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?

just. Agree wholeheartedly. It's called the 'benefits trap' for a reason.

"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?"

1. The second statement does not imply the first. You could, with more generosity, argue that workers should receive more, not that the poor receive less
2. You could also argue that the incentive to work should come from a fulfilling job that actually achieves something worthwhile. Money is not the only reason people do things.
3. A lot of the hatred I spoke about earlier comes from the crapness of many people's jobs, and the scant reward that they receive for doing them. This needs to be addressed, but not by emiserating everyone else to an equal degree.

I'm no longer in the UK but would be delighted if this was brought in here in Ireland. One of our neighbours collects collects unemployment plus housing support, works cash in cash, wife has never learned English, and rents his spare room to a lodger. I know as Ihelped him complete paperwork for his benefits until I realised he was doing the cash work. Another neighbour tried to bully and harass us out of our home as she liked ours more than her own; she mistakenly thought our place was owned by the council, and if we went, she'd get it. They got social housing yet can afford a new car, a camper van, two holidays a year to Nigeria and all the kids have iPhones and iPads. a benefit should cover bare basics only, and under no circumstances should a benefit provide a better lifestyle than an employee, otherwise why bother working?
If a benefit collector sees that the only way to improve their quality of life is through work, then that's a win for me. Undertake training if you need to get the skills but a benefit shouldn't be a lifestyle choice.
However I do feel that disability benefits should be handled differently and subject to very vigorous testing to weed out scammers, but if you're seriously ill, compassion should be shown

I will say for a third time...if you support the benefit cap (as it is currently devised) you are supporting cuts to benefits of people with disabilities on ESA, including cancer, MH problems etc.

Many of them will have previously been on DLA but lost it when PIP came in.

Quite a few who can walk (just over 25metres but less than 50 metres will have lost their Mobility cars or scooters) making their ability to go out much harder.

This is the reality of the benefit cap

HerOtherHalf, from the DWP website

1. Benefits affected by the cap

The cap applies to the total amount people in your household (you, your partner and any children living with you) get from the following benefits:

Bereavement Allowance
Child Benefit
Child Tax Credit
Employment and Support Allowance (unless you get the ‘support’ component)
Housing Benefit
Incapacity Benefit
Income Support
Jobseeker’s Allowance
Maternity Allowance
Severe Disablement Allowance
Widowed Parent’s Allowance (or Widowed Mother’s Allowance or Widows Pension if you started getting it before 9 April 2001)
Universal Credit (unless you’ve had a work capability assessment and aren’t fit for work)

Benefits that aren’t included
You’re not affected by the cap if anyone in your household qualifies for Working Tax Credit or gets any of the following benefits:

Armed Forces Compensation Scheme
Armed Forces Independence Payment
Attendance Allowance
Carer’s Allowance
Disability Living Allowance (DLA)
Employment and Support Allowance (if you get the support component)
Guardian’s Allowance
Industrial Injuries Benefits (and equivalent payments as part of a War Disablement Pension or the Armed Forces Compensation Scheme)
Personal Independence Payment (PIP)
Universal Credit payments towards carer’s costs or for ‘limited capability for work and work-related activity’
War pensions
War Widow’s or War Widower’s Pension

If you have adult children or non-dependants living with you and they qualify for any of these benefits, you may be affected by the cap. This is because they’re not usually included in your household.

I support it in general. We should look after the people who genuinely can't work and their carers and those that need benefits on a short term basis.
Not perfectly able folk who start complaining they won't be able to afford to run a car etc when they haven't ever worked or intended to do so.
We do need more jobs to be created but the people taking them need to be significantly better off and people on low pay supported.

ClarkL

However they are STILL selling off social housing. Its a bloody joke really. Great if some effort is being made, but its not enough. Building more would create more jobs too so benefits more people. It is possible to improve kitchens and such whilst also building more housing. I have 3 friends who are builders and have barely any work right now, they would bloody love this. More tax payed too, lower housing bill in the future everybody wins right? But no, lets do the opposite..as it punishes those scroungers.

I want someone to work hard and be rewarded

Because farm labourers, care assistants and cleaners do fuck all for their money, right? Jobs that are physically exhausting, tedious and emotionally draining? Having read the recent thread about people eating breakfast at work, with many posters bragging about how they 'turn up and take breaks when they feel like it' (because allegedly they are responsible adults who take the piss at work), MN really needs a reality check regarding what 'hard work' actually is.

Also I currently (luckily) live in social housing..and could buy my home at a fraction of the price due to the right to buy scheme. So I would lose out really by this being ended. But I still think it should be ended as its ridiculous.

