Benefit cheats

[JuxaLOTmoreChocolate]

These people are paid from our taxes; that's our money for which we work hard. They can also get extra if they want it, if they play the system right.

Then they spend our money on new kitchens, barbecues, garden plants, holidays, new TVs, new hi-fis, luxury items that I, certainly, can only dream of.

I thought benefit cheats were roundly punished, yet our MPs seem to get away with little more than a figurative slap on the wrist.

Why?

As I said before I have thought about going into politics before and the wages would not put my off, I would do it for less. I have been lucky enough to never have had to consider my wage in a job. I know people say that my profession (teaching) is badly paid but again I would happily work for less.

But an awful lot of them of the MP's are from Birmingham, Manchester, Macclesfield, where £70k is a small fortune.
And do not get me started on their pensions, we can only dream of such security.

"No one would do it for £70,000 only. Its not enough."

I strongly disagree, the reason for being an MP should not be about money alone. Many also have second jobs anyway (which arguably is a good thing as it keeps them in touch).

The second homes thing is just a joke - parliament is not in session all the time and even when it is I bet most of them don't need to stay over most of the time. If they do then why can't they just stay in a hotel and claim this on expenses in the same way as normal people? Lots of people commute to London from miles away, why are they any different?

I'd love to be an MP, the only problem is that my morals are not elastic enough so I wouldn't last long before having the party 'whip' removed .

I also don't understand the obsession with teachers' wages being low - they aren't. It's the media that's caused it with the 'key worker' point about london and the SE.

Yes T&P but nt all of us have that luxury, esp. at the moment: indeed a lotof people most in touch (notsaying you're not LOL) are carers, single parents, people from poor backgrounds...... people who often have to either be the main breadwinner or pay someone to be at ome when they're not (and no, paying someone to care for a disabled child / adult / etc is not the same as paying childcare, it costs massively more for a start, and Parliament doesn't sit 9-5 for pick ups at respite).

So I would say that being an MP can cost massively in just basic things if we want a widely representative portion of society. Which we should, I think (and there needs to be mroe representation for alls ectors- my own sector,carer- well! I was watching a debate yesterday about whether benefits need to rise and they covered pensioners, unemployed, single aprents.... not one person was there who could say 'there's also another sector trapped in poverty through no fault of their own and they actually receive appalling help from the Government...' . )

Now £70K is a laughably huge amnount for us; in South Wales its 3 salaries on decent jobs. So I would say it's adequate which is enough, as duty should be a part, but it does need to be £70k for job security as well.

Pub;ic sector pensions are contributory, not a freebie. And a lot of the punblic sector is vastly underpaid on the same scheme: for every Whitehall bound high flier raking it in there are twenty AA's at basic level scraping by; it's 15 yearssince I was an Aa but at the time I made £595 ppm. Wow.

brett no they're not low but they're not high either- when I qualify I will owe 1.5 years wages in student loans after all, 1 / 30 of my future earniong power due to age. I'd say they're about right but yes I do agree with keyworker housing: a home here is £180k, aTeachers start salary £22 (ish). It'sthesame in a lot of places and whilst I accept i'll probably only ever rent, I do think the profession will suffer with only second ratestudents (something i know ishappening from my own degree) if living costs don't meet wages.

Parliament should buy up a block of flats for MPs. No need for second home allowance, somewhere for MPs who can't get home to stay, problem sorted.

"Parliament should buy up a block of flats for MPs. "

oooo could you imagine the outcry over that. When the country has a severe lack of social housing and people desperate for somewhere to live a block of flats boughts for MP's who already have a home to live in

TheMightyboosh I come from a very very poor background, in my adult life I have experienced both poverty and wealth. I have had jobs that have paid me the minimum wage or even no wage but have done them because I wanted to. I just am not a materialistic person. I went into teaching not having a clue how much I would earn and not really caring. As long as we have a roof over our heads and dont starve I really dont care tbh. I am also the main breadwinner as dp who has a similar mindset to me works part time from home so he can be there for dd.

It is all academic thougb as I have far too many skeletons in my cupboard to be an MP the Daily Mail would tear me limb from limb. Which is sad as my skeletons are the things that mean I would have a lot to contribute.

