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?

very yes im dreading the move to PIP [sad}

Well Spike, some of the people giving their own circumstances in this thread get DLA, so yes. But the point is that DLA doesn't necessarily cover everything a disabled person requires because of their condition. So disability often ends up making a family poorer even where they are receiving extra financial support because of it.

Regarding your point about the jobless having to move out of expensive areas after a certain period, I can understand that. What worries me is that the dearest areas tend to be the ones with the greatest employment opportunities. Expensive areas basically means the south east. If a person has to move away from where the jobs are, that makes them less likely to find work. It seems like we either spend on housing benefit or on massive rehousing costs and more JSA in the long run. Neither is ideal really.

I've seen papers about how to maximise the amount of housing in London, which might be helpful here. Quite a lot of brownfield land not being used etc. There are also possibilities like providing tax incentives to businesses in regions of low employment, and moving more of the public sector out of the south east. I don't know if either of those would work, but I do know that moving people away from where the jobs are is a problematic solution.

Just what I was about to say, Flangelina.

I've seen posters, god forgive them, describe a family with disability as "better off", because the monetary amount the disability-affected family were receiving was higher than their own.

If that value of disability provision was given in kind - school bus rather than taxis, half a wheelchair, 4 older-child nappies a day - it would beobvious that the family is in fact substantially worse off.

Because it would be very visible that the family is paying for the other half of the wheelchair, the rest of the nappies, etc, out of normal income. With a very restricted ability to work.

As it is, all people look at is the £ sign and say, "Wah! Getting more £ than me."

But it's not that simple as just being 'generous' is it? The money can only be spent once: what goes to benefits, can't go to hospitals, fixing public sector pensions, more midwifes, or other stuff we find valuable. Is allowing unemployed people to live in expensive areas more important than the other stuff the government is making cuts on? This is the question the government has to ask itself.

The luxury of living in an expensive area.

Spike et al,

Most low paid jobs: cleaning, catering maintenance etc are in expensive areas. Already people with those jobs, on the minimum wage, travel miles (that they have to pay for) in order to do them.

It will end up like S Africa, the rich in gated communities the poor travelling in miles to clean up their shit. Black and white. Oh I know, let's give them pass books so they can prove they aren't there to steal.

I really think that when this all bites there will be some really dreadful, terrible threads on here - possibly from people that you like and respect.

I think things will change when this shit - and all the other shitty things this government are doing to the poorest sections of society, God Forbid the rich should suffer at all, We're all in this together my ARSE - actually starts to have an effect, I think then people will see and be outraged.

But it will be too late.

Ok:

1. Raise the minimum wage to a proper living wage.

1. Create jobs, rather than destroy them

1. Provide housing that people on ordinary wages can afford.

Then cap benefits.

Trytobebrave, it is possible to be kind to individuals while still agreeing that benefits shoud be capped.

You are right, I wouldn't want a life on benefits, I am aware that I am not immune to it ever happening to me. I think it is just as bad for you to assume that people who agree with this reform are 'swanning around with their comfortable lives'.

Life is not automatically comfortable if you are not on benefits. While I agree that kindness should be shown to people who have less than average, it is very unfair for people on benefits to not even try to understand where people who work full time are coming from on this. Can't you see why it might make people feel slightly bitter that they have to work and get no more benefit from it than those on state support.

People work, have to miss out on time with their children, have to pay for travel and clothing, have the stress of a job, have less free time to do things they want, and are financially no better off than someone who doesn't have to put up with any of those things. And if that person that doesn't have to put up with those things, but also doesn't have the expense of work travel, prescriptions, school meals and school trips, it can seem like that are much better off.

That is going to grate on anyone.

And the government has asked itself that as other people have said and realised this won't actually save much money and more money could be saved by cutting benefits to higher earners or focussing on tax evasion. But they're doing this anyway.

Maybe what's not healthy is that people aren't being paid enough to live on even when working very long hours and there simply is not enough affordable housing.

