Re- Benefits..please read..!!

[bichonbuzz]

Have just watched Benefits Busters prog where women on benefits are supported to try to return to work.One of the women gets £240 pw- has 4 chldren - which coincidentally is my wage - and she stated that she wanted to return to work but felt that benefits are too high and actually discorage some people to work.She was offered a job during her course but calculated that to take this job it would mean that she would be £50 pw WORSE OFF- i just feel that the gov should have let her work and contribute something for the benefits she would continue to get - it would be a win win situation as she felt it wd help her self esteem to work (appriciate some people could nt do this due to circumstances )- She seemed upset and motivated to work and it would have been one less person on benefits - AIBU to wish that she could have been supported to do this whilst keeping her benefits ....

I don't understand how they do these calculations sometimes! I was much better off working when I came off benefits and I was only getting minimum wage.

maybe, but even if I had been able to keep all of the money I paid in tax, it would only have left me £100 a month better off. WTC was the only way I could get back to work after ds born.

My sister was on disability, and the job centre asked her why she wanted a job when she got so much on benefits. Because of her disability she was unable to work fulltime, much as she wanted to, so got a part-time job. This removed so many of her benefits that she was £50 a week worse off. She worked because she needed to, but it would have been nice if she hadn't been financially penalized for working.

But if she earnt £190pw she would be topped up, by CTC and possibly WTC, child benefit and (if she's in private accommodation) HB. She would take home a lot more than her salary.

I don't understand it either, how can the government complain about people being on benefits when they oiffer more than what these people can get if they are working? It's stupid. No wonder people don't bother working when they are paid more not too!

It might not be worth working actually. A single parent with no additional factors such as disabilities in the family and one child would get income support, CTC, and CB, as well as HB and CTB. In her pocket - about £70 IS, between £20 - 50 CTC, and £20 CB. each week. (about £140 take home and no rent to pay) If she worked more than 16 hours a week on a low wage she would get her pay, plus CTC at more or less the same rate, WTC, and CB. She might get some HB. So... £90 pay, £50 CTC, £20 CB, at least £80 WTC (80% of childcare costs plus). So about £240 take home. She has £100 extra to cover the rent and CT she becomes liable for, about £20 childcare, and transport costs to and from work. It might leave her a bit in pocket, but not a lot.

It is crazy. Work should always pay. Either benefits should be cut or minimum wage increased (or a bit of both). And the entire 'tax credit' shambles should be abolished by simply allocating a relevant tax code to each worker. None of this claiming back what you've already paid in tax - it just doesn't get deducted in the first place. Very low earners or those with many dependents could even have a negative tax code - so their pay gets extra 'tax credit' added on at source.

A million miles of red tape saved.

Well benefits are already pretty low so I don't advocate cutting them.
I just don't see why there isn't a minimum standard amount that working families should have to live on - that is higher than the rates of benefits. If the family doesn't earn enough to meet that level, there is some sort of top up system. It is pretty complicated though - and there are so many permutations (two parents working, one working, childcare or not, private/council housing, etc etc) that it wouldn't be simple. I think what would actually make a difference would be if the thrsholds for housing benefit and CTB were higher, so you could earn a little more before starting to have to pay rent. Because HB take all earnings into account, your £90 wage may only be £20 more than IS, but they count your WTC as well so they give with one hand and take with the other

To answer the original question, yes, I think that it is easy getting somewhat comfortable on benefits (I'm only less than 100 short a month, when compared with my previous very stressful job.

However, what keeps me in the search for a job is knowing that the longer the gap in my CV the most unlikely I am to get someone to give me a job.

Never mind the minimum-wage thing, when DD was three I lived in a 1-bed flat and returned to work as a teacher. Supply-basis so I wasn't paying into pension and earned more than a contract teacher.

I was barely better off when childcare, travel, clothes, debts ExH had left me with, rent and council tax went out.

If he had paid the £50 or so per week the CSA said he should have, it would have been OK, but no - he moved in with Mummy and claimed JSA. Still does, six years later.

The media / government should be focussing on these men who do feck all rather than demonising hard-working lone parents who have been doing a full-time job for years.

I agree with expat. The on yer bike idea has left lots of people without family support. I also think it has left people with less community support which makes a big difference to sorting out childcare in a flexible way.

I'm not convinced it is always in the child's best interests for a lone parent to work anyway.

Examples.

Not working, single parent with 2 children, living in council property.

NO rent to pay
NO council tax/housing benefit to pay
£800 (ish?!) per month

Working, single parent with 2 children living in council property.

