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.

I am getting confused. Aren't working tax credits something completely different from disability benefits?

lashes your post about PIP really struck a chord with me. The first ATOS assessment I attended was with a patient who'd had a nine months admission to hospital including 3 months in a PICU (Psychiatric Intensive Care Unit) during which time she'd been placed on 3 sections of the Mental Health Act and been seen by 10 psychiatrists including 3 consultants. She was discharged with a diagnosis of Schizo-Affective Disorder. The nurse from ATOS who assessed her concluded in her report (after meeting the patient for 40 minutes) that she did not have a serious mental illness because she 'did not display rocking movements'; 'was wearing makeup'; 'enjoyed watching soap operas' and 'had a fashionable handbag '. In other words, anyone not frothing at the mouth and wielding an axe cannot possibly be mentally ill. It would be funny if it wasn't for the fact that these people's ill informed opinions can have such a devastating impact on the lives of people whose situation is shit enough already. I have appealed 27 cases of my clients who have been found fit for work and have won every single one. At one of them, the judge literally shook her head with shame and told my client how sorry she was that she'd had to go through this. I'm so sorry about your situation

You really can't see that you banging on on here about personal responsibility, telling people who have difficult lives, intolerable lives in some cases, to do more work, while you do a cerebral job and the 'heavy' work of rearranging the furniture just stinks. It stinks.
And the mad thing is that I'm able to walk away from this hectoring. I can afford to buy the DC clothes, pay the mortgage etc. We have a decent life. There are people on this thread who know that people like you are judging them like this every day. Their lives are judged and they have no options. It's not theory.

I think lotus will be finding out about life on benefits when her employer works out she is just mnetting all day. How the mighty can fall

Oh no toby she's the master of her own destiny dontcha know. A lone wolf. dear god could you imagine interviewing Lotus

tobysmum

I would absolutely piss myself laughing if she ended up on benefits, it couldn't happen to a nicer or more deserving person

she has truly surpassed herself on this thread

like some kind of tory parody

She's self-employed, and will not end up on benefits.

Andy that's horrible :( I hope that person appealed and I hope they won. They're such horrible people who have no understanding and often no experience in the condition, the person who sat on my hearing was an opthamologist!

Dirtydeeds you took the words right off my mouth.

Dirtydeeds you took the words right off my mouth

;)

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.

Having a disability (or a disabled partner or child) hugely increases an individual's risk of experiencing poverty. Therefore, tax credits are an important plank in the raft of support that supports disabled people in this family (by bringing inadequate incomes up to a modest but decent level).

By cutting Tax Credits, the government are disproportionately affecting disabled people.

There are almost 10 million disabled people in the UK - approximately one fifth of the population. It is hardly a niche concern.

Right out of my mouth I mean.

Stupid fat fingers!!!

that supports disabled people in this family

That supports people in this COUNTRY (a freudian slip? )

I haven't read all threads but could I add something I feel is vital that is never mentioned by governments.

I will give background first, I have 4 dc, 2 have autism. I can't work due to the rural area, not driving, no correct provision in our area of childcare for autistic children.

Dh does work, away from home at sea as pay was better than an office job. He works damn hard and we hardly see him. We too rely on tax credits and child benefit. I don't claim disability for my boys even though I know I'm entitled too it, I'm not ready to claim I don't know why but it feels as though I would be taking something from others who need it more.

This is my main point something never mentioned in Westminster that really boils my blood. We would be far less reliant on tax credits if businesses weren't so unscrupulous. We live on a fluctuating wage due to dh's job. We can earn a discrepancy of £2,000 a month. Housing is expensive we rent, council tax is also expensive. On a low month we can pay rent, council and electric. Then our wage is gone, no money for food I need the child tax and benefit to feed us.

Whilst on a low month knowing its approaching we ring companies and explain why we can't pay and can we make a double payment next month. We always can arrange a double payment and always make the payments but then we are charged a late service fee, a fee for rearrangement, extra interest a fee for returned direct debits and then the money we've earned is gone on charges and we have very little nest egg left.

