New £23k Benefit Cap.

[legotits]

AIBU to ask if anyone still supports this?

Which families is this targeted at?

Anyone who will be affected, is it even feasible to not be pushed into debt?

Has anyone watched the Big Short recently? It is quite apt to what is going on in the UK at the moment... lets blame economic downturn on immigrants and poor people

If a single person living alone can easily survive on 14k there is no reason a family cant survive on 20k.

Actually there might be a lot of reasons - there have been a few threads on here (although not a lot of sympathy) from people who will struggle, partly because lifestyle changes are more difficult to make when you're on an already low income.

BTW I am not saying there aren't any people taking the piss, just that IMHO, most people aren't.

I don't think the benefits cap makes low paid workers feel better.

I earn 19k full time before tax. I pay rent, bills, feed and clothe my children, and have little debt.

If I can do that on 19k, 23k after tax seems generous. I don't consider us poor either.

The cap applies if you are ill and in receipt of ESA

From what I have read, ESA is also going down..to level with JSA as an 'incentive' for ill people to get into work

There are 15 free hours of childcare so it is perfectly possible to work 16 hours. This is being increased to 30 free hours I believe?

The free hours are only term time. Term time jobs are like gold dust round here. 16 hour term time jobs even more so.

I don't get any top-ups and earn loads less than £23k, full time.

user1471439240

Thanks for that link - two bits of the opening summary stood out for me -

● The Treasury has misdiagnosed high welfare spending as
the result of inadequate work incentives and has too often
blamed individuals for their own predicament, whereas in fact
a large part of the bill is rooted in job destruction extending
back decades.

●The welfare reforms implemented since 2010, and
strengthened since the 2015 general election, hit the poorest
places hardest. In effect, communities in older industrial
Britain are being meted out punishment in the form of welfare
cuts for the destruction wrought to their industrial base.

I do not support this and I think it's a disgrace. However, it seems that we currently live in a society where the majority of people care only about themselves and would rather see those worse of than themselves suffer rather than have our society help them out. The government and media have done a pretty good job of making out like all people on benefits are committing fraud and all earning more than people who work, so perhaps it's not surprising that there's general support for this (although it certainly highlights the fact that we should put more focus on critical thinking in our education system).

Also the cap includes ESA, Incapacity Benefit and Severe Disablement Allowance, so it does affect people with disabilities (to the pp who said it doesn't).

Terrible idea. A 3 bedroom house is £1000+ a month to rent here, leaving £8000 a year, leaving £667 a month to feed, clothe and pay bills including council tax (£140/£160a month) for 5/6 people. This is punishment for being jobless via starvation and is not on!

There are 15 free hours of childcare so it is perfectly possible to work 16 hours. This is being increased to 30 free hours I believe?

Provision isn't keeping up with demand in some places according to BBC news - another example where the government has told Local Authorities to do something but won't stump up the costs.

Interestingly, I've just looked on Rightmove to have a gander at current average rents for my town.... and rents are reducing compared to equivalent sized properties 6 months - 1 year ago. Was pleasantly surprised at a couple of them. Almost affordable!

Hopefully the message is now sinking in that the bastards can't just keep raising rents and getting the taxpayer to cover the increase via Housing Benefit.

It's not all bad.

It's £20k outside of London.
If people earn less than that before tax

This isn't 'before tax' though is it. The 20k is after tax. Benefits aren't taxed.

I support it, so long as it never impacts those with disabilities within the family. Ideally, I'd like whatever savings are made to go towards increasing the benefits available to people with disabilities and carers.

I would support it not being any higher than what someone in full time work getting, net. But I think wages should go up significantly.

It's a bit blunt, because the support systems available to people with housing issues and wanting work are still crap, and they need to be improved too, and quickly.

If I can do that on 19k, 23k after tax seems generous. I don't consider us poor either.

That is fair comment, but it's hard to generalise without knowing people's circumstances.

so that includes rent as well? I mean there's one big problem straight away if you are in private rented accommodation.

Someone upthread said "23000 in your pocket is about the same as a gross salary of 29000. Or around 1900 'take home' per month." - that's about what we take home with 2 children including child benefit, but our housing costs are only £500 a month. Surely if you were paying £1k to £1.5k a month for rent you would be in deep shit? Or have I got that wrong?

From what I have read, ESA is also going down..to level with JSA as an 'incentive' for ill people to get into work

It is reducing for the work group not the support group.

The nmw is still less than the cap anyway so I highly doubt it will push people into work. The tax credits etc are going to be cut next so the top ups for wages should not be relied on.

Again, why do people not get that loads of people with disabilities will be subject to the benefits cap; and this will increase as the criteria for PIP are much narrower than DLA?

We are talking about people with cancer, respiratory problems, mental health problems etc. It is a false economy as it will make people's health worse and cost the NHS more

The problem I have with policy based explanations is that something very deliberate and cultural and rhetorical is going on here. Yes, capitalism (possibly a new phase of it?) is exacerbating the gap between the wealthy and the poor and parts of the middle of society are feeling squeezed. But we've seen paper after paper explaining why this is, in great and rigorous amounts of debt, and none of this is picked up. Rather than look at the systemic picture and the unfairnesses it reveals, however, the lazy and explanation is proffered that there are loads of 'layabouts' who are getting a cushy life on benefits. Implicitly, the middle classes have been led to believe that they are personally paying for this, i.e. that every pound that goes to help the poor is one less pound for them. (An odd view of the national finances, and part of a wider raft of ridiculous comparisons between the finances of a domestic house and the finances of the nation).

This is leading to a culture of people looking down the social ladder with fear, and trying to tread on the hands of those on lower rungs. Meanwhile, the rich - for whose benefit this charade goes on - romp away, getting wealthier and wealthier.

In other words, I don't think this is just about misguided policy and the way it's framed. Because the misguided policies are often led by this irrational, emotional agenda - politicians relish phrases like 'hard-working families' not because they are rhetorically powerful in their own right, but because they are given cultural power by the way that we are legitimating selfishness. We have to face the fact that people would rather have an explanation that is based on disdain and hate than to understand the actual issues. (We also, I think, have to confront the fact that it is only now in academia that anything approaching a systemic, "social" analysis of problems is conducted - the media has moved a long, long way from the social science tradition).

Re job destruction - twitter.com/hashtag/understandingbrexit?src=hash

Definitely not a supporter of the cuts nor of this lunar-fuckin-tic government.
They've already targeted the poor with the cruel bedroom tax. How much more do the powers that be and the I'm alright Jacks want them to suffer.
The cuts won't save any money, as. When thousands of families are evicted its the yours truly the tax payer who'll be footing their hotel bills.

*detail, not debt!

Yes the cap includes all benefits, housing benefit, JSA/ESA, tax credits, child benefit. If you are over the cap they slice the "excess" off your housing benefit award.

As a nation we just can't afford for generations of people not to work and that goes on. As soon as they are old enough, they have children and don't have to work until the child is a certain age which is when they have another. This isn't Daily Fail rhetoric, in my youth I married the only working person in an extremely large family where generations of them and their friends didn't work nor did they intend to. They claimed they couldn't read or write if they got into trouble with the law but could fill out a Benefits Form quicker than I could! It is a shame we can't identify the scroungers and help the genuine but that is difficult and in my experience, the genuine are more likely to be clobbered than the scroungers. I welcome the 16 hours rule because lots of people who come from backgrounds where there isn't a work ethic may find that they actually like working and it could lead to a better life for them.

I support it.