AIBU about Tax Credits cuts,

[Weathergames]

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?!

Needasockamnesty as it stands, Carer's Allowance is a taxable benefit. As such, it forms part of income for tax credits. If they wanted to change that, I presume they would have to change the status of CA. I haven't heard anything to suggest they'll treat it differently to other income.

Absolutely delighted. Very good news.

Well, I've just rang my council benefits dept up to ask whether the new UCs change in November is everyone, or just new claims. The lady said she had no idea, they've had no training except the bare minimum that it in the Autumn. And thats 2 months before its implemented. Ridiculous!

YANBU It is policy laundering by Gideon - the Tories opposed the Minimum wage - now they've stolen it and called it a living wage as an excuse to slash Tax Credits.

That wouldn't be so bad if they put the levels up first, but they are cutting first. Cameron was very careful in his answer today - talking about the effects "after all our changes" - but that won't help people in the interim, as he well knows.

Ironically, the foundation idea that we (taxpayers) shouldn't be funding low paying employers is one that almost no-one would argue with - but just stopping that first and then making a token gesture towards low pay in the future isn't a very fair way to deal with the issue, and the Tories didn't seem to mind low pay when they opposed the minimum wage in the first place.

There are a large number of people who didn't view tax credits as benefits. And I do think that a lot of people who voted Tory will be affected really badly by the cuts.

As a child of the 80s, I too remember the children in single parent families who quite obviously did not have enough money to make sure they even had properly fitting clothes :( it will be like that again.

JanetBlyton - I guess you yourself are immune to illness or disability? You're alright Jack....

Boden, ignore Janet, it's just an attempt at being goady.

It's difficult to know how it will affect everyone in reality. I have no idea why we get tax credits but they insist we're entitled so we claim. Last month we put £800 in to our savings account and £200 of that was tax credits - to be honest that doesn't seem right to me but they're adamant. We don't spend lots but aren't especially frugal either. Looking at us I can understand why they are cutting it. I worry for this who rely on it though.

YABU about it only affecting single parents.
What about families where only one parent works?
It's going to affect them too!

YANBU we can give £93 billion to fat cat scroungers yet not for our people.

LET ME SAY THAT AGAIN 93 BILLION POUNDS

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

This just highlights the right wing free market hypocrisy, as well as all the belt tightening BS that people continually vomit out as to why we have to bash the low income.

People in expensive areas can get staff. They may have to pay more. Or move to a poorer area. (Not likely) I've a friend who makes all these arguments. I don't agree with government subsidies to allow people on very low wages live in very expensive areas. As it has contributed to the huge rise in the cost of housing. So it's getting worse and worse. So you can only afford to live in these areas if you are either mega rich or on tax credits or Housing Benefit Time for a change.

Agreed. Specifically, I don't mind helping people who can't make ends meet through welfare, but it doesn't make sense to do that and keep them in some of the most expensive parts of the world (zones 1&2). It's an odd argument to say that the rich need lattes, so we should be subsidising barristas in the capital (at the expense, of course, of doctors, teachers etc). that makes no sense. One of the biggest chunks of welfare is housing benefit.

The tax payer and the economy and the country are dependant on low paid staff.

the low pay isn't the problem, as we can see from the rest of Britain, it is the high cost of living, specifically housing, that's too high in the SE. We can see that the cost of housing is in London is completely out of whack with other parts of the country and outside the country.

It matters what the specific problem is (low pay vs high rent) because the solution depends on it. Our solution to a housing shortage has essentially been more housing benefit, and it's ballooning out of control.

I think it's sad that tax credits are being cut. I would like to see them increased. What should go is housing benefit, but this can't be done until we get a grip on the insane housing situation here.

As a recipient of the aforementioned benefits (CTC/WTC/CB) I feel that it sucks (I'm self-employed so will hit the taper sooner) - but my benefactors are free to withdraw their "help" any time they choose to do so.

I'm lucky to have been able to claim benefits when I needed to... but it is in some sense a form of charity and I do not believe I am entitled to charity.

I'll just have to knuckle down and get the fuck on with it.

I see JanetBlyton is immune to redundancy, illness and disability.

What's yer secret Janet? Do tell!

I see JanetBlyton is immune to redundancy, illness and disability.

But that's not what welfare is for in this country.

As far as I know, none of the various parts of welfare are meant to be a stop gap measure here (with the exception of permanent disability, everything else should be temporary). Housing benefit and subsidised social housing is intended for life. in fact, most of the people who collect housing benefit are in work, so it's certainly not a "rainy day" measure.

What it is is a misguided, expensive, damaging way to "solve" (really just plaster over) the housing crisis, and it the worst part is that it isn't working and costing an enormous amount of money.

Its even worse in that the "living wage" they keep mentioning is not the living wage as calculated by the independant body - theyve just slightly increased the minimum wage and have put the label "living wage" on it.

What is this "living wage" meant to be?