If the government band these charges we wouldn't need to rely so heavily on tax credits and child benefit. Also if rented housing was standardised and capped we may be able to cover everything but find me a 4/5 bed rental for £400 pcm that's also council tax band a-c.

I know as a country we need to make cutbacks but I do believe that should start with MPs salaries and allowances, then tackle other behind the scenes inefficiencies. I'm not sure how I would alter the benefits system but we can't turn back time as everything has changed from 20 years ago.

I am worried that any changes to family paid benefits would have a serious impact on our family.

Lashes Yes, she did win. I actually won a minor victory- after reading umpteen reports saying 'The customer does not have any delusional beliefs', I asked them how they actually assessed this: The whole point about delusions is that the person who has them believes that they are real. Nobody is going to say 'Yes' if you ask them, 'Do you have any delusions?' They no longer include anything about delusions in their reports.

I don't earn the bucketloads Lotus does, but I pay full basic rate tax on my salary. Because I'm self employed in a small way I pay tax on that too. I don't have a family but I'd burn with shame to be so unempathic about the needs of families, many struggling with disability, or to begrudge the tax I pay.

"We don't live alone. We are members of one body. We are responsible for each other. And I tell you that the time will soon come when, if men will not learn that lesson, then they will be taught in fire and blood and anguish." J B Priestley - An Inspector Calls.

AHEM

Great play sooty. Is it on the NC, does anyone know?

I love An Inspector Calls i studied it at school I also mentioned it on a similar thread.

I re-read that this weekend on your recommendation, Helena. Thanks.

ObiWan you aren't taking money away from anyone if you claim. It won't go to anyone else if you don't have it. You sound more than entitled to the help.

'As long as the general population is passive, apathetic, diverted to consumerism or hatred of the vulnerable, then the powerful can do as they please, and those who survive will be left to contemplate the outcome'

Noam Chomsky

This government is dangerous. If anyone agrees then can I please ask that you join the rally against Osborne's emergency budget in London on Wednesday, 8th July?
We need to make our voices heard, properly, not just online on forums such as this (even though it is cathartic to get it out somewhere). We need to stand together and protest, the world needs to know how the majority of people in this country feel about austerity measures. We need to let this government know that these measures are not in our names.

The Tories care more than the left. We are making changes to make the UK a better place. you cannot continue with a welfare state, out of work benefits and disability benefits if the nation is not paying its bills. I am sure no one on the thread wants us to be the next Greece. That is where we were heading when Labour spent all the money and the coffers were bear and the British public being very sensible has voted in Conservatives for the next 5 years who are making changes to protect the welfare state and ensure those less fortunate continue to be provided for. That is care, not a Labour spend spend spend to bankruptcy.

I was asked "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?" That is what full time working mothers who are tax payers do who don't get child benefit and tax credits. We have spent less time with our children over the years because we work full time. This has been the key issue in the election - the full time workers in the UK saying enough is enough - we are not going to work so hard in order to ensure part time workers can work half time hours and yet get subsidised by the state to make up their pay in the ways my link above shows.

Most Tories like I do support the welfare state. This is not the issue. We are not proposing no one who is disabled gets a benefit and the disability issue is a side issue in this. Most tax credit recipients are not disabled. Nor do I blame people for claiming what the law allows. It is the system we need to change, not to criticise individuals. If you could work half your hours and the state makes your pay up to what it is for full time work or a husband could find a wife who earned enough so he did not have to go out to work or whatever most people would do it.

As for helping those who can work into work I am sure most working mumsnetters do hope we can all help and provide advice on things we have all done which helped us get work over the years. There is a lot of useful experience on mumsnet - one of its strengths. People can help each other.

Today's big issue if the Labour definition of poverty which means if state pensions go up children are deemed more in poverty or if everyone working earns less children are "taken out of poverty" as compared to the workers they are "better off" which was always a load of rubbish so I am glad reform of that silly definition is coming.