to think its an awful thing that 80% of working age benefits go to people in work

[medona]

Constantly people, like O'Brien on LBC, tot this out as if its a good thing.

In what world is it ever good that workers are not paid enough to live on so tax payers have to top up their income?

I'd vote for you TreadSoftly - Very well said.

In a civilised society, people who work hard should be able to earn enough to keep a roof over their heads, feed their family and build a future for themselves. It's a scandal that this doesn't happen (I see it in the course of my job all the time - it's more common than you might think).
Whoever said that paying people a living wage would cripple business isn't seeing both sides of the coin - if people have more money in their pockets they will spend it, thus increasing profits of the businesses where they spend it. It's movement of money that makes an economy strong, not the existence of money in the first place.

Cheers Oodles I'll let you know if I ever win the lottery and run.

Last manifesto item. Childcare should be tax deductible provided the carer is registered for tax.

Not sure how to go about paying for it as yet other than trying to net it out [eg if you pay 10% tax then you get a 10% deduction on your costs, or 40% [possibly up to a cap] if you are higher rate tax payer. The cost is the cost though and 10% wouldn't stretch far] . I wonder how many more people would be employed in the childcare market if it was paid out of pre-tax income though. Fundamentally, if you get paid £10 an hour, get taxed on that and then have to pay a night nanny £8 a hour, it probably costs you money.

Nothing against nurseries personally but they are not flexible enough to meet the needs of the labour market and the needs of a child. The two things are mostly mutually exclusive [ie no-one will put a child into an overnight nursery to do a night shift even if one existed]. People need to be able to make their own flexible arrangements if required and the simple reality is that for many people the cost/inflexibility of childcare is a barrier to work. The current subsidy model [free hours etc] is too biased towards nursery care [yes I know its EYFS etc but many people are using it to work.

Wish I had the ability to figure out the numbers - we need a Mumsnet Math Team to put together a fully costed childcare proposal for the new govt.

I definitely think the first tax bracket should be at least £12,000. I don't think it's a lot to ask, that people should be able to earn £1000 a month without paying tax. That would seem fairer.

the elephant in the room is housing. Fix that. that will help enormously.

Treadsoftly childcare is tax deductible. However the current government have changed the scheme meaning that most will be worse off.

Previously people could do a tax and national insurance free salary sacrifice in exchange for childcare vouchers.

Its called capitalism and has ever been thus.Employers will always earn more than workers as they are accountable and liable.

I think, when Gordon Brown introduced these tax credits, we all thought that they would improve the standard of living of working people where they have just allowed employers to pay less and maximise their profits. It is a shocking statistic though

They did improve standards of living massively for many people though.

Can people not remember what it was like before tax credits? It was even worse.

Tories capping them won't improve standards of living either. Minimum wage would need to go up massively to make a difference.

A higher tax allowance and scrapping tax credits would be far better.

Out of the 80% it would be interesting to know the % where all the adults in the household work full time. Many want a living wage but that means different things to different people, for some it would be enough to cover themselves in a flat but for others it could be an expensive rental with two adults and children.

I'd be interested to know how many of those adults are receiving disability benefits (DLA or PIP). I know lots of people who are enabled to work by some benefits.

I am a Teacher, am also a single parent, I receive tax credits, you would be amazed who is a 'low earner'.

Little monsters I earn above the living wage. I'm not on bad money and my housing costs are 'affordable', however due to having been a single parent I have relied heavily on tax credits most of which went on childcare.

People just don't get it.

I actually know lawyers and teachers who are on tax credits! They have kids, obv - they wouldn't qualify for them if their salary only had to stretch to support them alone. But it really is not the case that good education = not needing benefits. Especially with the way things are with housing.

We simply cannot compete globally, in a global market, if we keep increasing nmw

And yet Australia, where the nmw is way way higher, seems to be doing ok.

If the tax free allowance was raised to £15k for example, how many people would cease to pay tax, and not receive any form of tax credit thus reducing the burden of administration.

Tax credits don't have anything to do with tax though. It's just a new name for the old Family Income Supplement. Millions of people on tax credits get far more (and need far more) back from the state than they pay in tax.

If NMW rose to £15/hour then the cost of all the stuff we buy would just go up, right? And the buying power of the £15/hr employee would be no better than today?

How could that be avoided in a free market economy? Alternative is price fixing or govt. Subsidies for all the staples, like flour, petrol & housing? So one way or the other, tax money will be redistributed back to the low wage earners after all. At least benefits to individuals get targeted at precisely the low earners who need them.

I had zero hours contracts when I was younger, they suited me well and I'd have been well narked if someone meddled.

Pyjama is right It WAS even worse prior to tax credits I remember jobs being advertised in the JC for 50p an hour and £50 a week.

Lots of the benefits are paid to part time workers though.

Given the choice I was grateful to work 3 part time jobs around my son rather than a full time job, pay for childcare and not see him all day.

If your full time job doesn't enable you to get off benefits that's one thing but working less than 40 hours a week isn't going to pay the bills on an entry level job.

In work benefits were a way for Blair and Brown to buy votes.

Even worse, tax credits for those so did not pay tax.

Revealall a full time job at nmw wouldn't be enough to live on for anyone with a child.

A full time job at above nmw wouldn't be enough for a single parent to live on when factoring in childcare costs.

Nondom that may be partly the case, but at the time they also reduced unemployment and lifted children out of poverty.

As a pp has said tax credits have nothing to do with paying tax. They are credits, top ups benefits, redistribution of wealth. The name is misleading.

Every government manipulates the statistics.

Thatcher introduced disability living allowance after closing all of the mines etc to try to hide the unemployment.

The problem is child tax credits which allow people to have more children than they can afford and enable people to work part time without being any worse off than they would be in full time work.

The minimum wage is fine as it is, it's a minimum, and people who want more than a minimal standard of living need to aspire to earn more than the minimum wage.

The other problem is housing benefit, but at least the government have gone some way to addressing that by stopping giving people money for spare bedrooms that they don't need and can't afford by themselves. Obviously it would be better if they did something to slow down the rate at which house prices are going up.