to think that very many PEOPLE IN WORK ARE ON BENEFITS?

[ParsingFancy]

Because there seems to be some confusion about this.

I keep seeing bollocks like "people in work have to limit their children, so people on benefits should too."

Excuse me, PEOPLE IN WORK ARE ON CHILD BENEFIT.

And "working people can't afford adequate housing per child, so people on benefits shouldn't get either."

But PEOPLE IN WORK ARE ON HOUSING BENEFIT.

Also, PEOPLE IN WORK ARE ON INCOME SUPPORT.

And PEOPLE IN WORK ARE ON DISABILITY LIVING ALLOWANCE.

Oh and PEOPLE IN WORK ARE ON WORKING TAX CREDITS.
That one was hard, wasn't it?

...bankers, and banking de-regulation that caused this mess...

Exactly.

Under Labour, banks were allowed to do whatever the fuck they liked. At the same time, the welfare bill increased by 60%.

All we need now is for the left-wing fuckwits to get back behind the helm and sail us squarely into a shit storm of truly epic proportions.

Of course £10/hr isn't a lot!

It would be very tough keeping a family on that with no outside assistance, I imagine.

It is, however, a 62% increase to the NMW.

Anyone who thinks that is doable is truly deluded.

It was a rhetorical question Edgar as you seem to believe that only students and the like are in low wage jobs.

Shelly, and whats so abhorrent about a £10ph NMW? Its about the level I was thinking tbh

I have some very wacky ideas I don't think that low earners should even be in the realms of income tax either At the moment a person earning national minimum wage, working 40 hours per week will contribute approx £1500 per year in income tax and national insurance. They would (without state subsidy) be left with just under £950 per month to live on. No way can a family of any sort survive on that.

Its all so wrong.

ifnotnowthenwhen

i would want to know where the fuck you get your water from,and how you use so little.

given that if you had a disability requiring extra water use or fit into the other limited criteria, the water board sets your water at 455 as thats whats concidered normal useage

No shelley. It's just under 40% increase from NMW.

And the Tories have ALWAYS been in favour of banking de-regulation, and still are. With bells on. Because they are Bankers.

sockreturning

I based the water usage on mine. Obvs, it can be much higher.

EdgarAllanPoeYour post at 16.41 sums up what is wrong.

I currently work full time and apart from CB receive no benefits - think I may reduce my hours too and get the state to make up the difference. after all, for me to spend more time with my Dc seems the right decision right now.

No shelley. It's just under 40% increase from NMW.

No, it's not.

Apologies... The post was to edgarAllanPond

I don't normally post in threads like this, because I am a bit thick politics and economics are not my strong point. But this whole NMW/benefit top-ups thing has really gotten me thinking.

I can't see how you can successfully just increase minimum wage. You would have to increase all wages, and surely that would lead to higher inflation? For example, if a shop currently sells an item for £40 while paying their staff £6.08 ph, if the wage was increased to £10.00ph then the item would have to increase accordingly to take into account the increased staff costs?

However, surely what we're really looking at is a redistribution of money? It obviously makes no sense that the government is effectively paying a percentage of people's wages. But if wages increased, then surely the amount of income the government needs in the form of tax would decrease? So you could increase the wages paid to people, but decrease the amount of tax paid too. So that £40 item would increase up to say £45 due to increased wage costs, but then would decrease back down to £40 due to a decrease in taxes paid on it. So there's no real net change, except there's no faffing with having to give people part of their wage in the form of various benefits.

I'm sure this is overly simplistic, but I'm struggling to see any other way out of this mess.

"If some people abuse the system, then address that specifically - prosecute for fraud"

It's not fraud, it's not illegal, it's playing the system, taking advantage of other people's monty.

or even money.

"All we need now is for the left-wing fuckwits to get back behind the helm and sail us squarely into a shit storm of truly epic proportions. "

You seem to be blessed with quite the way with words

Bionoc. Argos use workfare which saves money on wages. They are not the only store to do this.
Because people are being paid a low wage (or if doing workfare are not being paid a wage at all) then they dont spend.
Argos are going to close 75 stores.

