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?

Housework, I am probably older than your mum but dafter.No tea towels either!

SpikeInTheBasement - you get £130 a month in TCs on 40k for 2 children?

We're on around 30k with 2 children and get around £50 a month. I take it you're a two earner family, so you get two lots of personal allowance and more than twice the tax credits to boot?

Not blaming you of course, but once again it highlights the nonsensical system we have!

That is 30k GROSS of course. Around £23000 net.

Oh and re moving around. I too have constantly moved around for work. Since being married I think I've moved a total of around 1500 miles between 3 different jobs. Currently considering it once again in order to advance my career. Moving work should certainly be something people are prepared to do, but I do recognise there is an incentive for me because I enjoy my work and the moves have delivered progression for me and, crucially, better financial security for my family.

The problem with expecting the long term unemployed to move for work is, well, what exactly do they have to offer an employer over and above somebody local? And moving is expensive and disruptive and I don't think anyone should be expected to do it just on the offchance of getting a job.

Trouble is, the plucky few who have contributed to this thread and who have broken down their incomings and outgoings (I've got 2 posters in my head) are actually left with some spare cash at the end of every month.

My husband and I both work and we have to cut back to be left with anything at the end of the month. We've no spare cash for home insurance, pensions or savings.

So yes I do feel for anyone who is struggling, but it's not just those on benefits who are suffering. We are also having to endure pay freezes, pay cuts, the threat of redundancy, etc. Our children don't get hot meals at school, they make do with sandwiches because we can't claim free school meals and every Spring I spend a fortune of our income on hayfever remedies because we don't get free prescriptions.

Yet I don't see any anger about the position working people are left in.

Yet I don't see any anger about the position working people are left in

Exactly. All working people are told is they should pay more towards those who need it. Quite where we're supposed to continually cut back from I've no idea. If we can't afford to pay our bills because our mortgage is too high we're told tough, move. If we say we can't give our kids hot school dinners because we can't afford the £100 a month it would cost for 3 kids we're told we should have thought of that before we had kids.

Yet somehow I'm supposed to just hand over more and more tax and should never question how the money is being spent and whether we're getting value?

Oh and lastly Rubarb, for hayfever, try Pirinase I get hayfever and have had every tablet from the chemist, injections and steroid boosters from the dr's. Nothing worked. I used to hide inside in the summers cos it was so bad. Then a Dr prescribed this and it's changed my life. Takes a few days to build up immunity then after that you only need to use it once every few days.

ANGER ANGER ANGER about the position working people are left in.

There, will that do you niceguy?

I do particularly fine rage about the youngsters being told to spend tens of thousands of pounds on degrees which may be of very little value to them. And assorted other hobby-horses.

By the way, it may surprise you that I don't get free prescriptions either, even though I'm on Incapacity Benefit - it's slightly more than the designated subsistence level.

How will they take into account free prescriptions in Wales? Everyone gets them free here.

Exactly niceguy2, it might not be fair but then nothing is. The hard fact is that it's NOT just claimants who are suffering and indeed there are many claimants who are actually better off than the working people who are paying taxes to help those better off than them! That's just the way the system works.

I'm sorry but it's hard to have sympathy when you've been there, done that but without the benefits. Yes we've moved house too and we don't live in the kind of area I'd like to. Both my kids attended a failing primary school because it was the nearest to us. Both of them have changed schools and left friends behind. Yes it's shit but there you go, it doesn't just affect those on benefits and I wish people would see that.

We struggle to make ends meet, but we still pay our taxes and national insurance contributions. We get no help towards school trips or uniforms and my dd is kitted out completely in a second hand uniform that I bought from the school's lost property office whilst the children whose parents are on benefits have brand new uniforms paid for out of my taxes.

Yet I don't think that's unfair. Some of these people do have hard lives, they do try to work like HuntyCat but the system is against them. I'd rather give my taxes to those who are struggling than the governmental coffers or towards propping up banks. However my sympathy is strangled by the situation that I find myself in and the knowledge that there are a lot more working families in the very same situation that nobody seems to give a damn about. Where are the Mumsnet threads frothing about us? Where are our spokespeople ranting about unfairness? Where are our demonstrations?

