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?

SparklyGothKat, NO. Your benefits will not be capped at £11k based on your income of £15k.

The cap is on total benefits, not total income.

Someone earning £40k still receives child benefit, for example.

Tilly moo i think you are talking about incapacity benefit which has become ESA

I don't know what they did in the 80's but the ESA tests have found people with terminal cancer fit to work.

And please don't confuse it with DLA which is irrelevant to the unemployment figures as it is a benefit to help people with the additional costs of having a disability regardless of whether they are working or not. So not counted either way. The govt are trying to save 20% on this even though has a 0.5% fraud rate.

OM - my comment about government spinning figures: in hte 1980s so that reported unemployment figure could be kept dow (& voters feel happy) ex-miners were frequently classified as ill.

now ill people are being classified as well to keep ESA figures down.

i am trying to show that successive governments have altered the figures for their own electoral gain.

haven't read whole thread, so not sure if this has been addressed elsewhere:

certain posters are all "they should cut their coat according to their cloth" (or some fudged up attempt at that saying) when they are talking about HB claimants living in expensive locations.

yet very same people are all "btl landlords can't put rents down because of their mortgages". Bollocks, they should have gone into business with a bigger deposit then. Why is it our problem that they didn't save up more cash in the first place to make a profit on?

It's not our problem and those tenants who want to pay less rent can always move out. If the LL can't get tenants they will then have to sell.

"btl landlords can't put rents down because of their mortgages". Bollocks, they should have gone into business with a bigger deposit then. Why is it our problem that they didn't save up more cash in the first place to make a profit on?

It shouldn't be. The BTL bubble driving inflated house prices for renters and buyers shouldn't have been allowed to happen (bloody banks again - too happy to lend money they didn't have). Normal house buyers have to deal with negative equity and repossession - so should BTL landlords, but there needs to then be some way to ensure the result isn't an empty unsaleable house and tenants kicked out.

fair enough, therealtillyminto.

OM - i have changed my mind after reading threads like this in the past. i used to think the cuts have to happen as soon as possible... now i think, no, they need to be slowed down and a review done correctly.

also i dont think they need to cost less in the short term - we need to get a better outcome for the people.

we probably diaagree about what that outcome should be but thats not a terrible difference!

tilly

thats intresting that you have changed viewpoint even slighly makes it worth me posting and the flamming i get when post

so thank you

Yes, I'm not averse to welfare reform in general.

In principal, for eg, universal credit as one payment makes lots of sense.

And I'm not that averse to a cap as a discouragement for those few that think a life of benefits is easy, though I suspect they're mostly disappointed anyway.

I wanted amendments that excluded vulnerable people, but that hasn't happened.

Plus, for me welfare reform has to go hand in hand with work to lower housing costs and or/raise wages.

yep spike

when you look at my sums most money coming in is going out straigh to a BTL landlord for substandard property

I am still reevaluating what I think after discovering that a family living in London and earning the average UK wage is topped up by the tax payer to the tune of £1000 or more a month!

And that is a family without additional needs....

And average London wage too I meant. The UK average is lower.

yup

Out of curiosity, I did a Turn2Us calculation for a 35-year-old couple with a SAHM and five children (all healthy, no childcare) living somewhere like Wandsworth in a mortgaged home. My fictional man earns £35k and pays £150 a month to his pension plan.

They were entitled to just over £11k in benefits. So, although his take-home pay was slightly over £22k, the state tops him up to £34k net. This is bizarre because it shows the government accepts his family needs £34k but seems to think the same family will need £8k less than that if he loses his job or gets injured - £667 a month less? They'll lose their home

Oooh, good sums TheHuman :)

Well done, very persuasive.

they do need to look at HB not being involved

you could have 2 exact familys same income but one in Private rented and one in H/A and the second family would have arund £6000 extra to spend

i certainly understood that low earners got help - and that is as it should be. But average wage and above - I am still a bit staggered by this. It puts a whole other view on the level of the cap. I still think that families who work SHOULD be better of than not (disabilities aside), but it is still frustrating to hear so many able bodied adults making excuses about why they personally shouldn't move, or why they can't take this job, or that job.

I have moved 3 times in my life - hundreds of miles - to stay in work, and rebuilt my life each time. I have never had any family help with dd. It is HARD, but it's what you have to do sometimes.

I'm still agog that someone thinks just over £400 per week is a ridiculous amount to live off of and to be quite honest it is insulting.

Funny that this argument is being seen as jealously over amounts rather than annoyance that people are expecting to be given something without an expectation that they are using it to gain employment.

We need to separate the whole disability issue, I think Lisad123 that you've been treated shockingly but from my experience it is what happens when you aren't clued up on how to work the system. That they wouldn't help you because your DH was working is appalling.

Another thing is lone parents. When people say that they think of the young teen, having babies without belonging to a family unit. However lone parent also means people like me - when the family unit breaks up, unfortunate but it happens all too often. We are no longer going to have the recourse of CSA, though for many of us this failed to provide what was needed.

Being a lone parent does limit the amount of work you can do. Unless you have a willing and able family member to help with childcare then being flexible with hours and working weekends is simply not viable. Benefits in this case should be the bridge until you can find that job.

However no one seems to complain or mind about the young men, and not so young men and women, without childcare issues, usually second or third generation on benefits who take their money and have no intention of doing any work ever.

Oooh, good sums TheHuman :)

Well done, very persuasive.

I have been looking into this all day and found that if a household has a member on dla they are exempt from the cap. Which is a huge relief for me as I have two disabled children and although DP works we have extra costs due to the kids disabilities.