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.

Andy

YANBU.

I have long thought the system of tax credits is crazy - take from the poor, spend a fortune on pushing it around the system and then hand it back in such a way that can easily screw up and leave people in debt.

HOWEVER, there has to be some viable alternative. Simply removing the support for the poorest paid will not magically make employers increase pay to a proper living wage.

I would have far more respect for these cuts if they were doing something to increase wages. Low wages have been a part of the economy for far too long, before tax credits it was 'family credit' but the basic effect was the same.

This is just more ultra conservative bollocks... the wealth will trickle down, etc. But it never does, the wealth gets hoovered up by a lucky few while everyone else fights over the scraps.

YANBU.

And why is there always billions for political schemes like rebuilding parliament, HS2, Trident, pay rises, etc. But never enough to look after the poorest.

Andy that's upsetting. Some people have no idea of the lives people in need have! The country has lost it's moral compass.

Rebecca2014 of course it's YOUR fault! How dare you think otherwise.

Which is what a twat would say, not me. I hear you x I'm as worried and scared as you, it's frightening isn't it xx

Vevvie It's really upsetting but I think there are people on this thread who honestly think people like her should just try harder.

Andy some of the people on here won't empathise if they live to be 100. I notice Lotus skipped right over your post.

None of my clients have died much less taken their own lives but it happens in our service and is horribly upsetting. It sounds as though you did all you could to help this poor girl.

Because the rich are making their own money and those on benefits are being given other people's (the tax payer)...

Slow handclap for the most ignorant, fatuous statement on the entire thread.

A) most people on benefits - and especially those on tax credits - are working. And paying tax. And even if they're not actually in Paid work, have you heard of this little thing called VAT? People on low incomes pay proportionally far more of their money on this tax than those on higher levels. We are all, every one of us, 'tax payers'.

B) 'the rich' are not making their own money. 'The rich' - the truly rich - get that way because of the effort of other people. Yes, you can earn a decent living through your own efforts, but the people who are very rich didn't do it on their own. They tax-dodging CEO of a multinational isnt making his own money. A hedge fund manager isn't making her own money. You can't make millions without plenty of people to shore you up.

Well done, though.

Thanks sooty I've noticed that Lotus et al have conveniently skipped over anything to do with illness or disability as they seem incapable of identifying with anything that hasn't directly affected them. I am acutely aware of the luck that I have had - DH and I have always had good health as have the DCs. We bought a house in London at the right time. Some people just seem incapable of recognising how much privilege and good luck has played a part in them getting to where they are. I can't remember the exact figure but I think it's less than 10% of people with a disability have had that disability from birth. Any of us can get mental health problems or MS or lose our sight or end up in a wheelchair after an accident. Any of us can have the same thing happen to our partner. Any of us can give birth to a disabled child who needs constant care and has to attend endless hospital appointments. All of the above make it a million times harder to go and get a weekend bar job or 'just move'. So much of this government's policies are driven by ideology rather than economics - the bedroom tax has saved peanuts but, to those affected by it, has caused extreme hardship.
The whole work capability assessment of those on disability benefits (which actually came in under Labour) has actually cost the government a fortune. But they don't care about that because it's not about saving money, it's about seeing to be doing something about those pesky disabled scroungers.

I wish there was a 'like' button. I'd 'like' your post Electra.

Andy your post is brill

Shocker, yet another thread on which Lotus:
A) deliberately misrepresents her own situation in order to demonstrate how lazy and stupid other posters are.
B) rolls out her postman son for some vague and incoherent reason.
C) uses the phrase "jam tomorrow" which I swear will elict an involuntary punch in the face reaction if anyone ever says this to me in real-life.
D) makes me really glad that she isn't my lawyer.
E) suggests that poor people shouldn't have sex.
F) is just generally abhorrent.

I always think I know where I stand with these sorts of topics and then a few posts have me thinking twice. But in general, I do think benefits needs to be reduced. The only people who should be comfortable on benefits are disabled people.

Also, yes the CEO makes their own money- their job just happens to be overseeing a lot of people but that doesn't mean they aren't working.

Bereal, they do make their own money but they make it because others allow them to. They don't do it alone

CEOs are objectively overpaid. They can do it because regulation is in tatters.

