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.

Can anyone link to a calculator for the new tax credits? I can't work out how to calculate how I will be affected (mainly receive CTC due to childcare costs and disability)

Shit wages are not always because of poor choices. This is a mindset that needs changing. Far easier to blame the individual than look at the bigger picture.

I wonder how much IDS earns for his incompetency work, which is costing £225K per person

Before commenting on subjects they know nothing about, some people would be wise to remember it's better to stay quiet and risk looking a fool, than open your mouth and confirm it.

Yes, betty l agree. Thank you trip and cereal for your point of view too. However
I'm still wondering if those of you who think we can just 'better ourselves', go about doing that?
Some people are great workers, and rubbish at studying. It doesn't equate that their job isn't valuable enough to pay a genuine living wage.
I think it is also worth remembering that at one time, a postman could buy a home and support a normal size family.
What happened?

House prices rose.

That's the crux of the issue and a lot of it is linked to the fact it became normal to have two parents working when in the past it just wasn't.

I'd imagine many are against it as it would see prices soaring, Gosh.

A bit of inflation could do our ailing economy the world of good.

The real reason, I suspect, is that a lot of people want to make sure there are poor people for them to look down on.

How could inflation help? Then people would face even more hardship coping with rising prices. If they can't afford to live now how can they afford higher prices. I agree rising house prices have a lot to answer for. But a lot of people have benefited from them.

I think it is housing that is causing the biggest challenge.
My husband made about 16 dollars an hour when we lived in the US. We lived comfortably, even though most things were much more expensive. Obviously no 'benefits' Our home (however) needed a mortgage payment of 398 dollars a month!

Babyroobs I haven't been on holiday since I was 18 and living with my parents and that was with my dad. Since I left home I've never had a holiday and neither have my children, apart from DD goes to the Isle of Wight about twice a year and stays on my aunt's houseboat.

Depends where you live and in what era. In my grandfather's day (he was born in 1880) post men could not buy houses.
Today they can in the NE where I am from. The house my mother grew up in costs about £50k today in NE of England. In London it has always been harder. My grandfather's sister moved to London in the 1920s for work - she was an unmarried nursing sister - and she could never earn enough to buy a house.

Yes house prices and high rents are the real issue. For most people this swallows up a large part of their income. With much lower house prices and rents, it would be much easier to live on a low wage.

red there isn't anywhere left to buy property on a low wage & be able to find work. Unless you know differently?
It seems that the UK has run out of places to start over, to move up.
How bad were things in the 70's l wonder?
I know supplementary benefit existed, along with child benefit.
I'm thinking that was how my mum survived (single parent) l know she was left a property in her divorce settlement. So no rent etc... However, she didn't have to work. The government didn't insist she did. So no need for child care.

Bathtime it would be an awful lot more than a "bit of inflation" though. That's not to say some sort of redistributive approach isn't needed, but just whacking up the minimum wage to £15 won't help in the long run. It's easy to say that if it was £15 people wouldn't need government support - but for how long, realistically, before a lot of costs caught up?

Childcare, for example. The biggest expense for pretty much every childcare provider is staff wages, probably followed by venue costs, then things like toys and equipment, building maintenance, utilities, food. Every single one of those costs would increase as a result of the higher minimum wage - and in some cases very dramatically e.g. the staff wages which would probably double. So the childcare bills would spike.

Housing would go up - both rented and purchased. Demand would increase, and so would prices.

Utilities, food, transport - every single thing would go up in price. Soon enough your £15 would need government support again.

Agree with PP who says affordable housing is a major part of the problem.

We had 60% inflation over 3 years in the 1970s. It was not much fun. The only people it helped were those with large mortgages and in jobs with huge wage rises. Although there was a 1970s property crash and loads of people then went into negative equity, and the 3 day week and power cuts.

Red.

I'm a full time working mother and have never had CB or any other benefit in payment.

I get what you are saying about childcare costs because yes they are expensive, but is it seriously fair of you to call them a nightmare?

I've currently got 2 tinies in normal childcare and older kids with SN carers lets just consider the tinies child care cost. It costs me 110 a day for the tinies. Yes it's expensive but no it is not a nightmare.

A nightmare would be paying £110 per day if you only earnt £70 or less in that same day.

Likewise with working Weekends my tinies childcare costs double during antisocial hours so if I work a Saturday its £220 many low paid jobs pay no differently on a weekend than a weekday so say £70pd.

It's well worth it for me to be doing that as I expect it is for you after all one assumes you can't buy an island on anything even close to NMW.

But coming on a thread talking to people whose yearly income may be around the 7k a year figure or around the 20k a year figure and calling your your childcare costs a nightmare is not terribly pleasant.

Context is everything.

