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.

You are right it is depressing. Guess we all have to wait for budget in few weeks before full on doom sets in.

Some people will always rely on top up benefits there will never be good jobs for all or only well paid-high skilled jobs. You need low pay jobs do you can have well paid that's how companies make money.

I think whole tax credit thing is a mess not only do companies escape scot free there's no incentive to improve yourself. If you have children and have 18+years with new child every now and again it is possible spend 20-30y on tax credits working part time. If you work hard, gain qualifications then benefits are reduced accordingly. I've heard of some companies who prefer take on mim wage staff knowing tax credits top up and they don't want a pay rise as cost company more yet their take home pay remains the same.

It is disgusting.
But the thing is I hope everyone moaning about this dispicable government used their vote to at least try to get them out.
If not it's no point stamping your feet now,

cruikshank

2.3% of total in employment is 0 hour contracts.

Your trying to shoe horn a very low percentage of the population into your argument, and then the amount of people who are unhappy with 0 hour contracts is even smaller.

Basically the easing of credit for the past couple of decades has allowed house prices to rise, the problem is that generally everyone was happy to go along with this because housed became an investment or something to flip rather than someones home.

Garlick I really do, unfortuneately.

Old pit villages, when the pits closed down and investments in village infrastructure was withdrawn to fund a 'new town', they died.
A large proportion of the workforce were thrown on the scrap heap and survived on benefiits. This has continued through the years, the ethos of 'no jobs out there' has continued, it can be a very insular environment.

I know, personally, of four families.

I 'know' of others through my connection to them, but have no in depth knowledge of their background.

In some dying communities there has been very little incentive and a lack of family support.

I know nothing of studies.

Yanbu. I know several people who voted Tory specifically in the hope that tax credits would be cut or stopped. They mostly have two children and a household income of around £40-£50k. I think it is simple jealousy that others get money that they don't qualify for. Very shortsighted and very childish. I guess they haven't stopped to wonder who will now be serving them in Costa or delivering their weekly online shop. I would imagine that those doing low paid jobs might struggle to afford to work now if child care contribution is cut and they possibly have to move or sell up to continue to meet ends meet without tax credits.

cruikshank says it all, used to get into arguments with my dad as he only had an apprenticeship with day release and mum being a secretary and they could buy a house.

I don't really understand why people think that tax-credits cause low wages. Surely the low wage problem must have been there first?

So it's not that your views are old-fashioned; it's that you are ill-informed

This all true, somewhere! I'm 60 and have lived through a lot of economic changes. The 80s were really good to me at the time, but even then I was painfully aware my comfort was at many other people's cost. It's sure as hell got worse since then, for a lot more people.

Thanks for the background info, Too. Yes, something rather sneaky happened to the mining & steelworking towns. Whole populations were laid off, but the Government was marching on a full employment platform. With benefits reported the way they were at the time, sickness benefits didn't count as out-of-work statistics. The Government, therefore sent advisors into the newly-unemployed communities to help people claim sickness benefits instead of unemployment.

Since a high proportion of the ex-workers did have some injuries from their heavy jobs, and were all pretty depressed, this was easy. Now they're just about all at pensionable age, they don't count as unemployed so sickness benefits have been moved into the 'unemployed' bracket and we're being told that chronic illness is shirking.

Even healthy people can't "just get a(nother) job" as there aren't enough jobs and there isn't enough childcare.

Baby boomers did alright tho, didn't they? It's the rest of us who came afterwards who are in the shit because house prices rocketed and have forced us to earn high wages topped up by credits just to pay the rent/mortgage and bills. For houses that babyboomers sold between themselves and made huge profits on.

A wonderful job has been done to close our eyes to the big scam - that the top 5 % earners are hoovering up all our money. They want us to carry on arguing with other over the scraps they have left us. Lots of people are falling for the idea that people who live on benefits of some degree don't/won't work hard. It means we have forgotten how to empathise.

So, instead of sympathising with the young mother who's ex has gone awol and dodges paying any child maintenance, who needs to work out how to put a roof over her head, work and take care of the kids people say 'lazy - she could send them all to nursery and work'.

