Cap on benefits to 26k- am I missing something?

[buggyRunner]

As far as I can gather it's the normal benefits ie housing/ cb and wtc. This seems like a large sum. Is it accross the board or does it include disability related benefits? Are the figures misleading?

But LilyBolero, there are some people getting 26k- when you take the housing benefit into account.

Incidentally, I notice that you keep saying HuntyCat's issues wouldn't be because of a benefits cap. That may well be true. But you've also dissed relatives of yours for living the life of riley on benefits, when they're also getting (presumably undeclared income) from parents and crime. Has it not occurred that their lifestyle might be because of the undeclared top up they're getting, not the benefits? If we're going to forensically analyse whether the situation of the undeserving poor is because of benefits rates, we can do the same for scroungers.

So once again, I'd like to know from the cap supporters- will you still support it if it ends up costing us more? Are you willing to pay more tax to fund it?

Sorry, that should've said deserving not undeserving poor.

i think some of the proposed changes are bad so ignoring what is actually happening & answering theoretically:

would i pay more tax money fore a better, fair benefits system (of which i think the right level of cap implemented correctly plays a part) yes. it has to pay for anyone who can work to work.

i would also be happy to pay more for stabilising the NHS, better more interventionist SS, more investment in education, child care for low paid, better treatment of assylum seekers.

but i also want people who can take more responsibility for their own lives to do that. & i dont believe the current system encourges that: you can be given more money by having children than you can earn via working, even if you have never contributed via taxation.

What they're saying with this cap basically is that it's OK for families in the North East, for example, to claim child benefit and live the (relative) life of Reilly with a low rent, while families in London and the South East live in cardboard boxes. Am I reading this right? Because it would seem sensible (in the full knowledge that sense and the Condem Government are mutually exclusive concepts) that the benefit "cap" would vary according to the cost of living in a given area. No?

Secondly, I do hope that £26k tax free will be adopted as a minimum income for working families. That would be lovely. Thank you.

opinionated mum - Why did you not move in with family very temporarily whilst you waited for your deposit to be returned? i assume they were nearby as you suggest that this is vital to you? After all then you could have used your returned deposit to pay the deposit on the next place, Or was it the case that in the longterm it was better for you to declare yourself homeless as you would then be likely to be housed by the council more quickly, especially considering you had two young children, That is what happened in the end I see.

For reasons that I am not prepared to share on the internet.

Some people are not ABLE to rely on family.

In which case why was it so important to be close to your supportive family network? You can't have it both ways.

I'm not sure it's appropriate to go into the circumstances of individuals is it? These things can and should only ever be debated in general terms.

On an online forum I mean.

Depend on which memebers of the family are supportive and why you can't stay with them. Which, as I said earlier, not for sharing online.

If you post your own story (in emotive terms)on a blog to make a political point, then you should expect to have it scrutinised IMO

I do, but some aspects of it are not just MY story.

Well as an earlier poster said I would see your blog post as an example of how the safety net does work.

Fair dos.

Yes, and now that safety net is being torn to shreds.

No, it is being changed from a pillow to a net.

Actually my own experience of the benefits system - pre children - is that it was only ever a very dodgy, slightly rotten safety net. It only truly works for people who are brought up to it, know how it works and get in there the moment they get a NI number. If you suddenly find yourself needing that safety net later on you end up floundering with very little help and many many (loop)holes to fall right on through.

one of the thing i dont get is my family is from one of the top ten deprived areas of the country - but everyone works. noone has ever been unemployed. it might be a NMW job & some family members dont have any noteworthy qualifications but everyone works.

actually some of us left & the ones that stayed behind work for low salaries/NMW.

Nobody would be receiving anything close to £26,000 in benefits were it not for the housing benefit element, which is as high as it is because of the very high rents that private landlords are able to charge the state on account of the huge increases in house prices against wages and the dire shortage of council owned social housing. The tenant gets no benefit whatsoever from these very high rents: all the benefit goes to the landlord.

The other group that are reaping huge rewards from the benefits system are those corporations who fail to pay their staff a living wage, while making huge profits for those at the top so that even full time workers' earnings have to be topped up on a vast scale with housing benefit and tax credits, which amounts to a state subsidy for business.

If the government is really serious about reducing the welfare bill it needs to stop making these divisive, headline-grabbing and economically worthless gestures, and start building houses on the one hand and making corporations genuinely pay their way on the other.

I have to say - to those posters who think I am better of in Income support - I'm NOT. Last time I was working, despite being on NMW, due to Tax Credits and Housing Benefit - I WAS better off working. I would LOVE to be able to work. There are just a few problems with that though. 1) Where is this mythical job? There ARE no jobs here, and the very few that come up have 600+ applicants for EACH JOB. 2) If YOU were an employer - would YOU hire someone who is almost guaranteed to need AT LEAST one day either off sick, or on unpaid parental leave EVERY WEEK. If you had the choice of 559 fit and healthy people, and one person in that situation?. 3) If you can kindly find me a Special Needs Childminder willing to look after a 13yo with Autism, at the same price as a normal childminder.

I am NOT making excuses. I was working 70 hrs a week before my epilepsy diagnosis. I have had 4 jobs SINCE my diagnosis 8 years ago - I left one part-time one for a Full-time one.

I got 'retired on medical grounds' from the second one due to having had too much time off sick. (You don't know in advance when you are going to have a seizure, and I often had them mid-shift, and had to either go home or to hospital mid-shift, leaving them short-staffed). The last resort in that job was me having a seizure on the shop floor, losing control of my bladder and ruining a customers shoes, which the shop had to reimburse her for. I was then out of work for two years, while trying to find another job.

I found a job with someone who was SE, HE had epilepsy too, hence he was happy to employ me. Until his business folded.

I THEN, just 3 months after my Ex-P walked out on me, found a job in September. I had my baby in Nursery, my two older DS's at after-school club, and my DD with an SN childminder. Who gave me notice ON THE FIRST DAY because she hadn't realised how much harder it is to look after a 13yo with Autism than it is a 3yo with Autism. There IS no other SN childminder in my town. I had to leave the job after just 3 weeks.

I WANT to work.I have TRIED to work. But if you could just make this a utopian world, maybe my epilepsy and my DD's Autism would vanish, and then I could! I hardly think that I fit your model of a workshy scrounger. And neither do most of the other people I know that claim either Income Support or Jobseekers Allowance or Tax Credits.

There is only one thing this, or frankly ANY Government is serious about, and that is grabbing headlines in the tabloids in the hope of winning the next election.

It was so nice to hear the Lords stand up and say that people on benefits couldn't survive on less than £26k.

Well, now bloody well stand up for those of us who live on less than that!

Absolutely fuming. What those of us who aren't well paid or able to work full time should do is quit work so we can reap all these damn benefits our taxes help provide! It is ridiculous they are spouting on about poor people when this is making it very clear that the poor people are us mugs who go out to work because that is what we do to provide for our families!

The tories are doing what they do best - creating greater inequality, sending many families into poverty and creating pockets of affluence by making people leave their home/hometowns. It's all very well stating that everyone has an equal opportunity to work (tory party 'classic liberal' stance) but it's so obviously not true. People who are long term unemployed sometimes find it impossible to find jobs like my Dad while I was growing up regardless of how hard they try. Next they will get rid of the minimum wage by creating massive competition for low paid jobs (just my prediction)...

What we really need to worry about is the reform of disability benefits. What is going to happen to people who are disabled?

HuntyCat . That is why these kinds of threads should not go into individual circumstances. No one should have to pour their heart and soul out to a bunch of strangers on the internet, who will rarely shift from their own personal prejudices no matter what you say to them.