Niceguy2, I get allergies all year round the only way to keep on top of it during spring is with a tablet a day, nasal spray twice a day and eyedrops three times a day from May to Sept. The rest of the time if I get symptoms I just take an ordinary hayfever tablet.
My dh has psoriasis and has to get Dovanex, tar shampoo and aqueous cream. We spend a fortune on prescriptions but that's not something either of us can cut back on sadly.

It seems to me that the overall issue is not the amount of benefits people get to look after their children and feed them etc the only one that is the real problem is the housing benefit. So surely there is some other way of sorting it out. The government need to look into housing people rather than letting them rent expensive properties. Maybe they need to look at people sitting in council houses who could really afford to go it alone. I find it amazing that once you get given a council house it's basically yours for life even if you then go on to earn enough for a mortgage or private renting unaided you don't have to leave.

If you're going to get angry about it, fine, but don't get angry at the people who have less than you. Be angry about the disparity between low wages and high housing costs, and about the huge huge rewards being taken by those at the top at the expense of those at the bottom.

The issues of low wages and high welfare costs are not at all separate - they are the same problem. Tax Credits form the biggest area of welfare spending, Housing Benefit the next, and the majority of Housing Benefit claimants are working. The state is effectively subsidising employers, enabling them to pay wages too low for their employees to live on, leaving the taxpayer to make up the difference so that the employers can increase their profits and the CEOs pay themselves ever more mind boggling sums. This is where the money is going, not to a handful of families in London living it up in a private rental Notting Hill because the LA couldn't find them a council house.

(Although obviously building more council houses would be part of the solution.)

This thread is about the cap to benefits, which is why some people are doing "Angry about cap" posts.

Start a thread about the dreadful situation lots of low earning families are in and there will be lots of angry people saying "I AM ANGRY ABOUT THIS!"

Yes, my post was in reply to NiceGuy's/Rhubarb's who were asking why nobody was getting angry about the predicament of working people. My argument is that it is the same issue.

Good article here about how Tesco profits from in-work benefits.

There are lots of "angry about cap" threads Shirley. And when the pensions strikes were on, there were a lot of "angry about pensions cuts" threads too.

I've never seen an "angry about low wages" thread. My councillor thread started a facebook group calling for a living wage and it didn't even get 100 likes.

I think we just accept the situation that we are in and we even presume that it could be worse, that we could be on benefits. When actually, if we were on benefits some of us would probably be better off.

And anyway, this thread is about opinions and I am offering mine. I am explaining why I am not as angry as I feel I should be about the benefits cuts.

BartonStacey - you've hit the nail on the head. If employers paid a fair wage then we wouldn't have to claim working families tax credit and the government would not have to subsidise our piss poor wages. It seems ludicrous for the government to admit that we are underpaid and offer us an income on top of what we are being paid, out of the taxes we are all paying, instead of addressing the problem directly and getting employers to stop taking the piss.

I mean £14,500k pa for a truck driver delivering heavy plant machinary all over the county? That's a joke. A sick joke.

That should read "my councillor friend"

"If employers paid a fair wage then we wouldn't have to claim working families tax credit and the government would not have to subsidise our piss poor wages. It seems ludicrous for the government to admit that we are underpaid and offer us an income on top of what we are being paid, out of the taxes we are all paying, instead of addressing the problem directly and getting employers to stop taking the piss."

This.

But modified where it's a deliberate decision for govt to temporarily subsidise a certain area or sector with a view to future profitability and sustainability (training subsidies, some but not all enterprise zones). Or because of strategic importance. But not subsidising low/no wages for highly profitable Tescos.

bartonstacey. I am not angry at people who have less at all. I live on what used to be a council estate and is now probably quarter owned properties so am very aware there are all different situations. Most of my friends live in council houses but I would not view any of them as scrounges. Mostly two parents with the man working very hard but low paid. So yes they do need the help. I have no issues with our tax money going to families that struggle... I'm just saying surely there is a better solution to this.

