Single parenet benefits proposed to end when youngest child is 11 rahter than 16

[uwila]

Oh this will be popular round here.

here

They ask indirect questions.

And also questions under a medical pretext, like how much time you've had off sick and for what reason, any periods of time you've had off work - which would include maternity, medical records, etc.

I'm not putting anyone down - I've worked a lot in my time and bully for those who are lucky enough to be able to hack it - I'm defending those who have been put down, as always on these WOHM SAHM threads.

This is madness really. Surely, if you could earn enough to have a better life than you would on benefits - you'd do it?
I can't honestly believe that anyone would want to scrimp & constantly run the gamut of debt, if they could be secure & comfortable earning a decent wage.
The problems are that we don't have good, affordable childcare, we still don't have enough part-time & flexible work.
The infrastructures are not in place to genuinely help people work!!!!!!!!!!
This is what we should be discussing & fighting for & NOT MAKING OUT THERE IS SOME BLOODY UNDERCLASS OF SLACKERS WHO WOULD RATHER CLAIM BENEFIT THAN WORK.

The proposal is instead of the mother of the 11 year old sitting at home automatically getting IS, she will have to turn out every fortnight to sign for job seekers' allowance. I think that's a useful discipline even if in practice in many areas of the country there won't be jobs and the staff the Job Centre will be offering what jobs they are to single people who don't have children as they're easier to place. I don't think the idea of making the mother turn up there is particularly onerous and I think it might even help some find jobs.

people who are determined to stay on benefits will just go on incapacity benefit when their child is aged 11, rather than wait until they're 16.

Sorry - have I missed something here? Why would the parent of a secondary school age child need to be at home on IS?? I see no issue with a parent having to turn up and sign on once a fortnight -it's no big deal. Maybe they wouldnt be offered a job, depending on the economics of the locality, availability of other workers etc. No one can be blamed for being supported by the state if they are trying to find a job but there aren't any. But if there are jobs to be done then yes of course they should be expected to do them!! For gods sake!! What if we all said 'no thanks I'd rather sit at home'. Madness

thats very true persephone,i know alot of people who do that.IB is changing as well,though,and will be alot harder to get soon.

I've been following this for days & I am still not sure what we are arguing.
Is life on benefits really so peachy that people would rather claim than work & enjoy a better standard of living?

bugsy-when the alternative to benefits is waiting weeks or months for tax credits(that you may have to pay back the following year anyway),so that you end up about £10 a week better off,then i can understand people wanting to stay on benefits.

IS and JSA don't pay for children anymore though. all child related welfare benefits are handled by HM inland Revenue, so people on benefits will also have to run the gauntlet of the tax credits office rather than deal with us efficient and kindly benefits delivery people.

Yes diva, you've hit the nail on the head. The system is crap and does little to encourage people to work. As I think has been said before,the only answer is to have a bigger differential between wages and benefits, so that even doing the lowest paid, unskilled job rewards you finanicially enough to make it worthwhile. If people realised that they need to go out to work to be able to afford the things they want - car, holiday, new clothes, nights out etc then immediately there would be greater motivation. Now, before you shout me down, yes, I know there are people on benefits who scrimp and struggle and don't have these things, but equally, I know some people on benefits who can afford to drink, smoke, go on holiday and dress themselves and their kids in newer clothes than most working families. I'm not suggesting the welfare state should be dismantled - there will always be a small minority of people who cannot work through illness or exceptional cicumstances eg I can see why in a family with a severely disabled child, one parent might need to be at home. But having secondary school age kids is NOT an exceptional circumstance - it's ordinary real life. And as I said before, if there are jobs available that need to be done, I don't see why anyone should be allowed to turn them down and continue to be paid to be unemployed.

oh yes i forgot about child tax credit replacing the child element of other benefits.
i know so many people though who are upto their eyeballs in debt cos they spent weeks trying to feed/clothe etc a family on one persons wage while they waited for tax credits to get sorted,so i can see why many who are on benefits would rather stay that way and know that,even though they will never be able to afford luxuries,at least they know where the next meal is coming from.

i think the answer was further down the thread,when somebody mentioned employers being made to pay people a living wage.i think so many more people would want to work if they knew they would just have to wait for their first wages and would then be able to pay all the bills etc.

Part of the secret is also to direct daughters into better paid careers and ensure they get As in their A levels too where that is possible.

you forgot to mention putting them in chastity belts till the age of 30,xenia.

In all honesty though Xenia, that is a rather narrow view. Surely one has to accept that not everyone will be capable of or want or have access to better paid careers. We do not have an economy that permits everyone to have well paid careers.
Surely it makes more sense to ensure that we have a living wage & that decent, reliable childcare is available to everyone.
I would like to see all employers being more flexible about part-time work, job shares & flexi time.

