A decent budget for low paid workers.

[Sickoffrozen]

Aibu to think that overall the budget was good news for the low paid with a big increase in minimum wages announced?

Seems like a decent idea to me.

But I stand to be corrected.....

So, Ellie, my severely disabled ds, who is having his ESA cut by £30 a week, should just get off his arse and work hard and get a job then?

It'd be lovely if he could. Do you know of many opportunities for a completely non-verbal 20 year old with no qualifications who has the reading and writing skills of a 5 year old?

We were hoping to be able to start saving for a deposit to buy our own home. With the rise due in social housing rents, we now won't be able to afford to do this. And so we remain stuck in social housing when, given the opportunity, we could have been moving on in a few years so that someone else could benefit from this house.

You contradict yourself. You say why settle for a low paid Mcjob. Then say you can't be bothered to chase your dreams and offer it this way for the life balance.

Two different points. I say, why settle for a McJob if employment and money are your goals. I have in many posts pointed out that one does not need the resources society says we need to make life enjoyable (television, car, mobile phones, excessive energy consumption, excessive food waste, excessive plastic toys and electronic gadgets, consumerism tat.

The amount of money needed to secure the resources you need to build a happy life, and the amount of money needed to secure a consumerist based lifestyle, are dramatically different. Consumerism and earning money purely for the purpose of spending it tends not to make most people happy. It is a good drug, and it is fed to us from birth with cheap plastic colourful shite, endless toy adverts on TV, free toys with your Happy Meal, and an adulthood being told your phone isn't the best, your computer isn't fast enough, your car is old and slow, and your clothes look dated and tatty. You can buy into that, and either work and pay for it, or feel the misery and depression of believing you can't quite provide a decent life for your family.

I offer advice that both are possible... Work and provide more resources, or be happy with what you have. I do not condone living on benefits, but I understand that disability precludes that possibility for some. The key word there is 'some', because many have no excuse. They do not wish to work for what they want, but they are also unhappy to settle for what they have. So they complain. It gets them nowhere, they know this, they do it all the time. It's become part of who they are as people.

I have never been in six figure salaries, but I got a goodly way up there. It provided excellent foreign holidays, fine food, a top of the range motorcar, well labelled clothing brands, and cutting edge technology. It didn't make me happy. My current life does. That is why I choose what I choose.

Why aren't you recieving tax credits at the moment?

And for the record, we have no cars, one small television, a very small energy bill and I shop as smartly as I can regarding food. We don't go on holiday. I've spent all of £20 on clothes so far this year. Where shall we make the cuts to our expenditure?

Dawn Seeing as you are so rich and successful in business, please share with us the key to your success, if it was not your determination to succeed, and the time and effort you put into your business? Please explain why I am not as successful as you are in business, if it has nothing to do with you having acted, and me having not. If you are successful in business, the please share with us your insights. But if you are not, could that be why?
As you are well aware, I'm at home looking after three people with disabilites. However, I'm in a four bedroomed detached house, which I own, mortgage free, close to the sea, and rural. Ds1 is a bank manager. Ds2 achieving firsts at uni. Dd1 has an unconditional for NEXT year, somewhat unusual, and dd2 will also be off to uni next year. Despite being on benefits, I think we're pretty successful, and we do it without spouting trite shite. Clever aren't we.

YouTheCat

I do not, nor have I ever, pretended that the system is equitable to the disabled. There are challenges in both raising and teaching some of us that society fails at, and politicians pay lip service to. But MN is hardly a microcosm of the reality of Britains welfare recipients. Contributors on the whole are more literate and more intelligent. The parents of disabled are also both greatly represented and more vocal. Parents who, in the interest of providing the best for their child(ren), have educated themselves and sacrificed their futures.

I do not say that this is fair or equitable. I most certainly do not say they did not do exactly what I would do. I would sacrifice everything I own, and everything I could ever muster for my children. But, the broader picture is this. If those who can, do get off their arses and stop complaining, then those who can't, have greater access to resources and a much farer world to live in.

