£25,000 benefits cap

[Xenia]

Average family has £26,000 to live on including housing. So from 2013 the most benefits available for one family will be £26,000 including housing benefit. Sounds like a sensible plan. Well done George Osborne. How did we ever get to a contrary position in the first place?

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-11463435

I bloody love you (r posts)

Jackinthebump - poor the newly unemployed streetsweepers :(

jacka re you ofefering to provide mchildcare for all the parents who get JSA then 9remember BTW that for six months it is contributions based; so payable if you paid in)

Or are you going to only require the servixe in the school term and hours? Because soon there's going to be a +++ rise of single parents on JSA with the legislation changes.

They were examples! Didn't say they would be made unemployed, maybe they could be used to supervise the 'new starters' move up a rung so to speak?

jackinthebump, the working for benefits thing almost makes sense.

But if you mean they should do the community service chores currently used as punishment for criminals there is a problem there isn't there.

You may mean (as some politicians have suggested) proper work.

The problem with that is if benefit claimants work for a real company doing a real job then that company can sack some more workers. Who will then be on benefits and can come back to work for them for nothing.... see where this is going?

Also are the benefit claimants supposed to be out looking for work? When will they have time?

What, all of tehm? That would be what, a supervisor per recruit? Blimey!

Oops I was a bit slow that time.

Me waves at SanctiMoanyArse :)

Yep )Onagewr; well remember in the early nineties training a girl in a junior role then being laid off as they needed to pay me a wage and her YTS amounts.

There are loads of community projects going on all the time! They don't all have to do the same thing!

Ah,but if people do these jobs for their benefit money,there are even fewer real jobs ,because why pay a wage, when you can get free labour

See I don;t agree.

Not about workfare- in principle I do but there are too many pitfalls IMO to make it feasible.

But teh community projects thing....

I used to work for a children's charity and volunteer recruitment was one of my roles and frankly, a PITA. But we couldn;t just take anyone; they ahd to be really dedicated, appropriate people for the role.

Same with most community charities.

Who is mroe liekly to be unemployed in reality? It's those with bigger issues (cleqrly not all but you ahve to be more likely, son;t you?)- especiallya s EMA is being crunched. people who have MH issues, criminal records- just teh sort of thing that emans a great deal of charities can't use them.

Which would take you back to painting fences in the park penal-style..... and the humilaitiona spect of that sort of visible work: here mate, here's your cards, sorry it didn;t work out and your employer failed.... yes you will lose your home.....but go satnd in the middle of town painting closed shops whilst the local kids laugh at you, there's a chap!

Workfare is, effectively pnishment. Reserve it for those who deserve it.... I;d start with Dad who don;t pay up (and would put a don;t ahve another family to support qualifier in). Get the real bastards for a change.

Ok, so maybe things should just go on as they always have huh? Class wars, rich people claiming the lower classes are sponging off them and the 'lower classes' bitching because they can't have what others have.

Quite frankly the whole benefit cut thing doesn't affect me, maybe it will at some point in the future but then I have savings so probably not then either! What I do know is that a few years ago I was recruiting for several jobs paying over minimum wage, did a day in local job centre as part of the recruitment campaign and had 2 people come forward for interviews! Please don't tell me all people on benefits are desperate for a job!

Maybe the 50 people that recently applied for a minimum wage catering assistants job at my local uni were though?

and erm - who looks after the children if the parents are out doing community work??

What would be classed as community work?

I mean if you're already doing stuff for "somewhere" else other than your home - will that count - or do you have to do stuff "approved" by the DWP???

Last year a new shop opened up wear Woolies used to be - they had a recruitment day thing and over 500 peple turned up for 25 jobs.

Last time I chatted to the secretary at the infant school they'd had 17 applications for 7.5hr a week job as a lunch time supervisor.

jackinthebump ds went for a job, the interview was organised by the job center, and took place there, her really wanted the job.
they said they would contact him either way, like fuck they did

there are 2 sides to the coin

oh great now not only do you loose your job but the mummies want you to be punished for it.
good grief the up your arse post from non affected people on mn at the moment make me heave

"My suggestion would be that for all those claiming JSA only pay it for actual work done - for example, you want your money every week then you need to do this community task - be it litter picking or road sweeping etc. "

And what will the employed litter pickers and road sweepers do?

Maybe they could come and clean our swimming pools Kaloki

"the 'lower classes' bitching because they can't have what others have. "

nah - doesn't bother me at all - thankfully I'm not in the slightest bit materialistic. I'll chat to anyone don't care what their income is, and tbh any loss of income can be difficult to adjust to - yes sure its even harder for those of us on the bottom of the pile already when the cuts come (wouldn't say I'm working class though - my dad caled me a snob last time he saw me ) but so long as no-one bitches about me and the sitatuion I'm in right now then I'm happy to listen to them and sympathise (not empathise) with them.

I think actually there are quite a few MNers currently on low incomes/benefits who at one time earned a good wage, - so they know what the squeeze - and the worst scenario - the fall feels like.

awww you can't get rid of the road sweepers in favour of JSA claimants doing it for free.

Right now they're out every day along the street on the way to nursery (lots of trees along there) - it always seems to be the same bloke who smiles and DS3 and waves at him. He's lovely

What does really grip me is people who do choose benefits as a lifestyle choice - do not tell me it doesn't happen as I know several people who do it!

I come across lots of people on benefits and it's rare they start out that way tbh, some bright spark will want/have a baby without actually doing her research and realising that she won't get her own place for quite some time or if she does it's a shit hole.
Not many couples get together and say I've got this whole system sussed if we do this we can live our lives on benefits, the benefits simply aren't that easy to understand.

agree mama - the benefits are a mine field - I pretty much know my way around them now - but then I've had 2 IS applications, one joint JSA application, one joint ESA application - plus helped exH do his initial JSA application, plus 2 lots of applying for HB and CTB, in the last 2yrs - plus no less than 3 different TC claims in the last 18 months

It's a bloody minefield - and I'm fairly intelligent/literate - I dread to think what it must be like for someone that isn't so good with google, and struggles with just filling in the forms.

There are plenty of jobs which we can add in return for benefits. It will not put street sweepers out of work. For a start every person over 80 would probably like someone just to talk to them for 3 hours a day or play cards. We could revolutionise the lives of the old if the unemployed had to spend 3 hours a day chatting to an old person in return for getting benefits for example.
In hospitals nurses and some homes staff can be too busy to feed each elderly patient very slowly. We could have teams of people coming in at meal times to chat to the old person, ensure their food was near them, help spoon it in - it can take a long time for someone that age to eat a full meal.

excuse me
but you want a completely untrained person helping feed someone in hospital>....bloody hell

both of those roles need people that

a) are CRB checked (whose going to pay for that?) and really having POVA as well (again - who is going to pay for that training?)

b) people that actually CARE about doing that work and have the patience for it

I would hate the thought of elderly/sick vulnerable people being visited by people who actually don't give a shit about them!

I worked with someone in a care home who was there for the money only - and she attitude and behaviour towards the residents was bordering on abuse - it was horrific working with her