To think that furlough at 80% is FAR too generous.....

[loveyouradvice]

I'm just interested about what others think... I think fine to do this for first three months but really do feel it should be down to 60% or 70% maximum by now....

People on 80% of salary, with no travel or expenses related to working away from home, are really not doing badly .... especially since so much less to spend your money on

It is everyone else I think is having a tough time - whether its kids not getting Free School Meals in holidays, or freelancers or those who've lost their jobs....

I would prefer the "pain" to be shared.... so if on furlough, yes lots of free time and yes, having to tighten your belt a bit....

Would it not be better to pay LESS in furlough - I'm thinking around 65% - and MORE to those who don't qualify but are having a very tough time financially..... ?

Yes, that's why a furlough scheme was needed but not why it needed to be higher than the equivalent of out of work benefits.

I was on furlough, my partner had been made redundant (no redundancy pay), furlough pay barely covered my mortgage.

away you go, after 5 months struggling on furlough of 80% and yes i struggled. I lost monthly 20% of my monthly salary plus my quarterly bonus which I was guaranteed. I've just been thrown back into furlough again. I have lost so much of my salary already and with one pay day before Christmas left of the year its going to be less again. I'm struggling.

I want to work full time for full salary as per my contract but i can't and I, nor my children should be punished.

@Sexnotgender

People on 80% of salary, with no travel or expenses related to working away from home, are really not doing badly especially since so much less to spend your money on

So, someone NMW, already shit to live on should somehow try and survive on 65% of it?

Will their rent/mortgage and utilities be reduced to 65% too?

Have you assumed it’s only people on a decent salary being furloughed?

So what the taxpayers have to fund someone mortgage now? Fair enough as a short term measure to ease the panic, but this policy is a years worth.

People on NMW often get tax credits or other help. I did. Yeah increase those benefits.. But no way should we as taxpayers be supporting people with a ou effort average wages for an entire year.

@yellowcatss
While you're banging your drum about tax payers money, you might like to consider the furloughed workers have contributed pre covid, and will be doing so afterwards. As to your thoughts on people like you paying more tax, you are making yourself look ridiculous. If you're a higher rate tax payer then it's pathetic to begrudge someone on a low wage, and if you're not then you're hardly ideally placed to get on your high horse about how you're paying more in taxes than furloughed low income workers.

It is not against furlough rules to take a job so you could get £2k a month furlough plus another £2k or more a month from another job (unless someone's particular employment contract proihbits it)!

I would not have done the furlough scheme nor had any of the mandatory lock downs.

What a horrible post. You're just assuming that everyone is on a generous enough salary that it makes no odds to their bills or their rent if they are on 65% or 80% of that income. Perhaps they should be spending less money on take aways, or maybe they reduce the amount they put into their well stocked savings accounts...

Do you have any idea at all what it's like for people who live month to month and barely scrape by as it is to have 20% of their income gone? And you want them to have even less, for absolutely no benefit to yourself - just because it seems more fair to you?

Wow

I've not read other replies yet but 100% agree with you. To the first comment asking who else is having a worse time financially. That would be all those on universal credit after covid redundancies. I think most people don't realise that there's no real welfare state any more. UC is a low amount of pocket money. It takes a few months to get it and you're immediately going into debt once you do. £350 a month covers nothing. So no, it's not right that some people are getting huge furlough benefits and others almost nothing. All suffering from the same government incompetence and inability to properly test and trace. But peanuts for some people and thousands a month for others makes no sense at all!

My partner has no costs associated with going to work. He walked to work, didn't have to pay anything else as a local factory worker on NMw.

Kids still need feeding. Still need to pay car insurance and rent. Still need to clothe kids. Still need to pay gas and electric.

Struggling massively on 80%. Grateful - because the alternative is nothing - but yabvu for thinking it's too generous

Read her posts. OP seems to have a lot more compassion than others.

She's thinking of all the poor people who are struggling on less money, who had their livelihoods taken away from them - but before Covid.

Try surviving on the basic benefit amounts that these poor sods have been left to languish on. For many that is far less than furlough

No one seemed to care much until the pandemic

Good post

@SimonJT

Yes, that's why a furlough scheme was needed but not why it needed to be higher than the equivalent of out of work benefits.

