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?

UC would have happened easily, if it hadn't been about where we can work out how we can cut benefits. All in one is fine, all in one with the idea that it slashes the bill, no.

Too many complications. . And ids running it .

So much for his tears at easter house.

instead of giving nurses and teachers HB, we should be paying them more. Especially teachers. A huge percentage leave the profession every year (pay, from what I gather, is not the primary reason, but more pay would help).

Teachers, coal miners, are we not one and the same?
Are we not seeking the best for us and ours?
The benefit circle jerk is snapping at the tails of the lower middle classes.
As Marx said - the useful idiots.

teachers and coal miners are the same? no one is "a teacher" or "a coal miner". these are occupations, and one is high demand with bad working conditions.

Where does it end? At what point does it become financial suicide to become a teacher?
Arguably, that time may be now.
When work doesn't pay then who is next?
When a person with dependents working part time doing anything is entitled to top up benefits in excess of a lawyers wage, then who is next?
Skills? Remuneration? The system is broken.
Broken by a Mr G Brown, broken in a miguided utopian dream to make everyone equal.
Tax credits, housing benefit, et all has created a client state, dependent, entitled.
It will take a generation to unwind.

Read the new book by Harari (who wrote that really good book Sapiens in 2014) - his new one is Homo Deus sets it all out - demise not just of working class jobs but middle class too.

What a load of hyperbolic guff.

You realise the Tories put more people on incapacity benefit in the 1980s than any other government before or since to hide the number of unemployed?

Oh and the highest number of claimaints for HB was in 2012, under Cameron's watch.

It is the system that is broken, but not the benefits system, that is an effect not a cause.

As outlined above there are measures that we could take to fix the housing market, we could also pay people a living wage, we could make it illegal to have zero hours contracts, etc etc.

We get just over £400 per week in benefits.

My husband works but we have two autistic children who need my constant care. I would give my life to have my children function normally. I dong feel one bit guilty for claiming everything I can for my family. shock!

we could make it illegal to have zero hours contracts

Going after a minority of people who are unhappy in a minority of workers, for once it would be better if you didn't just shill smallfox, and didn't just repeat many meme's of "le evil tories!!"

Labour had 13 years to reverse and fix many of the issues we face, they didn't, there is no reason to believe they would if they where to gain power either.

And then they came for you.
Yes, for you.
You thought you were a special snowflake, a good person, a champion of moral causes.
It made you feel warm inside.
A champion until your job was taken away.
That is when it grinds.

As outlined above there are measures that we could take to fix the housing market, we could also pay people a living wage, we could make it illegal to have zero hours contracts, etc etc.

The trouble is that the cost of living is too high, not that wages are too low. especially housing. the trouble is the government is actively trying to make the problem worse for us because it brings in foreign money. Houses are investments for rich people and foreigners, not homes for brits.

Lots of people working 0 hours contracts are unhappy with their lot, especially as it makes it difficult to predict income etc. More people on HB will be in this casualised end of the market that those not claiming, making them illegal would be better for the vulnerable.

The point about labour? Well untill 2008 they presided over an era of falling unemployment, and rising prosperity. The number of HB claimants went up dramatically as a result of the world financial crash.

Lots of people working 0 hours contracts are unhappy with their lot, especially as it makes it difficult to predict income etc. More people on HB will be in this casualised end of the market that those not claiming, making them illegal would be better for the vulnerable.

you'll have to be careful. making zero contract hours illegal may simply eliminate all those jobs. more likely, most of them would go (raising unemployment) and some would stay.

labour and tories, but mainly labour, presided over loose banking regulations that led to the crash. labour had 10 years to fix the banking system.

The banking crisis had its roots in the 1980s when deregulation occurred and caused the "big bang".

Labour didn't do enough to regulate its true, but had they suggested stricter regulations at the time when the City (backed by the tories) were clamouring for lighter touch regulation then that would have been politically difficult.

Oh and BTW, if you eliminated HB what you would find is that consumption would fall, because households with lower incomes have a higher propensity to consume, and unemployment would come around that way too.

Oh and BTW, if you eliminated HB what you would find is that consumption would fall

why not just give everyone money? can't we just spend our way to a vibrant economy?

Oh, I don't doubt that the tories are more pro banking, and I don't trust them to regulate well either. but labour have shown us they can't do it either.

Ah that's a slippery slope argument right there.

So lets cut HB, what do you think the cost of homelessness and poverty will be ?

the assumption is that everyone will be homeless if we cut HB.

I wouldn't want HB to be cut without housing reforms. Better protections for tenants, and more housing being built so that people actually have a chance of paying rent on their meagre wages.

but that's not going to happen. everyone wants to incompatible things: housing to be affordable, but no one to get hurt if this bubble deflates. I think we are stuck with a terrible housing system and high welfare payments for some time.

thoght of this thread as i'm still desperately seeking somewhere for me and my son to live.

i've already explained that in this town you don't see any property available for rent privately and estate agents all say no housing benefit etc.

i've just spoken to one estate agent who says they can't take anyone who isn't in full time employment and on a permanent contract as the reference company they use will not approve anyone outside of that (using a strict ref company reduces their insurance costs i'm presuming). i pointed out that i have more savings in the bank than most full time jobs in this town pay and that makes zero difference - no matter your savings, guarantors or willingness to pay 6 months rent in advance you're not able to rent.

i'm waiting on finding out about another job i've applied for which would be full time (earning less than i can earn self employed or doing ad hoc work through agencies for my profession but it's the golden ticket of FT contract which you need to have a bloody roof over your head).

to be honest housing benefit levels to people already in a house and with a social or otherwise landlord who will accept housing benefit are the least of our problems from what i can see and as much as i'm usually, and remain, pro more tenants rights etc the reality is that it would just become even more impossible to get anyone to rent to ordinary people.

for those saying zero hour contracts are fine bear in mind it means that those people will have no access to housing.

i also wonder just how much my local council is paying out for emergency accommodation given people can't get council/ha houses and yet aren't allowed to rent through the private sector? B&Bs must be thriving here.

