To think dh is winding me up when he says some people on benefits are getting £500 a week?

[angelos02]

I'm pretty sure he's talking bullocks? Otherwise why the fuck would anyone do a minimum wage job?

Excellent post smallfox.

Even at £210 a week that's still a huge amount of free money. More than some earn. It's likely more as that's just the childcare part, the tax credits and working tax on top will make it even higher for most.

and when someone bothers to respond and explain their real situation to you in contrast to your anecdotal slating you cba to even acknowledge that and respond. re: lazarus recoveries.

it kind of shows the contempt you hold sick people in. we're just annoying and to be ignored.

The 'my hairdresser's SIL's friend claims £80k a year as she was only too keen to confess to me' alleged anecdata is so stale now.

Anecdote is not the singular of data. Also attempting to point out flaws in data, but then producing none of your own is also flawed.

There was nothing wrong with the Rowentree data used, because its not " never worked" its the 1% where 2 generations are workless.

I'll break it down further. 9% of this total had two generations where no one had ever worked. 36% had been out of work for 5 years , but had worked. 16% had worked in the last 2 and 4 years, 18% 1-2 years, 21% in the last year.

So 9% of the 1 % where two generations are workless had never worked, its a massively small number.

Dragons you really are lacking in empathy. Childcare for two dc approx £500 a week , that's £290 a week to find on a minimum wage job. Except you wouldn't bring home £290 a week on a minimum wage job so the child tax credits that are not meant for childcare are used. Except that would be a maximum of £120 a week. So that's still £170 a week to find towards childcare.
Still think " people on welfare" get a good deal?

smallfox2002
Great posts.

My husband and I used to get over £500 week AND a DLA car! Yes, we really did, then the selfish git went and died of his disability, leaving me to look after two adult children with SNs. You would have thought he would have been really grateful for all that lovely money after he and I worked up until he took terminal cancer, but ohhhh noooo, all he talked about was missing work and his heartbreak at having to leave us. Sheesh. I could go on, but I have to go and feed the goats.

So if you use that data, 36% haven't worked for five plus years (so anything between five and fourty years) and thought it wise to reproduce and their children copied. Now add onto that the tax credits generation ( previous generation didn't have those) and those on income support/job seekers now and that's a staggering number of people choosing not to work. All those children being raised are at risk of poorer outcomes and people still actively choose that lifestyle.

Andnow, nobody forces people to have children. If they do make that choice then it comes with costs. Moaning about those costs or benefit cuts just shows a lack of understanding that its a parents job to support no one else's. We all make choices, if we all believed somebody else should fund us there would be no state fund left. Somebody on minimum wage can't afford to have two children or likely even one, so if they proceed then they do so in the knowledge that they can't afford them and what does that say?

So does anyone care to explain either the solution, or what they'd do themselves in the situation of many benefit claimants?

How many of you could support your family with just nmw zero hour contracts? And arrange childcare round it? Bearing in mind top up benefits do not catch up in time? Or instead of sticking to your 16hr contract, work extra hours, with top up benefits reduced accordingly, only to find the following month those extra hours aren't available, but again the top up benefits don't catch up in time?

I also would bet a large amount of money that those banging on about faking disability or ill health haven't even read a so called assessment, let alone numerous ones coupled with actual knowledge of the person they relate to.

I also hugely disagree with the safety net idea. If I lose my job tomorrow, then of course my standard of living should hugely reduce, and in that scenario be just a safety net. But an actual safety net, not one involving the ritual humiliation dished out regularly by the dwp, and not one that involves me being evicted from my cheap private rental. However, if I didn't have skills and qualifications to find work, that safety net should also include access to help to gain them, not the utter bollocks currently forced on jsa claimants.

However for people who aren't in the position of being able to work, it shouldn't be a safety net breadline existence. It should be a quality of life. Practically, most ft carers can never be paid what they deserve, because imo it should be in the 6 figures. But I strongly believe they are at least owed a modest lifestyle with disposable income. I work ft, and support myself and dd with a salary that just comes over tax credit cut off. And when dd is 18, and I will still be under 40, I have plenty of career choices in my field with higher salaries, which at present don't fit with being a lone parent. Plus my able bodied, nt child will become financially independent as an adult. And I cannot see why someone genuinely unable to work, or someone working 24/7 as a carer shouldn't have at least the same quality of life.

