to ask if most of you realise the tax credits cuts affect people who work, not the unemployed?

[ssd]

yes, that's right, people who work get tax credits, you must work to get them

the cuts affect people in work, not people who dont work

I'm fed up reading here about the lazy unemployed who will get their tax credits cut...err no they wont.

The cuts have been announced with a years notice, plenty of time for people to make up the loss of the benefits.

It's very unlikley where both adults work full time much is being claimed, if anything, mosy claimants either have part time work or use them to stay home. It's quite right those are targeted.

The postman may marry a high earner, find a partner who works different shifts or may simply wait and not have children until they can afford them.

I'm a second year medic.
I have four children and have worked seventy hour weeks throughout their infancy.
I earned little over 34K last tax year and my CTC will be cut in April by approximately 2.5K.

I'm one of the fortunate few who will ser an exponential rise in my salary as my career progresses which will eventually negate the effects of old Gid's cuts.
The majority of others affected who work as hard as I, can't say the same.

I find this government absolutely abhorrent.

Why anyone on £34K a year should get a penny in tax credits is wrong. Sorry but you are the one who chose to have four children. Why should the tax payer subsidise this choice. The more I read the more I am glad tax credits are being cut.

i got to work out if i cant afford to work. once my maternity is over. not as simple as get another job or more hours. would it not be better to have a million people working part time than half million working full time? i (think) there are more part time jobs about than there are full time? something more needs to be done about childcare/high rents.

im thinking if i end up struggling so much that i struggle to put food on the table. then i feel i may as well give up work. and still be in the same situation but least i know my kids will get free school meals so they get fed and i can have more time with them. hopefully it wont come to that. (not that i dont want to spend time with them)

my CTC were a contributory factor in facilitating me to undertake my training whilst raising four children VM.

The currently facilitate me to be able to work long hours in an NHS hospital, treating the ill, vulnerable and infirm whilst providing a moderate lifestyle for my family.

of course by your logic I should be disallowed from doing so due to my prolific ovaries and lack of solvent partner.

only middle class nuliparas should be permitted to train as/work as medics. isn't that correct?

Perhaps the cuts will reduce the birth rate, prime examples above of people having children their salary cant cover. It shouldn't even be an option to simply stop working and not provide for your children. What kind of parent does that?

In my field of work, many full time jobs have become part time jobs. This happened as a direct result of the recession. Wages have also fallen.

I guess some people have a lot of kids and then circumstances change, people lose jobs, relationships break down or unplanned pregnancies happen.

I have three kids and only claimed TC when my husband walked out

Red gave the game away with the postman comment - thank god I was beginning to think there was more like her!

We did vote the Government in . I am not exactly alone in having given them that mandate. I didn't fake millions of votes in some kind of voter scandal and they woudl have got in even under proportional representation. I have never had a tax credit and yes life was hard but we coped. I don't even as a single mother get child benefit any more.

Red.

its not your political predilections but rather your frankly repugnant and ignorant attitudes which are raising hackles on this thread.

surely you can not be so obtuse as to fail to appreciate the differentiation?

Says quite a lot about your self esteem red if with all your financial privilege you are resentful of people getting what is pocket change to a high earner.
I'm not a high earner, but get child benefit only, so proportionate to my income other people's tax credits or benefits aren't pocket change to me. I'm just grateful I'm not at the mercy of them to survive, and don't see someone who is in receipt as someone to resent or judge to boost my own ego or to scapegoat for either mine or the governments shortcomings.

No, this is the way to save the nation from bankruptcy. Most people want it. There woudl be no benefits at all if the Government didn't balance the books. Labour would have led us into a UK Greece. These changes protect rather than damage the less well off and hopefully encourage full time work as well.

"It's very unlikley where both adults work full time much is being claimed, if anything"

No it's not very unlikely at all. 40 hours at NMW earns you £13 520 before tax.

2 people earning that still get tax credits, because 2 really low incomes don't add up to a high income.

But they don't red. It's asking for the cart to move with no horse. We need to sort out the availability of affordable housing first, and the abundance of zero hours, or stupidly rota'd part time work over full time, or at least 20hrs plus, contracted and salaried work.
All it's actually doing is draining the economy further. Anything anyone actually currently has over enough food to avoid starvation is going back into the economy, take it away and they aren't spending it. Reducing low earners to shopping purely at charity shops and buying only the most basic, cheapest food to survive isn't going to magically create a load of well paid jobs is it? Quite the opposite. It hardly needs a degree in economics to work it out.

For the most part, I don't think it's fair to say there is a horde of people cheering on the sidelines as tax credit claimants slide into miserable penury. Anyone cheering other people's struggles should absolutely be called on that as it's cuntish behaviour. That said though, among those that support the cuts, surely it's more the case that people are sympathetic to the plight of those that lose money but feel that the cuts need to be made anyway.