The living wage is supposed to be the wage required for someone to "give them and their families a minimum acceptable quality of life,
plus something for a rainy day", it takes the poverty level and then adds about 15% to it I think.

Its currently £7.85ph outside London and £9.15ph in London.

www.livingwage.org.uk/what-living-wage

Absolutely delighted. Very good news

Janet. Has you noticed that you are not on a debate type thread? You jump onto a thread where posters are talking about personal hardship and worry with the message you posted.

Or if you want to take the stance that it must be a debate because it's in AIBU then the only real question in the op is, will the tax credit cuts make it harder for abuse victims to leave their abuser.

So your post would be as equally cuntish. (Note I'm passing comment on the post you made not you as a person).

You are lucky enough to know you will never be in the situation where you will be working out how the fuck we are meant to get to work because the bus ticket is £8 or parking is £7 because we have already brought food,paid our childcare ect and only have £5 left in our purses.

Why be so gleefull and nasty to people who may very well be in that position, you appear to admire hard workers the very people you are insulting are more likely than not working just as hard as you.

I don't know about you but I can take 3 hour lunch breaks if the fancy takes me. The extent of my hard work usually involves just thinking hard, nobodies ever going to ask me to clean up a unrelated persons shit or stand there smiling whist someone threatens me or calls me a thick bitch just because I work in a shop,or cause my body damage or pretty much anything else that I consider far to much like hard work.

A little thought can go a long way

Blaming it on the government alone is too simplistic. If people hadn't taken advantage and played the system then there wouldn't have been as much reason to look at them so much.

People blame everybody else and have a myriad of excuses as to why they can't work more than the odd few hours or why they need to be a SAHP.

Yes people can face redundancy etc but many purposely quit work, reduced their hours and based their life choices on the benefit system.

Plenty of people work NMW jobs without tax credits so there will always be staff for bars, shops etc even in expensive areas.

red

Is cutting money for people in work going to reduce the cost of living?

We are losing over 2000. I have couple of ideas how to cut our outgoings, but it will mean that we will have just enough to survive.
We are getting married in June and saving for it is impossible right now already, so I have no idea what are we going to do. Probably end up having just registration with witnesses and children and cheap meal in local pub.
I'm not citizen, so couldn't vote, but DP is and chose not to. I can't help to think that this is somehow his fault (as well as others' like him).

Is cutting money for people in work going to reduce the cost of living?

it was shown that rent increased faster for people with housing benefit than people without, probably because people without are bearing all the cost.

but housing benefit of course pushes rents up. it puts a whole bunch of money into the system (essentially going to landlords), that would otherwise not be there.

So, yes, cutting housing benefit would likely reduce rents. But the big problem is too few houses for too many people.

As I said above, I think tax credits shouldn't be reduced.

www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/budget/11726113/Budget-calculator-work-out-how-your-finances-have-changed.html A lot of the online calculators were removed as no-one seems to have a clue as to what exactly will happen but that one works.

I'm torn on this, although I have been an advocate of tax credit cuts for a long time.

Of course, I don't want to see people genuinely suffer, but at the same time, there are a lot of people that get a very easy ride in life thanks to tax credits. I find it difficult to find much sympathy for the healthy able bodied two parent family where only one person works. Or the person who chooses to have a child knowing that they will be single and can't afford it without state help. I also find it hard to find much sympathy for the person earlier (sorry it was pages back and I can't remember who) that is no longer on benefits but finds themselves only £8 better off. Why should that money have come from benefits instead of wages? I realise that wages are low compared to the cost of living, I'm a low paid worker myself, but there's something very wrong with the assumption that any work should make you so much better off than benefits that you should never have to worry about money. Everyone who is healthy enough should be paying their way in life, we all have a responsibility to house, feed and clothe ourselves and our children.

Because of benefit cuts, there are more people working and increasing their hours, I don't see why that's a bad thing.

People on here are saying 'it's ideological' as if ideology is automatically a bad thing. What's wrong with the ideology that people pay for themselves and only get state help with sickness, disability the death of a spouse and short term unemployment? That's the sort of thing that a benefit system should be for, it's not meant to be there to enable people to be SAHPs or have the luxury of working part time.

There will still be baristas and newspaper sellers in expensive areas, those jobs can be done by people who have a higher earning partner, or by students, or by people who are saving up but are still living with their parents, or by single people who are just renting a room somewhere. These low paid jobs are not there to sustain a family with three kids.

The only low paid workers that I really worry about with this are carers, but the problem there is that they are paid so badly, not the cuts to tax credits.

CookieMonster - someone earning minimum wage does not earn enough money to cover rent, fuel and food costs. This is why people are having to use food banks now.

The cost of energy and of renting has risen massively and not in proportion to what people earn. Someone working in a bar can work all the hours they can and STILL not have enough money to cover the basics. How is that fair? So these 'plenty of people' you talk of must surely be in poverty.