to be incensed by this

[TheStripyGruffalo]

The government is right to press ahead with cuts to tax credits - despite claims millions will be worse off - because the UK must become as hard working as China, Jeremy Hunt has said. The health secretary said the cuts - combined with a higher minimum wage - would send out the right "cultural signal" to low paid workers. And he said he did not "buy" claims people would be left out of pocket.

(source BBC politics website)

I am furious about this, I work for the government and don't earn enough to pay income tax so will not be better off by the tax allowance rises. My employer can't afford to increase my hours and I am paid the same hourly rate (give or take a few pence) that I was when I started the job 10 years ago but my working hours are less as there have been major cut backs. I earn over the living wage but only just so won't benefit from the increase. I will lose over £1500 a year when the tax credits cuts come in.

Jeremy Hunt is being so offensive and downright unpleasant.

Cameron was awful on Newsnight last night. All rhetoric and bluff - he has no grasp of the detail of how these cuts will affect people who were his 2015 electorate.

As mistigri says, this includes Sun-reading voters.

Will Cameron and Gideon finally come unstuck?

LineyReborn, yes, I have been saying for some time that there is a subset of not very politically aware voters who are going to realise at some point in the next six months that they have been reclassified from the "striver" bracket to the "skivers and workshy" category - and they are not going to be happy about it.

I was a bit surprised to see the Sun headline because I didn't expect it to happen this early, and I didn't expect a Murdoch paper to be leading the charge.

misti sorry you are in that situation. I am half a day off full time and have 6 kids to cater for when I get home. Shit ex does nothing. This is not a situation I would have chosen for myself and not one I want to be in.

I saw Cameron on the breakfast news - he just doesn't get it.
In principle the cuts make sense but his numbers don't add up.
We will lose out. We both earn over the 'living wage' well just about anyway.
DH works 40 hour weeks, before unpaid overtime.
I work 25 hours a week, so according to the government I should find more hours. Ok that's great I'll do that, only wait I forgot I have fibromyalgia so I am currently lying in bed hoping desperately my tablets will kick in so I don't have to phone in sick again, and if I do manage to get there I will be in bed again by the time DH is home because I am pushing my body too far already.

How can Cameron possibly be expected to get it? He's a rich toff who's never had anything to do with us poor people, and never will. He's completely bought into the DM narrative that we're all scroungers and wastrels. We are not 'real' people; real people went to the right schools, have the right sort of jobs, and go to the right places. The rest of us are just a bit of a nuisance unless we are working for and enriching his mates. But we are not real and therefore don't count.

Think of an abusive relationship. The Tory party are the abusive twunt and we are the trapped victim.

Don't make the mistake of thinking Cameron doesn't get it. The worrying thing is he knows entirely what he's doing and he just doesn't give a fuck.

I don't claim tax credits but I do work 3.5 days per week, isn't having young children who are below school age a good enough reason for not wanting to work full time? My baby already spends 27 hours a week in nursery and my reception aged son is in breakfast and after school club three days a week. Should we really expect parents to have to throw their own children into full time care merely to be able to feed them? It just seems wrong. And that's without going into situations where people are ill or have children with disabilities. No one is thinking about the standard of living for children either? We are such a rich country why do we have to be so brutal? Well not us the conservatives.

Mistigri "If high earners cannot possibly be asked to pay a 50% marginal tax rate, because otherwise their incentive to work will be removed, how can it be right to expect low earners to work extra hours, when each hour of additional work may effectively only bring in pennies?"

good point.

I won't pretend to understand tax credits, but several successive governments have let us get in a state where the price of housing (renting or buying) has mutiplied several times while wages have stagnated. To remove a source of help before the wages have gone up - and to think that employers will somehow magically decide to increase them beyond any government mandatory rule - is insane.

Has the Sun realised that, how funny

I do work 3.5 days per week, isn't having young children who are below school age a good enough reason for not wanting to work full time? My baby already spends 27 hours a week in nursery and my reception aged son is in breakfast and after school club three days a week. Should we really expect parents to have to throw their own children into full time care merely to be able to feed them?

If your baby is 6 weeks then you have my full sympathy.

If your 'baby' is a toddler or 9/10/11 months then no - having young children isn't a good enough reason to want to work PT if you're expecting the state to pick up the rest of the tab.

