to be utterly disgusted at people's comments re. welfare cuts

[HappyGoLuckyGirl]

Yes, I'm aware that our welfare system needs reforming. I do not profess to know how this should be done.

I've just read a few articles on the proposed cuts that primarily focused on reducing tax credits. The vitrol is appalling. I can't believe this is the country I live in.

I am a single mother working 40 hours a week also mid way through a 5 year part time degree. I earn slightly over minimum wage. Things are tight enough as it is, with the tax credits I get (80% of which goes on my weekly childcare bill) and now they are planning to reduce them.

I am trying to better myself so I don't always have to rely on benefits to get me through the month and yet I'm being punished! Why are working people being targeted? How is that fair in the slightest? If I wasn't so furious I would cry.

And as for people saying that employers should raise workers wages, I can say with 100% surety that if I approached my employer and asked for a living wage (increase of £8k+) I would be flat out refused and or fired. And I work in a skilled job! What hope do people who work for a large multi-national company have?

I am very this morning.

Right, this was way upthread but it always makes me so angry. Lotus' quote 1% of us pay 30% of tax may be true, but so is the fact that the top 10% collectively have 12 x the income of the bottom 10%, but pay only 8 x the tax. So no, richer people do not pay their way. Cos, you know, income tax isn't the only tax. And I say this as someone who's reasonably well off.

Alfie - agree with you. All those trolls crowing about how they made the right decisions so are better than everyone else. They didn't; they were merely lucky enough to be given a rare opportunity that few people wouldn't grab if they had the same chance.

Bloody hell, you're priceless Lotus

I don't even have a disabled child or partner but I can see that doing additional babysitting would be very exhausting and difficult.

I think between bangalanga and lotus they've got the country's problems sorted.

Lets just starve all the poor people until they die. Then there'll be no poor people. And we can carry on with our lovely lives.

the only way

As opposed to a Robin Hood tax and capping bankers bonuses eg Lotus?

The UK's level of welfare spending is completely normal for a developed country. It is not exceptional.

Yet we spend much more than we receive in. No one can run anything like that - not a family, not a business and certainly not a country - hence the changes. Labour planned massive cuts too remember.

Running a country's budget is nothing like running a household.

OldFarticus though with shrinking budgets I don't think there will be that support. Also as mentioned above the potential loss of childcare networks.

My job is not bad, are not a high tax rate payer though DW's wage is less than childcare costs so she works weekends, so dont get any family time with all of us together. God knows how single parents/lower earners get by.

1% of the world's population with 7% of the global welfare bill.

Stop trotting this out as if is any way meaningful. What % of the world's population have any access to welfare in their state? Where do we sit on the table of average housing costs? Where do we sit on the table of child mortality?

I had my first 2 kids before any government help whatsoever with child-care, and I was a top of payscale mainscale classroom teacher. I went to uni for 4 years to do that job. The childminder - woman down the road, very good at what she did but, no disrespect, no qualifications.... was asking more for looking after just one of my kids, per week, than I earned. As a teacher. She had 2 or 3 kids she childminded, I think. She would have earned over double what I earned as a teacher. With all due respect, that was bad.

I couldn't have got another job - I had a demanding full time job.

Cuts are not the answer, as the cuts have only effected the poorest members of society and the disabled. We actually shouldn't allow this to go ahead. I didn't vote for this. And the people who did were kept in the dark to the day they voted, re. what cuts were to be made.

Let's not stand for this shit. Without tax credits and some housing ben I can't pay my rent. If I can't pay my rent - where will my kids live?

When my old neighbour was chucked out because she couldn't pay bedroom tax, my council spent £10,000 refurbing her house. Then they put in... an underoccupying family. Who are paying bedroom tax. It would have been cheaper to leave my old neighbour there. My MP (Nigel Adams) voted for bedroom tax. He should be ashamed.

*affected. Doh!

The policies are about improving people's lives at all levels of society.
Please explain, Lotus exactly how said policies are improving the lives of people with disabilities and their carers.

People living in a timewarp still thinking there are lots of semi skilled jobs that can be developed into good paying careers.

Also completely oblivious to corporations not paying their dues either, starbucks,amazon,apple all paying less tax EU - we should get a decision this year

From BBC
Starbucks sales of £400m - paid no corporation tax,
Amazon uk salers £3.35bn in 2011, only reported a "tax expense" of £1.8m
And Google's UK unit paid just £6m to the Treasury in 2011 on UK turnover of £395m.

"notes through doors offering babysitting"

I thought any money changing hands means you need to be ofsted checked?

Lotus why dont you do some pro-bono work for those for poor buggers who got sanctioned because they were recovering from cancer/heart attack etc.

Oh come on Dawndonna. We're all supposed to jump up, go out and earn six figure salaries then employ specialist nannies and never see the kids. Despite being out of the workplace for years caring. You've read it all before - I know I have. You know Lotus has precisely zero concept on how disability impacts on carers.

Did you know Bishop, that Xenia was the goddess of courtesy and generosity. Just saying...

I thought any money changing hands means you need to be ofsted checked

no - if you babysit for money in someone else's house you do not need ofsted checking, out of hours babysitting/nannying has never needed ofsted either.

(when I need to earn a bit extra I do "mother's help"/babysitting - no need for ofsted/council checks, just the tax man needs to know)

notes through doors offering babysitting
I don't know of anyone who lets random people babysit their children.

I didn't vote Tory actually mrs dv. But I do support tc cuts and think people should be gradually weaned off them. They are bad for families and society. We all should support our families not look to the government to do this.

People who are genuinely disabled should be supported and I do think childcare costs need looking at.

To those that asked, we have 4 kids and when on 38k we got about 400 a mth. This is ludicrous and I was amazed.

And why is everyone always so dismissive of any suggestion about how they could support themselves better? Get creative and start thinking.

The thread certainly proves these changes are needed! So many people coming up with reasons they cannot support themselves or find extra work. These changes are long over due.

Yes we have often advertised locally for babysitters and yes my 5 precious little darlings have never been murdered by an axe wielding baby sitter. In the real world where people support themselves and women work full time someone else does indeed look after your children. That's the price some of us pay for eating.

How do you propose I could support myself better?

In the real world

You wouldn't recognise it if it came up and bit you.

the price some of us pay for eating

Grossly insulting to those suffering with poverty.

^ indeed, I think the project of turning the country's low to middle income workers into benefit claimants has somehow not resulted in an egalitarian stigma-free economic utopia, but instead has left us with a lot of people who will be FUCKED when they experience the sudden wage drop in a difficult climate that is hanging over us like the sword of damocles.

Who could possibly have predicted this? -_-

"Apologies, I meant non right wing and respected economists rather than the right wing, feather our own nests, Institute of Economic Affairs."

Did you know "but everyone who disagrees is biased" is an extremely common next step from people who have been caught out repeating propaganda, regardless of their politics?

As I said, the claim was simply not true. No biggie, no need to save face, and no need for "it's true except for all the people who are 'in on it'", which frankly only works in situations where everybody agrees already and is looking for a way to shore up a hypothesis.

I would be a bit careful of what you accept and repeat, and as I said, diversify sources a bit.

I wonder how old your 'children' are lotus. Not young I'm guessing.