'The purpose of Welfare is to help people into work

[AnnieMaybe]

This is what David Cameron just said at the end of the BBC benefit programme

Does he not know what welfare is? Has he forgotten the ethos of where it has evolved from

Not in poundland miss but the supermarkets are always looking for help rounding up the trolleys I think?

Perfect...

I'll let my Mum know

mada

many Mums/Dads stay at home because there is no decent childcare

They'd like to work.

happy I think UTC will be scrapped.

hhere you are ithaku www.telegraph.co.uk/property/propertynews/9624750/Number-of-working-families-on-housing-benefits-doubles-in-three-years.html

Happy, not everybody can earn as much as you and your DH even in full-time work with qualifications behind them.

A lot of people eligible for tax credits are in 'professional' jobs, but the salaries are relatively low.

DS2 will never work due to autism, I thought he was classed as a deserving recipient? I'm a carer, I hope to get back to work but can't promise, depends on his needs longer term. In real terms whichever happens, I will be caring, which is working in my book, well past any future retirement age.

I don;t think they'd want ds2 roudning up trolleys, not unless they like scratched cars and him lying on the road for a nap.

'Those on benefits believe they have the right to make choices they cant afford and that the state should pay for them' What, every one of them? you spoke to them all, did you? goodness.

Benefits ARE getting DH back to work, his business is growing and it's manageable around the children's needs (3 / c 4 autistic) so sustainable long term, he won't retire unless to ill to work or dead. Given we pump ever penny we can save into the company I suspect we survive on less that the majority of claimants and certainly do without- which is fine, when I walk in his workshop I see what we are building, something very real and sustainable. Something to be proud of and to change our future.

No, happy, you don't understand the statistics.

Misspixietrix that report says that more families are claiming housing benefit. It does not say the majority of families are claiming housing benefit, which is what I am questioning.

It says more working families in the title ithatku. I'm getting round to happy in a minute.

From the Guardian

20.3m families receive some kind of benefit =64% of all families of which 8.7m are pensioners. 4.3m families (excluding pensioners) receive more than half their income from benefits. Less than 1% of families have 2 generations that have never worked. 13% of the welfare bill goes on the unemployed. 5m people claim housing benefit, of which 58,000 receive more than the proposed cap of £26,000. In 1956 we spent 4.5% of our GDP on benefits, we now spend 13% of GDP on benefits, but most of that is on pensioners. In actual fact spending on out of work benefits has risen from 2% of GDP to 4.5%, within which spending on unemployment benefit has risen from only 1% to 1.5%, while spending on incapacity benefits has risen from 1% to 2.5%. In terms of bursting other myths, only 8% of benefit claimants have 3 or more children.

Also- those who do not claim themselves benefit.
My sister manages a nursery, the best most reliable staff are parents: but nursery worker wages are not enough to raise a family on, they claim tax credits. Working families often rely on these low paid workers to work themselves, or indeed other types- carers to look after Mum, a cleaner, TAs at school- whatever.

Very few people are completely individual units with no need for anything in terms of help, just becuase on person does not claim does not mean they do not rely on those who have to.

And yes, shove some SN childcare provision our way and I will work, there's an agency wanted to take me on in fact but couldn't stretch the hours (post grad level work too, looking into possibility of cover temp work with them). But SN childcare would cost more than I earned in most jobs (a friend who cares for 2 asd kids as a specialist nanny gets 30k PA in Wales), and state help to cover it would cost far more than my Carer's Allowance.

And as ds1 is violent I suspect no amount of subsidised childcare woul help, so people wishing for all benefits to be taken away would see me homeless I guess. Simply for the fact DH has a genetic fault we knew nothing about until years after outr family was complete, by which time we'd both lost our home and former careers. Cheers for that, yes. And I presume they'd see ds1 starve as a disabled person?