I've posted before about my unemployed neighbours (the ones who kicked their dog to death in the driveway). Their income is a mystery. The woman spoke to me once and said they were both unemployed, on full benefits, and were pissed off as they had to pay Bedroom Tax from the day they moved in. (THe previous tenant, a lovely lady, lost her home of 20 years because she couldn't afford Bedroom Tax - so it's heartbreaking the council spent £10,000 refurbing her home then let it to idiots thrown out of a neighbouring council's housing for ASB!)

Within weeks of moving in, they bought a sports car. And for months, had no carpets or furniture but a drop dead massive flatscreen TV. Literally, the Daily Mail's wet dream of a 'benefits family'... I thought these people didn't exist.

It's kind of hard to watch this, living in the identical house next door, struggling on minimum wage to find the rent and pay the bills, knowing that a metre away, people are living what looks like a very easy life, with a fancy car, hundreds of pounds' worth of CCTV cameras (bizarre as they bought those when they still had no carpets) and got given a house that is too big for them, for free, essentially, whilst nice people were made homeless to make way for them.

No sign of them not paying the rent as they're still here, kicking their pets and screaming abuse at their kids.

Just let' expose the fact that some councils have re-housed other area's ASB tenants, into council houses, knowing they'd be paying Bedroom Tax...

We get no free school dinners, no free school uniform - nothing. It's very likely their income is higher than our's, and all their bills are paid by the state. Agree with OP - it's shameful that people on minimum wage have to live alongside antisocial tenants who pay nothing for anything (and presumably are being given so much benefit, they can afford to fnd the Bedroom Tax every week - whereas I'd be living under a hedge if I had to find even that small sum).

you will get pounced on no doubt but i can understand your disgust at that.

i'm facing imminent homelessness with my son because i cannot rent a place without a full time permanent contract yet work hard am able to earn enough to pay, have saved (wouldn't be entitled to HB anyway due to savings) and have a good credit record re: zero debts or bad credit history. i find it difficult to believe from this side of the fence that your neighbours having to top up their own bloody rent by a few quid is our biggest problem.

HoneyBadger we live hand to mouth and I always think we're only one pay cheque away from being homeless.

Re. my neighbours - what's so sickening about that is there is a shortage of social housing (hate that phrase) and then all councils do is give the one house that comes void in a decade, to people who were already adeuately housed, and by their own criteria, don't need a house that big anyway.

When there are people like you who contribute to society and who we could do with in our communities. And many others who, like me, live on minimum wage but watch neighbours on benefits, living what seems like a truly charmed life. (I've been unemployed and when we were we certainly couldn't afford any car let alone a £30,000 one...) It just seems unaccountable.

It does add to the housing crisis when - even since the introduction of Bedroom Tax - void homes, made void by that tax making decent people homeless - end up being let to people with no real need for them. I think social housing should be set aside for keyworkers, or people on minimum wage.

But we also need to control rents so private landlords are brought into line.

Also we shouldnt be depending on private enterprise to do something as important and fundamental as house people. I read recently on on FB of a young family being theown out of their slum housing, having to leave behind all their kids' toys, and everything, whilst the landlord pulled up in his Merc to check they'd gone. (He was charging them a few extra hundreds pounds per month rent, as a surcharge for them wanting to keep their dog).

When I was a kid 'social housing' was for everyone - not just drunks and drug addicts, like my neighbours. I think this is social engineering - councils have moved such people in, claiming they're at the top of the waiting lists - to discredit social housing, so the government have another excuse to wind it down utterly. There is a knock on effect for you and everyone else.

it certainly wasn't designed for people who never work. it was designed really for hard working families who didn't earn enough to ever dream of buying a house.

my grandfather got a council house after his children were grown. it meant that he could take a proper paid job as opposed to being farm labour on peanuts in exchange for a roof other their heads. it was a way to be able to get out of tenured labour. without a council house he would never have been able to take a job as it would mean homelessness.

i know it is utterly pointless for me to apply for council housing as there would be so many people ahead of me who have no means of working or choose not to work and have more children plus i have savings and therefore should technically be able to sort myself out. estate agents rules make that impossible though.

our housing situation is crazy.

i'd like to just get a secure roof over our heads and do supply work in primary (i was in secondary before) to gain experience for a year or two before making the switch over to permanent primary teaching. supply work pays well and we have endless availability because we're so short of teachers and people are leaving in droves (this area particularly). however that seems to be impossible because i won't be allowed to rent.

currently stuck in an overcrowded house where i'd agreed to look after a friends children before and after school and cook dinner in exchange for accommodation and a small salary - basically an au pair. she has turned out to be.... not what i thought shall we say and has moved her girlfriend and her two children into the house and we're now massively overcrowded, hideous dynamics and i'm expected to cook and clean and care for 8 people and whatever jobs she feels like throwing at me because she knows we're fucked as it's the roof over our head.

i just keep hoping and praying for any flat within reasonable distance of ds's school to be willing to take us before i have a complete breakdown

HoneyBadger have you tried the local HAs? I know the rents are much higher than council, but I know people round here who have got HA houses after only very short waits... You could literally do the rounds of the local HA offices/fill in online forms, and by casting your net as wide as you can manage to, may come up with something..?