It's such a complex problem and not at all cut and dried that this will save money in the long run so I just don't understand why people are embracing it do enthusiastically.

Many people more intelligent than me have wrestled with this though and I really don't have any answers. The combination of reading this thread and an article in the Guardian about abolishing crisis loans tipped me over the edge this morning.

FlangelinaBallerina i dont see moving as bad. yes the state has to help with the costs due to a change in govt policy.

my family lived in the same area for hundred of years. its one of the top 10 areas of deprivation in the UK. my parents left the area when i was young.

we made new lives. i have always worked with people from all over the world who have left their family, country, language & culture behind. my parents lived more financially secure, healthier lives than their siblings who stayed behind. my DB & i earn many many multiples of what our cousins earn & have many more opprtunities in life. its very sad to go back there & realise that we have lost that history - but it is the past.

on the other side: in Tower Hamlets (zone 1 and 2) you have 46% of children born in workless households - yet lots of people commuting to central london, seeing less of their children & spending their lives on the train.

Spike I live in Paddington - in a small one bed with 2 daughters. I don't have a plasma and we have no holidays except to Kent to stay at my aunty's house for a week in the summer.

I'm a teaching assistant for a local primary school and I also volunteer with SN and elderly in my community. I receive HB. I'm not a scrounger and I'm not feckless. As my children get older I will take on more work and eventually be able to pay all my rent myself. My partner was killed in a car accident while I was pregnant with dd2. I needed my family around me then and I need them now. If I was to move say to Luton I would have to stop working - claim more benefits etc.........This is propaganda and a false economy. People on benefits are not receiving £26k - People on benefits are surviving on what? about £100pw? The landlords/HA/Councils are the ones benefiting from the rent payments - not the tenants who are usually in overcrowded sub standard homes but being charged huge amounts - CAP RENTS NOT BENEFITS is my mantra!

I'm on my tea break off to work now - happy debating and be nice to each other and don't believe everything these MP's are saying.

No benefits need to be capped regardless to offset this open cheque book attitude.If benefits have no ceiling there is no incentive what so ever for many people to get into the job market or change their attitude ie somebody will always pick up the tab.

You know what gets me most.It's the fact that many families will have been struggling in these areas for ages not eligible for anything who do have to pay the entire rent asked for or a whacking mortgage for a rabbit hutch.They will actually have far less in their pockets less than those receiving the £35K ceiling after paying rent in it's entirety,commuting costs,school meals full water rates in the SW etc.

They are already living with this and will always have to do so as they can't go running to anybody.Does anybody bleating on about poverty on these threads give a fig for families like this?Do they heck.This sense of entitlement above everybody else is utterly,utterly selfish.

Hully you can add to your list a tax cut as this is what would help hard working families the most. Obviously as a nation this simply can't happen as we'd never be able to support the needy with even less money so actually a cap is reasonable, it's fair and a bloody good compromise.

KitchenRoll Tony Blair payed about 3% tax last year - everyone pays at least 20% - why deprive someone of a small amount of benefit when people like him are royally screwing the system? and for much more money!!

gotta go.....

"Does anybody bleating on about poverty on these threads give a fig for families like this?Do they heck.This sense of entitlement above everybody else is utterly,utterly selfish."

As I said on a thread yesterday, I earn below the cap. Someone told me that if I felt so sorry for all the poor people then I should donate to Shelter.

On and On the posts go about lazy bastards - despite the posts from people who are the opposite of that and are struggling now and will be struggling even further soon enough. This is what I don't get - are any of you reading the posts from people who are on benefits through no fault of their own?

Kitchenroll your use of the sentence 'it is very unfair for people on benefits not to understand where people who work full time are coming from' seems to imply that you think you speak for people who work full time. Please be more careful. I work full time, as does DH (am covering the late opening hours today, before anyone asks why not at work) and neither of us agree with you, at all.

