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?

Oh - and also bear in mind that you are TIED to this expensive area by a Court Order for access with you children (a prohibited steps order prevents me from moving outside of the area I currently live in, I am only allowed to move within a 2-mile radius of my current house, unless I am willing to DRIVE my children to their father's house twice a week. Which I can't do. Because I am legally BARRED from holding a driving license due to my disability).

So I can't move to a cheaper area. And I can't get legal aid now to get the PSO changed.

Please don't forget it's not the families on benefits getting £26k. It's the HA/councils and landlords getting the bulk of that!

I live in Paddington - have done all my life. I have two girls and my partner died in a car accident when I was pregnant with my 2nd child. I couldn't work if it wasn't for the support I get from family and friends. I had a stroke a few years ago and had to stay in hospital for 2 weeks. My mum and my neighbours all pulled together to make sure my dd's got to school etc. Would you prefer I called SS and had my children put in to care? How much would that have cost?

Because I am in temporary accommodation my rent is £500 PER WEEK - because the council get their share and the HA get their's too - it's a small one bed on an estate - hardly luxurious but no one is giving me and my children that money - it comes from the HB to the council and HA - NOT ME!! The rent on a similar flat rented just by the council is £115 per week. That I can pay! I wouldn't need HB if that was what I had to pay!

Who is milking the system here then?

The cap doesn't include people who are on WTC. But WTC will not exist when the new, Universal Credit is brought in. So those people will NO LONGER BE EXEMPT FROM THE CAP.What IDS is saying about that is just a short-term thing (for 15 months until UC starts) to throw to people to make them look the other way.

When did we decide the Welfare State was now nothing more than a 'safety net' for the desperate? Does that include schools? NHS? State pensions? Social services?
It's not meant to be a 'safety net'. It's meant to provide social cohesion. Remember that? When thereh is such a thing as 'society'? And sometimes, that includes the state.

kelly2000
"I know when I am looking for a place to live I do not find something I like then tell the council to pay for it, I have to find somewhere within my means."

It doesn't work like that. Councils already have upper ceilings on the amount they will pay- called a "LHA limit". This is now, as I recall, 30% of the average rent for a property of the kind you are entitled to in an area. It is very difficult to find a property for this sum, especially given the prejudice in landlords against HB applicants.

The politics of divide and rule really are working a treat, aren't they?

Huntycat. Don't know what to say - don't want to offer pity - you sound very strong and capable - I do feel for you though. So sorry you are being put through this.

I actually think that the whole HB thing is shit. And the Tax Credit.

They should all be scrapped so that landlords would have to lower their rents to affordable levels.

What we have is artificially high rental prices that are being supported by the government measures.

But you cannot just come in and scrap them cause otherwise people will not be able to afford their rent and it would take time before the landlords realised that the glory days are over and they will have to sink their rents to get tenants.

And what do you do with the thousands of homeless?

We need more LA houses with a rent cap so that those on low incomes can afford to live where the jobs are.

It is all very well saying they need to move but a very high proportion of those receiving HB are worknig and moving away will mean them losing their jobs.

Hunty, again, the problem that you have is not because if a benefits cap. It's because of idiots who will not recognise the disabilities you live with.

They are two separate problems, and you can't solve one by trying to solve the other.

I broadly support some sort of cap, as long as there is protection for vulnerable people. I've seen the benefits system working as it was meant to, I've also seen it being totally ripped off by the archetypal 'Daily Mail scrounger'. (who is currently desperately trying to get registered disabled to exempt themselves from the cap).

Three things come to mind.

i) Where does the assumption come from that living on benefits should give you the average earnings? If you can get that by not working, where is the financial incentive to work? And a great many people earn a lot less than that despite being in full time work.

ii) If you have the equivalent of 35k, and child benefit is excluded, you are getting very close to the 42k level at which child benefit will be stripped, because you are 'too rich to deserve getting it'. How does that stack up?

iii) Excluding child benefit creates a massive incentive to have ever more children to increase your income.

I don't know what the answer is, and I suspect the 'scroungers' will continue to 'get away with it' whilst the vulnerable suffer.

Also, for those arguing thatI had more children than I could afford - When I had the first 3 dc, I was EMPLOYED in a job that I was earning £50kpa, and I had £20K of savings.

I was then diagnosed with epilepsy, just 2 weeks after the birth of my 3rd child. I was BARRED BY LAW from continuing in my previous profession, as an on-site architect. I couldn't afford to re-train, as I needed to use my savings to live off, as I was the higher earner in my family (by a LONG way, as my partner at the time earnt NMW back then).

Within a year, I had lost my home, spent all my savings, and had to claim WTC on the basis of my then-partner's income.

YES, I accept that I have had another child since being in that position, it was FAR from ideal, but my medication for epilepsy affects the effectiveness of any oral contraception, and my partner at the time was allergic to spermicide. My epilepsy medication means that I metabolise hormonal contraception at a far greater rate than is normal. I cannot use a coil because when I DID, it perforated my womb.

The only thing I could have done when faced with an accidental pregnancy was terminate. But that is against my belief that conception is the start of life, I may (now) be poor, but I am still allowed to refuse a termination on the basis that it would adversely afect my mental health to feel like I had MURDERED one of my children. To suggest otherwise is getting into the bounds of euthanasia.

