To have zero sympathy for this woman

[wasonthelist]

The tearful woman on BBC Question Time claims to have been a Tory voter. She's reaping what she sows.
www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/hame-you-hardworking-mums-tearful-6643284

Fartscoccuring what will you do then? how will you be able to make up losing 2467 a year?

The Tories care.
Tell that to all those queing up at food banks
Tell that to people whose sons daughters mothers fathers sister and brothers have committed suicide because of benefit sanctions.
Tell that to the family of the diabetic ex soldier who died because his electricity had gone off and he couldn't keep his medication refrigerated which was a requirement. His corroner stated there was no food in his stomach. He was found with CV and applications around his body. He poor mind must have in a turmoil. All this was courtesy of a benefit sanction because he missed an appointment. And before you spout out a load of shit. Well its he should have turned up for his appointment. Missing a stinking appointment was last time i checked not punishable by starvstion, malnutrition dispair. Even convicted criminals are not treated like this.
The Tories care my arse hole.

Tax credits are benefits.

I have no problems with benefits.

But the problem is that tax credits cause lower wages. Tax credits basically allow companies like Poundland to survive.

If they had to pay a proper wage, they would go under.

Regardless of what you feel about benefits and tax credits, the whole country would be better off without tax credits. It is called 'corporate welfare'

Tax credits need removing. A different safety net is required. One that is actually a safety net and doesn't discourage people from working.

People here seem to be ignoring that people like Michelle cannot afford her rent because

RENT AND HOUSE PRICES ARE TOO HIGH

Not because she isn't receiving 'enough' benefits. But because there are fundamental problems with living costs in the UK.

Giving more money to people to paper over the cracks does not solve problems, it just delays them.

Landlords are not taxed enough.
Landlords do not provide good enough accommodation.

I would like to see rent multiples limited to local wage multiples for example.

Yes paremedic the tax credits are masking real structural problems that need fixing but no one has the guts to touch. Someone needs to grip the housing crisis by the throat.

Her £400 a week is £1720 a month in tax credits. She basically is given a salary of £20k.

I work full time and this is what I get but I do not get any benefits.

She basically earns what someone in full term work gets.

I think she is spending too much money on non-essentials.

YABU

She has said the £400 is TC's and maintenance I think paramedicswift.

I can't think of a better system than Tax Credits to support lone parents to work.

busymum

Not according to our current gov, the tax credit cuts will impact on her just the same as someone who is not a carer or who does not have a disabled household member all because she works and earns something like £105 a week and gets carers allowence. Both her wages and her CA are subject to the taper and lower threshold.

Her child is also in the middle of the DLA-PIP uprising. A 16yo who cannot dress himself,does not know when to eat and cannot leave the house without two to one carer support (as assesed by the LA because he needs two adults to keep him safe) who was also assesed by the DWP less than 6 months ago as needing a appointee to deal with his benefit claims because he is so learning disabled he cannot do it himself,who despite supplying a ECHP plan from the LA, a report from his consultant,a report from the SW at his special school they still have to take him to a ATOS assesment they will not offer a home meeting and he is not allowed to take anyone other than his appointee due to "space issues" he will also sit in this meeting claiming he has no support needs as a lack of ability to understand why and that he needs help is a feature of his issues. So she is also quite likely to be refused PIP for him, losing another £100+ per week on top of the tax credit cuts, she will win on appeal there is little to no doubt about that but it could take up to 2 years for her appeal to go through and in that time she will still have to fund the support he needs.

But hey this is what the British public apparently voted for. Do you reckon they knew it meant people like this family, people like the most vulnerable in our country,people like the strivers who they see serving in shops or cleaning the streets or helping in our classrooms or feeding our grandparents and cleaning them?

paramedic, do you have kids and are you are single parent?

I think the problem with tax credits is that they encourage a specific working pattern.

People do not work longer or get promoted because they will lose tax credits. Essentially single mother's career becomes stuck and they are artificially disadvantaged.

