Tory Government’s benefit cap is unlawful and causes 'real misery for no good purpose', High Court rules

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www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/benefit-cap-judicial-review-welfare-payments-government-loses-lawsuit-court-case-judge-misery-a7802286.html

Finally

Cost of one child in foster care per year = £29k to £35k
Benefits cap = £20k
Keeping families together , even if it's with the help of benefits is cheaper for the government. The outcome for children in foster care is also poorer and these kids are at higher risk of drug abuse, jail, teen pregnancy and lack of education. This ups the cost even more.
The benefits cap won't force the typical media portrayed scrounger to change their lives. What it will do is make kids walk around with holes in their shoes, or not enough clothes, or no heating in winter. The cap may mean a child going to bed hungry. Crying themselves to sleep while their stomach rumbles. That child will know that in the morning before school they won't get breakfast. If the tories get their way that same child won't even get a free school lunch anymore.
I have been that child. My only meal was school dinner. Sometimes neighbours took pity on me and fed me and sometimes I got so hungry I would look in bins to see if anyone had thrown something away that still looked ok to eat. That is not a choice I ever want any other child to have to make. I don't think I deserved to go hungry and I don't think any other child deserves to go hungry just because their parents have lost their job or are single parents or divorced or have fled domestic violence.

The judge said single people with children under 2 where being discriminated agaisnt. I fail to see how.

In the same way a single parent earning top whack loses child benefit but a couple also on top whack, or very near it, manage to keep it presumably.

"The judge said single people with children under 2 where being discriminated agaisnt. I fail to see how."

A combination of the cost of childcare for that age group and the fact that they're subject to the cap when a couple with one of them working 24 hrs a week isn't.

"A single person where I live who doesn't work will get £14.3k in cash per year, if they have zero income and a child under 4."

Not if you live in the U.K. they don't, it's just over £8000 (exactly how much depends on whether they're in an area that's moved to universal credit or not.)

The only way they'd ever hit the benefit cap is through rent. People aren't given 20k and then they pay rent and have what's left, they get £8200 (or whatever the exact amount is where they are) and a roof.

dawn had a quick scan.

From what I can see it supports most of what I have been saying.

The benefit system doesn't actually benefit anyone. It's unfair, the "rewards" are disproportionately applied v where you live and if you work. And often if you don't work you can get your wages supplemented above NMW.

There is a large portion of people who are on paper rich, as in they pay for their own child care, work full time hours, have high rents/saved and bought a mortgage but don't claim benefits. And are not entitled to shit, yet are struggling every day. And are increasing getting annoyed.

These are the people voting for caps etc. high cost of living, stagnation in wages etc etc means that the middle (majority) income are squeezed.

And then they see people at home getting the same (and often times more) money getting plowed into their household.

Thanks Marcia. I agree with you that it's difficult to see how a person in a refuge or indeed a b&b can get the funds together to up sticks and move across the country.

Mybrain single parents of infant children are discriminated against by the cap because the work requirements impact them in a way that families with two parents are not affected by.

Nobody has mentioned the fact that you simply cannot sit on your arse claiming paradise
Can't show you're looking for work you get sanctioned and benefits stopped.

Forgot the link

www.gov.uk/government/publications/jobseekers-allowance-sanctions-leaflet/jobseekers-allowance-sanctions-how-to-keep-your-benefit-payment

Here is the breakdown from a charity website entitled to. Tabul it isn't 100% accurate as it's a charity based. But my single mum friends confirm they roughly get this much. The calculation shows a person on zero income, with a child under 4, living in a two bedroom house in Leeds for £550 a month.

I think you are misinformed

Why? thisarm what if the other residential parent works away? I know loads of families where the other parent is a builder and travels to different building sights across the country.

My father did this, he lived in his truck during the week, and my mum ran a childminding business.

Plenty of working parents who both work full time don't have supper networks, I fail to see how this is a unique problem for a single parent

Edit to my previous post:

The calculation shows a person on zero income, with a child under 4, living in a two bedroom house in Leeds is at least 14.3k a year, £550 a month is the average 2 bedroom house price

Mybrain, it discriminates because it requires something of the single parent that a parent in a couple doesn't have to do.

Not sure of the relevance of builders, fascinating though this charming anecdote is.

mybrain - you're counting the housing part as cash, that's not how it works.

The tax credits and income support are fixed amounts, the others depend on what they're being charged...so you can work it out for £550 if you want, but that's an imaginary figure and that's the bit that takes people over the benefit cap.

What they get in cash is the same amount, its rent that's the variable and dependant on where they actually live.

Please outline what a single parent has to do to go to work that a coupled parent doesn't. I am also fascinated

Thanks for the link as well which confirms what tabulah was saying - around about £8k income plus contribution towards rent and council tax.

A parent who is in a couple doesn't have to work as long as their partner does 24 hours. They will then as a family not be subject to the cap. The single parent is subject to the cap if they don't work. So the difference is that one has to work and one doesn't.

My mortgage and other people's mortgage is variable too... it depends where I live and what deal I have currently. let's not forget we are talking about long term unemployed people, which apparently are being discriminated against.

Again please some post how, where, why single parents are being discriminated. That's what the ruling is about.

Plenty of people feel fucked off about it.

"£550 a month is the average 2 bedroom house price"

Also, £500 a month is 62 possible properties on right move out of 935...without even filtering it to houses and not flats, thats a strange kind of average.

Hey Portia I'm not subject to sanctions, but as part of the propaganda, I get fuck all for working a 24 hour day, seven days a week, 365 days a year! The Joseph Rowntree foundation will confirm that too, mybrain.

Before anyone starts, carers allowance is 62 quid a week.

"Again please some post how, where, why single parents are being discriminated. "

Working part time means the cap doesn't apply, it is much easier for that to happen with two adults, also two adults leaves one available at home, so no childcare costs either.

But the sole parent only had to work 16 hours a week and their be off wouldn't be capped.

It's not the cap that is the problem, it's the unfairness across the board

You won't have child care costs if you have a two year old and earn minimum wage part time anyway. And if you see my posts before you will see even if your expenditures go up for childcare, and your working above minimum wage, you will still be better off. Might be £20 a week to start, but no one pays childcare forever

let's not forget we are talking about long term unemployed people, which apparently are being discriminated against.
No we're not. The judges said nothing about long term unemployed people, that's your take on it.

FFS, if someone has just escaped dv, can we not be kind enough to let them and their child heal a little before sending them straight back out to work?

Well they have been at lest unemployed for 2 weeks to 2 years. Or haven't worked and was getting smp/ma