we earn less tha the 26k benefits cap and ds knows this - now he's asking us are we living in poverty, eg "I didnt know we were so poor mum"....

[ssd]

what do I tell him, yes we are poor?

I don't usually feel poor, I get minimum wage, dh gets 7£ an hour, we both work and pay all our bills

we dont have holidays and nights out, but there are loads of people living like that now

I've explained to ds about the welfare reforms and to someone of 12 it sounds simple, eg. why dont they work or do the sort of jobs you do mum (cleaner, babysitter, dishwasher, all crap minimum wage jobs), or why do they stay somewhere where their rent is so high, we couldnt aford to live there so why does someone who doesnt work live there?

....and so on

sigh...I dont know what to tell him, I just always say stick in at school so you might be able to get a batter job than me and your dad and you might have more choice than us

Can someone please help explain to me how this will affect my family? DP earns low 20 somethin K, I was made redundant after maternitly leave and have 11 month old son and no income. We are entitled to around £100 per week housing benefit, will this change?

OP you are lucky that you manage to survive without help from the government, if you lived in an area of high rents you would be entitled to support though. What will happen if all of those in low paid jobs have to move away from London? I'm sure the rich still want people to wait their tables, serve them drinks and nursery nurses to look after their children.

hardboiledpossum, the main thing that will affect you is that LHA rates are reducing to the 30th percentile of rents in each Broad Rental Market Area rather than the median.

changes to LHA

This means that even if your rent is well below the absolute cap the amount of housing benefit you get is still likely to drop (I'd think by roughly 15% but you'd need to look into it in detail based on average rents in your area.)

psammyad Thank you very much that was helpful

26000

£13200 to the Landlord

£1950 council tax benefit times 12

1065 free school dinners £7.10 a day.

Eletric £1040

gas £1040

Water £720

outgoings of £17950

£375 add in dinners for ds1 at collage consertive £2.50 a day

£240add in his top of £8 bus fares

rent top of £1200 a year

someone ele can checik as doing on paper but ima round £21515

no i have not addd CB to it becuase thats include din teh cap I cna not have more than £26000 in benfits including CB

ha ha sneering bollocks, yes thats right, my 12 yr old doesn't watch the news or asks questions about it and when he askes for something we don't ever tell him no, we can't afford it, because then I'd have to explain to him how money works and how much we earn and can afford, because you'd never tell a 12 year old that would you, far better to let them play with their toys and let them think money grows on trees and life is rosy

and second coming, what about you going out to scrub fucking loos at night once your dh comes home or at weekends if he is about, so you can pay for the haircuts you are missing?? or is it just easier to moan on here and protest of course you aren't too good to scrub loos but you'd rather not bother?

I think it's important for people to remember that while the cap is at £26K, this does NOT mean everyone on benefits is getting £26K!! Far from it!!

Hmm, ssd, your tone has changed somewhat since your rather simpering OP. Nice.

sure it has woolly

Ah, but its so much easier to teach children right wing economics than empathy!

Ds asks how we can help those who are worse off than us, I suddenly feel very proud of the lessons that I've taught him.

Ah, but its so much easier to teach children right wing economics than empathy!

Ds asks how we can help those who are worse off than us, I suddenly feel very proud of the lessons that I've taught him.

But when you discuss the news with your DCs you always put your own spin on it depending on your own view of the world including your political opinions.

The news comes with it's own spin - on the spin of the politicians.

So it's spin on spin on spin for our DCs (no wonder they get giddy !)

I think it's as well to try and have some awareness of this.

BTW Even though I've been known to clean the odd loo for a living (as part of my work with children) I have heard there are other jobs out there for the fussy!!

Juggling, exactly. Ds asked me about maggie thatcher, and I found it quite hard to explain her and her policies neutrally. Ended up saying that a lot of people got rich off her decisions and policies and that while I may not have agreed she did what she believed and you have to respect that.

Juggling, exactly. Ds asked me about maggie thatcher, and I found it quite hard to explain her and her policies neutrally. Ended up saying that a lot of people got rich off her decisions and policies and that while I may not have agreed she did what she believed and you have to respect that.

Don't tax credits kind of come out of the tax that your household pays anyway. So you don't have to think of it as coming from other tax payers if you'd rather feel a bit independent ?
Am I right about that ?
I thought that might be why they were called tax credits
ie. government is taxing you less (as a family) than it would otherwise (as you have children) So a bit like supplementary child benefit the way I see it ?

Yes, essentially speaking, but you can get more tax credits than you pay in tax and you can get them if you don't pay any tax at all. But they are the top up for low earners really as cost of living is so high,

You get very little in tax credits if you are unemployed.

(well, no income tax, obviously everyone pays VAT etc)

ssd- Tell your son when he has my DS's autism, he can have my benefits too.

Frankly you and he would be welcome to both.

(caveat - I'm not actually affected by the cap but I think perhaps teaching your son some compassion, care and tolerance of others might be a better way of raising him than feeding him the self rigteous rubbish)

Just teach him to think himself lucky that he doesn't NEED the benefits.

oh yes but that one day he might and then he'll be glad that he is able to feed/clothe/house his children

Of course TSC the only reason the taxpayer would have to pay so much out in childcare for you is that you decided to have a second child after you lost your job IIRC

OMG are people really telling other posters that they shouldn't have had a second child because they might get a tiny bit of their household tax back as a tax credit ? And making digs at people who've disclosed that they are not currently in paid employment/ have recently lost their jobs

londonone, you are so right. these irresponsible couples just... having children.

shocking.

Yes, I am of the opinion that having additional children when you can't support them yourself without state support is wrong.