Sweden does something interesting. It encourages single mothers to work full time while giving free childcare. It is a non-financial reward that does not discourage single mothers from continuing their careers.

Afterall, if you do not continue your career, you will be dependent on other benefits once your child grows up.

Tax credits are really unfair to single mothers. They do not solve the underlying problem.

See this article on Sweden:
www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-21784716

They also make it possible for employers to take advantage of tax credits and pay people low salaries that would not be possible otherwise.

We need to force companies to pay a proper salary and discourage artificial working patterns.

It will be painful at first but in the long run it makes sense to replace tax credits. It just keeps people chained to their station.

grazia

When all the guff about strivers V shirkers was being banded about do you think the majority of the British public would have agreed with it if the shirkers were pictured wearing their ASDA uniforms/serving behind their counters/ riding the early morning bus to work as opposed to those people being portrayed as the strivers having to witness the much spoken about drawn curtains on the the shirkers windows?

I am so sick of seeing posts which say employers really should pay more.

Who the bloody hell are we kidding?

I earn NMW and will lose £55 a week next April.

I anyone thinks my employer will do the right thing and pay me more than £6.70 an hour is kidding themselves on.

When there are millions unemployed no one is going to give a toss what the minimum wage is, just so long as they can keep paying it.

Tax credits are really unfair to single mothers. They do not solve the underlying problem.

Which is what? Not being able to bring in two incomes? Not being able to split myself in two to be two parents? Ditto to be two housekeepers etc. etc.?

Rebecca- I don't know. We will cut back even more, we have no choice, but cutting back where we can isn't enough to offset the loss of £50 a week. We will struggle to pay the mortgage. The irony is if we did lose our home, we would be entitled to housing benefit which would probably offset most of the loss.

My DH is in the middle of training through work so he can in two years, hopefully find better paid work, Monday to Friday, 9-5. When that happens I can go back to work, until then we hope we can cling on and keep our house.

This is the reality of the tax credit cuts for us. I've honestly never felt more scared.

Which is what? Not being able to bring in two incomes? Not being able to split myself in two to be two parents? Ditto to be two housekeepers etc. etc.?

Tax credits keep you on the treadmill. They solidify your disadvantaged position and give you little way of escaping it. They make you dependent.

Would you accept completely free childcare, education and dormitory living in place of tax credits?

I anyone thinks my employer will do the right thing and pay me more than £6.70 an hour is kidding themselves on.

Yours might not be able to, but an awful lot could e.g. those who find it OK to pay their CEOs inflated salaries and dodge paying their taxes. Bezos of Amazon is reported to have been paid $1.68 million (~£1,088, 150) in 2013 but the firm only paid £4.2m in UK tax. An Amazon warehouse worker is paid £7.00 an hour. I don't know how many warehouse operatives they have, but supposing he had 500, and paid £3.00 extra per 40 hour week, some back of the envelope computations show that this is £312,000. Deduct that from his £1,088,150 and he will still have £776,150 left. He still won't be poor, and his workers will be a long way from being rich, on just over £20000.

So lets have a few less crocodile tears from Employers about how they can't afford it. They choose not to.

Eh? TC's are the equivalent of living in a commune? You're quite funny

Free childcare replacing tax credits would be ideal. HMRC can easily be linked to it t prove eligibility re being full toime.

It would provide more people with jobs as the need for childcare would go up and if they were not allowed to refuse children with extra needs then even better as lots of people say their local nurseries won't take their children. Staffing could be more if state funded.

That way everyone has the same choice so a more equal society. If you don't want to work or just do a few hours then people can of they self fund it. If they can't then they have to work like everyone else.

A short safety net of continuing childcare after a redundancy would help people get straight back into work.

Women would be seen as more equal in the workplace so an added benefit.

Much better than having people refuse to work, play at being SE or refusing overtime or an increase in hours.

It's not so funny. Redistributing income to even things up is very much the spirit of living on a commune, without all the annoyances which would drive most of us crazy.