I was on furlough, my partner had been made redundant (no redundancy pay), furlough pay barely covered my mortgage.

Yes, its very hard. Exactly the same position we were in when DH and I both lost our jobs in the same week (with a combined 33 years service with the companies, so a real bolt out of the blue!) but we were entitled to nothing except contributions based jobseekers allowance because we (thankfully) had savings.

Now, the state is paying this money to people whether they need it or not.

Don’t be such an arsehole.

Most people’s bills have not substantially reduced as a result of lockdown. There’s a close correlation between long commutes and office jobs, and the latter aren’t the people on furlough. Therefore the people furloughed are not the ones benefiting from a big saving on their commute. And even if they are, very few people have commuting costs of 20% - 30%.

People on furlough are already taking more than their fair share of the pain. It’s unbelievable that you want to shaft them even more for something that isn’t remoter their fault.

Retail manager - I walk to work, take a packed lunch everyday. No tv, no sky or any of that - sim only contract (£23 a month if you’re interested). 8 year old car. No kids, renting. I’ve paid tax since I left uni’, worked my arse off, had a stroke in my 40s , love my job and am furloughed @80%. I am devastated not to be at work, last lockdown damn near killed me. If this carries on we will have to move, sell the car and stop enjoying the small pleasures we have (y’know, the odd bottle of wine, trip to a National trust property, simple stuff), all because of something I have absolutely no control over. Thanks a bundle for you understanding. Not.

Eh? What a thing to moan about! If they weren’t furloughed at that amount, they likely wouldn’t have money to spend. That would impact other businesses and in turn have a negative knock on affect and they’d struggle and potentially close down and so on.....

Being on furlough might sound great but most of them will be worried about losing their job when the government do end the scheme. It’s a stressful time for many. Nothing to be jealous of OP.

We need to rethink how society is structured and our pursuit of economic growth at all costs. This will not be the last pandemic in my lifetime. Conditions are ripe for pandemics of this nature and there will be more. UBI and a drop in average living standards is looking inevitable in the near future

So a single parent that earns nmw, walks to work, kids qualify for fsm. They now earn 80% of their wage, do you think they are enjoying that? Just because they aren’t at work doesn’t mean they don’t need to spend money on lunches, I take a packed lunch every day, I still eat when not at work. They will be spending more heating the house because they are stuck in all day, rent and bills haven’t got any cheaper.
A £15 voucher over a school holiday wouldn’t cover the difference there at all.

My DH is on reduced hours due to low demand for business and the remaining hours are being made up with furlough. He still has the costs of getting to and from work.

@Tattiespuds

away you go, after 5 months struggling on furlough of 80% and yes i struggled. I lost monthly 20% of my monthly salary plus my quarterly bonus which I was guaranteed. I've just been thrown back into furlough again. I have lost so much of my salary already and with one pay day before Christmas left of the year its going to be less again. I'm struggling.

I want to work full time for full salary as per my contract but i can't and I, nor my children should be punished.

get a full time job no?

Unfortunately it does seem, going by this thread alone, that lots of people do indeed subscribe to the false notion that Furloughed staff = 'deserving', whereas those made redundant or who suffered illness or disability before Covid = 'undeserving'.

Not really, when you struggle to make ends meet as it is with 100% pay. Your bills don’t stop, you still need to eat. If you have kids and are not entitled to free school meals you still gotta pay to feed and clothe them.

She's thinking of all the poor people who are struggling on less money, who had their livelihoods taken away from them - but before Covid.

Try surviving on the basic benefit amounts that these poor sods have been left to languish on. For many that is far less than furlough

No one seemed to care much until the pandemic

That's not an argument to lower furlough payments.

The argument that benefits are too low is one that should be pushed, but not at the expense of plunging more people into poverty.

I’d much rather be at work, but because some people can’t follow the rules that were in place and here we are.

get a full time job no

Because they’re that easy to come by currently...

If you work in a job/ business that has not been forced to close - is it possible that they can choose to furlough just because it takes the strain off them a bit?

Not

80% of the minimum wage is not a lot.