I started out as a teacher earning about 20K and had to rent houses with other teachers, so what? Even in the glory days people did not walk straight into their dream home.The more we get paid the less money there is top spend on the students. If you want more you work for it. I worked hard in my job and withing a few years was a highr rate tax payer with a very nice lifestyle. I chose last year to give that up and am back to being a classroom teacher earning slightly less but still a good wage. Once you have a shelter and food money is just there to buy things to make you happy. I have a job that makes me happy so I dont need to buy lots of stuff.

You know who I am right T&P? [grin)

I see what you mean but I'd feel the same if I didnt have 4 kids to feed, as a mture adult I have come to this with a set of bills to pay. I'm neither materialistic nor greedya dn quite happy with the wage I would get but equally aware it won't leave much as the bills are already set... I can't move as the boys are at school here not soemwhere cheaper (and statements are a PITA to transfer, esp. when one is in a SNU), I can't have less children as I think I left it a bit alte, eight years after the event LOL.... so there's a definite minimm I can responsibly take on.

Now, DH won't be non earning forever and I know that but it lookds incredibly likely he will be for a while, so I have to take responsibility.

Sorry to have annoyed or confused people with the title of my thread. I thought reading the op would make it clear that I was bashing MPs, whom I do regard as benefit cheats.

(In fact, I don't regard benefit cheats as cheats as a rule, because I don't think they have enough to live on and I have no worries about someone getting a bit of extra cash from a cleaning job or whatever.)

There are various ways of calculating an average. The usual one is where you would add up, say, 5,3,8,9,5,5, and then divide by 6. There is another average, called the mode, which is where you take the number which occurs most often (in the above example it's 5). I think that MPs should earn the salary that is the mode in the UK.

I also think they should develop some morals.

The modal salary in the UK is going to be low though- there's far more people on minimum wage than average (mean) wage I would imagine. Therefore I do beleive that calculating the modal wage will lead to a mass exodus of people educated at a certain level or higher.

Now you dont have to have a single GCSE to be an exvcellent MP but you need some for the basis of representation; in a society where accumulating a post 18 isa massively costly exercise most people are going to be looking for at elast the means to pay that back; if they've gone beyong degree they'll be even more apprehensive at taking the modal salary I would think. Those overdrafts / student loans / credit card payments have to come from somewhere.

personally I would set in highish (given it is a responsible job theoretically at least), perhaps on a par with say a GP iof ten years experience: then I would drop allowances massively. State owned accomodation (at least if it is retained by the state it accumulates value fro the state rather than the home owner), a rail card (second class), that sort of thing. The sort the rest of us get used to when we travel away for work- my manabers preferred to travel first class rail so they p[aid the supplement (I never could be arsed), hotels block booked by work etc etc.

None of this claiming for a fancy sink lark.

Or eprhaps the John Lewis list needs to be renamed the Argos List?

That's an interesting thought. Wonder if it's true?

I have just found out who you are MightBoosh, I HATE NAMECHANGERS.

I do get what you mean about the 4 kids, I only have one and there are lots of reasons why that is and some of them are economic. But although I desperately want another I have just accepted that average people like me usually dont get everything they want.

"brett no they're not low but they're not high either" Yes, absolutely.

I used to teach and did 7 years. By the time I left, with TLR allowance etc I was earning 36.5K. That is a reasonable salary, but in comparison to some modest.

The point with the keyworker issue isn't that the quality of people is low it is that a rational teacher may move to the area of the country they can have the highest standard of living for their salary. Therefore London/SE are likely to be in trouble because the regional allowances are not enough to make up for it. It isn't true though that teachers can't afford houses in general, in most areas they can after a few years, just like anyone else. The salaries are generally in line with what others with similar quals earn.

In terms of MPs I think that 70K is reasonable, with the assumption that they are 'based' in constituency. Therefore they would be able to claim expenses, like anyone else for travel, hotels as necessary to their work. I think the concept of a modal salary is difficult, because people work different hours, have different benefits and it would be meaningless. To find the average salary the best measure to use is the Median (where you actually find the middle person). This takes into account that it is only a small number of people who earn loads.

It did make me laugh this morning that Jackie Smith was on breakfast giving advice on how to avoid being robbed, when she has been robbing all of us!

I also think that MPs need to have a certain level of education.

