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?

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

But still..ESA is being reduced as an 'incentive'?

The work related activity group are still people who are deemed not fit for work (at the moment) so ill people being told fuck their illness, get back to work even at detriment to your health.

The nmw is less than the cap but wouldn't many people on it be entitled to working tax credit on top?

Sorry, I've just read the post propery and I agree, wtc may well be next to go.

Properly even

I don't understand the problem with it. Same argument as has already been presented: where I live, hardly anybody earns 20-23k so I imagine they'd all support the cap.

I would describe it as fair and realistically, generous. 23k won't put anybody in poverty. My mother raised me on far less, relative to the time.

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.

You really think starving children of impoverished families is going to improve morale and improve the culture of those that choose to be workless?

I'm from an area where lots of people don't work. Growing up, we always had less than families in benefits, even though our parents worked full time. It was frustrating.

Most of these families are spitting feathers over these cuts, saying that their human rights are being violated... They thought they were set for life.

I know that not all benefit claimants are like this, but it is my experience sadly.

holly Great post.

But - yawn - am a bit tired of two benefits bashing threads in two days. Might take a nap. Wake me up when Jeremy Kyle's on - I'll order a takeaway and watch him on my brand new plasma TV.

sarcasm for those of you who believe my life as a single mother with a child diagnosed with ASD and who only attends three hours of school a day due to his SN, is 'cushy'

ill people being told fuck their illness, get back to work even at detriment to your health

Obviously, I'd just add that I would never support the scenario outlined above. The country needs to support the vulnerable. To do otherwise is sheer cruelty.

I read an article this morning on the BBC about a woman with four children who was afraid of losing her home.

The article spectacularly missed the point. Housing benefit/LHA is what they take the excess from, and, no BBC, people cannot just apply for discretionary payments as they are included in the cap too.

Ha, shovetheholly I just refreshed before posting, and was about to say exactly the same but not put as well! I'll post it anyway.

The Treasury has misdiagnosed high welfare spending as the result of inadequate work incentives and has too often blamed individuals for their own predicament.

Yep, I sat here in front of the telly in 2008 watching the bank crashes, and thought, "Right then, in a couple of years' time as this knocks on through, we'll suddenly start hearing that poverty and high unemployment are due to individual moral failing. Lots of newly unemployed Hardworking Families™, all suddenly losing their moral fibre at the same time."

So predictable.

As a nation we just can't afford for generations of people not to work and that goes on.

Thats all well and good if the jobs were there and people were ignoring them. But they just...aren't. In my area there are mountains of 'self employed' and 0 hour contract jobs. There is one 16 hour per week job in iceland that according to a friend who works there they have had over 100 applications for. You cannot 'incentivize' people to work when the work isn't there. Throw the thousands of ill people now being 'incentivized' in too and its just a bloody disaster.

There will always be a few who don't want to work. But honestly, rather than punishing the thousands who DO want to, or physically cannot because of a few scroungers..I would rather let the scroungers lounge. They are a tiny minority of people claiming benefits. If there were enough 'real' jobs to go round and people turning them down for this apparent cushy life on benefits, then fine. As it happens, a hell of a lot of people have no choice. A 0 hour contract of commission only job is fine for someone with no responsibilities and living with their parents, or as a part time job for someone at college or something, but for anyone else..its useless.

We earn less than that it's a reasonable policy

I also find it remarkable that more effort is put into taking benefits away than getting people to pay tax that they should pay. There are loads of benefit fraud officers and relatively few looking into tax fraud. Even though a hell of a lot more is lost to tax fraud than benefit fraud.

Quick question. Is the cap absolute, regardless of the number of people in the household and any special requirements due to disabilities etc?

I do believe in the cuts.
I do not believe it is ok for someone to work and get less than someone who does not, otherwise where is the incentive to go to work?

In terms of minimum wage being increased or paying people more sadly that isn't always possible, as a small business owner we have 3 staff. 1 is skilled and paid above minimum wage, the others are not skilled and earn minimum wage. If they up their skill sets through hands on training they will earn more, but frankly one of them despite trying cannot up his skill set, if we were made to pay him more than minimum wage, ie more in wages that he earnt us then we would have to get make his role redundant.

