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.

sooty, you beat me to it!

Oh yes because weekend childcare (or any childcare for that matter) is SO easy to find for a disabled child that doesn't cost the earth and is actual quality care. ....

I despair sometimes.

I also think expecting the very worse off in society to just somehow absorb a weekly loss of on average £26 without noticing it is extremely near sighted. £26 is an awful lot of money when you have very little.

Lotuslight plainly doesn't have her nose to the grindstone 60 hours a week as a quick look at her posting history will tell you.

I suspect that many wealthy people - even ones who are quite normal empathetic people - do rather lose touch with how the other half lives. I see this at work all the time (and I like most of my colleagues, but I think some of them move in very narrow social circles).

^^ on being a soldier though this comes at increased risk of dying horribly or suffering a permanent disablement!

Last year and this year there have been people sleeping in cars in our road, which I just find crazy in 2015.

Well yes, obviously BreakingDad, but that's why the pay for an unqualified teenager (the army's core market) is £18k +.

What other job could an unqualified 18 yr old do that also has subsidised meal and accommodation rates?

Very, very few new entrants are supporting a family - that is an exception to the norm.

At 20, when I joined the RAF all my wages were spending money to spend on crisps, pop and beer - accommodation is taken at source.
I was earning far far more than I had as a waitress/barmaid/cleaner/croupier (all jobs I had done prior).

Anyway, this thread isn't about what a soldier gets paid - I was just pointing out that it was disingenuous to insinuate that the majority of those in the armed forces in this country are relying on tax benefits as their wages are only £14000 per annum.

YANBU. So many, however, feel their lives will be enhanced by their neighbour's misery.

I'm sure lotus spends her days thinking roll on Friday...

Am I right Lotus?

Don't worry Mrs DV, she'd soon be squealing if you just upped sticks and the care system had to pick up the cost.

Some of these fuckwit posters have no idea how much Carers save the taxpayer. They really ARE that thick.

Hard work never did anyone any harm. - Love this My story: I worked hard for 30 years, it did harm me, and if I were to work hard now it would kill me. Hard work has killed millions, who work harder than I ever did or you ever have, Lotus. You're not just making ridiculous assertions; you're supercilious and self-aggrandising. As usual.

I actually can't say everything I want to say to you Lotus, but I will say this:

I have worked in the same organisation for 7 years. I started as junior admin, trained for 18 months and ran a department by myself for almost a year. I then progressed into another field and began my degree at the same time.

I then git pregnant and continued working, attending university and dealing with crippling sickness and SPD.
I then took maternity and had to deal with a break up whilst learning to be a mother, with a child who has been under a paediatrician since he was 6 weeks!

I'm now a single mother to an ill child, working a 40 hour week in a skilled job whilst attending university.

I don't give a shiny shit about your life and what you do. But don't you dare say I don't work hard.

Lotus/Xenia, change your name to BrokenRecordPleaseChangeTheTrack next time.

Yes, all the hard work done by cheap labour in Asia that keeps Lotus in the lifestyle she's accustomed to never harms those who do it at all .

I fail to understand why people think the government should be a surrogate parent with an open wallet to pay for everything.. Both parents brought the child into the world and it's they who should pay towards the childs upkeep and upbringing, not the tax payer..
And if that means no gadgets and fancy clothes then tough...

I do pay for my childs upkeep!

But with wages so low and childcare so high, what do you expect people to do?

Quit work and stay at home? Oh, wait...

'And if that means no gadgets and fancy clothes then tough...'

No one is thick enough to believe this, are they? For real? Low wages and sky high costs of living, more like. I mean, a fool can deduce this, quite easily.

The fact is that the British people have spoken and we all want this.
No they didn't.
No political party cares more nor does the most for the least fortunate as the Conservatives.
What absolute nonsense. They think like you do, and you, under another name once suggested I too get a work from home job, despite being told that I work an eighteen hour day, every day of the year looking after the three disabled people in my house. You are, Lotus, as always living in cloud cuckoo land, I know it's comfortable there but the rest of us can't make it.

Anyway, this thread isn't about what a soldier gets paid - I was just pointing out that it was disingenuous to insinuate that the majority of those in the armed forces in this country are relying on tax benefits as their wages are only £14000 per annum.

Vanilla where did I say his wages were £14k? I didn't, you assumed, and just so you have your facts correct a lot of the armed forces are relying on tax credits.

You're in the RAF, as is DH, DS1 is in the army. DH can not believe how much DS1 works in comparison to him. It, also, explains why you have no clue about when they get level 1 pay! Food might be subsidised, but it is beyond diabolical. It's probably the main reason why they have kitchens in the barrack blocks now!

Most welfare money goes to people in work, especially those who rent privately. Not 'scroungers' by any means, just people who happen to earn less than it costs to live. So can someone who knows anything about economics (except lotus, I couldn't possibly give a smaller toss about what she thinks) explain to me why the simple solution of capping rental prices and increasing the NMW isn't the solution (other than the Tories wanting to make their corporate mates richer)? Make wages pay enough to live on without a top-up and make housing affordable without needing help to pay rent. Hey presto, hundreds of thousands of working people no longer needing a welfare handout!