If you're paying for it yourself you can, of course, choose to work (or not) any hours you choose.

fucking dignity is not paying extremely hard working people a pittance just because you can get away with it.

The govt should realise that in the case of people like me then. I am a carer and get carers allowance of £62.10 per week for carrying out my caring role for a minimum of 35 hours per week (in reality it is over 100 hours per week). My hourly rate paid by the govt is well under the minimum wage, let alone the new living wage.
The govt isn't going to give me any significant increase in my carers allowance.
My husbands employer (he works full time) isn't going to give him a pay rise as he is already over the living wage.
Our tax credits are still going to be slashed by over £2000 per year. We have no way of making up the shortfall as I cannot care for over 100 hours per week and have a paid job. My DH cannot work more hours as he is already full time and helps me out with caring the rest of the time.

Further to redannie's post I can't help but think a general strike of all workers affected would be a bloody good way to get tory bastards to realise how important these workers actually are!

As for 'well just work more hours/get a 2nd job' please! Most people are on their knees anyway PLUS THE JOBS/HOURS AREN'T THERE!!

I live in a very deprived high unemployment area where on the odd occasion a vacancy does arise its often for LESS THAN 10 hours a week! And they'll probably still get more than 100 applications!

Even in terms of Tories own aims its self defeating because it will result in more sick days which cost employers and country a fortune!

Make the tax avoiders/evaders pay, make the banks repay the bailout loans, bring in an ACTUAL living wage and the cuts wouldn't be necessary and there'd be enough in the coffers for welfare for those that need it.

Cameron et al haven't a sodding clue! They've never had to actually work their whole lives, make em work for nmw as a carer/cleaner/shopworker/street cleaner etc for a month before they're allowed to be MP's I say! Actually make it 6-12 months!

Is there a calculator or anything yet where you can see how much you'll be worse off when this comes in? We claim some TC but I've just managed to land an evening job around DP so hoping to move away from them.

As well as extra hours or jobs not being available, issues around flexible, affordable childcare and public transport affect people's ability to work. Quite apart from health issues.
If you're on a low wage with 2 dc needing childcare then it isn't economically viable to make up the sudden drop in income by working more.

I think the idea to be like the Chinese is to send the kids to a sweatshop to work instead of paying for childcare.

If we could achieve full time high quality free (or for a nominal fee ) childcare there is the start of an argument. The cultural norm in my family has always been full time work for everyone ( and more if you are self employed).I don't mind the "work to live not live to work argument as long as it is not to give financial support to others at my expense, when I've always accepted it is right for me to cope with 35 + hours a week and bring up two children. As the manager of a service that is very short staffed I must admit to being sick and tired of people refusing to work any more than very part time hours because they will loose out on benefits.

MindcraftWonder I don't expect the state to pay for me working part time because I'm a higher rate tax payer, as is my husband. But I also don't expect a 10 month old baby to stay in Childcare five days per week because both parents are having to work full time to keep their heads above water - I would much rather my taxes went on this than Trident or bailing out bankers. Why should people have to work themselves to the grind stone for poor wages and barely see their children for a low standard of living? I'm simply saying that I think the expectations on working parents on low incomes are incredibly tough. I wish we could be more compassionate to parents and children as a nation.

I'm reliant on tax credits.
I work full time.

Tax credits shouldn't be needed. Peoples wages should be enough but they aren't and removing tax credits is not going to fox employers to do so.

*force
Sorry this phone screen is awful

I also have a 12 year old with SN who I not safe to leave alone. She is at school from 7.45 to 3pm. She can stay until 4pm Monday to Thursday but not Friday. There is no childcare for teens that will collect from school and care for her around here. I want to do more than 30 hours but I am trapped.

Oh, yes. We should be more like China, with areas of absolute poverty and a government that controls its citizen's credit scores to limit their buying power. Genius plan.

www.aclu.org/blog/free-future/chinas-nightmarish-citizen-scores-are-warning-americans

I firmly believe that none of these polititions live in the real world. They should be made to live on a low income for a year before they're allowed to stand.

*politicians- my fingers got ahead of my brain.

China is a country that (off the top of my head)

• executes more people every year that all other countries put together
• has appalling pollution problems which cause serious health problems
• has a shocking record on industrial accidents (in my industry - mining - it makes Africans countries look like paragons of virtue in comparison)

And should want to emulate them? Okaaaayyy ....