A Universal Credit

[Xenia]

As I had suggested, so now treads Iain Duncan Smith - merger of benefits and tax credits so you genuinely gain if you take a job. It also helps him with his sexist view women should be home with babies.
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Housing benefit, income support, council tax benefit, working tax credit and child tax credit would be replaced by one single benefit. This could then "taper off" at a uniform rate providing a simple and transparent path back into the workforce for those currently caught in the benefits trap."

It's not quite a universal payment to all adults whether in work or not or whatever their income but it would be a welcome simplification and could help ensure people did work.

Sorry, swallowedafly - a major problem with means tested benefits (in and out of work) is that unless withdrawal rates as people earn more are very carefully designed you very often end up that people earn £10 more from their job, but lose £15 worth of benefits, for example.

Then where people are in work but receiving means tested benefits it is really common that if they get a pay rise or work more hours they will lose 90%+ of the extra money in benefit withdrawal.

Avoiding these incentive traps tends then to generate situations where, for example, families on £50K a year are receiving tax credits - which as we've seen may have been efficient in terms of keeping incentives straight, but wasn't politically acceptable.

I'm really sorry to hear about your mortgage cover - in the past of course mortgage interest payments would have been covered by social security in the same way as rent (so that those who had worked to buy their own house wouldn't lose out), but that was cut back in the 90s I think.

That's it - it is really people with children who get caught this way, especially as there are things like free school meals that you lose once you come off JSA.

oh yes and with increasing numbers of contract workers etc etc it's punitively expensive to be insured. my quote was about half of my earnings, lol.

Contract work also very bad if you are on benefits.

It's just not feasible for many, especially lone parents, especially given housing costs here.

Sadly, I can't see free childcare ever being introduced here.

swallowed, I am generally extremely cynical about the motivation of those in power, but to be fair on this one I don't think that it is really about keeping a group dependent on benefits. Unfortunately, I think in this case there really isn't a simple and easy solution.

I'm sure there are people on here that know more of the history than me, but as I understand it, in the early days of the welfare state the intention was to avoid means testing as much as possible, by building a fundamentally insurance based system. I think this wasn't just because of painful memories of the means test in the 30s, but also because people were acutely aware of all the incentive problems that come with such tests.

Unfortunately that doesn't deal with people who aren't within the insurance system because they've not paid enough contributions, so then you have to have a fall back system, so you're back to means testing . . . Add onto that the chipping away over the years, and here we are.

I don't think that there are any countries that have solved the problem entirely, though I believe the Scandinavians do better, largely because perhaps they have a greater degree of social solidarity, and therefore fewer people resent others receiving benefits? I don't know that much about the Danish system, but in the past at least I think it worked on a union based insurance system which sounded interesting, have always meant to find out more about it.

It's always nice to see BeenBeta and Xenia supporting Green Party policies ;)

A simple benefit paid to everyone regardless of ANYTHING seems to be the best and cheapest solution. There will be a need for extra help for people in some circumstances. There would be a lot more money available to do that with if we simplified things like this.

Yeah but, the ultimate plan, once we have everyone on the single universal benefit, is to start cutting it by 5% per annum.

Allegedly.

There is mortgage protection insurance is was introduced after the last crash to ensure that people never ended up loosing their homes again, if they thought to tick the box, along with making sure they could actually afford the mortgage and were paying it off.
Unfortunately interest only mortgages of 5 times 2 salaries appear to have become very popular and so many people, with children are going to be utterly screwed. And frankly I don't see why anyone else should be picking up the pieces for them.

I think the whole point of Xenia's posts are that single mothers are to be discouraged and to a degree I can see her point, there are plenty of situations I know of personally where the man was little more than a sperm donor because the woman could get a better standard of living with the children but without the father, that's not good for the children.
Not all men want to be part time dads but again I know of people who cannot afford to live together because they would loose over £1k a month, again that's not right.

Are they going to starve to death on £200 per week, gosh poor little mites

£200 a week for 3 children and an adult, with rent (minimum £350 a month for a room/bedsit where I live), council tax, gas, electric, school uniforms, food...ermm yes - there's not really going to be much left (if anything!) for food......unless they buy the food and don't pay the rent and the bills so end up on the streets.

I know quite a few people who are/have been single mum's - not one of them had a "sperm donor" purely to be better off. They were all in marriages (one of them was married for nearly 20yrs) or long term relationships. And those with more than one child have the same father for all their children (apart from my best friend who had 3 from her first husband who turned out to be an abusive arse once the ring was on her finger, and remarried and had 2 more with her husband of 11yrs...)

Then we are back to the chicken and egg scenario of the rents having to come down aren't we.
I can only speak as I find and the experiences I have being brought up by a single mum in the 80's when it was such an unattractive proposition that my mother sorted herself out damn quick after rightly leaving my father and DH's mum, also a lone parent.
Both worked their arses off and bought their houses and weren't dependent on benefits, not that there were any.
Compare that with my brothers ex girlfriend, 2 kids, benefits, never worked. You cannot move in her rented house for toys, no wide screen tv but stacks of dvd's etc, out every other weekend, clothes for her children i could only dream of buying (and she doesn't shoplift or steal).
A few years ago I felt sorry for her and gave her every toy, piece of baby equipment I had to help out. 5 years later she's given me back stuff most of us couldn't afford to buy.
You feel a fool for bothering to attempt to play the game tbh.

I suppose it rents across the country drop to £100 a month for a 3 bedroom house then £200 a week would be manageable...

Oh and childcare costs dropped dramatically and became available 24hrs a day.....