AIBU about Tax Credits cuts,

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Commons back Osborne plan for tax credit cuts
www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-34260902

I don't claim anymore because I now earn enough to support myself - because I could work and progress my career as well as my life while being a single parent.

AIBU to think this is a total travesty and so many single parents are going to have their life's devastated by this - and what about people in domestic abuse situations who will now be more unable to leave?

Maybe I some benefits scrounger - but the tax credits enabled me to be a good parent and role model to my kids - without their feckless father affecting that .... AIBU?!

So we have tormented the severely disabled are reduced their benefits not by need but by number
Now the working poor

Immediately we, as a board of women, ask 'well why not take Child maintenance into consideration too Gideon?'

Christ

they used to take child maintenance into consideration. i remember it because when i first split up with the boys dad he was giving me £20 a week maintenance and i lost all but a fiver of it from my income support.

It won't be long before they do that again.
How dare women receive maintenance for their children ( which can stop at any time on any whim )

Then they will make a calculation and expect fathers to pay a certain amount toward their children and reduce women's access to benefits according to that number
The men will not pay

The women and children will live in absolute poverty

Yayyyyy

exactly. i am meant to be getting maintenance for my eldest (i have only claimed for him, its a long story) but his dad is being an arse and despite the cms deciding in may that he should start paying, he hasnt as yet. its got to the stage now though that if he doesnt make the payment by 30th sept, they are going for a deduction from earnings order. if they do that, then we will get by even with the cuts luckily, but it still wont be easy. and to think i started working because i thought we would be better off, makes me sick really, there is no way that we should be worse off both working, but thats the way it looks like its going.

I knew I'll be losing money next year, but I've just worked out that I'll actually be worse off in work than I would be on benefits. Which is kind of crazy considering I earn nearly £30k.

If in receipt of Income Support (which I'd get because of the age of my children), Child Benefit, Tax Credits, Housing Benefit and Council Tax Benefit, I'd have c.£1480 per month.

With the tax credit cuts, and after paying for child care, I'll have c.£1470 per month.

How exactly is this encouraging people to work? How does it reward "hard working families"? Or does my family not count as a "hard working family" because there is only one parent?

I think if they did actually want to make work pay, the cut would have been to lower the threshold but decrease the taper.

Then nobody could be accused of taking the easy 16hrs and refusing to increase, or turning down promotion or better pay.

I'm completely for tax credits, I wouldn't have them cut but I also live in a really deprived area and as much as some people don't like to admit it, there are loads of people here who play the system. Particularly the dad living round the corner at his mums. Its impossible to catch because people know the investigations are done via bills and statements, so the woman pays everything official + food from benefits while the man pays for clothes, car, holidays etc through his. Also, a fair few people now trying to fit a last one in before the changes come through.

But I don't let it bother me too much. At the end of the day, I have the dignity of providing for my kids and when uni is done will have a much higher earning potential than my current role. The system is far too broken to try to fix, and any "fix" they do implement usually targets the wrong people and fails huge swathes of vulnerable groups. Would have been much easier to just freeze them, perhaps scale them back each year by 1% and let inflation do the rest.

It was always a lie that the Tories were going to support hardworking families. That was just spin, all carefully put together by a campaign of propaganda against a mythical character who is from a family of three generations who have never worked.

Enough people fell for this shit for them to get a majority. And the results are going to be horribly obvious come April and beyond. When I was a child I remember my mum giving my old coats away to single parents who couldn't afford one. If someone is too poor to buy their child a coat, they should be able to rely on state support. Anyone who says only the rich should have children - just think about it. If only the rich had children, who will look after old poorer people? The state would have to...

When the coalition got in in 2010 IDS proposed a plan where people could keep more of their benefits as they got into work. WTF happened to that?

They've attacked the disabled and now they're attacking those very "hardworking families" I saw emblazoned as a tag line all over the place they had their conference, last year.

I don't understand why the poorest and most disadvantaged people in society are having to foot the bill for the tories' golf club mates' banking mistakes. But then, I never got why rich people need incentivising with the carrot whilst I get the stick, either.

