MNHQ here: are you a JAM ("Just About Managing")?

[FinnMumsnet]

Hello,

With the Chancellor's Autumn Statement coming up next Wednesday (23 November), rumours swirl that it will include measures targeted at a group the government has been calling "JAMs", or those "just about managing." There's some suggestion that this will include action on things like childcare subsidies, the cost of holiday flights and fuel duty. (For more, here's the Mirror, the Telegraph and the FT.)

We know from previous conversations that many MNers are having to work hard to make ends meet, and we'd love to hear your thoughts on whether you think you fall into this category, what action you'd like the government to take, and whether any of the proposed measures (though we don't have any more details we're afraid!) would make a difference to your lives.

Thanks,
MNHQ

Yes I find this whole "let's focus on cheap flights" such a patronising, demeaning and let-them-eat-cake gimmick - do the government reeeeeeally think we're so financially illiterate and so shallow in our hopes and aspirations? Unless we have protected jobs and affordable housing (which seem to be the big ones emerging from this thread), the prospect of going abroad will simply never feature on our radars.

It's like they think we're daft.

I'm a landlord and I completely agree about better regulation of the housing market. There are way too many amateur/crooked landlords out there who should be 'struck off' some kind of landlords register as not fit to practice.

As ever, I would like to know what the Chancellor intends to do about large businesses who avoid and evade tax, instead of bashing the poor and disabled for apparently cheating on benefits. I am dreading the day my DH gets moved on to PIP.

Job security, that's what people care about. Zero hours contracts are shit.

A living wage would be good.

Yy to all of the above. For my family cheaper/ subsidised childcare would be the number one priority. When I go back to work after maternity leave nearly half of my income will be spent on childcare. I don't earn much as it is, and we are really going to struggle.

Raise NMW to the living wage and not just what the government call the living wage
More employment rights
Action on the housing crisis - introduce private rent controls and invest in more social housing
Stop bleeding the NHS dry and selling it off

Oh and I agree the cheaper flights idea is bullshit

(I'm not in the target group btw, but work with people who are)

And yes, the holiday flights thing is very patronising. We've been abroad twice in 12 years, so it would really not affect us at all.

If they fare target holiday flights then it will confirm they have no idea how most families live.

Better employment rights, inc more pressure on larger employers for flexible working, not the lip service they currently pay to it and more support for lone parents would help.

Cheaper flights. My arse.

dare not fare.

Having watched the news tonight where the headline article was about the housing crisis, I have to agree that something radical and drastic needs to be done to regulate landlords, make rents affordable and to provide more housing generally.

Employment rights need to be increased. Zero hours contracts should be made the exception not the norm. Access to employment tribunals should become free again.

The flight thing is just a non-starter.

I'm a JAM and feel like I always will be. I'm stuck in an entry level job despite good qualifications because of my anxiety. I would feel like a fraud applying for better jobs, and would struggle.

I don't believe the Conservative government care about people struggling from one wage to the next. Cutting childcare subsidies is beyond the pale to me when they are forcing people in to work.

They should clamp down on zero hour contracts but what do they care? It helps the unemployment figures and it's not them who never knows what wage they will have coming in next month.

My biggest bugbear is renting. My friends who have mortgages pay so much less than me. My rent is a huge overhead to cover, even with. A better job I would struggle to save. We're looking at the wrong party to fix any of this though.

From those articles they couldn't be more removed from the reality most of us live day to day. Cheaper flights? I don't know anyone under 35 who can afford to leave their parents home let alone take family holidays abroad.

more pressure on larger employers for flexible working, not the lip service they currently pay to it and more support for lone parents would help.

This in spades. Like I said upthread both me and dp work in the nhs. Various shifts available, you'd think flexibility would be quite easy really but no, the erostering computer won't allow it

increase carers alowance.

Oh and how about ditching the recent benefit cap?!

There was already a cap and now it's been cut down even more - mainly affecting families with several children and putting them at risk of homelessness.

Nice one, Tories.