The minimum wage should be risen to a decent amount. Some very worthy jobs have terrible wages but the people at the top seem to do alright maybe directers should take less and pay the workers better. We could then all have a decent life.

Child care could also be looked at.

The problem is that most employers in the UK have 2 - 5 staff I think. Many employers are employers of nannies too. Not all those small businesses, many owned by women and barely making profits can afford much more than the minimum wage. So making employers pay a higher NMW would probably just lead to them subcontracting to China.

Yes, I agree we can't have everyone in well paid careers unless we did what China did at one point - pay dustmen and doctors the same etc. (it didn't work). But on an indidividual basis any single mother on IS with daughters could devote herself to sitting there helping the daughter pick the best A levels, choose the best university etc. People can overcome their circumstances more easily in the UK than many countries so there's hope for children on an individual basis particularly if the single parent is able to assist with that.

I'm job seeking at the moment, so paying close attention to the jobs available at the moment.

A lot are either paying £12,000-£13,000/pa or thereabouts - in the third most expensive city in the UK or high 5 and 6 figures.

There isn't a lot of in between.

Just something I've noticed.

And those £12-£13K ones do require specific qualifications.

Interesting.

Goldman S did not employ those cleaners, though and in a free market if you can get cleaners or indeed stockbrokers on the minimum wage then people will hire them at those rates. Around here you can't get cleaners and nannies on the minimum wage so you pay more. It's how markets work.

I am a regular but have for the first time ever, namechanged to save being hounded out.

I agree with the change. I am a single mum of two children but i don't see why a woman cannot work once her child is at school all day.

Even if she gets part time work and her benefits supplement her income (such schemes should be looked into)
I just dont feel it instills a good work ethic into the next generation when they see their parents at home on their backsides all day.

a child of 14 is more than capable of letting themselves into the house for an hour or so after school so that mum can go to work and EARN some money.

Xenia: Goldman Sachs may not directly employ the exploited cleaners, but they do employ the agency that underpays the cleaners. And it does seem reasonable to ask, repeatedly, why a company that can pay its senior staff annual bonuses of over £100,000 (that's bonuses not wages and, for the sake of any slow readers out there, bonuses are on top of wages...), can't afford to pay its cleaners a living wage of, say, £15,000 a year.

I suppose they could instead choose to employ everyone direct from outsourced tying in India to their catering staff and even their lawyers. There are interesting issues on when it is sensible to outsource and when not. You lose your skills and become reliant on others and lose some control no matter how good your contracts are but you also then manage to avoid all the hassles of employing people and leave it to experts in whatever the field to concentrate on what they are good at. Some people have done very well in business by leaving their employer and contracting back their skills, employing others, whether it is cleaning, IT or whatever and contracting to other customers too. Sometimes it gives those people opportunities.

I am not sure it is lawful to tell those who supply you what they have to pay their staff although you can put contract provision in saying they should have lots of women, disabled people or whatever and also good environmental practices etc.

GS makes money because it is good. The UK is very proud of GS and what it achieves I am sure.

Couldn't agree more with bugsy2. Instead of putting single mothers in the stocks every time a debate about the welfare system comes up, it is time to give people credit for some intelligence and ask why people are making the choices they do.

The tax and benefit system in this country at the moment revolves around keeping a large percentage of the population on the breadline, regardless of whether they work or not.

You could probably trace the roots of this problem back to the fact that once you have completed the complicated process of forms and interviews, getting housing benefit etc, you would understandably be very reluctant to start disentangling yourself from it all, unless it is for a secure, permanent job that makes a significant financial difference.

As expat says, how empowering is a low paid, dead end job, when you are leaving your kids all day and then picking up all the chores in the evening? How is forcing someone to do litter picking or cleaning, regardless of qualifications going to improve their self esteem??

Successive governments have created a trap of poverty which only the very highest paid can escape once in it. It is a question of short term financial choices (or lack of choices) which means people find it very hard to permanently lift themselves onto a more secure footing.

It applies to all the working and non-working poor, with single parents understandably being the worst off in every sense. Financially, and in terms of the sheer effort to get through a day looking after the children single handed.

Well said singlemumof2. What is so disturbing about this topic is that it shouldn't be a single parent issue at all. It's about poor wages, lack of affordable housing and childcare - ie issues affecting us all, 2 and 1 parent families. The government wants to make it a single parent issue because it takes the spotlight off these other issues. Yes, of course a single parent with a teenager in school should be out at work - what the hell is going on if we are paying them to sit at home, and what parent wants to set that example for their kids anyway? The government needs to address the fundamental issue of making work pay. As i said before, if by doing even the lowliest of jobs is going to make your life significantly better than being unemployed, then people will do it. If there is a lack of childcare,rubbish wages etc it is much easier for people to stay on benefits. It ain't rocket science!