I can see why people get angry, I can not afford to live near my family as much as I would love to and we have moved 3 times in 5 years to go where my partner could get jobs. So using family ties as an excuse not to move people can make others cross. But that's life!

There are rich people playing the system and avoiding tax and the government need to target these as well but they are afraid if they do they will take their business elsewhere and the country will loose even more.

So no I am certainly not angry with people who have less than us or people who have more and I think that these sorts of things drive a wedge between people and makes everyone sit in judgment of each other. The papers make it worse with the big stories of large families living in grand houses on housing benefit but the majority of people on welfare need it and deserve it in my eyes.

I am struggling with this one. Yes I think it's only fair that it should 'pay' to be in work rather than not. And yes an income of £26000 should be more than plenty.

But I don't understand what will happen to families who live in London, for whatever reason, who will suddenly not be able to afford their rents anymore. Maybe the government should provide more affordable housing then the problem wouldn't have arisen in the first place (in part, anyway).

I'm a low earner as well Rhubarb - so I know exactly what you're talking about. I'm still better off working than being on benefits though, not only financially but for my own well being.

What can be done? Will this government think about helping the lower earners? No, because it's easier to get them fighting with others to keep them from looking around and thinking "er, actually, we ARE the 90% and we SHOULD be being treated better than this"

I think that's the plan... If we are all arguing against each other and pointing fingers at the rich/poor as being the problem we might forget that the real problem is the mps and their policies/decisions. Let's all unite and over throw the government and run it ourselves... A mumsnet country :)

I think we know that we should be treated better, but we are afraid of speaking out against our employers for fear of losing our jobs. The government are so happy to encourage large firms to take their business abroad and they are quick to award contracts to overseas investors, but they are not so quick to look after their own.

Employees are just grateful to have jobs and they want to keep their heads down and not create a fuss, because unlike the public sector workers, private sector workers don't have such stability, such security. My dh could be laid off tomorrow and all they would have to say is that they've not enough work on. They daren't do that in the public sector.

It makes me laugh when the public sector go on about having to pay more for pensions, having to deal with pay freezes and pay cuts etc when the private sector have never had pensions and deal with pay cuts all the friggin time, yet are too afraid to organise mass strikes because they know that would be the death knell for them.

So like I say, whilst I understand the anger, my sympathy has been strangled somewhat.

We won a contract to do some works for a huge thing (think energy substation type of building) and we got the work from an Italian company.

Without sounding - xenophobic or something, why aren't those HUUUUGE contracts being awarded to British companies - I guess that the Italian company who tendered for the work were cheaper than the UK companies.

The other thing that is terrible is that to tender for works in the construction industry you often have to join several organisations and PAY to do so in order to even get on a supplier list - it's ridiculous but what all this means is that the ones winning the contracts are the BIG companies with LOADS of cash - while the smaller companies can't afford to even get on a fecking list. Richer = richer. Poor = poorer.

That's the way they like. The fuckers.

Oh, oh and you want to hear me banging on about renewable energy subsidies.

I'm v angry about lots of stuff, not JUST the benefit slashing and cuts..

Here's a small snippet of my daily life for all of you who approve of the cuts:

DS2 won't be at school for the forseeable future (roughly a month), and I am having to help him with the worksheets the school have sent home. So I will just pop in and out of MN when I have the time.

I am in awe of how HE'ers manage on a permanant basis, especially when they have younger dc!

That's another barrrier to me getting and keeping employment - what employer is going to be happy with me taking 4-5 weeks off at a time when DS2 can't attend school because he is immune-compromised due to his other meds? It happens at least once a year, sometimes more. Yet he isn't disabled enough to qualify for DLA. . And it doesn't cause me ANY barriers to getting and keeping employment, him being unable to attend school for over a month at a time...

(C&P from another thread).