Make free hours of childcare count as free hours. None of my local nurseries will allow me to use them as free hours. My daughter attends 30 hours a week but my bill did not halve when she was eligible for the hours after turning three. I can only claim three hours a day (so only 9 of my 15) and then don't get a session discount so the hourly rate of the rest of the day goes up. I save about £10 a week with my free hours. Childcare costs me £80 a day for a 1 year old and 4 year old. This is what cripples us. DH works full time, I do 28 hours / week. We just get by but the car is on it's last legs ...

For us, (we are definitely Only Just Barely Managing, keep needing to readjust the treadmill), things that would really help, would be:

• mandatory improvement in in-work sickness benefits where illness could be proven. I'm not sure how this could be implemented but, for example, my (large, multinational) company offers just 8 paid sick days per year to F/T employees, regardless of disability or any other mitigating factors. I am the sole wage earner in our family, I have a chronic illness & DH is a F/T student, we have a young child. I have no choice but to go in to work no matter how much pain I'm in or whether I'm suffering partial paralysis, memory loss, speech impediments etc. I am not entitled to PIP as my illness is "controlled" by medication sufficiently that I would never satisfy the criteria. I think the state of the PIP / ESA system stinks, too.
• Improve tenants rights. In all likelihood, many of us who are in our 20s & 30s, in low paid jobs & renting, will never be able to afford to buy our own houses. This is a headache the government will have to deal with in 30-40 years (as previous generations have mostly owned their own houses by that age -but that's another issue). The issue at hand is that it's harder to live in a rental. You can't put up shelves, install insulation, fix a TV to the wall. My gas fire was condemned in summer 2014 & it's still not been sorted. We have no thermostat. We have absolutely no inbuilt storage. The landlord just painted over the black mould which predictably grew back within a couple of months (I have severe asthma). If we owned the house we could sort all these problems & the house would be warmer, tidier as we could have proper cupboards, we'd spend less on the utility bills. I would have far fewer chest infections & need less steroids & antibiotics each winter. In January 2016 The Conservative party successfully opposed a Labour bill that would have made it compulsory for landlords to ensure their properties are fit for human habitation, stating that this should happen & that local authorities should use the powers already in place - the fact is they demonstably don't. And don't suggest we should move, no-one will take us on one wage & tax credits, we've tried.
• It's a bit rich that the Tories suggest that local authorities need to use the powers already in place to regulate landlords when they are unable to use the powers already in place to collect taxes due... pot, kettle
• Holidays? With a child of school age? Ha! Flights!? You kidding me!? They either need to significantly relax the restrictions around removing children from school during term time, or clamp down or otherwise provide a heavy subsidy, ie to bring it into parity to term time costs, to be available to families on certain benefits. Again, not sure how this would be assessed / implemented. But, TBH, for JAM people, holidays don't really factor.
• Zero hours contracts need to be banned outright & with immediate & retrospective effect. They should be available only to those who specifically want them, for example students or as a 2nd or 3rd job.
• Frankly (and I'm aware this is not going to be popular with a lot of people) I'd be glad to see the back of private rentals unless landlords passed strict criteria both in terms of their fitness to run a rentals business & each individual property's suitability for habitation. Either that or do away with it altogether. Make it all state run, funnel all the profits back into the state, create a lot of jobs in admin, repairs etc, & get rid of all the rogue landlords. (Yes I know but that's how fed up I am with the current state of the rental market & the last 3 properties I've lived in. And 1 narrow escape from a letting agent who did a bunk with the deposits from several dozen properties.)
• Build more houses. Sell them to owner-occupiers only. IMHO there should be a significant clamp-down on buy-to-let. Not that it doesn't serve a purpose, it certainly does, but I don't believe that any good comes of an economic system that views houses primarily as commodities, rather than homes. Owner-occupiers should always be given priority when offers are being put forward on properties (not sure how this could be implemented).

Regulate the rental market - to include rent caps, a proper licensing system for landlords (requiring them to provide safe accommodation, in good repair, not overcrowded, and up to modern standards - eg adequately heated), and real sanctions for landlords who don't comply (eg struck off register, fined).

Re-build the stock of social housing.

Raise the NMW to a realistic living wage (so people in work don't need top-up benefits in order to live).

That should sort it. Very few people in the "JAM" category have cars (unless very rural) or foreign holidays.

Free school meals for infants (in England only, I think) has a made a big difference to a lot of people - and it's a benefit directly felt by the children.