Bereal, I'm not suggesting they're not working. I'm sure many of them work extremely hard. But they're not 'making their own money', any more than I am. I work full time for a large institution. I am earning money. But I'm not 'making my own money' in the context implied by the previous poster whose name I've forgotten. And nor is the very well-paid vice-chancellor of my institution, and they would be extraordinarily disingenuous to suggest otherwise.

It's the old strivers vs skivers rhetoric, and it's not only abhorrent, it's also just plain incorrect.

I have engaged on the disability point. The lady who can work in the evenings in the week because her husband is well enough to do the child care in the latter part of the day could if the work were available work on Saturdays and Sundays at those times as if she can predict in the week when her husband is well such that she can work then half days the same will apply at the weekends.

Also it is easy to get sidetracked when discussing matters of principle. Most people getting tax credits are not disabled so people can really con others into thinking the Tories are trying to attack disabled people when that is not what is happening at all. So concentrating on disability ignores the elephant in the room - that as a nation we cannot afford the generous tax credits currently paid and taking about £1400 a year away from people might encourage them into full time work. I am pleased to see so many supporters of the Tory plan here by the way on this thraad and on mumsnet. It shows the election has really made people think and they voted in the way that is right for Britain.

I don't know what someone implied about my distorting facts about my life. I'm pretty honest about it and anyone who knows who I am can look much of it up if they were interested.

As it's 9pm and yes I've just been doing yet more heavy lifting - this time 7 big black sacks of books for the charity shop and moving books from 4 book cases into another room and then up a chair dusting (and yes I'm very lucky not to be disabled and have the strength to jump up and down from chairs at the end of at 12 or 14 hour working day.....)

The left have a really awful track record at lying about the Tories and disability by the way. The exclusions for the disabled from the rooms issues for those clogging up state housing is never much mentioned and the like.

I will see if I can find the income limits for tax credits.

Okay working fewer than 16 hours a week and have children. Let us say single mother on £7 an hour doing 10 hours a week, 3 children earns £3640 a year. She can earn up to £15k actually and gets £8890 tax credits a year so that's £23,890 including her £15k wage.

It drops to £5245 when on £20k a year salary (so I suppose that would be what my son would get if he had a child plus his salary). £3195 if you're on £30k and nothing if you earn £40k.

Let us try her on more hours.

Let us do working more than 16 hours a week and paying for childcare and 3 children.

She's on £15k salary working full time and paying for 2 or 3 children in childcare full time. She gets £21k tax credits - can that be right? May be I read it wrong. It also says you get tax credits up to £65k income if you are paying childcare! I thought the limits had gone right down.
www.gov.uk/government/publications/tax-credits-entitlement-tables-working-at-least-16-hours-and-paying-childcare/tax-credits-entitlement-tables-working-at-least-16-hours-and-paying-childcare

Sounds like that table does not work for a single person with children:Don’t "do not use these tables if you’re a lone parent working between 16 and 29 hours a week and your total income is more than £5,250. You can check how much you might get by filling in an online calculator instead - it takes about 10 - 15 minutes to complete."

And what if she can't get more hours??

Her employers, like mine, simply don't have them to offer?

What then?

Lotus so you think it's okay she spends less time with her child and has to shove them in childcare? How is that fair?

so people can really con others into thinking the Tories are trying to attack disabled people when that is not what is happening at all
That's why they're dying is it? That's why the majority of disability services have been cut is it? That's why the Independent Living Fund is being axed is it? All facts, no scaremongering.
As for your shit about heavy lifting. I dress my dh each day, take him to the loo, wash him. I do the same for two dds. All taller than me and none of them light. It's damaged me.
As for addressing the issue with a lady who can work in the evenings, how dare you. You haven't addressed the issue at all, you've told her when she can work. That's not addressing the issue, you have no clue as to how those evenings work, whether or not it takes both parents to look after a child with disabilities, what the disabilities are. You make blanket statements telling other people what to do with their time, as you did me, years ago, informing me that sometime after midnight and before six a.m. I could manage a wee proof reading job. I'd tell you to fuck off, but your social mores are such that you would think me incapable of using the correct language. Actually, I don't give a damn, I know my capabilities and they are so much greater than yours. Fuck off, Lotus, do.

Also lotus you haven't addressed the point I made on the first page - I recently lost my DLA due to very ignorant prejudice

I am lucky, my parents are well off. Others aren't so fortunate. But of course no ones attacking the disabled?