Indeed they do. They do people no favours.

you can get tax credits of course with both parents in full time work on the minimum wage on £14k a year each with children. Eg if no childcare costs you would get £2k+ tax credits for the two full time workers with 3 children.
If you put £350 a week childcare costs into that the tax credits go up to £7386.82 That would net our full time working couple about £35k gross for salaries at minimum wage plus tax credits. I suppose they might get housing benefit too.

(I live in London zone 5. My particularly house is fine but lots of people including tax credits claimants further into London are not prepared to slump it out here nor be prepared to live nor than 5 minutes away from mother)

KatharineClifton, you might laugh.

But don't you agree that tax credits do not really change your long term situation?

How long do most people go onto tax credits? Is it just 6 months? 1 year? I do not think it is.

They feed you today and maybe tomorrow. But three years or five years down the line, what has the solution been?

We need long term solutions to this problem. Not shackles of dependency.

Tax credits are a quick fix. It tides you over today and it would be in your own interest to defend them. But you cannot deny the fact they are a temporary solution to the predicament.

What is that poem

hmd.org.uk/resources/poetry/first-they-came-pastor-martin-niemoller

It must especially grate because she probably knows that she was not just a witness but actively voted for their social and economic policies if she voted for the Tories. Are the Tories ever fans of Welfare payments, irrespective of the type? Unfortunately, she seemed to think her welfare payment would be regarded differently from the others which were cut before the election. All voters had seen what they had done to many types of welfare payments and how they made it difficult for many people who the welfare system had been designed to help. She must have been ok with that if she voted for them.

It is true the kids didn't vote for anyone. This makes it more important that the adults take their welfare into account when voting. Is it really such a surprise given their performance in the last government? And don't forget they were being restrained by the Lib Dems then. Now they can really let rip.

These calculators are quite fun. If I put myself in there earning £14k full time and no childcare costs and my two teenagers then we'd get £3638 (plus the £14k).

Busy working mum:

"If you're talking real terms, £1bn loss from inheritance tax is a drop in the ocean compared to the £1.1tn (yes tn) in real terms borrowing."

Again, and unfair comparison, the £1bn in inheritance tax loss is yearly the £1.1 tn in debt has been built up over time, no per anum.

Your rant saying "don't blame Labour." I do blame them a bit, but the crash was World wide and effected every western country, the Labour blamers always carefully leave that bit out. They also leave out the bit where Osbourne said in 2007 that he would match labour spending plans, so the tories would have done the same, and at the same time given the banks lighter regulations.

The reason I give the 2007 figiure as that is pre crash levels of deficit, which was the same as the Tories left in 1997 when they lost the election. Your which I replied you gave a 2009 nominal figure agains at 1997 nominal GDP figure which was dishonest.

Now why is mine a fair comparison?Taking out the need for real terms figures. Because post crash you have to account in the tax reciept drop and the large increase in public spending which bailed out the banks and kept the economy from going into a bigger slump. Its unfair to compare '97 with '09 because of the massive disparity in the economic situation.

"I know that deficit is different from debt longtime thanks" So you'll admit that rather than putting the country in a better place economically he increased the national debt.

I also hope that whilst decreasing benefits and throwing many of the poorest into penury "because we can't afford it" but allowing £1 bn or so to be leaving the exchequer to benefit the top 9 % of the country is amoral.

But tbf from your previous posts, just like the chancellor and the PM who were happy to claim some kinds of benefit when it was open to them, yet rip it away from others who really need it, I don't think you have any morals.

Oh and you certainly can't win and economic argument with me.

I have two children to support. By myself. Their father fucked off during pregnancy and hasn't paid a penny towards them. That is not the fault of my children. Or in fact the fault of me. The 'predicament' as you so nicely call my children growing up isn't permanent. I paid a lot into the system in the past, I continue to pay a little into the system, and in the future I shall pay a hell of a lot more. I am pleased that the money I paid into the system stopped children starving to death. It's actually sick that people do mind this.