The Study sais that 10,000 working families now need housing benefit every month to help pay their rent,with 417,830 more workers claiming them over the last 3years

feminine - really? I have never found it hard to find decent childcare. I have been inundated with emails and offers from childminders to look after my children. I, however, choose to stay home because I can afford to. If I couldn't afford to or the alternative was to go on benefits I would work. I also wouldn't have more children than I could afford. Why should the childless and the prudent pay for me?

I would stick that under the majority. I have a very old PC that was given to me - having to wait an age for it to load! :)

No tax credits here, DH and I both work to provide for ourselves and any children we have or may choose to have. Quite a novel idea to many i know.

Just promise me one thing, HappyMummyOfOne. If you lose your income through accident or some change in the economy just promise me that you will sit in the gutter with your family and starve to death and not claim any of my tax money.

I just couldn't bear to pay for your kids to eat when you foolishly had them without considering the possibility that something drastic might happen to make you suddenly penniless.

'Personally DLA and state pensions or carers allowance need to be sepearted from the "benefit" umbrella. It should be classed as social support. There is no benefit to being disabled, caring for a disabled person or to being aged and vulnerable in today's society.

When people refer to benefits they are referring to JSA and such, and that by the nature of its name is to support people back into work'

It used to be like that for many, I think but it has moved away, I;ve been contacted by economic inactivity workers (WTF?), who specialise in unemployment. The new benefit Universal credit will inevitably lead to the majority of benefits being ranked as the same, whether for someone wo refused a job becuase it emant 2 buses or someone with terminal cancer geting ESA after 45 employed years.

More than 90%. Would you agree that is a Majority ithaku?www.insidehousing.co.uk/majority-of-new-housing-benefit-claimants-in-work/6521183.article

www.insidehousing.co.uk/majority-of-new-housing-benefit-claimants-in-work/6521183.article

I think it's interesting how few families we are actually talking about that actually fit the stereotype. 58,000 families above the cap, only 8% with families of more than 3 children. I don't think people should have a right to live in London if they can't afford to, but I don't think all people on benefits should be demonised, because it is perfectly clear from the stats that we are talking about a minority. If they have disabled children/partners and can't work we should provide for them. We should not, however, pay for people to be SAHPs out of choice or to fund lots of children or to fund volunteering.

Madasabox that varies hugely depending on where you live, it also assumes children are all easy to place and NT. Certainly moving from Somerset to where we are now we saw massive differences in childcare availability.

But also that assumes that life never brings any surprises. We both worked, had the kids and easily afforded them; they are not littlies borrn recently, youngest is six. However DH became ill for a while, then was made redundant; I had to become a Carer.... like I said before he's now retrained and slowly climibing back on our feet thanks be, but if it happened to us it can happen to people in the future and I want to see those helped as we were.

Lineruner, given you have no idea of what our income is or what we do for a living how do you know people cant earn it? Neither of us are higher tax payers so its very doable. The difference is we choose to live within our means rather than make choices that others have to pay for. A novel concept for many i know.

Oh and yes don't forget shift workers; if my parents became unable to help out both my sisters would lose their well qualified, long held jobs as both they and their DH's work shifts and I have yet to meet a childcarer willing to work shift work often on call.

(And now I must go tidy as my nephew is coming next week so my sister can work caring for other people's kids at holiday scheme. Which is fine, but is also contributing, even if invisibly).

Happy you are right. I am suprised that most people don't claim ctc. Just 1.9million then? (Table On Page 8) www.hmrc.gov.uk/statistics/prov-main-stats/cwtc-dec13.pdf . Sorry you were saying...

Whilst I don't think we should fund volunteering, equally they provide services that the state can't afford and that make a real difference so I actually think the people doing that deserve to becut some slack- they are of course also gaining skills. I'd like to see volunteering recognised in some way in the system, NOT as a reason for claiming benefits but some other way.

Without volunteers many services would collapse; the charity I was a manager for proved it saved Social Services vast amounts of cash by placing trained volunteers with families at an ealy stage in struggles. I don't know exactly how i'd do it, but I'd love to see the volunteers recognised somehow.