7 out of ten children in poverty

[Gilead]

Come from families where at least on parent is employed. 40% of UC claimants are working families BUT Sunak blames those on Welfare for inflation and he wants to cut benefits by at least £1000 per annum.
AIBU to think that the Tories are trying to create a two tier state?

It’s easy to say this but I know of 2 families through work where neither parent can work due to having children with SEN. They just couldnt get suitable childcare, had zero family support and plus both were exhausted from caring for them so they rely fully on UC as carers

Poorer people are as guilty of fucking those around them as wealthier people. How many people, who were given a social tenancy when they were in poor financial circumstances or unable to house themselves and their families, have gone on to choose to buy the property at an enormous discount when they had the chance, with no consideration whatsoever to those disadvantaged coming up behind them who could have benefitted from that property remaining a socially rented home?

Give anyone the option to advance themselves at the expense of others, and most will take it, regardless of their status or political leanings.

The suggestion that the Conservative government want a 2-tier system.and increased poverty is botal tollocks. The more people that work, the more tax comes in!
OK, there are some genuine sad stories about people who endure financial hardship in the UK, but poverty isn't measured here like it is in somewhere like Mali.
Too many people in the UK get paid too much sit on their bums, smoking weed, getting tattoos, wheeling & dealing etc. Working for a living would make them worse off. However it's addressed, it's not sustainable.

dipped into savings

many don’t have savings

encourage them to retrain

they may not have the funds to do courses etc

The suggestion that the Conservative government want a 2-tier system.and increased poverty is botal tollocks

That may be but under their government, the wealth divide is growing rapidly and will continue. We're one of the worst nations in the world, relative to our wealth.

If 7 out of 10 children in poverty only have one working parent, why isn’t the other parent employed? The reasons for that matter.
Childcare in the UK is prohibitively expensive for the low-paid. Many jobs in, eg retail, want staff to offer fully flexible hours which is completely incompatible with trying to arrange childcare.

Yes it is - that I've created myself. I came from nothing, raised in a council flat in a bad part of London. My first job was at mcds, I worked hard and saved from age 16 and gave my mum the rest. I know how it all works and I see how education is lacking I.e how to save and why. How to prioritise financially. How to feed yourself cheaply. Something needs doing and people need to take charge of themselves and stop relying on handouts unless there is literally no other option I.e cannot work at all which is a limited number of people.

Too many people in the UK get paid too much sit on their bums, smoking weed, getting tattoos, wheeling & dealing etc.

Is there evidence of this or did you read it in the Daily Express?

They don't needs funds! If you're on benefits you have access to tons of free courses or options to retrain. But you have to be arsed to actually properly look into it all.

It's true though. We all know at least 1 person like this. Add that up it's millions of people!

And that is from where ?

its so easy to get into financial problems so many people just cannot save. One big unexpected bill, washing machine broken , etc and that’s enough to tip someone over the edge.

You obviously decided to save from a young age and that’s great, others may not have had the opportunities you did, or they did and they wasted them - who knows. The fact is that there are a lot of people genuinely trying their best, not wasting money but not able to get by and unable to work. The families I know are by kids means frivolous in any way , not smoking or drinking or wasting money

You don't qualify for any benefits but do get CB? So you do qualify for benefits. You also don't really need it as you save it! I could say that it iris me that some people get CB even though they don't even need it and are able to save it!

Well I don't know anyone like that

@Gilead could you please quote your source on this £20 per week benefits cut that you are claiming that Sunack is proposing, thanks
Or are you talking about the temporary uplift that ended last year?

The families I work with can’t get appropriate childcare and they are also physically exhausted they need full support it’s heartbreaking. We try to support them as much as possible and hopefully in a few years things may be a bit better then we think about next steps for now for at least 2 of the families it’s literally taking it a day at time - surviving not living

I'm not aware of any free courses. Reduced fees for those on benefits but not free. And the thing about 'being arsed' to look into it is that in my experience you can be too unwell to even cope with the continuous work of trying to claim benefits let alone anything else. When your hour with you SW and advocate every week is taken up with trying to sort benefits and you also have a tonne of other things on your plate it isn't so easy.

It's Universal Credit.

I worked in the social housing sector for years and must have dealt with hundreds of people like this. They weren’t, in the main, bad people. They didn’t sit in front of me like “fuck all those mug taxpayers, lol, I’m gonna live for free and have them pay for my tattoos and smokes.” But they did often make irresponsible choices, often driven by the view that if the benefits were available then why would they work instead and not claim them, and as you couldn’t be kicked out of social housing for rent arrears for ages, what was the harm in spending the housing benefit on a bit of what you wanted and worry about the bills later? Many of the women had become mothers very young, been given council housing, been able to claim a decent enough amount of benefits to get by, had had pretty alright lives considering they’d never really had much ambition for anything else. Like I say - not bad people, just human, and with human flaws. But pretending that it wasn’t an active choice for a lot of them is disingenuous.

He's not 'cutting welfare' he's rising the threshold that you can get UC before being expected to undertake intensive work searches.

Gurning Golfer I disagree. Poor people spend all their money. Cut their money by £20 a week and that's £20 a week not being spent, probably locally. Never mind the extra costs to the NHS and potentially other services of pushing people further into poverty.

And we get nothing except child benefit, and are only just over the threshold for being able to claim. Could we increase our income? Yes, DH earns very little working from home, essentially self employed, but working out of the home in the day would leave me unable to work my hours, and working in the evening isn't possible due to DS.

What you describe as 'being a responsible adult' is much harder if you have serious mental health issues and neurodiversity. As an example many people who have SMI smoke - as it is their coping mechanism. It's that or suicide at times. And yes, the reduction of £20 a week could be the straw that breaks the camel's back and they commit suicide.

I know that bit where does the "cutting by £1000 a year " quote come from ?

This seems quite frightening to me.I actually think we seem to be going backwards in terms of Social mobility.Some people working long hours and being in poverty. Tories seem to think "work harder" like Charlie Mullins /Liz Truss .Lots of us do work hard ,but if you are starting from the very bottom or even half way up its a long way to go .Without knowing the "right " people as they do.Quite often you need a little bit of luck on your side .Tories just seem to want a "slave " class to support them and their friends .

Ah, sorry. I misunderstood.