I like your idea in your last paragraph but it will never happen. The Government want things like workfare. It gives them free workers.

i live in the SE, where living costs much, much, more...(especially housing)
er..petrol food and heating costs the same wherever you live...

i have a large family because i wanted one, i had been on benefits for short spells during second marriage but otherwise my first and current dh have worked. i might be missing the point but when did child benefit pay so much that it is considered as 'perk money'? in my experience it barely covered the cost of nappies, did i miss something or just naive?

shellyboobs you say £10ph isn't a lot, where are they paying for work ? that better tell my dh and a few other million people about that job, you could get trampled in the rush.

Hello

This isn't really an AIBU, so we're moving it to In The News.

mrsfuzzy We were talking about the NMW being increased to £10/hr instead of it being lower and people being 'topped up'. So are you saying you have less than the equivalent of £10/hr coming in, including any and all in-work benefits you receive?

Frankly, I don't believe you if that's what you're saying.

In this context, £10/hr isn't a lot. It's £1300 per month net income for a normal 37.5hr week.

10 per hour works out at 303 net pay per week which is a hundred pounds more per week than someone would take home on NMW over the age of 21 which would be 206 pounds per week.

I doubt if you asked someone on 10 pound per hour if you could take away hundred pounds per week of their income they would say it wasn't a lot

It is after all 33% of there income

NellyJob

petrol and food costs vary across the country - more so with food, supermarkets know that if they have a store in onetown where there are not any other supermakets they can raise the prices and therefore a weekly shop in one town with one store may cost 10 pounds more than in another town with three supermarkets. If you shop online you need to in put your postcode - this isn't for delivery purposes, this is to know how much to charge you for the shopping as if you do online shopping you may have to pay more than me for the same items. Your address for delivery is input later.

Edgar says i worked in retail - majority of our people were 16-25 year olds living with parents.

next: 2nd jobbers/ 2nd incomers/ NRPs
then: older semi-retired people

in 2010 over 60% of workers in retail were over 25 years old
14% of that 60% of workers were over 55 years old

so that leaves nearly 30% between 16-24 and thirty percent is not a majority
we have an ageing workforce so the situation will possible have changed in the last two years slightly and the figures will be a higher % over 25 and less under 25 year. The average age of a person working in retail is 38 and working in industry is 39 - so the statement about workers in a factory is also untrue and picked from thin air

'working in retail' = including management

management aren't on NMW. in fact lots of retail isn't NMW. Supermarket shopfloor and tills mostly is though.

that isn't exactly the question - it is how many people are supporting a family off a single NMW income -

the average age at my work is probably over 40 - but we only have two non-management people as sole incomers - the typical body is the other half of a self-employed person - wives of electricians/plumbers/truckers - we have some dinkys too - I'm the only one with more than two children

the government isn't making up any shortfall for them, is it? maybe a CTX claim here and there if their OH has a bad year, but not otherwise.

the company can afford to pay us not very much because they can attract the right people on that salary. most aren't eligible for large benefits top-ups so the argument that this is a govt subsidy promoting low pay doesn't fly.

"so the statement about workers in a factory is also untrue and picked from thin air"

you can tell me my experience isn't representative, don't tell me its untrue though! techincally i was employed by an agency, not a factory anyway....

"t was a rhetorical question Edgar as you seem to believe that only students and the like are in low wage jobs."

not 'only students' but

'not majoritively people in receipt of large benefits top-ups'.

i think increasing the NMW is not the best way to help low-waged families - it isn't a well-targeted approach at all !!

on the brink of poverty.

The "cliff-edgers" work in retail, the service sector, and in seasonal businesses like tourism. They run small firms, often as self-employed tradespeople. Household income is typically between £12,000 and £35,000. The boom times gave many of them modest visions of betterment and security; the recession has engulfed them in financial stress.

I add:

Their lives have become testbeds of frugality and improvisation. Losing their job would be catastrophic. But even comparatively minor setbacks - a broken washing machine; a higher than expected gas bill ? trigger a financial crisis.

There's little sense of victimhood or self-pity, however. There's a profound ethos of personal responsibility, a determination to juggle and graft in the face of hardship.

"Their whole ethos is about work; they don't want to end up on benefits or the dole," says Bruno Rost of Experian, the data company which carried out the detailed analysis of in-work poverty for the Guardian, including in-depth surveys of attitudes and behaviours, coupled with a wide range of quantitative data.

But there's also a stressful awareness of the seemingly ever-shrinking gap that separates them from the slide into poverty and homelessness. Unlike the "squeezed middle", group, which is more likely to have assets to act as a buffer against misfortune, the cliff-edge is hugely exposed