to be sick of people saying...

[Harimo]

... that the tories / lib-dems only care about themselves and have a 'as long as I'm alright jack' attitude,..

yet. all the people complaining about it are the ones who are worried THEIR benefits will be cut (and two that I know shouldn't be on benefits in hte first place as they are both on JSA and patently not looking for work )

But, these self same people don't give a jack about the people paying more tax to keep them in benefits.

Double standards, IMHO.

And, yes, I'm prepared to be crucified.

Please enlighten me to why an Irish woman with access to free maternity services would go to the UK to give birth?

It makes no sense to me.

The service here does have it's faults as I am sure the NHS does but it is accessible and provides a decent service.

There is also the option og going private but even those with private health insurance are entitled to the free maternity care.

ABIBF, the lady doth protest too much, methinks.
Worried about losing your benefits that you're not really entiteled to?

Jesus - there are so many people just looking for a chance to have a 'poor me' rant at any perceived slight. My point is that, yes, there are many people who are not working for very good reasons but there are also a hell of a lot of people CHOOSING not to and, ultimately, having me pay their 'wages' and I don't like it!

'Everyone knows' that all these cheats exist, but when asked they often say things about the benefits they supposedly get that we know to be false. So they made it up.

Otherwise they will often talk about this one neighbour who looks like she has a good life as far as they can tell.

From that it generally leaps to how if we cut everyone's benefit their taxes could go down.

I expect some claimants are faking it, but show me the proof that any particular claimant is doing something wrong and not just an intuition based on ideas picked up by daytime TV and the daily mail.

Also... I hope all you people drawing a salary are not posting in the company's time. The image of someone sitting in work posting about people who are lazy would be funny wouldn't it.

Rollmops - Well yes i suppose i am, if they are going to take away something i dont get in the first place.

You seem to have fucking huge slight chip on your shoulder there, watch it doesn't drag you down.

Shocker Ongar - that's EXACTLY what I'm doing. Just as I did some work bits in 'my' time earlier. That's the problem with people who don't work for long periods of time, they don't realise that times have changed and all that matters is that the work gets done, not that 'working hours' are stuck to rigidly!

I have only ONE point to make

It is easy to appear more affluent than you are.

While i was on benefits, my dad paid for me and the kids to go to the coast for a week every year.

An acquaintance of mine piped up, when I mentioned it "How did you afford that?!"

She was rude, IMHO, but she was only voicing what many people think, and at least she voiced and got an explanation. Many people just go home seething and thinking "She's on fucking benefits and goes on holiday every year, might as well get Steve to give up his fucking job, life of Riley etcetc"

And in actual fact, my dad had bailed me out, not the benefit system.

Same with my tumble drier. It's not expensive to run, about 50p a load, and in the winter it's cheaper than running the gas to get the rooms toasty to dry the clothes before they mould. BUYING one is expensive but again - my dad bailed me out, not the benefits system.

vet bills - I once had to pay £40 for my cat to have some injections - my dad bailed me out, not the benefits system.

I have a massive expensive looking sofa - it was £30 from a furniture reuse project that everyone in the area if free to use - I look affluent but not because of the benefit system

I have a selection of nice clothes, along with some cheaper ones - jumble sales are ace - I'm a size 16, as is a large proportion of the population of women who want to dress like me. BAiled out by people's diets - not the benefit system.

The benefits sysem kept me and my children alive and healthy - it didn't make us affluent (but then, compared to living with gambling addict exp, I certainly felt affluent being able to afford to eat meat and buy shoes for the children!)

colditz - Then you were committing fraud you are meant to declare any additional income and that includes bail outs from family i'm afraid, not saying i would have but technically you were a cheat.

Benefit cheats exist - fact. But they only account for a small part of the total benefits budget. 2.2% of the benefits budget or £3bn, was distributed either to cheats or in error last year.

according to DWP benefit fraud was half of what it was in 2001. "We have over 3,000 fraud investigators who caught more than 55,000 benefit cheats last year because we are determined to fight fraud in the benefits system."