As regards to your last, I have in the past come across a factory in the Midlands making window blinds who employ maybe 75% of their staff from the disabled community. That was some 10 years ago, and they employed maybe 40 people back then, but I do not know what became of them as I had no further need for their product. You will know I am sure, as I only suspect, that your son will have the ability to give value to the world of work, if only society were not so blind and bigoted.

80% of the country will be worse off.

Many of them have just not realised it yet.

Wait till the rich pensioners see their tax bills rocket and hear the shrieks from the shires.

Well Harriet Harmon has said today that they won't oppose the cuts....

You will know I am sure, as I only suspect, that your son will have the ability to give value to the world of work, if only society were not so blind and bigoted.
This is exactly what I mean, you are telling parents with children who have additional needs how to live their lives and how their children may enjoy/endure gainful employment. How dare you! You know nothing about the situation, you plough on and ignore the situation as described and only your credo is to be promulgated. Then you follow it up with this: I would sacrifice everything I own, and everything I could ever muster for my children. But, the broader picture is this. If those who can, do get off their arses and stop complaining, then those who can't, have greater access to resources and a much farer world to live in. As if those of us with disabilities or children with disabilities don't care for our families as much as you do, or are somehow just not making enough effort.
You are rude and insensitive Ellie.

Oh, and I don't believe a fucking word of it. Every situation put forward, you have already come across the solution. Bollocks.

Utter bollocks!

My ds requires 2:1 care 24 hours a day. Can you honestly see anyone facilitating that level of care in a work situation? And that's even if there was a job available for him to do (which there isn't).

And anyway, much of the support for people with additional needs has been scrapped. Many of those places of work no longer exist.

You really have no idea what you are talking about at all.

You seem to be unable to recognise that not everyone's circumstances match your own. I can't go swanning off to where better work might be. I spent the years when I should have been gaining work experience and additional qualifications, looking after 2 children with additional needs.

It must be so lovely to have such a simplified view of the world.

Being rude and insensitive seems to be Ellie's modus operandi

Some people want solutions and others don't. It is ever thus,However the bottom line is that there are going to be a lot of mothers looking for more hours so if you want to maintain your standard of living now is the time to be taking on those extra shifts or seeking promotions.

Time to put ds down the mine, YoutheCat and I'll put dds up the chimney...

Why aren't you recieving tax credits at the moment?
We choose not to apply for them. We do claim CB. Our rent is reasonable for a 3 bed house, our council tax £150 a month, and other than renters insurance, internet access (which we need for business) and our energy consumption, the rest is ours to do with as we please. Many on here have children or partners who are in far greater need to state benefits than I. I know it's not how the system works, but I will not take from a pot of money I do not need to be taking from, when we are capable of providing for ourselves. For the same reason, I won't move into subsidised housing. Poverty is a trap. I've been there once and I won't take my family there unless I really have no option.

Ellie stop ignoring that which you don't want to deal with. There are people on here deserving of an apology from you.

YouTheCat

I have many times acknowledged that there are those in extreme need and with extremely challenging disability. I have also said many times that these are the very people a welfare system should be providing for. I have said that currently this is not happening, that currently the rhetoric from government is lip service, and that it is wrong.

You can read into that what you wish. It is fact.

Now, if your sons future is bleak, and you intend to do the best by him and face the system, with such flaws, them my hat is off to you. I would do the same. But neither of us can change the reality that the system such that it is is poor and will not provide the care or funding those who do actually need it require.

That does not detract from the problem of overwhelming budget deficit, outrageously expensive resources, top heave and incredibly poor management, abuse of funds, wasteful spending, and a whole chunk of people living off the system that should not be doing so.

You can rant and say, 'but you're wrong, take my case as an example', but as I have already pointed out, you are not typical of the flaw in the system. You are typical of those the system was originally created to protect. If you cannot acknowledge the faults in the system and the only solution you see if asking for more money to plug the fraud and misuse, then you are justifying and excusing the very thing that is damaging you.