It's absolutely true that the so-called 'pay rise' for lower earners has been more than matched by withdrawal of tax credits. I think it was an error of Osborne's to call it a pay rise at all as for the people affected it won't be experienced as such. Effectively what he's done is transfer a greater part of the burden of paying proper wages back to the private sector, rather than subsidising low wages with government money. But I also think this is a sensible thing to do. The introduction of tax credits was a commendable attempt by New Labour to bridge over a greater issue, that is affecting people worldwide - namely the widening gap between rich and poor. This growing gap is at least in part a function of globalisation and doesn't have a simple solution; Brown tried to address it by topping up the wages of the poorest with money taken in taxes from those who were benefiting from growth in earnings.

The trouble with that solution was, as we found later, the fact that it only worked in the boom years. So now we're in a situation where it's just not affordable to do that any more and different solutions have to be tried. Osborne is trying a different solution, namely less money from the government and more regulation to ensure better pay from employers. We don't know if it will work yet, but the principle behind it is not tormenting the poor but shifting the burden of pay away from government toward employers.

Of course looking at it from this perspective in no way detracts from the struggles faced by individuals in their particular circumstances, as people have adapted their lives to the availability of tax credits and will now have to adjust again. The problem, for government, is that they have to make decisions from the bigger picture perspective rather than based on sympathy for individuals' circumstances. Naturally this makes them look like callous cunts, especially when decisions are taken that impact people negatively. But I think there are very few people indeed are genuinely taking pleasure from the idea of poor people suffering.

I wouldn't actually object if it was actually a logical and viable solution, harsh as it is in those on the receiving end. But it's not.
Look at the depression. That wasn't solved by telling people to improve themselves. That just made it a hell of a lot worse.
I don't actually even think camercunt and co are actually that thick that they don't understand basic economy and genuinely believe it's a viable solution. Although I doubt every Tory voter has a laymans knowledge of economy and has figured out its the equivalent of throwing an ice cube at a fire while simultaneously pumping petrol on it. Camercunt and co are doing it because they need a scapegoat and smokescreen to cover up their fuck ups. And flinging the 'scroungers' at all those people who have no grasp of economy or social inequality/ struggles is a good way of getting their votes.

It depends on what you call a low earner. If somebody on £14K lost tax credits yes I absolutely would sympathise. But tax credits have been handed out to people on what I'd call very reasonable wages. So they had to be reformed and the threshold lowered. And a stop put to people working part-time to avoid cuts in their benefits and making up hobby businesses to claim wtc. I want tax credits to go to people earning low wages.

Agree with the OP.

Perhaps a minority do abuse the system. Like MPs do when they claim money for walking to work and ridiculous expanses? It's not actually illegal....

I earn what used to be considered a decent wage and am a SP to 3 children. I get a bit of tax credits and tbh it makes a real difference. I won't starve if/when I lose them but I use them for things like swimming lessons for the children.

TBH people won't be happy until the poor are living in workhouses.

Tax credits were a bad idea and it's very sad that so many are reliant on them now to provide a living wage. Ultimately it's difficult to support something that subsidises the big businesses in this country paying non living wages while also avoiding paying tax. It's equally ridiculous that public services also won't be funded properly to pay proper wages while the taxpayer tops up through other means- tax credits. Administrating all this nonsense must be costing a fortune.
This government are abhorrent in withdrawing this support without first mandating proper living wages to be in place. Big business will be able to pay proper wages and frankly if small businesses go under as a result they were non viable in the first place.

Every person I know compalining about their tax creidts dropping has been on holiday this year ( many of them on foreign holidays). This may be because we live in an area where rents/ house prices are reasonable or because most of the people I know have older kids and don't pay much childcare. How well families can absorb these cuts is going to be dependent on your outgoings .I can imagine that if you are paying extortionate rent and high childcare you are going to stuggle , but the vast majority of people I know within my social circle and colleauges will, I imagine be able to cut back without needing to choose between food and heat.

I get what your saying Vivienne, but that could be done without taking away from the genuine. Two salaried minimum wage ft earners can indeed cover the costs of living if they have affordable housing and jobs that are feasible with public transport/cycling etc and cheapish local childcare. You're a bit fucked though if you're slightly over nmw and you're paying private rent for an ex council house and having to run one or even two old bangers to facilitate keeping those jobs and the childcare.
Not to mention the ft jobs aren't actually available. I think if they were to award tax credits in the same way jsa should be, i.e to get them you need to prove you are looking for better paid work, more hours etc it would solve the problem of people refusing. And a system that catches up quick. I remember turning down occassional extra hours due to the fact I'd be screwed waiting for the system to catch up when I didn't get them. Although proof you're searching for jsa is a joke so that needs reforming so they wouldn't be randomly sanctioning tax credits or using it as ritual humiliation. Instead anyone with more than two kids and a current claim is now more likely to avoid extra hours because they're screwed if they need to claim in future.

Hobby businesses were actively encouraged by some Job Centres as a way of reducing the unemployment figures.

"I think if they were to award tax credits in the same way jsa should be, i.e to get them you need to prove you are looking for better paid work, more hours"

The conditionality aspect of Universal Credit will address this.

Scroll down for comment by the Child Poverty Action Group

It won't because they aren't currently administering jsa fairly.