But, obviously, if UK is looking for savings, £3bn would be quite a handy sum to save.

My personal take on benefits is they have become embedded in the economy. A huge proportion of people rely on support from the state in one way or another through benefits, and many people would find life without them impossible. The problem is the state has created a model that has set up certain assumptions which people now plan their lives around. We've all voted for this, through the years,and we can't rein it back too hard now.

Rightly or wrongly, many people plan their lives around an expectation of some form of state support; even business set their wages with the understanding that tax credits will take the strain for some families.

I think there is a more fundamental problem than benefit fraud, and that is we have become hooked on state support which is growing every year and is unsustainable.

Nope, if her dad paid for those things and gave them to her it isn't wrong, people on benefits are allowed gifts you know!

You only have to declare actual cash and only above a certian amount.

That's not the case at all, Dh was unemployed for a while and had to declare if anyone paid his bills (ie vet bills or holidays) and if he received gifts over a certain value they were to be declared too on the basis that instead of the gifts the people "helping out" should be feeding you instead of the state having to do so.

colditz - btw , my post wasn't aimed at you!

Rightly or wrongly, many people plan their lives around an expectation of some form of state support; even business set their wages with the understanding that tax credits will take the strain for some families.

And this is the worry because if we were uncompetitive even under those circumstances it's hardly going to get better now the pound has taken such a battering.

I'm not sure who the "comfy off" are any more. We know lots of supposedly poor people who have loads of equity in theri houses because they bought at the right time and/or had help from parents. Ditto with people who get loads of free childcare from parents. These people are all gettign benefits which we are having to fund from our taxes.

Income wise we would be described as "well off" but it all goes on our mortgage because we had to buy a house from scratch and did not get on the ladder early enough to have loads of equity. We also got no help from parents etc. Once you take location wrt your employment into account it is now often v difficult to buy anything for much less than £200K and the repayments on that sort of sum are high. I cannot work because my take home (as a teacher) is less than the childcare for the children so I end up doing low paid work from home just to help cover the mortgage.

I get really fed up whe I hear people who live in huge expensive houses, with loads of equity, goign on about how they cannot do more than a morning's work a week as it wil affect their tax credits.

mamatomany what about christmas/birthday money you get off parents, should people on benefits declare that too?

I'm only repeating what DH was told by the job centre staff, but your children's Birthday and Christmas money counts as income too, our children's savings and interest was taken into account.
So no it would seem people on benefits aren't allowed gifts actually because otherwise it's not fair on the people/children without Grandparents to bail them out.

That's strange because when my DP was unemployed he was told differently and considering you can have up to £6000 savings without it affecting your benefit they'd have a bit of a cheek.

Riven, the idea of a living wage is lovely, but companies would argue that paying it would mean their costs would go up, jobs would be lost, and production would move to countries with lower labour costs, so we'd end up with higher unemployment, more benefits blah blah.

Course, if you did away with greedy shareholders wanting companies to pay dividends, perhaps the companies would not be so keen on the bottom line, so could pay higher wages.

Oh, wait, our pensions are invested in these companies, and if they don't pay dividends, we won't have pensions.

Aaaaargh! No wonder we're in a mess.

You can have the savings but the interest counts as income too so that would be deducted from any benefits and rightly so.
As I said I'm not sure I would go running to the DWP to tell them either, but if you appear affluent and it's because somebody else is paying your way then really it's no better than having a "boyfriend" who doesn't live with you but actually keeps you which I'm sure we'd all condemn.

They are only taken into account if above £6000 and only if they are an an account you can access.

I think know your DH was missinformed.

mamatomany, are you for real?

So a parent helps their child by taking them to the seaside and it should be declared?

And you compare this to having a live in DP you're not declaring?

The savings are but the interest in tax deductable income and therefore counts as income, as is your children's savings because it's household income.