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

Mollie.

Reciept of CM means you are not a hard worker? Wow that's a new one.

Also it has not been shown that she will not be effected by the cuts its just been guessed at.

I'm pretty sure the 400 was including other income not just benefits.

I totally agree Mollie. She is a good reason to cut tax credits.

When I claimed tax credits I had left and abusive relationship, I mean I literally fled a horrendous situation where I left the week I gave birth with my belongings in bag while he was at work, because the abuse had escalated so much.

I had one child and I work in a similar job to a TA so rise in minimum wage wouldn't effect me. For obvious reasons I have received no money or support from the dad.

The tax credits put me into a position where I could keep my head above water but still had to budget quite tightly.

So I knew that each week I could afford food, I could cover the bills, I could afford to send ds to an activity after school. I couldn't afford a holiday but I could afford a day at the beach iyswim? A fear I lived in was of something breaking like the fridge or oven .

I've calculated I'd have lost £50 a week, this was 50% of my entitlement. It would have put me into a horrible situation, I could cut back but it would literally mean not having the heating on, not being able to send ds to his activity, getting rid of Internet.

I didn't have any expensive phone contract, any pets, I do not drink alcohol, smoke or have nights out. Treats were taking ds to the cinema and things like that would have had to stop.

I also haven't had a pay rise for 5 years (public sector), and have to travel 50 minutes to work.

So the poor shouldn't have children as well as not being allowed to keep pets?
Perhaps Cameron/Osborne should be sneaking in a compulsory sterilisation bill? [Meant to be a joke, but you never know with this lot.]

Its actually quite a new thing for a woman to delay childbearing until her thirties and forties - only a generation ago a woman having her first baby over the age of 28 was classed as an 'elderly primagravida'.

Grazia you talk about choice and waiting to have children.

I came from an abusive home (my parents), my father was/is an alcoholic and one of the things that he used to enjoy doing was getting so drunk and making sure that my brother and I couldn't sleep for work by walking round the house shouting, emptying ashtrays and bins in our rooms, bringing strangers back from the pub, falling down the stairs and vomiting everywhere , it was literally out of the frying pan and into the fire for me. My first boyfriend my child's father was also abusive.

It wasn't my childhood dream to end up as a single parent but I was so desperate to get away from home I ran to the first and the easiest place I could.

My life is far from that now and yes I could have made different choices but I was drowning at the time.

needs
I did not say anything about receipt of child maintenance meant someone is not a hardworker
BUT - child maintenance is not counted as income for tax credit purposes so she receives £400 a week, pays no tax/NI and gets whatever her children's father pays
if she was working 'bloody hard' her nail business would be making enough money so she did not need as much as £400 in benefits to survive.
If you read the last sentence of my post - you should be able to see that I said she is not an example of someone who will suffer under the new rules and I would have utmost sympathy for someone who will genuinely suffer - rather than a left-wing poster girl who will not be affected at all (check out the figures)

And the £400 was cited in numerous news reports as the amount she gets in benefits. - assume it includes HB and CTB as well as child benefit.

In all your posts Grazia you have this very idealistic view of the world. That if you just work hard enough, if you just make good choices, things will be great.

In reality we are all human. Some people come from very poor starting points. Some people will only ever be able to earn a certain amount within their capabilities. Some people run into bad luck plain and simple.

I was referring to her as she was the subject of the OP. If anyone can convince me that tax credits need to be reformed it's this woman. What a con (no pun intended) and how deluded can she be that she thinks she is in any way deserving of a tax payers money. I thought one of the reforms said businesses had to make so much profit in order to qualify for the 'owners' getting tax credits.

vivienne one of the problems here is the DWP pushing people off the unemployment register into "non jobs" like pyramid selling and nail bars that don't make a profit, in order to bring the unemployment rate down.

It's a fairly classic example of one government department acting in a way that is counterproductive in the context of overall government policy.

Regarding the fertility/ maternal age issue, funnily enough the Telegraph, that well known hotbed of lefties [joke], reported earlier this week on some government bod bemoaning the trend to leaving having children until later. While it may be on the surface good advice to wait until you can afford them, for a substantial chunk of the working population that will turn out to be "never". And there are good social and economic reasons to think that it would be a bad idea if the only people who can afford to have kids are the long term workless and the rich.

I would add vivienne that many of the "jobs" that have been created in the last 5 years are ones like the nail bar woman. Ultimately you don't get to have your cake and eat it: either these are low paid jobs in which people may need support, especially in the initial period after start-up. Or they are not jobs at all, and the government needs to stop trumpeting about how it has "created" them.

I agree with you OP. Someone on a low income believing the Tory party had their best interest at heart, has sort of brought it on themselves! That said, my heart goes out to this woman who is suffering and about to suffer even more as we get more and more austerity inflicted on us.

I hardly think suffering on £400 a week plus maintenance sitting painting somebody's nails. It's a hard life for some.

Did we establish whether she's going to actually lose any TC income?

Sorry mollie that list you posted read very much like a list as to why she was not deserving.

So assuming she's not just incredibly stupid why exactly does anyone think she thinks she will be effected by the changes if she won't be?

99% of people with out much of a huge gift for figures would be able to put their details into one of the many online calcs and work it out.

If she gets WTC and not just cc element then she will more likely than not be effected by the changes, one would think it was safe to assume that someone would be aware of how their benefit award was made up given that they send you a break down.