Or the man who has developed a disability and can't get up without carers 'lazy'.

Or the guy who was on a 0 hour contract and lost their job at the drop of a hat 'lazy'.

Uh, no. These people need the safety net that the benefit system provides. And it is a safety net. It is designed to provide you with less income than you would get if you worked at minimum wage. It's just that the fat cats have worked out how to screw people out of minimum wages with 0 hour contracts and the likes. Which is why people need credit top ups.

We shouldn't be angry at people down on their luck - because it is luck that separates someone on benefits and someone not, not hard work. We should be angry with the greedy at the top who hang on to their millions and evade taxes. That's where all the missing money is.

I don't really understand why people think that tax-credits cause low wages. Surely the low wage problem must have been there first?

No. They were an incentive to employers who claimed they couldn't afford to take on more workers.

This kind of doesn't make sense when the Government's also paying employers to take on millions of free workers at public expense, however.

You have it spot on Garlick!

We have an incredibly large proportion of disabled claimants in this area.

Transport to the larger cities is virtually non existent, and jobs are in short supply for anyone leaving school at sixteen. The only real opportunities are for those prepared to leave the area, thus further running the area down.

It is a very sad situation.

YANBE. I was listening to the radio today and thought that it's about time employers stepped up and offered a decent wage to employees instead of assuming that tax credits will make up the difference while the employer pockets what it should be paying its staff to give even more billions to shareholders. Disgraceful. The problem is though that employers have a never ending stream of people willing to work for peanuts coming from all over the world.

I think the only solution is to make the living wage (£10.75?) mandatory so living wage is minimum wage.

The problem is though that the corporations are the government and the government is the corporations. Cosy bedfellows indeed.

Well done for studying while working full-time.

justanotherlurker, I'm glad you pointed that out, because zero hours contracts, while making a big splash in the media, are just the tip of the iceberg of the kind of low-paid insecure working that has become the norm since the unions had their power taken away from them. Yes, there are only 1.8 million people on them. However, there are millions more on short-hours contracts - all of the supermarkets here locally - including the oh-so-ethical-i-could-knit-a-lentil co-op - hire workers on 6 hour contracts, 8 hour contracts, 10 hour contracts. Those employers don't count in the zero hours figure, but they sure as hell don't have guaranteed hours or guaranteed income.

And, in fact, even that is old news now, because the biggest rise in so-called 'jobs' created by the coalition is in the area of self-employed so-called 'jobs', many of which (bettaware and other catalogue distribution, b-2-b cold call selling and the like) are little better than pyramid schemes, and the majority of people who do them don't earn even 35x minimum wage a week, because well d'oh they are fucking cons. Bogus self-employed contracts have always been rife in construction and the like, but now they are appearing all over the place - not only in the blatant rip-off examples I've given but also in the care industry, in leisure and other discretionary spending areas and so on.

No. They were an incentive to employers who claimed they couldn't afford to take on more workers.

How was it an incentive to employers?

Irretating - Because they could offer low-wage jobs and people would take them, knowing they'd get tax credits if needed!

An extra aspect of tax credits, irretating - for the past 20ish years, they have also been used as an incentive to get unemployed people to become 'self employed'. You get a lump sum, then are signed up for tax credits to top up your earnings.

I took this in the 90s, when I did go freelance, and was offered it again last year. The self-employment advisor was very insistent, but I said no. I had to give up my little business due to illness, there was no way I was going to join in a DWP-sponsored con!

Tons of people did, though. Now the rules are being changed, they'll find they're being pushed to earn more than they're able to and will not get financial support.

I still don't get why only those of us on low incomes, or the disabled, or the unemployed, have to face austerity. yet, we are told, the wealthy are better incentivised by being given money. And a fraction of that money might 'trickle down', like we're dogs getting crumbs from the rich folks' tables...

Also... just a thought... but don't Cameron's golf club mates benefit more than anyone, from tax credits? Who'd be doing the dirty work for them, if they had to pay a living wage?

