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

how condescending, thesecondcoming

we are very grateful for your pity, thanks for that

juggling

no from 2013 with UC replacing CTC and WTc the rules will apply to anyone

£26k would be more than someone with 4 kids would get here in S E Wales

personally I would support a cap but an amount set before HB to allow for regional variations, otherwise you are saying someone here in Newport can have more food than someone dependent on the south east- perhaps to care for their Mum for example, carers are not exempt from cap-
which is wrong.

yes i agree with peachy /

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

TSC - IMO you shouldn't get the monthly rebate as you call it or the subsidised childcare both are wrong IMO.

OP your son sounds very precocious, perhaps he would be susceptible of some kind of explanation along the lines of It's Not That Simple?

Like I said this morning...I worked out yesterday that a single parent on benefits with 5 children in a council house in my LA area is receiving under the 26k cap.

That means that it's absolutely rent that pushes it over, [http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-to-rent/property-32739802.html that]] is the cheapest place with 3 bedrooms I could find in London and it takes it over the cap.

So realistically a working single parent who loses their job or an unemployed one who loses their partner can't even afford to put 6 people into a 3 bedroom flat anywhere in London...that's not just moving area.

that was what I was trying to post

Well that's OK HumanCatapault since 26k is about what we need to cover our costs with two DCs.

But fortunately for us we own our own home and have been able to pay off our mortgage.

It is probably ridiculous if the government isn't giving any consideration to people's housing costs - or the size of their household.

(But, I probably shouldn't say that as might not be in our best interests - and as I previously said I do generally think everyone has a right to act largely in the best interests of themselves and their families.)

Please explain tabulah - rent on that property would be 9900 a year. Are you saying that 1341 a month after rent is not enough for your notional family to live on?

I am about to be out of work and claiming benefits for the first time ever. I will be £150 a month worse off all told and my job is only a part time one.

Of course most people don't have 5 children because they understand that children are expensive. You would have to be very confident of having a very high income and a very large back up of savings for a long time if you were to be responsible about bringing 5 children into the world IMO

Point is that the 26k thing is all bollocks because the vast majority of benefit claimants won't see anything like that amount.

Well, we had 2 years income saved LO: you'd be amazed how quickly that goes, given the majority of it is (rightly) counted against benefits so you do have to live off it. We've been lucky though and never had to claim unemployment benefits. Some tax credits and Carers Allowance, plus the boy's DLA. The only cut really going to hit us is losing DS3's DLA Tax Credit payment, it apid for his special diet which will now ahve to come out the DLA that we allocated for otehr things for his benefit- ultiamtely we can't avoid it iimpacting on hime becuase we are responsible and made sure he got teh full use of it.

Please do not assume that cheapest housing in an area avaialble to claimants either- a very high % of lls state no benefits; indeed many insurers insiist on it. We were getting a small amount of top up HB for a time and even that was a big no no.

This sends out a marvellous message to all our dcs who see us working and not earning anywhere near the amounts being banded about. All the interviews on tv of people whinging that the government isn't giving them money. Why will any of them want to go out to work if they can sit at home and be paid for it?

It makes the job of trying to instil a good work ethic much more difficult.

Peachy - IIRC you are in a slightly different position as members of your families have disabilities and I have specifically stated time and again that I think the support for disable and carers should be upped very significantly.

I will, thats good of you, thank god I've got broad minded people like yourself to turn to

'rent on that property would be 9900 a year. Are you saying that 1341 a month after rent is not enough for your notional family to live on?'

That's before council tax, water, gas and electric...that takes it down to about £1000 a month, for 6 people - I've never had to (because I don't have that many), but I doubt I could manage to feed and clothe 6 people on that easily.

But that was the cheapest one, not average or high end, just the cheapest one and everyone's having to share a room.

If they're capping benefits because rent is too high, it's not the benefit claimants that are the issue, surely? It's a lack of social housing and ludicrous house prices and factors like that that are an issue.

Like I said, my notional family living where I am won't be affected by the cap...surely it can't be right to basically put in measures that mean that you're financially penalized for living in the bottom half of the country?

London, am aware of that so have not tackled you directly: also we would be unffected anyway but can see massive problems with policy. We will be affected by an increased wait for hospital appts etc; there will be even more people wanting the places at school...

Nobody will be exempt, it will be negative for anyone living where it is cheap.

We counted the council houses on my old estae wher I grew up last weekend

There were about 2000 houses when I was a kid in L:A control; now (using the method known as front door spying- last thing council does before handing across ownership in our LA is to take down their front door so you have to buy one) it seems closer to about 200.

Wow

Tabulahrasa - do you consider everyone living in th esouth to be financially penalised as after all we all have to pay more for our housing.

That's true london

So shouldn;t someone living there- where after all the jobs are, anyone moving ehre is fucked (and not just my opinion- big thing on it on BBC today)- get more housing help than someone moving where there is no employment?

Why pon eart push people away from work! Why do they think areas became cheap in teh first aplce?