I suppose it depends on your outlook though. I see people claiming and not working, and whether that's down to disability, current situation or background, and I thank fuck I'm not in that boat. If people think it's so enviable then they are at liberty to join them.

Dragons clearly doesn't think they will ever become disabled themselves or have a disabled family member they will need to care for. They should remember it can happen to anyone.

It appears that you can't use data dragons.funny really.

Right dragon so you want well under 5% of people to reproduce?

I presume supporting your dc without state help also includes education and health. So at a very rough, and generous estimate, if you take the 7% who are educated privately, minus only 2% to allow for non mainstream, bursaries etc, and assume only 1% can't also afford full private healthcare, that leaves 4% who meet your allowed to reproduce standards.

It would be so nice to be perfect and have the quality of not denigrating others. Ah well we never know what's around the corner and we are none of us perfect. I sincerely hope I don't become disabled or redundant but because this is uncertain I don't live in a glass house.

It appears that you can't use data dragons.funny really.

what is wrong with her use of the data?

that's the data you provided. 45% of 1% (since there are 20mil working households, that equates to about 100,000 households with two generations of working age) where TWO generations have been out of work for 5 or more years. I don't see how that's not a lot of severely long term unemployed. I imagine (though I could be wrong) very few of those households have everyone classed as disabled.

As bad as that is, I don't think that's the biggest problem. There are a ton of households where only 1 adult works, and the other collects benefits, or both adults work and collect benefits. Only the former can be classed as (partially) feckless (though the non-working adult may be home for various reasons, such as sky high childcare costs).

The big problem is that we have a broken benefits system, which no doubt produces some profligacy, AND a broken economy where benefits are seen as necessary to survive even for workers. A huge number of people in work collect benefits. Why? and those benefits create perverse effects, such as housing benefit pushing up rents and effectively being a transfer of money from state to private hands.

1% of 20 million is 200,000.

45% of 200,000 is 90,000 but the figure that you are using is incorrect anyway. 36% is the figure where two generations have worked in the last 5 years. So it works out as even smaller 72,000. In working household population terms this means that 0.36% of households have 2 generations that have been workless in 5 years or more. That is a tiny number, and it fiscal terms an extremely low cost. On top of this there are a multitude of reasons for these situations, mostly to do with disability, sickness and poverty, not as some folk cast on here as a "lifestyle choice".

" There are a ton of households where only 1 adult works, and the other collects benefits, or both adults work and collect benefits."

Benefits are judged on household income, and I can give you the data on how many households claim WTCs, 17% or about 3.3 million.

The problem with Dragons use of data she wanted to all recipients of benefits together when a particular point was being made regarding long term worklessness.

By the way, the houusing network did some research and found no links between housing benefit and rent increases, and the fact that the past few years with the amount of HB that individuals and families can claim falling, but rents rising it would suggest this is true.

I'll return to my point regarding lifestyle choice, the reason this is so important to people like dragons and bullseye is that it allows them to perpetuate the skivers vs strivers narrative, which is simply still the victorian idea of the feckless poor choosing to be poor and take from others.

As has been demonstrated once the households who are long term workless are very small, and in fact a rather low fiscal cost.

Im getting really sick of people trying to rewrite history and gaslight where low paid jobs are concerned. The low paid jobs came first.

In the late 90s i saw jobs in the JC that were 50p an hour £1.50 an hour and £50 a week (my rent then was £48 a week) no WTC for childless then either.

People are really deluded if they think employers are suddenly going to become all altruistic if tax credits are stopped. The same employers who are ignoring or refusing to address sexual harassment which has been in the news this week.

Dragons someone has got to do the low paid work. Should all the hospital cleaners work their way up so the hospitals dont get cleaned.

Should all the care home workers work their way up so that the snobs on here have to take time off to wipe their elderly relatives arse Because you would be the first to moan.

Right wing thinking= people should work their way up. And even if ppl could do that as soon as the low paid jobs wernt being filled by British people there would be moaning that Brits are too lazy to do the work and see it as beneath themselves.
Goalpost moving and gaslighting!

I'm oretty sure he's talking bollocks
Yep you're correct

Dragons, I am a lone parent cos my husband left me. I am also a teacher (of a shortage area subject) and work full time. I am still eligible for Tax Credits. What is it you expect me to do? Without tax credits I couldn't pay childcare, or my housing costs, or for food....something would have to give, let's pout it that way. Should my children now go into care? Or is it better for me to be working and being topped up? I didn't engineer this but I think you will find that there are thousands of one and two,parent families who work full time and still are eligible for some support cos they are deemed to be on a low wage.

cannot people like dragon don't deserve your explanation. Either they think like disability it is somehow your own fault because of bad decisions.

