To think that a 23k benefits cap will drive some families in the SE

[Minifingers9]

... Into destitution?

I live in a pretty unappealing and comparatively cheap part of greater London but you can't get a 3 bedroom rental for under £1400 a month.
If we lost our jobs we wouldn't be able to live on 23k a year as a family of 5. Not when 15k of it was going on rent.
Why don't they have regional benefit caps?

If you are on HB, you have much less choice than if you work. You are limited to the landlords who will take you. And they could charge what they could get away with.

I bet their shitty properties aren't taken by anyone who has a choice.

But the market can't support these rents. That is why so many private landlords are raking in HB. The benefit cap will only work properly if the government tackles rents and landlords. We can't have a situation where families are unable to feed themselves because they've hit the benefits cal whilst their private landlord takes over £1000 a month in HB.

*cap

Some families just can't have both parents working full time because of child care, illness or perhaps caring for elderley relatives.

I don't see what is wrong with part time work? I dropped to part time work after my DD was born because quite frankly childcare is ridiculous & honestly I'm not ready to be away from her for such a massive chunk in the day. I'm waiting til she goes to school for that.

Sodium not a great analogy but I'll work with it. Let's say there was a benefit in place that you found yourself having to use that meant the state ensured you ate. Say that benefit was in the form of a card you could use to buy 3 pints of milk, one loaf of bread and a tin of beans a week. That's all you could buy, it was relevant to what you buy and not how much those items costs. Here's the sticking point. You can only use it in Waitrose.

Those items should only cost a few pound but because waitrose know the cost is covered by the state they push the prices up and up and up. Doesn't affect the money in your pocket, the state's obliged to give you these things, waitrose are tasked with providing them. All they have to do is not be greedy, to keep their prices the same. But, they are a business. If they can make £8 profit why would they not? And then it becomes the norm to pay a tenner for 3 pints of milk, a loaf of bread and a tin of beans so the other shops follow suit, after all the subsidised and fuelled by greed market dictates it.

Get it now?

Hello I am writing this on behalf of my mum,candles as people don't seem to believe how badly paid she is.as one poster said, it's a shit wage.
I think my mum is on about 7.68 an hour.she gets paid for 30 hours a week in a care home.she doesn't get paid for her break , so 40 less 5 is 35, then shift changeover is at meal times and like other staff there she tends to stay the extra hour a day to help with feeding etc., so 35 less another 5 is the 30 hours she gets paid for, but believe me she works at least 40 hours a week for a salary of 12,000.
As regards the amount of tax she pays, well I am sure she would love to pay more if she earned more.
The reality is when people talk about the benefit cap being harsh , the forget the low paid workers

I work and don't earn £23K inc WTC/CTC. I would be better off on benefits. I have more pride than to give up my job and claim benefits. Like angelos02 says, I can't afford to eat at the Savoy, go on holidays or drive a brand new car so I don't. I am fit and well and can work, as I think everyone who can should. There are those who cannot and the money should be there for them. Besides what sort of example am I setting my children by doing that?
Ollieplimsoles, wages differ in different parts of the country so why not benefits? London weighting for example

I agree with SillyStuffbiting. Housing benefit has driven up rents especially in London and surrounding areas. Even caps on rent won't really help because that won't provide more properties. It could make the situation worse with people not moving out of rented places for decades.

I thought it was established that low paid workers don't get capped.

23k is nothing, but isn't that the point?

I questioned the 12k pa for a 40 hr week because paying below NMW would be illegal and on the face of it those earnings were below NMW. I don't doubt candles works very hard for a not very good wage.

It's not nothing. It's £23K. What do you mean?

We lived in London until we had kids, realised that we could afford no more than a one bed flat in London, so moved out to where we could afford.

Never 100% sure about regional pay scales. So you pay a teacher more so they can afford a house in the SouthEast. They live there a while then sell this house at a nice profit and move to a cheaper area and make a killing.....

In what way is 23k nothing?

That's quite insulting to all those on a lower wage.

23k is ~29k salaried position before tax.

23k is nothing, but isn't that the point?

it is a huge amount of money - (maybe not to you if you are very rich)

Rainbow

You set your children good examples through not working as well.
You show them how not to be stupid and work for no money amongst other ways.
You choose to work, bully for you.
Don't justify it by somehow making out you are superior to the many parents who choose not to work.
They say pride comes before a fall.

Sorry, you're right, I was thinking of it as a 23k salary when of course it's not.

So you think people who choose to work even for no immediate financial gain are 'stupid'?

Obviously I must be stupid for returning to work even though the childcare cost the same as my salary for several years...

Thankfully, the fact that I kept my foothold in my career, that I now earn very well in an interesting role,
And that my grown up children thrived while they were in childcare, would indicate otherwise.

Seriously can't help wishing some people on this thread would lose their jobs then struggle to find another and be forced to uproot their family and take their kids out of school or be unable to afford food and live in overcrowded conditions. Might wake them up slightly. People were aghast at Tory voters being called heartless after the election. This thread shows why.

Candles - once again well said. You are contributing to society not just through taxes but the type of hard back breaking work that you do.

Whoever said what your tax contribution is so small so as to not count by way of a subsidy is truly ignorant. Every contribution helps. Every £1 of taxation helps us sustain schools, the NHS and pensions to name but a few.

Surely if benefits were regionalised there would be people that moved to those areas from areas were benefits weren't as much?

This would cause more issues for the local infrastructure and drive rents up more.

Yes, I get it. But Waitrose are a business wanting to make a profit and so are landlords, therefore they charge the prices that they can and people who can afford it pay it, people who can't go elsewhere to shop or to live. It's not the fault of landlords that the system of housing benefit has pushed the prices up. If housing benefit didn't cover those costs then the landlords would just refuse to rent to those on housing benefit and then they'd have to go and live where they can afford rather than where they want to live.

32

Yes, I think it's very foolish. My dc also thrived without childcare and I lukily am not in need of a career, so yes to me it's stupid and I preferred to spend time with my dc.
It's each to their own.
As rainbow suggested she was somehow superior, I was pointing out she wasn't.