Rent to pay
Council tax/housing benefit
Creche/nursery/after school club fees if any

It's ridiculous, I know many who don't work because they know they're be worse off by working.

The 'on yer bike' concept is too simplistic maybe, but I also think it's absolutely right that people are encouraged to think flexibly about work and expand their horizons. No one has a god-given right to live their entire life in a specific locality. I also think it's often a very positive experience for people to move around and make new links with new areas and people.

As a teacher, I've had experience of working with young people whose horizons are scarily limited. Their expectation is to live in the same village all their life, work in the same factory that their parents did, and marry someone from their own class at school. They are actually quite fearful of the prospect of anything else - and I can't see how that's good for anyone.

This is the 21st century - the work place has changed beyond recognition from even 50 years ago. If we are to educate young people to have a stake in society, then I think it's right that we should encourage them to expand their horizons. Of course it needs to be done in a supportive way, and I am all in favour of community support, but I think the mentality of believing that you have to remain in a specific location your entire life is not necessarily a recipe for happiness or well being.

when i first went back to work after ds1 i had been living at home due to my marriage break up.
the only reason i could afford to move out of home work 16 hours etc was beacause i was a single parent.

the only reason i can afford to work now as a married person with 2 dc is beacause of DS2 DLA award which ups the tax credits.

if my son was not disabled i would be a stuck at home mum with my family relying on benefits.

the system sucks and there is an element of you are better off if you know how to work th esystem.

raindroprhyme that is very true.

I love your name btw

I agree, Ninks. You put it so much better!

Violet, there's a big problem with moving around.

And that's a) property values, which are by consequence linked to rental prices b) tenancy laws.

This really comes to a head when you have a family or young children.

You can't just pick up and move a lot of times unless you've got a fair amount of money, or what is considered a fair amount of money by even working poor people like our family.

Do I think it's a good idea to expand horizons for everyone?

Well, I've lived in 9 countries and travelled to 41 others and no, I can't say it is.

But, laying aside that, there are the practicalities of it.

Let's just say I'm a lone parent (I'm not) and use me as an example.

Let's assume I was born and bred here, in Western Scotland.

Let's say I got sprogged up by some loser who swanned off and I can't get hold of him.

Let's say I'm on my own.

This is a rural location and I'm unskilled.

I don't have many employment options that provide childcare options for wee one.

I decide to move to Glasgow, the closest city even though it is 81 miles away and takes at the very least 2 hours and a ferry crossing to get to.

I look for work, but I don't get many responses because I'm not local.

It takes, quite literally, an entire day to get there and back to any interview and cost me at least 10 pounds.

But in order to move, I need to prove the council or HA I have: a local connection (if not family then having lived there at least 6 months out of the last 2 years) or a job.

Hmm.

Guess moving's sort of out because I can't find a private landlord to take me on as DSS with a kid and I don't have 6 months rent to advance.

And I can't get a job as I'm not local and I'm unskilled.

On yer bike, my ARSE.

I personally have four close friends whose childhoods were effectively ruined and fucked because of this line of thinking.

My former boss is going to throw a party when Margaret Thatcher carks it, because she remembers when she was 7 and her father, a nautical engineer, paced the floors all night with worry and her mother cried into her morning tea.

She remembers the aid given by tinkers in the traveller's sites they lived in to survive and waking up in the one-bed flat their family of 5 was allocated in winter in Wick - ever been to that shithole?- after her father ran the entire length of this country from Greenock looking for work.

She remembers being awakened by light and discovering it was silverfish crawling on the floors and walls and the moon reflecting off them through the uncurtained, single-glazed windows.

And that was the childhood in one of the richest countries in the world?

That is totally wrong, IMO.

And we're a working poor who would be better off splitting up.

We don't.

And we have nothing but compassion for people who are doing it on their own.

After all, it's children we're talking about here!

£50pw could be seen as an investment in her career and her future.

It's almost like telling my DS not to go to university because it costs money, and he would be better off, in the short term, getting a minimum wage job.

A lot of social problems we have now have developed from the massive loss of jobs in Northern England and Scotland during the Thatcher era.

In my home town a fifth of the population left after the main (profit making) industry was closed down by the Government. It was mainly young people & young families who left. It destroyed the town and caused huge social problems. The town is only now starting to recover after nearly 25 years, and that is due to massive Polish immigration providing a younger population.

My parents left (they were teachers but there were no longer enough children left in the town to keep all the teachers employed). We moved down South and had to rent because our 3 bedroom house was only worth enough to buy a studio flat in the South.

Moving may help individuals, but is does not benefit whole communities when whole areas become impoverished.

