26000 cap what it would mean to me

[TheHumancatapult]

ok some of you ahve complained about the £26000 Benfits capped and then slammed into hunty cat for having to much money left

so to balance it out this how £26000 would be broke down for myself as single parent with 4dc

.£26000 straight away 13200 would have gone to the LL .

so thats £12800

left .Discount Cb as peoplle up to £40000 can earn so tale away £3534 approc

so im now down to 9256 .Tale away council tax Benfit thats me down to £7886 .

thats then down to £151 a week
they will then tale of teh free school dinners have 3dc that entitled ( only 1 has but they will do the sums based on what they are entitled to ) so £6 a day times 5 is £30

£121 left take of £15 for water £20 for gas and £20 for electric bearing in mind most wil be on card/key meters taht charge more

would leave me £56 a week for food and clothes and any extras

Now relook at the figures again that im in h/a at £126 a week my hb is £6652

so think the problem lies when your forced into private rented a large amount of your money is swallowed up by Hb .And remember not all LL will takke Hb so often you pay a preimum for sometime substandard accomidation as they are aware that people can not move

And lets also remember those that are working in low income of £18000 Pa will also recieve top ups too of CB , WTC and CTC

Orwellian is that to do with the 2 year time limit? A truly insane idea. Social housing was intended to offer security, not just low cost, but now it will offer neither. Fabulous.

hunty stop moaning and have another turnip

, JuliaScurr. It IS how I am starting to feel, though.

i rang my landlord the other week and asked him not to put my rent up this year, im in the south east and work part time, single mum to two kids, one with special needs and in a special school. Rent as it stands is £832 a month for 2 bedrooms, i share with the youngest as his medical needs require support during the night, my 17 year old has the other room.

The rent down here is high and all the jobs state "minimum wage expected", that should stop!! I found an old diary from 25 years ago and read through it and i was earning £5,950 as a typist, more than the minimum wage 25 years on!! rent needs to come down, wages need to go up, then theres more incentive to work. As for the person having a dig about the OPs 17 year old son going out and getting a job, grow up! my son is at college and desperate to work part time. The job centre is a joke, you need experience, youre too young! Hes totally deflated with it all. The only jobs he could take are cleaning and they wont fit in around college hours, i wish people would give young people a break, its blinking hard out there for them you know

I actually wasn't having a dig, I thought he might be able to help the family finances with a weekend job.

I am also grown up, thank you. At least I was trying to be constructive and find solutions to her problems, and she actually took it that way, it's only you who was offended on her behalf.

inmysparetime, that wasnt directed at you it was someone at the beginning of the thread

Ok, it's easy to be misunderstood in type.
No hard feelings

course no hard feelings, i think this thread was bound to stir up feelings of unfairness/fairness. everyones worried about living standards, those on benefits and those not on benefits, its gona be a hard few years for everyone. x

Now I am in no favor of the benefits cut however this has really pissed me off. I know that it may not be their fault they are benefits and benefits quite rightly are for people who need them. However this quote has really got my back up "I see eight people here having to choose between eating or heating." (if the benefits cap happens) Um I'm sorry but you spend 90 per week on fags and booze if you can afford this then no you are not in a position of choosing between heating and eating.

Sorry frownieface but who does? I have read whole thread and don't see anyone saying that?

I believe Frownieface is referring to this article on the BBC news website: Family Life on Benefits

Just saw that and came back to say wrong thread frowniwface

yes figures on £26k can be tight if you have 4 kids, where people get shirty is where they get hardly any help (only child benefit) and work blooming hard and they have just as tight a budget.

The lowest paid higher rate taxpayers who are going to get their child benefit taken away do not get much more than this in their hand and might be supporting 2 adults (yes I know the 2nd adult could work and in this case will shortly but not going to at the moment as I have 3 small DC.)

TheHumancatapult Fri 27-Jan-12 18:46:03
"my water was 720 over the year £55 per 4 week time"

I know you said you aren't eligible for having your water rate capped, but 99% of people in your situation would qualify for the WaterSure scheme, which is pretty generous. You need to have 3 or more children or a condition which requires extra water usage (such as eczema) and qualify for Child Tax Credits (not the family part). If you have 4 kids can be an income over £40k!! It then caps your water bills at £26/month for ThamesWater (it's different amounts for different areas).

Must admit you do seem to be getting the short straw on most of these benefits but I think your circumstances are very exceptional compared to the average.

But that is the point - the people with 'exceptional circumstances' will end up under the cap too, in a lot of cases. Families like THC's and mine will be the 'collateral damage'. As if we and our dc don't matter. It's almost like those of us WITH 'exceptional circumstances' are being offered as sacrificiallambs for 'the greater good'. Isn't Jeffing good for US. WE are the unseen families BEHIND the figures that are bandied about in the media. WE are still real people. WE still will have these 'exceptional circumstances' to deal with. You don't make disabilities disappear by changing the criteria for disability benefits and making disabled people no longer qualify.

The DWP's OWN impact assessment states that there WILL be people who are classed as disabled under the DIsability Discrimination Act and the Equality Act 2010 that WILL NOT have protection from the cap as they no longer receive disability benefits. This DOESN'T mean that they are no longer disabled. This DOESN'T mean that they no longer have additional expenses caused by their disabilities. This DOESN'T mean that they won't find it difficult, if not impossible, to find AND KEEP paid employment due to difficulties caused by their disabilities.

In fact, the DWP's impact statement claims that 1 in 5 adults in the working age population are classed as disabled by the DDA and the Equality Act 2010. Only 30,000 of these people will be protected by the cap. The other 7,287,000 people that ARE classed as disabled by the DDA and the Equality Act 2010, WILL be affected by the cap. Despite being classed as disabled by the very laws that are meant to protect those with disabilities. Yet the Government has seen fit to place a limit on how many people are ALLOWED TO BE DISABLED.

HuntyCat Tue 07-Feb-12 11:17:22
But that is the point - the people with 'exceptional circumstances' will end up under the cap too, in a lot of cases. Families like THC's and mine will be the 'collateral damage'. As if we and our dc don't matter. It's almost like those of us WITH 'exceptional circumstances' are being offered as sacrificiallambs for 'the greater good'.

Sadly, I think you are right. I was going to write and say that with any change in the benefits system there will be winners and losers (or maybe in this case losers and big losers), but that the government appear to be making no effort whatsoever to minimise those 'exceptional circumstances'. This is clear also from the change to Child Benefit which has several totally bonkers anomalies. But then I read the Guardian this morning:
www.guardian.co.uk/society/2012/feb/07/slashing-benefits-breeze-disregard-detail
and there is a whole article saying exactly the same thing as I was going to say but much more coherently written. It's not that all the money saving ideas are awful (well some), but the implementation so far has been very lazy.

I think a good start would be to exempt Child Benefit from the cap, and in fact any benefit that isn't means tested. The purpose is to make work pay, not punish benefit claimants, so it makes no sense to remove money they would be receiving if they worked.