This is not a straight foward case of cap is bad or good, or the fault of minimum wage or even the bankers or the large tax dodging corporates.
All of those things need improving and changes to be made to ensure that our economy can grow and support those that need it, ie people who temporarily fall on hard times, those with disabilities, our pensions, schools, hospitals etc.
Personally I want the cap
I want changes introduced so seasonal workers can pause and restart claims allowing them to work when work is there
I want more social housing to avoid private landlords and extortionate rents
I want companies (and individuals) to pay taxes
I want schools to focus on giving children life skills not just the ability to pass an exam
I want someone to work hard and be rewarded
Ok it may all be a pipe dream, but we have to start somewhere, and if it means right now kids looking at their parents and seeing them struggle and it ends the entitlement culture that passes through each generation then perhaps that's what is needed

Sheldon but do you get working tax credits?

I want changes introduced so seasonal workers can pause and restart claims allowing them to work when work is there
I want more social housing to avoid private landlords and extortionate rents
I want companies (and individuals) to pay taxes
I want schools to focus on giving children life skills not just the ability to pass an exam
I want someone to work hard and be rewarded
Ok it may all be a pipe dream, but we have to start somewhere

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This all sounds great. But this won't happen. It will just be chop chop chop. If everything changed at once, that would be great. As it happens, benefits get cut and thats the end of it. Then in a few more years, benefits are cut again. More social housing is obviously the fucking answer given most of the benefit bill is housing benefit (along with pensions, which are handily lumped under the 'welfare bill' to inflate it more)

Yes more housing will cost a lot now, but it will save in the long run.

The DWP's own evidence is that benefit cuts make it harder for people to get back into work www.theguardian.com/society/2016/jun/05/docking-welfare-payments-is-not-incentive-to-work-report-claims?CMP=share_btn_tw

I support the cap for healthy able bodied people who can work but choose not to (and yes like.other.posters I know whole families like this where i live)
However, I do not agree with the cap for those with health or mh issues which prevent them from working through no fault of their own.

A banker has a plate of ten biscuits, there's two other people at his table and he gives one person one biscuit, and the other two biscuits, he then tells the person with one biscuit that the other is taking too many biscuits, the banker keeps seven biscuits to himself while the other two people argue over the three biscuits.

Someone posted something like that ages ago on here and it made me realise that benefits are not the problem, it's shitty wages, but as long as people claiming benefits are the focus, then the shitty wages gets to continue.

I agree that working should provide more income than benefits, but I'd rather that was achieved by upping wages rather than reducing benefits.

20k outside of London? A 2 bedroom home is around £1000 where I live. My child's nursery bills are £850 a month (20 hours p/w). These 2 alone are more than 20k a year.

With my uni loan/ grant, wages, tax credits and h/b, we can just about afford to live. In 3 years, I'll have started my funded PhD and won't need help with tax credits or rent anymore. In 6 years, all going to plan, I'll be a doctor in my field and earning an excellent wage. If they go through with this cap, I'll have to quit uni, my job and move into a hostel with my little girl - never having the chance to better myself or be a true asset to society. It's a fucking joke.

The DWP's own evidence is that benefit cuts make it harder for people to get back into work

And this is obvious really if anyone thinks about it properly. Sanctions and such are ridiculous too. Take away someones income, they can no longer search for jobs, nor could look presentable for an interview they managed to get. They have to chose between internet (needed for jobsearching today) and food on the table. Cannot afford bus fare (fine if you live near a city, not for others). And so on.

All that is going to happen here (if its right that housing benefit is chopped instead of 'cash' income) is people will prioritize food and heating over paying the shortfall in their rent, eventually be evicted and have to be put up in a B&B which costs the tax payer more. Hell the bedroom tax increased the housing benefit bill by a shitload and is still applauded somehow?

Monkey you say the only thing is the chopping of the benefits but actually I have seen a huge increase in building and affordable homes. Don't forget that 10 years ago huge amounts of money went into improving social housing with the 'better homes' scheme. It's very difficult to build homes when you are changing bathrooms, kitchens and heating systems in all your homes and now the focus is back on building.
I have seen benefits change so landlords don't automatically get the money and charge what they like, rents are coming down as a result.
I am waiting to see any real evidence of tax being charged by those who want to avoid it!

I want someone to work hard and be rewarded

Good luck with that! Some of the hardest working people I know are the poorest. It doesn't really fit with the Capitalist model, does it? In fact those who get others to do the work are the best rewarded.