and where we are today surely. You can throw money at households but will it be spent on the children?

Someone on 10K would say someone on 20K was well off. Someone on 20K would say someone on 30K was well off. It's a vicious circle. Everyones circumstances are different and everyone has different outgoings in rent/morgage/children/childcare etc.

To me people who are well of work part time and still aren't entitled to any top ups and benefits, they are people who have holidays abroad, send their kids to private schools etc. Everyone has their own idea of who is well off and who isn't. So unless you know the circumstances of someone i guess it's easy to look in and say "they must be well off."

Darkest - no I didn't go to uni. I would have liked to, but we couldn't afford it and grants were not available where we lived.

As for the thing about the NHS, it was only a semi-daft suggestion. Could we not change that Contracts Act?