Several articles have quoted her as living on £400 and saying that includes CM.

Just because TC does not take CM into account does not mean that someone getting it does not when describing their income, it's also likely to be the first question someone interested in her income is going to ask when they know she gets it.

I see a huge volume of TC claiment breakdowns and budgeting things. Approx £400 pw or there abouts would not be an unusual amount of income from all sources inc earned income for a lone parent with 4 kids at home (SH)

It is pertinent though. My grandfather waiting until 40 to marry was able to support his family. My parents waited over 8 years after marriage to have chidlren (and that was 50s/60s) to have babies - yes contraception existed in the 1950s and today (!) so they could afford us. My siblings were nearly 40 and surprise surprise we don't get tax credits and can afford our families.

I graduated a virgin. So iobviously was not saddled with a baby before I could afford it. Is there any reason girls from poorer homes have to have babies before they can afford to keep them? Obviously some people raped of course and get pregnant that way but not most.

It seems she had not checked her entitlement and she is not affected :

Miss Dorrell has told them that she does not know how she will affected by the reforms. She can hardly be blamed for her anxiety. The complexity of the current arrangements for tax and benefits is one of the arguments for welfare reform – but also a reason why such changes are difficult to introduce.

However the good news for Miss Dorrell is that it seems she won’t lose any money at all. This is at present her business makes a maximum of £150 week, all of which is put back into new products and advertising. She doesn’t pay herself anything:

“The Institute for Fiscal Studies suggested that because Ms Dorrell does not make a profit she is unlikely to be hit by changes to the income threshold for working tax credits, which is being almost halved to £3,850 a year. She will also not be affected by the changes to child tax credits, which will only be restricted to the first two children for new parents from April 2017. David Phillips, a senior research economist at the IFS, said: “On what she has told us she wouldn’t be affected by the cuts to the child tax credits or the change to the taper rate because she is not above the threshold. Even the family element thing comes in 2017, and will only apply to new claimants.”

so I have no sympathy for her but not for the reason given in the OP.
On a side note that seems an awful lot of money to put into a failing business when she claims she cannot afford to eat

She doesn't pay herself anything. But other folk pay her. Hard working people who probably need every penny they earn themselves. I really do hope those tax credit reforms go through. But they need to be looked at again to make sure the poorest people don't lose out. The best thing would be to raise the threshold for claiming and then to taper it off the more people earn.

There is a freeze on all working-age benefits for 4 years. That IS a cut. Dorrell will be affected by that. She is also affected by the 2 child rule if her relationship status changes. If she enters a new relationship and they marry or live together she will lose all TC's for her youngest 2.

Everybody that currently claims TC's or may in the future is affected.

The best thing would be to raise the threshold for claiming and then to taper it off the more people earn.

You are making the mistake of thinking the cuts are anything but idealogical. They aren't financially prudent they don't make things fairer for anyone. Just punishment. And to make transitional protection to UC a joke of course.

And there is also the cap to factor in.

yeah course she dosent pay herself anythin!!!!!!!!!,she just dosent declare some of her cash clients

she probably does ok really

and does a nail technician really have £150 worth of expenses

and this is the ?? that hasnt been broached apart from me bringing it up but she says she works 16hrs well if she is the full set of nails £25-30 takes hr,in-fills £16-20 takes 45 mins

so approx turnover £300 + weekly and thats being very conservative estimate

so she is either doing 16hrs at those figures or she isnt doing 16 and then she should not be claiming

i really dont understand how she can say she is doing 16hrs but has such low income it makes no sense

neither am i i suspect

Because a self-employed person's work only counts during those active appointments. Admin, advertising, answering queries etc. don't count. Only the active kerching moments. Are you really that stupid, or only when benefits is the subject?

where am i being stupid,some examples would help

Who would have thought this could be so lucrative. £400 a week for working sixteen hours. No income tax. People must be mugs going out to workwihen others are getting these handouts. The country's gone mad. They've certainly hosen the wrong person if they want sympathy for cuts. From her front room. Can this be true. No overheads, no commuting. She's got in made IMHO. Talk about playinig the system.

How would she not have overheads? She has advertising to pay for, products, insurance, additional utilities.

Does it say anywhere how long she has been doing it for? Is she still building up products and reputation in order to have actual profit in the future?

I haven't had my nails done for years but loads of the technicians used to be self employed hiring the chair and would be there a couple of years whilst building up a good client base product line or specialisum whilst investing in training amd what not, the woman who used to do mine when she was a skint teenager is now a trainer at the local college and owner of 4 salons. I don't know if it's any different these days but those boxes of multi nails and all the stuff they used was very expensive, I can remember her nearly crying one day because she knocked over a bottle of acrylic liquid into a powder pot.

ilove I'm self employed I have many working hours each week that are not billable to anybody those hours massively contribute towards me being able to do billable work and without them my income would decrease. It's part and parcel of running your own business.

im not saying the SE dont have overheads etc,of course they do and time is spent on admin,buying products

but the women works from home for starts,cheaper than a salon

£150 a week towards expenses/overheads

alot of salons are cash only (yes i get my nails done every 3wks) so there is room to not declare all money

how long has this lady been running the buissness

if along time i think she needs to think of something else

i just dont buy her story as 100% true