TillyMinto you're not really getting it. There's nothing wrong with moving per se. I've done it myself, and will no doubt do so again. But if you move the unemployed to areas where there are fewer jobs, this clearly gives them fewer job opportunities. It just does. There's no getting round that. The fact that some people are able to fund the cost of a commute in no way alters this. Not all work pays enough to fund a commute. Nor does the presence of immigrants, because they tend to move to places where there are more jobs than where they came from, not fewer. So we need to think carefully about the implications for people's ability to get work. There isn't a simple answer to this, and wouldn't be even if it were just about people having to leave Central London.

There will be some working,some not.

Both sets of people will have to do what every other working family not in reciept of benefits has to do ie find somewhere to live that they(not the state) can afford.

I don't get why over and over again people are ignoring the fact that most of the entire population don't get to live where they'd pick first. Choosing where to live isn't a right. Said families have plenty of time to move and the cap is £35K-£35K!!!!!!!!!!

The thing about disability is that it shouldn't be part of this equation - and that might be an easier argument to win - that people are being unfairly taken off DLA. Public opinion is that disabled people should be protected, and if it could be shown that people who were disabled were being forced off DLA, I think there would be a lot of public sympathy.

But public opinion is very firmly in favour of a benefits cap. And I do think there needs to be a limit. Because you have to remember that if people are receiving that much money, and can stay home with their children, they are getting a lot more time with them, and as someone else said, none of the stresses of going to work. And the killer is that the person going out to work is no better off than them, but is PAYING for them to stay at home. Which really can't be right.

So I would say;
Protect those with disabilities.
Protect carers.
Protect those in work.

And then cap the benefits for the others. As others have said, if you're not finding work in a particular area, perhaps you do need to move anyway.

And can I point out once again that if someone is receiving the equivalent of 35k, AND child benefit is on top, they could very easily be getting more than someone on HRT, who is about to lose their child benefit for being 'too well off'. That cannot be right. 35k cannot be both poverty and wealth. In both cases it is somewhere in between.

Why do these people have to go tpo areas of unemployment?

If dp lost his job down here we'd have to move to where he could get a new job.It could be the arse end of nowhere for all I know.

Said families have plenty of time to look for areas with low unemployment and move accordingly-it's what we all have to do.

NiceGuy - it's the 'MUST BE PREPARED TO BE FLEXIBLE WITH WORK HOURS' or 'MUST WORK WEEKENDS' that scuppers lots of people here. Can't be flexible with work hours if you are a Lone Parent using a day Nursery or after-school care. Your child has to be BOOKED IN FOR THAT DAY EACH WEEK. you can't just say to the after-school club "Oh, I need Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday this week, but Tuesday, Wed, THURS next week". Staffing levels. They can't do it. Same with Nurseries. And HOW MANY Nurseries are open weekends?

How is a Lone Parent meant to work weekends? Leave their dc at home alone? Take the dc to work with them?

Surely it is OBVIOUS why quite a lot of people NEED at the very least, a 9-5, set days each week job??

Oh - and THEN there's the zero-hours contracts debacle. If you are on NMW, and have DC, then you JUST CAN'T TAKE A JOB WITH A ZERO-HOURS CONTRACT. Because you need to claim TC's and HB to top-u your wage. But the ineptitude of the HMRC (which is documented, just look at the Tax Codes debacle), and local HB depts is extraordinary when you have a variable wage and variable hours. You either get UNDERPAID and have a massive payment at the end of the year (how are you meant to survive in the meantime??) OR you get OVERPAID, and have to pay it back. And because the calculations are quite complex, a large percentage of TC claimants and HB claimants can't work out whether they are being paid the correct amount, so they accept what the award notice from HMRC tells them, and pays into their account.

Another problem with zero-hours contracts is that you never know if you are going to earn £45 that week or £200. You can't LIVE like that! It often isn't that people don't WANT to work, it's usually that they can't find a job that fits in with their childcare or their circumstances.