If they go through with this cap

It has started today.

agree right to buy should never have been allowed

I support it. I used to receive benefits and found it really depressing looking for a job knowing I will get less for working. I now work for £20 (ish) per week less. If we received less to start with then it makes you want to work so you can afford luxurys rather than working so you feel like you are setting a good example for the children and feeling like you are supporting your family.

They got social housing yet can afford a new car, a camper van, two holidays a year to Nigeria and all the kids have iPhones and iPads. a benefit should cover bare basics only, and under no circumstances should a benefit provide a better lifestyle than an employee, otherwise why bother working?

There is NO way they are affording all of that on benefits tbh. Sorry. They are clearly working cash in hand or dealing drugs or something too.

What this means is, if you have a disabled adult child or parent living with you, then you may still be capped.

They are considered an exempt household of one (and not personally capped), and you are considered separately.

God knows how they then fudge stuff like the rent and council tax, in that case, which obviously reflect that reality that you are one household renting one home large enough to squeeze in the extra adult with special needs.

I don't think living on benefits should be a choice. But I think that there are a couple of fundamental things to be resolved before we should even think about cutting benefits:

1. Why are there so many families where the absent parent doesn't pay an adequate amount for their children?
2. Why is the free childcare only offered in term time?
3. Why are there so few childcare options for school-age children

It seems to me (and this is only from media reports, I don't pretend to be well-informed) that the biggest losers from benefit cuts are single parents with multiple children (presumably because they need larger therefore more expensive properties). But if childcare was cheaper / more accessible, working may be more possible. Or if the absent parent paid more, there would need to be less reliance on benefits.

I have no idea how you'd enforce that, though.

I used to receive benefits and found it really depressing looking for a job knowing I will get less for working. I now work for £20 (ish) per week less.

Are you sure you are claiming all of what you are entitled to? I asik as my sister had a brief period of being unemployed and was worse off for going back to work (also by about 20-30 per week) and it turned out she could actually still get housing benefit (not full, but some) and also working tax credit. She was losing out on around 140 per week. A lot of people are in the same boat given something like 13b worth of benefits go unclaimed every year when people are actually entitled to them...

Also those claiming for 6 kids or whatever will disappear over time too. Given the changes to child tax credits that is coming in in April that limits everything to 2 kids. Not entirely sure how I feel about that one. I can see the pluses but also many minuses.

Yeah. It's the kids that will suffer I think. I don't believe it will end in smaller fAmilies tbh

Totally agree our very lax enforcement regime and the seeming social acceptability of (mostly) Dads dodging their financial responsibilities to their kids would be a better place to start - but for some reason, the ebenfit cap seems more popular (and it has plenty of support on here).

I support it.

I agree with it in principle, but as many have mentioned, it doesn't make much sense in the absence of a wholesale crackdown on non-paying NRPs.

Won't this "only paying for 2 children" thing really put women at a disadvantage? How many times do we see women on here, panicking about leaving a relationship because the man is the main earner or sole earner, and they're advised to put in for benefits? How much harder will it be for any with more than 2 children to leave?

I'm confused by the trope about "making people look for work". Wouldn't that only be possible if there were loads of jobs going? How can you make someone 'find' something that doesn't exist?

And there's no incentive to be on a zero hours contract or minimum wage job, as unemployed people get about the same money and get things like free school dinners which are worth a fortune. Not advocating cutting that, more like making it more attractive for people to take jobs.

But yes. Government should be out on their fat arses if they can't create work. And saying that you're cutting benefits to force people into work is actually morally repellent. Make jobs, create schemes if necessary like in the 1980s... then whinge at people if they're still at home.

Won't this "only paying for 2 children" thing really put women at a disadvantage? How many times do we see women on here, panicking about leaving a relationship because the man is the main earner or sole earner, and they're advised to put in for benefits? How much harder will it be for any with more than 2 children to leave?

Yup this is one of the HUGE downsides I see. Along with contraception never being 100% effective. Which will lead to a lot of kids living in poverty or an increase in people who feel they HAVE to have an abortion :S I have the implant plus my partner uses condoms, but I am not naive enough to think this protects us completely. 'Accidents' happen. I cannot imagine being in the position of feeling I had to have an abortion even though I had been as careful as I could be. Its basically telling people who are out of work that they must be totally celibate. Yes it will stop those few who do 'breed for benefits'. But it will hit 'normal' people most, like most of these cuts.

I support it. I work for less than 18k pre tax a year, full time job. It's not the worst job and not the best. i don't have any kids, but I can't see why £23k is not sufficient. Most people chose to have children. If I was going to have a child I would have to make sure I could afford it. I don't think people should be vilified for not working but I also think if people chose not to work they should not earn more than someone who does work, and people saying you should be allowed to chose a "worthwhile" career are imo a little bit ridiculous. If I had children to support I would take whatever job was available so I could do that. The attitude and sense of entitlement is crazy with some people.