£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

People keep saying benefits must be lower than minimum wage, but how many families actually live on the minimum wage? isn't it the case that those people themselves get benefits?

In which case the base figure you should be working from is minimum wage plus average benefits paid on top.

The other thing is that benefits are calculated to be what people need to live on. If your minimum wage is less than that then don't tell the benefit claimants about it.
Stand outside parliament with a sign saying "wtf do you think you are doing!" because they have set your minimum wage to be lower than their own calculations show a person needs to live on. They have told your employer "hey no need to pay the serfs more than that. Save it for the executive bonuses"

Loudlass - where did you get that figure for free school meals???? And yes it's wrong if they're not looking for work (or studying to make themselves more employable if they've had a poor educational background) while scratching their arse.

Personally even when I'm not busy doing other stuff I don't generally scratch my arse

The HB rate will vary across the country - the allowance here is around £6500 a year for a 3 bedroom house.

And of course you have rightly shown how both working and non working people can end up with benefits well over 25k

x posts with your CTB post - ours here is half that.

Good post onagar.

I have read these blogs with great intrest we all talk about people on benefits taking advange actually its a tiny amount compared to what the goverment allow rich busines and individuals to find loop holes to avoid paying taxes which takes billions away from the uk economy!! The rich allowed to have off shore accounts including the royals and hardley pay up taxes its the hard working average family that pays more tax then these people, so we should try and look at the whole picture these politcians are bullies and cant and wont dare challenge the policies to stop the business and rich individuals to pay their taxes instead they go for the small fish and let the big sharks get away with loop holes!!!
you may not agree but most people in uk blind and deaf and dumb to the truth and ignorant to what really goes on!!!

That figure for free school meals is based on the fact that for my 3 dc's, I am paying £27 a week for school dinners, times by the 40 weeks of the academic year.

The HB allowance here is based on how many dc you have, for 3 dc they pay £900pcm on a 3-bed.

loudlass your rent is nearly as much as my rent for a 4 bed deatached bungalow and though i live din expensive area

Benefits should be there for people who at some point in their lives need a helping hand.
Any person, any family can come across bad times, or need a help starting up and thats where benefits should come into play.
The problem lies within the benefit 'culture'. People who have never worked, will never work, should not be able to live their whole lives never lifting a finger.

oh right I see re school meals.

LHA (HB) is actually worked on per how many bedrooms they say you need with children being classed as half - unless they're over 10yrs old and opposite sex in which case they qualify for a bedroom for each sex of child. So a family of 4 with 2 DD's aged 10-15 would get a 2 bedroom allowance, a family of 4 with 1 DD and 1 DS would get the 3 bedroom allowance.

Children under 10 count as half regardless of sex.

Here the LHA for a 3 bedroom house is £545pcm.

you can get a 5 bedroom (modern) detached house for 800pcm here!

Loudlass the other side of the coin is, this is what your DH would get if he were to be made redundant. Does that seem right that he (and you) would be looked after when your income suddenly vanishes?

I should add that DP and I don't get as much as that right now, but we do still get a sizeable chunk, about £22K pa, because he earns £16K. We don't get half that amount of HB, no council tax benefit, and no free school meals. Theoretically, we are slightly WORSE of with him working, but he's not going to give up work for the sake of it.

Yes it does, but I know DP would (and has) clean(ed) toilets for a living last time he lost his job. He only got £12K doing that...And it certainly wouldn't be permanant. I know perfectly healthy people here that haven't worked in 10 years, because they refse to be worse off in work.

Our area doesn't do LHA (yet) they are stil workng on the old-fashioned HB.

And what if the toilet cleaning jobs are massively oversubscribed? There is a massive shortfall in the amount of jobs versus the amount of unemployed.

And the £900pcm is for a mid-terrace small 3-bed...

Yes, we are crossing our fingers that DP doesn't lose his job in April when they are cutting his team in half. I understand that there realy aren't that many jobs, honestl, but he would take anything rather than be on the dole...we do have 3 (soon to be 4) dc to look after.

wow - that's quite a good wage for cleaing toilets !

You're area doesn't do LHA yet? Are you sure it was introduced nationally 2yrs ago

Loudlass - just be aware that "anything" under 16hrs a week you won't get WTC - (which makes it rather shite for those of us that would like to start getting our finger back into the job market when we see jobs advertised for 12/13/14/15 hours a week that we can't even think of applying for as it would lease us in a pile of shit (or homeless).

hmm - just had a thought - how long have your been claiming the HB?

I've just done a google and quite a few council websites say that if you were on "HB" then you stay on HB unless you move or stop claiming for at least one week - then you'll be reassessed on the new LHA rates.

Does this limit apply regardless of where you live or how many children you have?

It might be because I've been continuously claiming HB for 6 years at this address, just putting in Change of circumstance forms when DP's income has changed. Maybe?

(not defective) wtf do you mean by that?

and WTF?