to think JSA is insultingly low amount

[brt100]

I mean 72 pounds a week is a joke, and you will loose 20% of that if you had an average paying job for half of the tax year.

Around here the daily rate wouldn't even cover the daily bus ticket to get to interviews.

richer people have had the opportunity to insure themselves against unemployment or illness and to build up savings

The problem is most people spend what they earn. If you have a wage above the national average you don't have oodles of money left over and most insurance policies are a con that they get out of paying up.

If you have a higher wage job it takes longer to get another job sometimes so even if you have 3 months in the bank it is very quickly used up.

Paying something based on contributions is what most country's with a good welfare state do. Here its all about demonising anyone and a race to the bottom.

brt100 I am trying to see your point of view here. I think I could only support unemployment benefit based on a proportion of previous income if there was much greater wage equality generally (is this the case for the countries you are thinking of?) Or if it was provided alongside a more generous means tested amount for those who have been low waged or have not had the opportunity to work.

Otherwise,it feels like your arguing for special treatment for the well off on the basis that, well they re used to having money and they like it. That's not good enough.

Yes, people have problems adjusting to life at benefits level if they have previously been well off. But they also have some advantages- for example their clothes and furniture may be better quality so they may have longer to go before they have to find the money to replace things. They have also had the opportunity to save, even if they have not done so. To concentrate on the problems of the genteel poor to the exclusion of everyone else seems short sighted and prejudiced.

I suspect other countries see it as an incentive for people to work if they can. You pay (more/some) in we will look after you if you lose your job.

'22Honey. Richer women limit the number of children they have to ensure they can afford them. There's no ethical quandary here.'

Whats that got to do with it? The question here is whether its ethical to enforce limits on the amount of children anyone can have.

A rich woman could have an accidental pregnancy aswell and infact I'm sure they do. Should they be forced to abort/give up their child or is it only poor women who have to do such a thing?

exactly dasho, complete and utter blind entitlement for better off people to expect benefits to be more for them if they lose their job. No argument for this whatsoever other than they can't possible lose the luxurious lifestyle they've become used to...I mean wtf how entitled can you get??

Its their fault if they didn't save anything and spent all their money living a luxury lifestyle, they are also more likely to have other sources of help with finance ie their families are more likely to be well off aswell.

'a large number of employers regard their employees as robots rather than humans. In anticipation of arguments low pay does not equal not working hard.'

Yes, another example of the middle class/better off in society exploiting those worse off and treating them like slave non humans.

I honestly can't stand people that say poor people shouldn't have children. The ignorance and lack of understanding is just astonishing.

I know a woman whose never worked who had 4 children. She didn't choose to have them, she had a very abusive husband who raped and beat her for 20 years. He was eventually jailed and made to keep away from her, this woman had no family whatsoever both parents dead when she was in her early teens. I hate people that sit back and judge as many would judge this woman not knowing her personal circumstances.

'but those that don't get five years and even then get switched to JSA so more benefits or they have another child to avoid it.'

How utterly judgemental and spiteful. Do you actually think people just have more children to avoid having to sign on? Given the huge emotional and physical impact it has on ones body (or does that only happen to better off women and poor women have some sort of superpower where pregnancy, birth and motherhood doesn't affect them at all?)

Women like you are utterly horrible.

'and am married to someone who earns too much for income based'

What are you complaining for then? The poster who only gets £75 gets that because they have no one else supporting their household. It totally goes over my head reading a post like yours when I get to the point where they mention having a husband with an adequate paying job. You don't have a clue.

HappyMummy why should IS be scrapped? It's not just parents who are on it, it's for anyone who cannot work for non-disability reasons or to top up low wages. I was on it when I was homeless but in full-time college doing A Levels. Should I have just starved?

'No its not its about wanting a real safety net. You can't expect everyone to live on the same amount. If someone looses their job they can't just upsticks and reduce all their fixed costs.'

Why can't you expect everyone to live on the same amount? Poor people on benefits are meant to. You mean a middle class couple just cannot be expected to live on the same money as a couple who are poorer? Do you understand how blindingly entitled and deluded that comes across?

Its also funny you should say that someone can't just upsticks and move when they lose their job, as that is constantly suggested for poorer people having a hard time of it. Or does someone's middle class status mean they are better thus shouldn't have to upsticks and move? Is the stability of the middle classes children more important than that of poor people's children?

We really are moving into a Dickensian state here.

You could also say if someone can now claim JSA at the same rate as their previous well paying job, what on earth is stopping them from becoming a 'benefit scrounger'who just sits on benefits because its better paid than any other job they could get?