Yes, the government used a blanket measure to weed out inefficiency, waste, and misuse. I do not disagree. But it had to be done. Unless of course you know of another way? The only solution the poor ever seem to be able to come up with is, "Give us more money."

They could fix the budget deficit in one fell swoop by making the banks pay back the money that bailed them out and make their friends accountable for the tax they are evading.

There would be no need to hit the vulnerable then. Giving the rich more money doesn't make them spend more and does nothing to help an economy recover. It is the low and middle earners who spend more if they have more.

Austerity didn't turn out so well for Greece. Osborne is an idiot.

Elliefants
Why are you still in favour of a budget that has penalised small business owners ?

Ellie stop ignoring that which you don't want to deal with. There are people on here deserving of an apology from you.

Sorry. Feeding time at the zoo. What am I ignoring? I'm like a page behind here.

I do apologies sincerely to you, YouTheCat. I have never gone after or denigrated those the system was designed to help. And I do not, not have I ever, intimated that what they receive in funding or service is satisfactory. If that is what you read into my posts, I sincerely apologise to you, and anyone else who believes my posts were aimed at the disabled in the community. I did not read that in my posts, and I certainly didn't not intend others to do so, but if that is what you read, I am sorry.

Now, dawn what am I avoiding answering? I don't intend to. I'm just not the fastest reader or typist by a long shot.

Why are you still in favour of a budget that has penalised small business owners?
The underlying economic reasoning behind the moves this government is making, I understand. They are both political in intent (as all governments do), and designed to move the country away from dependancy on the welfare state.

TBH, I am more concerned about the drive to push as much funding as possible into private pension holdings, than anything else I have seen over the past two parliaments. It is a money grab. This is a move to corral wealth into a place where it can be justifiably taken by future governments under the guise of 'nationalisation of pension pots' or 'supporting Britain in its time of need'.

Ellie
WTF are you on about.
The bashing of small business has nothing to do with benefits
Or Pensions

They could fix the budget deficit in one fell swoop by making the banks pay back the money that bailed them out and make their friends accountable for the tax they are evading.

We run at a deficit every year, and have done so for 48 of the past 50 years. Solving the problem for one year does not change the underlying economics of running the country. Every year we spend more than we bring in. Anyone can tell you that is not sustainable over the long term, even if you get to print your own money.

There would be no need to hit the vulnerable then. Giving the rich more money doesn't make them spend more and does nothing to help an economy recover. It is the low and middle earners who spend more if they have more.

You are spot on with that one, though. Indeed the IMF last year advised its member governments to consider 'helicopter drops' to prevent future deflationary moves. The premiss is that in a time of crisis, the rich hoard their wealth, where as the poor rush out and buy real goods that they can use. So in a crisis, your best means of returning liquidity to the economy, and getting it moving again, is to just 'helicopter drop' money at the poor. They will spend the money, it will increase demand for goods and services, and the money will rise through the supply chain, and the rich will end up with it in the end anyways, but at least the whole economy benefitted from its dispersal. To my knowledge it has never been tried in earnest. The opposite, pay money to the baks so that they can lend and encourage businesses to grow falls flat at the first hurdle because the banks hoard on behalf of their owners. That has been proven despite any rhetoric to the contrary by the mainstream press.

Austerity didn't turn out so well for Greece.

Nope, but with corrupt governments running the country, and corrupt institutions pumping debt into it, if I lived there I wouldn't be paying tax into their system either. And without tax payers, welfare cannot exist in any form.

TalkinPeace
I don't see it a a negative. I welcome the cutting of corporation tax. We don't service an industry that pays less than minimum wage anyways, but I can see that if I ran a small office cleaning business, or a hair salon that depended upon cheap labour, that would be an issue for me. However, paying someone minimum wage is questionable at best. If they aren't worth paying a decent wager to, then maybe you're hiring the wrong person. Was there so,etching specific you are concerned about. I assume you run your own business. I may have missed your earlier post, sorry.

No, but you could support him yourself. If he is getting £30 less free money from the state, why don't you replace it with your own money?

He is your kid after all