Or, more common, they say 'oh, not people like you, I mean all those feckless job shy single mums and low income families'. Little realising that most people are like you, rather than some mail stereotype of the lp that has had a baby every 2 years since 16, and has never worked except for her ongoing campaign for a 6 bedroom house.

45% of 200,000 is 90,000 but the figure that you are using is incorrect anyway. 36% is the figure where two generations have worked in the last 5 years. So it works out as even smaller 72,000. In working household population terms this means that 0.36% of households have 2 generations that have been workless in 5 years or more.

that's not what you stated earlier (check your posts, they contradict each other). From what you said earlier,

1% of 20mil households have 2 generations not working, defined as to working generations living in the same house not working. So200,000.

of those, 9% have never worked, so they have definitely been out of work for 5 or more years. That's 20,000 (rounding here to 10%).

of that original 1%, 36% have been out of work for 5 years or more (but have worked at some point, so aren't counted in the 9%). so 72,000.

So, for some reason, you aren't counting households that have never worked with houses that haven't worked for at least 5 years but have worked at some time in the statistic of houses that haven't worked for 5 years or more.

Benefits are judged on household income, and I can give you the data on how many households claim WTCs, 17% or about 3.3 million.

doesn't include the elephant in the budget: housing benefit.

By the way, the houusing network did some research and found no links between housing benefit and rent increases, and the fact that the past few years with the amount of HB that individuals and families can claim falling, but rents rising it would suggest this is true.

Indeed, in the last few years the cap has slowed that, but before the cap many studies had shown that housing benefit inflates rent, and really that's pretty basic economics. if you inject 25bil into the rental market (which, incidentally, must be spent on rent) you will see rents rise.

I didn't engineer this but I think you will find that there are thousands of one and two,parent families who work full time and still are eligible for some support cos they are deemed to be on a low wage.

that I said is a major problem. We have a very bad system where full time workers can't afford rent (or, more precisely, rent in certain areas). that's not employers fault, that's our absolutely screwed up housing situations fault.

Wages are far too low if a teacher can't pay their way without benefits.

He's right, kinda. I am probably going to get hung for admitting this, but we get more than that a week all told. BUT my husband is disabled (with multiple health issues and I am his carer) and I have 5 kids from a previous relationship. 5 lots of tax credits, 5 lots of child benefit, couples ESA claim and husbands DLA and carers allowance (I'm not including Housing or council tax benefit)

It's been a hard slog the past 4 years. I am not going to go on a massive post explaining everything, but suffice to say once one health issue has been solved or at least mitigated, 2 more pop up! He's 41, who's going to employ a 41-year-old with no recent qualifications, no experience, major issues with anxiety, a heart condition that could revert at any time, daily absence and epilepsy, dodgy joints, stomach issues that end up with 45 min loo trips, and a memory with more holes than a broken sieve? It sometimes seems like benefit claimants get a lot, I'd happily have less and have him healthy and not in constant pain. I am looking into training as a Personal Trainer next year once I lose weight and get fitter, and he is working towards work. But it's not always as easy as the government would like you to believe it is.

Housing benefit has always been below actual rent levels for over the last decade in my area, and the neighbouring LA's. And that is for cheap private rental, including ex social homes, in areas that aren't exactly top end of the market or particularly desireable. And hb does not take into account actual rent for calculations.

So for arguments sake, let's say you rent a 2 bed ex council house for £150pw. And lha is capped at £100. If you are on eg income based jsa, they'll pay £100. Leaving you to make up the shortfall. If you work, they look at your total income, including tax credits, and calculate how much you can contribute towards rent from your income. But again they don't deduct this from the actual rent, they deduct it from the lha limit. So if they calculate you can only afford £1, they'll only pay £99 hb, so you pay £51. Or if they calculate you can afford £100, they pay nothing, leaving you to pay £150. And the way they calculate amounts to 65% of your surplus income can be used for rent, with surplus income being anything above a very low level, often on a par with income related benefits and the minimum the government think you need to live on.

It's therefore not hb pushing up rent, cos they aren't paying it. Lack of cheap and authority housing, buy to let, and low wages are responsible.

Dragons can you not comprehend people's earnings may change after they have dc. Even if that wasn't the case do you think having children should be a luxury for the rich?