Is it also beneath the middle classes to take up a job with worse pay than their previous one? If not why is that, because their lifestyle just cannot be impacted at all or all hell will break loose?

Is so*

IF* so I meant!

22honey, I really agree with you here (I am ex-DWP).

People used to come in amazed by the fact that JSA was the same for everyone. "But I used to be a manager!" "But I'm not some kind of scrounger, I worked for a living!" ...Yeah.

You don't get special bonus points for being middle class or having a house or having to pay for your kids' horse-riding lessons. If you are claiming , have savings under £16k (and that is a big if) and you are looking for a job, you get JSA. It doesn't matter if you used to have a team of 10 project managers, if you are claiming you are held to claimant standards and I would ask you to apply for the 9-5 shift in your local Tesco. We never had a special "middle class" button which we pressed on our computers and suddenly you were wafted away to a lovely room with champagne on tap, away from the dirty povvos.

It's a fairly horrible and depressing system, I agree (and JSA is and remains too low). But the amount of people who think their background entitles them to bypass it is spectacular. I had quite posh sounding people come in and ask for extra money to the tune of £1-3k and when told that's not how it works get very outraged and shout "But you'd give it to an asylum seeker!" Nope. No-one gets that. Doesn't roll that way.

It's not quite the same though. As stated if you get income based and have schhol age children you would get free school meals for example. You don't with contribution based. Ok the jsa figures are the same (which is right) but when it comes to it in that situation if you have worked you get less.

You're claiming contribution-based because you have enough savings to get you by and you need a top-up. Contribution based JSA is not means tested, so if you've paid your stamp it's doable for a few months (IIRC, 6). After that, if you have over 16k in savings, you have to rely on that.

I don't think if you have over 16K in savings so you are not reliant on JSA, you should get free school meals for your children. I'm an old Trot so not some kind of frothing right-wing nutter, but where would it stop then? If someone has 300K savings should their children get free school meals? £1m?

In my ideal world all children would have free school meals as a matter of course but this is not my ideal world. No-one's seriously ever going to say "Oh, you lost your £100k a year job! OMG! We'll pay for all your expenses, including free school meals, and never mind how much you have saved!"

Not everyone who is on contributions based was on 100k. They may have been on national average wage (or below) and have no savings.

Thewoman but that is a desperate issue that has nothing to do with the actual rate of JSA paid, that people were saying should be higher for those better off.

As it is I do think everyone should be entitled to the same thing, free school meals etc.

And shockingly thats a real eye opener to the extent of entitlement a lot of people who have never struggled financially in life have.

It really is telling as to the high level of self importance a lot of middle/upper class people apply to themselves.

seperate not desperate lol!

I didnt know that you couldn't get the meals and free prescriptions because the person has lots of savings. I also don't agree that anyone with £1000s needs free anything. I thought TheWoman meant that if someone worked before AT ALL they would get contribution based but no free prescriptions etc. If they had no spare money I would consider that unfair but not if they have £1000s in savings.

If a working person had no savings, are they entitled to the standard income based JSA instead of contribution based?

No. If you have no savings at all, you can swap seamlessly from contributions based to income based, as you have no savings which would prevent you from doing so. Then you get all the lovely freebies. Lol.

I'm a bit confused by the circs here. Somebody with no savings and no income would be income-based straight away. I wouldn't have put (granted it was pre-Coalition so I am ready to be corrected) ANY client onto contributions-based if they had zero savings. I got a handful who had no savings who wanted to be contributions based because it made them feel better - they thought their stamp was being paid back to them. I advised them against this.

What you earned beforehand makes no difference if you haven't saved any of it.

Yes you can be on a normal wage (national average for example) with no savings and you're still put on contributions based if you've been in work (I'm assuming full time). You have to be on it for a certain length of time (can't remember quite how long) before being switched across to income based. So no free school meal etc until the switch.

Shockingly- are you telling me the job centre told dh wrong several times even when he questioned it. (I'm sure I asked on here too)

22honey, yes they are. Income based does what it says on the tin. No income, no savings (or savings under 16k), actively looking for a job, you get JSA at the basic rate.

Loads of people I saw had worked previously, but hadn't managed to save anything. The vast majority of people weren't teens who had never worked, but the likes of a middle-aged man laid off from a factory job. Absolutely no savings, needed JSA (usually to prove a number of things), no income, so income-based.

If you have savings or for various other reasons you are better to go contribution-based, but if you really can't it has to be income-based. Very nasty form, cross-questioning, unpleasant business but once over with, you're better off.