I would STILL not have been a Lone Parent had my Ex-P NOT decided to walk out on me when our baby was 4 months old. Which left me as a disabled Lone Parent to 4 dc, two of whom have disabilities of their own. I have requested a sterilisation (for the last 8 years, since my diagnosis, actually) but I keep getting told that I am 'too young'. In the meantime, as it is the ONLY guarantee of not falling pregnant again, I am staying celibate. Which is FAR easier as a Lone Parent than it was when I was still IN a relationship with my Ex-P.

HTH with any queries people may have!

And remember, people earning 30-35k salary, rather than receiving it on benefits, also have to pay for accommodation, so it's not really an argument to say that lots of that benefit goes to landlords.

I do think there's a problem with the taxpayer subsidising fatcat landlords - and it happens across the board - some big supermarkets don't pay their employees a 'living wage', because they know they will be boosted up by tax credits etc. Which enables the big bosses to pay themselves massive bonuses. It's all wrong.

It's a balancing act isn't it?

There's the rights of those who will be (and let's not beat around the bush) affected by it.

Then there's the poor bastards like most of us who go to work full time yet forever being asked to cough up more and more taxes to pay for these families who don't.

I really don't see the issue with saying to a family "Look, there's a limit to how much cash we can give you. And if that means you have to move then sorry but tough."

I mean there's a village I'd LOVE to live in. But I can't because I can't afford it. That's reality. If I lost my job, I'd have a much reduced income and if I couldn't find a job the most likely outcome would be I'd have to sell our family home and downsize. Again that's reality.

What I cannot and do not expect is the government to pony up the equivalent of £35k a year salary eternally to support a lifestyle I can no longer afford.

Why? Because that's a lot of money and there simply aren't enough taxpayers around.

As a lone parent then is maintenance included in these calculations?

I doubt it is, as it varies so much. Also, how does it affect older dc staying in education?EMA? Etc

Also, once it's capped, what will the 'benefit bashing' brigade do for their kicks? I worry who their next target will be....

Lily
many people on low salaries are claiming housing benefits.

And how much is the CB in UK at present? £20 a week?

My DC cost more than £20 a week to feed and clothe.

I doubt that the CB alone would be an incentive for anyone to have another child or two. Bad investment, I would have thought.

And the idea that you pop out a couple of DC and automatically get a council house - those days are long past. My brother has been on the waiting list for years. They have 2 kids in a tiny 2 bed flat.

niceguy
That is all true, but what do you do then if you are working in London and your benefits are to be cut.

You can no longer afford your house. You must move out of London to something affordable.

But then the cost of commuting into work is incredibly high.

So you have to make the decision between heating the house or feeding the family.

Well the CB I'm going to loose is £200 a lot,that's a stonking amount for us.

Kelly2000 - People like me are housed in SOCIAL HOUSING. We were put there by the LOCAL AUTHORITY. We had NO choice over where we were housed. So if, like me, you got housed in the dearest part of your town when you were housed by the council because you were HOMELESS having had your home REPOSSESSED, you just have to deal with it. My house is/will be that expensive because it is the 'social housing' that the builder had to provide as part of a private development, which just HAPPENS to be in the catchment area for the best-performing Secondary school in my whole town. Which pushes up rental prices. Did I have a choice in that? NO! If I hadn't taken this house when I was offered it, I would no longer have been housed by the council in the B&B room that all 5 of us were occupying (Me, my Ex-P, my disabled DD who was just 6yo at the time, my DS1 who was just 2yo at the time, AND my DS2 who was a 6mo baby at the time). We WOULD have been told that the Local Authority no longer had a duty to house us as we had turned down a property we had been offered. So we would have been TRULY homeless.

Mme that is the real life situation many are already living with.

hmm in thory you may eb able to rent but has anyone stopped and looked at how many LL take Hb and teh state of the propertys

I lived private rented and becuase of circumstances could not move or find anywhere else take Hb let alone the deposit etc and LHA rates dropping .The place was really bad and was to scared to complain about it .That the reality of HB

East Herts average 4 bed is around £1400-£1500 a month LHA is £1000 a month and no i could not move ds2 doing gcse , ds3 in sn school and i need family support

i thank my lucky stars that myOT stepped in and got us out of there and into H?A becuase otherwise teh cap would be a mess

MmeLindor, we are losing 10% of our income through the child benefit cut. With 4 kids, we are losing £3k per year, which is the equivalent of a 10% pay cut (about 5k once you apply tax). Which tbh is a massive and scary hit.

If my dp lost his job we'd be homeless.

I don't get why those on benefits and the rich should get to choose where they live and the rest of us(the squeezed middle yet again) have to move away from family to places where a) we can afford and b) we get work.

Sorry if it's one of lifes hardships not being able to live where we pick I want some support so dp can live near his family thanks.

People on this type of level of benefits must think anyone that actually works for less than £25K must be real mugs. I work full time for much less than this and feel like a right prize idiot.

CB is £20 pw for the 1st child, £13pw for all other children.

Fwiw, I know several people who totally do have children to boost their incomes. And some who are desperately trying to have babies because their older children are reaching the age where they won't get it anymore. I don't think children do cost more than that to feed/clothe necessarily, mine don't!

and yy about moving, we can't afford to move to where we'd like to live.