I suppose it's pointless, maybe a little insane, even to try and find any logic or intellectual coherence behind it all. Because there is none.

Frankbough - sorry but your post about fighting for your money is nonsense. In 1980 my parents could buy a Victorian 3 bed house for £7k. Of course our parents could work hard and do better and accumulate savings. This is impossible now. At one time everyone on an average income could buy a house. And now that simply isn't the case.

Boden I think there is now a 4 week run on for certain benefits (not entirely sure which ones), so you have money coming in before your first wage i presume?

Although I recall when I heard about it I did think it was going to be more of a taper/ reduction rate type thing, which would have been better.

I'm not sure a 3 bed house was £7k in 1980, that was about 1 years average income , maybe 1970.
Maybe those struggling with multiple children should have had less?

And yes people on low incomes do buy houses.

people on high incomes can't buy houses where I live.

Maybe those struggling with multiple children should have had less?

On almost every thread of this nature some bright spark says this.

The vast majority of current low income families with multiple children are low income families because of a unexpected change in circumstances. Most people don't say I know I have no money but let's pop out loads of kids despite me not being able to feed them.

Very few people are in a position where they can guarantee that hardship or misfortune will not happen to them

I think it may have been a bit earlier than 1980 - perhaps 1977.

I just don't understand why people try to gloss over the housing boom which has made it almost impossible to buy houses. In the 70s and 80s most people would have left home by 21. Now people live with their parents up to ten years longer.

Maybe those struggling with multiple children should have had less?
Carol you know damned well that it isn't the case that they were always struggling and yet you sail through these threads spouting the same old trite shite. I have four children, you know this. Dh became ill. You know this. THe insurance didn't pay out. You know this.

I planned baby number 2 which we could afford. But I had twins. I wouldn't change it for the world but the financial strain of an unexpected dc is tough.

Not all pregnancies are avoidable. My dd was a condom surprise. Last year I got pregnant on the coil. Nature intervenes at times, like with multiple births.

I got pregnant on the coil too after 4 years of having it in. and I know others who also did.

Vivienne, do you think everyone who lives in an expensive area moved there when it was expensive? I live in a very expensive area, but I'm from here. My family are from here going back to the 1700s, according to my Ancestry.com research. That means my family has paid into the maintenance of the area fo 300 years. It used to be cheap here, too. Why should I leave?

And how should I leave? I have actually applied for homeswaps but no-one wants to move here because they won't be able to afford it. Moving to a private rental elsewhere would be an insane decision due to the insecurity of their tenancies.

Also, my work (when I can work) and family are here and my daughter's school is here; my work is not available everywhere in the country. I'm on benefits ATM due to disability - I definitely can't work full time and in the long term I will have to stop altogether. My daughter is also disabled, though I do hope she will be able to work in some form.

So locals with disabilities who need to stay here, were here before it was expensive, and can't leave. Telling us to suck it up is mindless.

Ah but Dawn, as you well know Carol is true blue right down to her boots. Therefore if you are struggling it must be your own fault. People like Carol are very black and white. There is no room for grey areas or her brain would implode.

Carol is intelligent but shuts her brain off to anything which doesn't agree with her very narrow views.

Don't let her get to you, pray instead that life smacks her right between the eyes and maybe learns a little humility.

Actually that's quite nasty but no worse than thinking people in poverty are there by their own choice.

"When the coalition got in in 2010 IDS proposed a plan where people could keep more of their benefits as they got into work. WTF happened to that?"

It was a lie. Another fucking lie.

I have to lol at the older posters about housebuying, my dad was a boilermaker with education at sixth form level and my mum a secretary and they were able to buy a house as it was only 2-3 times just his salary, and this was in the south.

Misguided people need to read up - www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/mortgageshome/article-3222157/Professions-100-years-save-deposit-buy-home.html

Though this is a slight derail, its again highlights sadly how people are out of touch with the housing sector today.

People like Carol are very black and white.

One suspects there's one colour too many there ...