We struggle on minimum wage and without tax credits, actually would be homeless and reliant on food banks. Many unemployed families are better off than us as we get a similar amount of money and from that have to pay for school dinners, etc.

Why do the tories pretend they are now the party of the working classes, if they very people who are the only ones to be attacked by austerity are... the working classes?

Who is going to pay my rent, and where will my children live if tax credits go? I already have the lowest rent possible (council house) but still couldn't pay a penny more towards the rent than we now do.

If the wealthy need to be incentivised with carrots, why do we just get the fucking sticks?

Becase most of that is untrue. By far the wealthy have borne the huge majority of tax increases and payments in this recession. Those of us on the highest incomes have never in British history paid such a high percentage of tax. It has gone up amazingly. 1% of us pay 30% of tax. That has never happened before ever. However there are not very many of us earning a lot (although one lawyer in this weekend's paper money section mentioned he pays £1000 a day in tax).

So if you need to spend less (we are 1% of the people on the planet and yet take up 7% of welfare spending on the planet - no wonder people flock here) as we have massive debts. Therefore we had to strip people like I am of all child benefit and all my siblings and their children. Fine we can live with that. Then tax credits went from many many middle earners. I have never had a tax credit or sick pay or maternity pay or unemployment pay - zilch really.

Bascially hardly anyone earns a lot so the only way to spend within our means is cut backs from where we spend most. We certainly need to incentivise full time work. Why would anyone work full time hours (my daughters and I work 60 hour weeks) if the state could let you work very short hours and top you up? So we need to ensure full time work pays.

It's obvious, Joff. If they give taxpayers' money to us, we'll spend it all on booze and cheat the system by renting out our free, luxurious council homes. Unlike MPs, who spent £11,000 of taxpayers' money on booze in one week last month and rent out their free, luxurious private homes.

Don't be ridiculous, Lotus. The highest rate of income tax peaked in the Second World War at 99.25%. It was slightly reduced after the war and was around 90% through the 1950s and 60s. In 1971 the top-rate of income tax on earned income was cut to 75%.

Lotuslight, you are being very misleading. That 30% of tax money is coming from a section of society that has never before been so wealthy - the very top strata of UK society, income-wise, has seen its wealth rise by massive levels in the last five years. Even if they handed over half of what they earn to the state (and they don't), they would still be massively better off than their comparative numbers at any point in UK history. They - and you, if you are part of that sector of society - can easily afford to pay so much tax, and the only reason that the tax bill is so high and seems disproportionate is because for the super-rich income is excessively high and disproportionate compared to £6.57ph. We have a progressive tax system in the UK, just about, for now, and so if someone is paying lots of tax that means that they are earning a hell of a lot. I'd love to see how you would have coped in the 70s, if you think that people earning insane amounts of money have got it bad now.

Lotus are you taking the piss? The highest paid do not pay anywhere near enough.

Again don't you think it's a problem people are having to work 60 hours a week? God forbid people want to spend time with their children

I've worked 60 hours a week for 30 years without even maternity leaves so I can keep part time workers and benefits claimants in the style to which they have become accustomed so I don't see why other people should not work as hard. Hard work never did anyone any harm.

The lower the highest tax rate the higher the tax take and the more money for the poor by the way. The 99% rate did not yield much as the 45% (47% including NI) currently bring in more than the 590% (52%) rate Labour brought in in it's very last few months as a parting shot just as it emptied the coffers of the nation and left the cupboards bear.

It is pretty awful when we are told all the time that those of us who break our backs working for this nation and pay absolutely heap loads of tax are told we evade and avoid it and pay just about no tax. It makes you wonder why yo bother. Perhaps we should all work 10 hours a week and then the nation would have no money to pay any benefits to anyone and then I suppose the poor would be happy because there would be no rich even if there were no benefits. At least then they would not be jealous.

what is it you do lotus?

Go on then, Lotuslight, go and get yourself a job in Costa Coffee or Wilkinsons or The Starlight Care Home wiping arses for less than minimum wage, and see just how easy it is.

If you're in the top 1%, you're earning the same as 55% of the entire rest of the country combined. I would say that contributing 30% of the tax is a positive bargain.