To think pre-paid benefits cards are a stigmatizing, punitive scheme?

[ArsenicFaceCream]

Just announced at the Conservative Party conference.

They will initially be 'voluntary' for claimants with addiction issues, apparently.

But of course the intention is to roll it out.

Universal Credit is going national in February so this could get interesting, given that UC will be paid to working claimants as well as those not working.

LyingWitchInTheWardrobe

why should a pensioner live for 40yrs in a 3bed house,when a family could make good use of it rather than living in a b&b at a very very high rent paid by the state

the pensioner is not affected by the bedroom tax

yet the next door neighbour that has a disabled DC has to pay the tax

is that fare??

When they privatized the NHS, LeftRight, they did say it was to "create opportunities for private enterprise" to have public funds.

So I wouldn't expect this to be any different.

Well surely the benefit cap would be less than NMW.

So clearly less than £23k.

Or raise NMW as 1 person ought to be able to raise say 2 kids working 35hrs a week.

As a side note i pay £1 for tesco delivery midweek. Iceland is free delivery. So im surprised you can get a veg box for this. Ones local here are very expensive, though the plus is you wont have the choice of lots of junk food.

This policy wouldnt affect working people as much as their wages could be prioritised for kids shoes/clothes/ charity shopping.

Complaining about being treated like children... Well the uk does seem to be full of people making bad choices, food, alcohol, smoking, drugs (everyone not just benefit claimants) so the state is going to end up more and more involved sadly. Partly because if they dont then it will be the end of the nhs and pensions and benefits altogether. As how would it continue if noone bothers to work or we are all too fat (to work, live, care for kids).

Working people get tax credits, naty, and use them to buy clothes, shop, pay bills.

Most of those receiving benefits are in work.

People on NMW with dependents get tax credits, child benefit and housing benefit.

BTW, it's a bit off-topic, but have people understood what the Tory (and neocon) mantra of "Small Government" actually means?

It doesn't mean low taxes or little state intervention.

It just means that government subcontracts essential tasks (education, bin clearing, defence) to private companies instead of employing people directly.

This gives an opportunity for "private enterprise" to skim off profit as middlemen, with the added bonus that elected officials can wash their hands of dodgy practices carried out by the contractors.

In hospital cleaning, that just means zero hour NMW contracts and no pensions; in defence it means companies like Blackwater killing 17 people and no one being quite sure whose jurisdiction they're in.

This is what "Small Government" means: loss of accountability, and skimming of public money.

An older person who has lived for 40 years in a house would find it very difficult to adjust. A family already takes priority for housing. What about single people? Should they be somewhere on the league table of 'looked after' or left by the wayside? Protect all of the vulnerable - or none of them.

There are too many people who have their own eyes on their own prize and don't care a stuff what happens to anybody outside their own experience. That's why I hate these threads. Full of puffed-up, self-important, self-absorbed people who will do absolutely NOTHING but bleat on a chatboard.

Cost me £7 last time I had a supermarket delivery.

I don't do very many and my order is small, so I wasn't eligible for some of the cheaper rates they were offering.

i would rather see a family make good use of a house than one person living in it

i would rather where cuts and changes be made that there was a more level playing field

but then we wouldnt all be arguing with each other and scared what the future hold

divide and conquor

Their own prize being tax cuts for themselves, Lying?

Daughterdilemma, free transport from the hospital?? Very, very unlikely if the person is at all mobile, unless your hospital is very different from the ones round here?

What is sometimes possible is claiming back transport costs via the HC1 form. But you've got to have the cash to pay the costs in the first place, and it's not a simple straightforward form. Worth a go if you have the tenacity.

I worked in a benefit office in the 1970s. It was common to pay certain people in vouchers. Usually large problem families.
What happened was the vouchers were sold to unscrupulous dealers at less than face value so the children were even worse off than if the parents had been given cash.

This kind of sums up how it's likely to feel to be in receipt of a benefit card :

usa 2014

Like many of you do...

I drive an old car, I live in a little house, I have old furniture, and most of my repairs are DIY. But I'm sick and tired of everyone (family, neighbors, friends) thinking that I'm financially struggling. I am not poor. I spent most of my childhood being truly poor (well, American poor), and I was so excited to no longer be sneered at by everyone. Nope. No such luck.

I adopted a wonderful child through the state foster care system (most frugal way btw, cost about $500) which means in my state she has state insurance, subsidized daycare, WIC, and b/c she's handicapped there are automatic state disability payments (which happen to come on an EBT card just like welfare payments). So I look poor.

I know this is shallow, and it shouldn't actually matter. But I'm tired of grocery store cashiers being rude, people commenting on what I buy with my "welfare". I want to brand my networth into my forehead. Last year at her (wealthy) preschool I had to go through four "homevisits" simply because my earned income was so low.

How do you deal with the lack of social status that being Mustachian seems to bring with it? I'm not talking about people not inviting you to join their country club. But the discrimination that people who are poor deal with every day in this country.