And it is exactly that sort of situation that the on yer bike remark was originally made about.

Vinblanc that POV is coming from a place of privelige and doesn't reflect the reality of people's lives. If you are on the bony bits of your arse £50 a week is a massive amount of money and the having or not having of it can be the difference between an essential bill paid or not - paying all the rent - putting food on the table. An involuntary 'career investment' at an amount that will send the family into poverty is not a great idea. Not to mention that some jobs are not 'careers', they are just jobs to put food on the table.

In theory, kat

I've never managed to get theory to pay my bills. Sort of, in the sense of my self-employment. But then, I come to it from a position of what I only realised since moving to the UK was one of extreme privilege.

Far be it from me to visit those on someone who didn't have the same advantages.

I am looking for a job after 6 years on benefits due to having 2 disabled kids (9 years at home for me). I have worked out I need to earn £250, take home, a week to break even (without school dinners, free music lessons, transport for DS1) This is doable if I work fulltime (which is what I intend to do anyway) and have been looking at social care work, as I feel my experiences in the last 9 years will help.
I am only able to do this as I get two loads of DLA for DS1 and DD1, so this gives me a large CTC award, and as DH is unable to work due to his knees he will stay at home with the kids, and I will work. It is completely doable and I am really excited about getting back to work, we might end up worse off but TBH I can't see how we will be unless I take a minimum wage job.

I have been in the scenario expat described twice once as a child once as an adult.
I started out life as a child living on an island on the sest coast of scotland. We moved to the mainland into a rural location because it was where my dad could get work. He was made redundant and on benefits for near on a year he had a skilled job and qualifications.
He got a job in Aberdeen (nearest city) but a 3 hour drive and trecherous in bad weather but did the commute every day for months as the council wouldn't give us a house in Aberdeen because they were only giving houses to incomers if the were oil workers.
My parents kicked up a bit of a fuss wrote to everyone including Norman Tebbit saying my dad was on his bloody bike but couldn't sustain that commute forever. Eventually did get a flat in the city in an area with a bad reputation but just relieved to be there.

The second time was last year I was a single parent again living rurally and wanted to return to Aberdeen to both better my chances of getting a job and to return to Uni. I had no chance of getting a house until I had a job but couldn't risk getting a job with no house.
There were no jobs or childcare in the area I already lived in so my option was benefits.
Yet I was willing to move out of the area completely to get me off benefits nobocy made it easy for me to do it.

Re: 'on yer bike' - I pointed out in my post that this is a simpistic phrase and not particularly helpful, but that the principle of being prepared to move is in many ways a good one.

Of course there are going to be individual circumstances eg someone living on the western isles etc where it may cause a lot of difficulty.

But in principle, I think it's very healthy for young people to grow up with a sense of not needing to stay within a 10 mile radius of where they were born. This is the 21st century not the 18th!

Yes, I am well aware that there are many practical problems - but surely the answer is to remove some of those, rather than keep them there and then complain that it's too dificult and costly to move.

House prices and differentials are a huge problem. But the biggest problem is that was are a nation of homeowners. We have been encouraged to bust our guts to buy the biggest and best home we can afford - and they, q'uelle surprise, people don't want to move. Get rid of stamp duty which is just a rip off for anyone buying a house. Slash solicitors fees - it's money for old rope half the time. Better still, move towards a culture which encourages renting, so that people have a more flexible approach to life. Encourage people to look for their community for support, and not to expect their mother or MIL to childmind for them for free. Make proper childcare more accessible - actually a lot has been done here already with heavily subsidised care for many people on low wages, but more could be done.

I am not for a moment suggesting that everyone ought to up sticks and move - but when, as I have, you've taught classes where literally the majority of young people expect nothing more than to live in the same village all their life, and work in the same factory their parents worked in - that's pretty scary.

'Better still, move towards a culture which encourages renting, so that people have a more flexible approach to life. '

It would be more ideal.

But I don't see it happening in the UK, because the major caveat to privately renting here are the tenancy laws.

It is a very insecure way to live in the UK, particularly with a family, because most of the time you're never more than 2 months from having to find another place to live (and pay moving costs) or homelessness.

And the law doesn't do well at compelling private landlords to maintain their properties to a reasonable standard.

I've known countless people having to take their landlord to court to get them to pay for basic repairs to the home such as boiler replacement, yet it's illegal in many councils to rent a property with no hot running water.

Then the landlord serves such tenants their 60-day notice.

Trust me, it's not an appealing way to live.

Yet the laws will never be amended because they're designed to support multiple property owners and the bricks-and-mortar alternative to pensions.