Extending this programme (introduced by the Lib Dems in the coalition) to all primary children would help (although it would also benefit those who don't need it, of course).

I'm a mum to three, DH is a teacher, eldest has Autism, youngest under diagnosis. We are fortunate to get tax credits and I get carers allowance. I had a well paid career before having a disabled child. This means we were fortunate to already be on the property market and we've been able to downsize to live more within our means.

I do a bit of buying and selling (all fully declared) and we loose tax crexits at 41p in the pound, I'm proud to loose as much as I can. The problem is I'd love to do a bit more, try to break the cycle but if I go to £110/ week I loose 41p in the pound plus the £62.10 carers allowance. So if I manage to earn £115 I loose £109.25. Highest tax bracket in the land and thats before factoring in NI which would make us worse off.

I do appreciate we're very lucky to have benefits and they make a massive difference, but I'd like to have the opportunity and be able to have the self respect to ramp up off them, without risking us and our fragile financial set up being worse off.(So would many at the NAS and carers support groups I attend).

It feels rather counter productive to not have a bit more flexibility in the carers earnings thresholds to enable people to move onwards and off the benefit.

Cheaper flights? Seriously? That just shows how out of touch the government is, if it's true. Aviation is a free market, supply and demand - how can the government make it cheaper? Will it be like the Soviet Union where people who have toed the line get shipped off to a government owned resort for two weeks a year? Secure, well paid employment (fixed hour contracts, living wage - the real one that you can actually live on), decent universally available childcare, an end to punitive sanction based carry on around benefits when people fall into crisis, and decent rent controlled properties for people to live in whether council, housing association or private. Something around savings - widening the role of credit unions, or provision of savings accounts with decent interest rates for low earners saving very small amounts - a vast swathe of the population have no savings and therefore no cushion against a crisis.

From my own perspective, the biggest problem I have is the fact that I rent. In June, after a year of being in the property, my landlord was planning to put the rent up. I had been here for a year at that point. I had a very calm and controlled tantrum at the letting agent, told them that I would pay the fee for a rolling contract and start looking for another place to live.
The landlord backed down but I am one hundred percent certain that come February he will increase the rent.
The flat next door to mine was sold from one buy to let landlord, to another. But the person who purchased the flat next to mine didn't keep the current tenant. She spent six months doing stuff to the flat and has now let it for five hundred and fifty pounds a month, an increase of one hundred and twenty five pounds on what the last tenant was paying. My landlord is now going to look at that and use it as justification for increasing my rent, despite the fact that I live in a place where two of the Windows leak when it rains heavily, there is a total lack of sufficient insulation, the curtains move when the wind blows from certain directions and the building that the flat is in is basically falling apart.
I have reported these problems to the letting agents. They have basically shrugged their shoulders and said tough luck. Private rentals need more stringent regulations and rent caps. And fines for letting out substandard properties.

Ah yes, I forgot - another rental problem is insecurity of lease. Standard shorthold tenancy is for six months only - tenants (especially those with families, but even just those with jobs) need to have security of tenancy - to be able to secure a lease for 36 months at a time (or longer).

Ermmmm Mumsnet ... seriously???

I don't see how the cost of holiday flights and fuel duty would be on any JAM's list . More likely it would be where is the next meal is coming from or how the hell can I afford new school shoes? My youngest who has just started college has never been on a plane and I can't see us as a family being in a position to go on any planes ever. I think it is more likely the first plane she gets on will be one she has paid for herself. JAM's who are worrying about fuel duty are NOT JAM's!!!!

Grrrr!! on my high horse how. Secondly, my children are grown up now so it is too late for me but as a SAHM I have felt totally ignored and undervalued. I think there is something very wrong with a society/government that actively encourages parents to go out to work and leave the upbringing/care of their DC's to paid help. I say help the mums/dads who want to stay at home and look after their own children to do so. I know I didn't have children for somebody else to bring up. Sometimes I have felt like a non person - shame on anyone who actually prefers their children over their career. Honestly, free child care for 2 year olds ... next they will be suggesting free childcare from birth. Surely the best person to look after a baby/child is the parent? Financially, we have struggled massively - so if fuel duty is all you have to worry about then imho it is a pretty pathetic worry.