A family on WTC can claim a max of 70% of up to £300 pw income dependant. So nobody will get more than £210 pw help towards childcare costs via TC. The free hours can be inaccessible for many people because of the way that providers are allowed to structure the hours,I have many clients whose child care costs have either stayed the same or increased as a direct result of the allegedly free hours.

The only scroungers that need to addressed is welfare to big business. Benefits to people once you take out state pensions, child credit, is dwarfed.

Just find it incredible the sheeple that get suckered into the "we need to tighten belts etc" £93 BILLION goes to business!!!!!

www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/jul/07/corporate-welfare-a-93bn-handshake

If companies paid their way like the majority of us do this country would be a better place.

I assume you mean the cuts to working tax credits that will effect the employed. I'll feel the affect of these cuts myself which is frustrating as we claim no other help besides our tax credits. I know other parents who are not working currently who will be better off than me despite the cuts which does leave me a little bitter I admit! Fingers crossed for a raise in the meantime ????

Yes Lougle I know that now - but from these cuts I might not get wtc anymore.....

Alsoitstates "universal credit" claimants as eligible which im guessing we all move to soon

Bathtime it would be an awful lot more than a "bit of inflation" though.

Would it?

What's inflation running at now?

Haven't we been below target for several years?

We still have interest rates of .5%.

Our economy could hardly be called overheated.

Yes, I think it's fair to say that doubling the minimum wage (roughly) would cause more than a bit of inflation. Every single household cost would be pushed up - even imported goods would be more expensive due to the costs of transportation and sales increasing. What do you think would happen to basic food costs if the wage if pretty much everyone involved in the supply chain doubled? Yes there are some higher people involved but at a low level the pickers, packers, shelf stackers, food sellers etc are on low wages which form a significant part of the cost base.

But would that inflation leave households on low wages better or worse off?

Would prices double?

Where's all the inflation that was going to be caused by quantitative easing?

How long ago was it that George Osborne was lying his arse off about the risks of deflation?

What would that inflation do for this debt we're constantly told is so terrible that we need to starve people in order to pay it off?

If imposing austerity with no plan for how it is going to actually improve the economy, and then imposing more inflation when your austerity is disimproving the things it is (ostensibly) supposed to help with, then why not a bit of inflation.

If fucking over the poor doesn't matter, surely we can try anything in the name of economic experiment.

And then call it "conservative"

But would that inflation leave households on low wages better or worse off? impossible to assess accurately, I'm sure some economists and some stochastic projections could make a reasonable assessment of the distribution of potential outcomes though. In the long run it's doubtful they'd be much better off though, costs would catch up eventually

Would prices double? for some stuff, certainly. It depends on the goods/services you are talking about and what makes up their costs. Taking the childcare example - for some childcare providers staff wages along could easily be 2/3 of their cost base and that's before you consider the impact on their other costs, potential change in venue costs, utilities etc. Probably wouldn't take all that long for them to get close to doubling actually. Those on low incomes tend to spend more of their money on goods and services which aren't especially high margin - they aren't buying Louis Vuitton bags! Those items are far more sensitive to the change in cost of their inputs and would have to rise considerably.

Where's all the inflation that was going to be caused by quantitative easing? without it, we'd probably have had deflation

How long ago was it that George Osborne was lying his arse off about the risks of deflation? Was that him not saying we're facing damaging deflation? Or you saying there's no risk of it? Latest CPI is that prices are overall flat this year

What would that inflation do for this debt we're constantly told is so terrible that we need to starve people in order to pay it off? it would help with the costs of servicing the existing debt - but any new debt (which we're still issuing cos we're in a deficit) would require higher interest rates as a result of the higher inflation. It would probably help those with big mortgages in the short term as their payments were a smaller proportion of income - until interest rates rose to try and control it. Then it probably wouldn't be so fun.Also need to consider that UK doing this in isolation would make our domestically produced goods more expensive - so we'd export less and import more which isn't generally positive

If imposing austerity with no plan for how it is going to actually improve the economy, and then imposing more inflation when your austerity is disimproving the things it is (ostensibly) supposed to help with, then why not a bit of inflation. I'm thinking that first inflation was meant to be something else? A bit of inflation is generally desirable, huge inflation is not.

If fucking over the poor doesn't matter, surely we can try anything in the name of economic experiment. erm, yeah, ok then

And then call it "conservative" grin

Speaking of benefits, may I call your attention to this petition to ask the government to abandon plans to force women to prove they were raped before they get benefits in the event that a third child is conceived as a result of the rape. How hideous to have to go through that, after suffering the attack, then seeing the police & getting checked out etc. And then going through an unexpected, possibly unwanted pregnancy.

Realistically, how many women would that petition apply too? A tiny percentage.

If it's able to be used as an excuse to claim for third and subsequent pregnancies many will lie for the money if there doesn't have to be anything on record. What if they then approach the CMS for child support and the man gets arrested for doing nothing wrong?