The only supermarkets in the Town That Time Forgot are Aldi and a small Co-op. There's a couple of Spar type shops, several old-fashioned butchers and a greengrocer. It's an agricultural area - most people buy fresh produce at the weekly market. The nearest Tesco & Asda are ten miles away, and the bus 'service' is rural: if you even have a bus, they stop at 6pm. Many villages have no service and depend on cars.

Vouchers/cards that can only be used at Tesco or Asda for foods & fuels will be as useful as chocolate teapots. Also, where are you supposed to buy your clothes, shoes, pay for repairs or buy replacement appliances? Down at this end of the market, everything is bought second-hand. Repairs are done DIY or by a local handy person for cash. Charity shops will close down overnight! And what about Ebay? Are they going to be a 'provider', because a lot of us rely heavily on it for things we can't afford at retail?

Bloody ridiculous idea.

People also using the money to pay their bills, phone, debt management etc i don't think my phone provider will take stamps as payment...

I would look again at delivery costs evenings and mid week , its about 5-6 on the weekend.

I didnt exactly miss half the thread on how workers are also getting benefits. But the ones on £23k arent (i dont think).
I said raise the nmw to avoid needing these benefits. Whats the point of a wage if only the single people living at home can afford to live on it.
Or reduce tax for those working but not earning a lot.

I really don't see what the issue is. I use coupons and vouchers all the time at checkouts. For all hose who are saying it not the way to go - well what would you do with the irresponsible?

Naty. A delivery charge of £5 is one-sixth of my weekly housekeeping budget. If my lovely government insists that I shop at Tesco, it's simultaneously insisting that:
My budget reduces from £30 to £25 a week (including cleaning, toiletries, etc, etc.)
My food quality deteriorates by 45% (loss of Aldi & market produce)
Local businesses lose money
I lose daily interactions
Oh, and Tesco gets a load more money.

So whom does this benefit, apart from Tesco?

I am wondering if certain items should actually be brought and actually given to them. They clearly cannot be trusted or have the responsibility to buy It for themselves

I really don't see what the issue is. I use coupons and vouchers all the time

I really fucking despair! We're not talking about money-off vouchers, you numpty.

well what would you do with the irresponsible?

Sorry? Are you really saying I should give up my ability to choose where I shop because some addict somewhere doesn't feed their children a healthy diet?

I rather suspect that addict will sell her vouchers or the food she buys with them. So you're sacrificing MY quality of life for no good effect.

Tell you what. You stop being paid in money. Vouchers only, with strict rules about where can use them and what for. OK?

I was waiting for that, handcream! Top stuff, I paid highest-rate National INSURANCE for 25 years so I can get a sack of rice and a tub of oil a month to live on. Well, that was good value.

It's just another way of shaming the poor.

If you can't buy stuff from a charity shop, or load an oyster, or pay for any of the million small things that people don't want to accept a card for - in fact, if you can only enrich the tills of Tesco or Sainsbury or Asda - then they will make people's lives even more miserable and expensive.

Someone pointed out on twitter that a traditional way for women in abusive situations to accumulate enough money to get themselves out - 20p from the household expenses here and there, squirrelled away until they've enough for a train ticket, or whatever - will no longer be possible.

I didnt exactly miss half the thread on how workers are also getting benefits. But the ones on £23k arent (i dont think).

Oh yes they are. Sadly rents etc are so insane, it's necessary. Still I'm sure the landlords (the true beneficiaries of this madness) are grateful

I've just worked this out. If I can sell my vouchers for 65% of value, or buy stuff at Sainsbury's and sell it for 65%, I'll be just as badly off but with more choice on what I buy.

... now wondering if this is a sneaky way to keep the middle classes afloat? They get more for their brass, and I'm worse off either way.

I said raise the nmw to avoid needing these benefits. Whats the point of a wage if only the single people living at home can afford to live on it.

Yes, I agree. What was your suggestion? 1 person should be able to raise 2 children on a FT wage? Without top up?

To be quite honest in London and the SE, £23k won't always be enough. If you are lucky enough to have same gender children who can share a room and to have secured social housing (like hens teeth) or have somehow climbed onto the property ladder (increasingly rare in those of childbearing age) you could probably manage on that, though.

So it would need roughly doubling.

And even then, as I say, single income households who rent privately in more expensive regions couldn't afford to live.

Maybe all lone parents could be sent to the North East?

Fair enough LyingWitch, I accept that's often going to happen, but i've been shamed by your post into actually doing something! God knows if it will help. I've read the Red Cross report on the section 4 Azure card which was a Labour initiative ensuring that people who have been refused asylum but can't leave the country only get money on a card. I've written to my MP who is a Tory about it and asking her to work on getting some serious Parliamentary scrutiny for these 'tests' considering that I haven't heard about any Parliamentary announcement of this stuff.