Yes I left teaching in London because I could not afford to stay and have children.

In response to neenztwinz a couple of pages back: bonuses are taxed as normal income. So, if you're paid a bonus in one month and it pushes you to a higher rate, you will be taxed at a higher rate, rather than your normal (though it does return to your normal rate the next month).

Bleh, do you know why they 'pay less tax than their cleaners' then? Is it because of tax dodges then or being non-doms or what? I thought maybe that was the point of getting a 'low' basic, say £100k, and then taking bonuses of millions, that they pay less tax that way.

you hate me?

Nah, my mn was playimng up after I namechanged for perectly good reasons (a thread where I wanted people to feel free to flame me and they dont do that often if they know tis me, think they consider me pitiful LOL)- MN now waorking again, ws a PC blip, so can have my name back

I know what you mean about 4 kids but the thing is I can afford them now; no childcare costs as at home and a Dh earning enough, plus no mortgage. The difference is I would need childcare to teach, have to start paying back a massive student loan (which of course older grads didnt have to occur in the same way).... and I think with a lot of people, esp. mature people with life experience as well as the quals, that will be the case. Indeed, if Dh was guaranteed a job it'd be OK but there's a very slim chance of him having one atm.

I don't know who came up with the "pays less tax than their cleaners" malarky. It could relate to non-doms. (do not take this as tax advice!) but: if your domicile is not in the UK, then you do not necessarily pay income tax on income earned outside of the UK. How to work out your domicile changes from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, and hence can be quite complicated to work out. You have to prove to HMRC that your main home is outside the UK.

For most executives, they may not necessarily be able to claim non-dom status, and hence would be taxed as normal. You would have to be employed as a contractor (which your employer and you may not necessarily want, because you have fewer rights under law), and may set up a company which would either only pay you in dividends (taxed at 10%), or would pay your salary to an offshore jurisdiction. There are other ways, like allocating a salary to say, your spouse, so that you can effectively "reuse" the non-taxed income allocation (which is about £5500) and low rate income tax. Income tax isn't taxed at a flat rate (as in, you earn less than x, you pay 10%, you earn less than y, you pay 30%) but it kind of builds up in layers. www.hmrc.gov.uk/rates/it.htm
Sadly, I do actually find calculating income tax very interesting.

My DH makes just above min. wage. He is doing some at home learning to try and earn a degree but that is beside the point. He works 6-7 days a week and busts his ass to make sure we can maybe (if we are lucky) have £30 left at the end of the month to put in savings.

The only help we get is working tax and child benifit for our DD.

We just figured out this week that if DH dropped to 16 hours a week..we would get our rent paid, council tax paid, still get working tax (although less), get income support and plus be able to get Sure Start Grant (as I am pg) and Healthy Start vouchers. I am sure I am missing a few things but including the paid rent and coucil tax we would actually be coming away with more money per month than he makes working his ass off! It would be about £50 more than we have now a month...

Now, where is the motivation to work in a country where everything will be handed to you if you know how to work the system? We would not be doing anything illegal or claiming for anything we should not be getting...

However, my DH and I both could never ever do that as we personally do not see it as 'right'. My DH has the opprotunity for a full time job so he should keep it. Although I would love to have him only work 2 days a week and be home with me and DD...we just don't feel it is right...

However, I can see in his face that it is a very hard thing to deal with when you get up at 5am every morning. It makes him wonder why...and I hate to see that.

emma I do think there are a lot of people like your dh tough, so there is an additional; reason- self respect. My DH is similar; ew'd get the same income if he worked 16 hours if you take commuting costs into account. Yet he works his hated night shifts, plus his little ebay shop on top, and just gets on with it.

But it is nice to know that if dh does lose his job- about a 90% certainty atm (redundancy, same old same old for everyone I know)- that we won't have to starve / lose our home; so the safety net is a big plus. yes there are people taking the piss but would you want to lose that net if your dh's income vanished? Don't think I would, tbh.

peachy Exactly! It is really nice to know that it is there if something bad happened. However, if you have the opprotunity to work (such as our DH's...at the moment anyway) then it is self respect. He would much rather work and make it on his own.

I do not judge people who are not working and are on benifits as everyone's situation is different and I am not behind their closed doors. I do know some people who do take the piss and it does annoy me...but I have my own issues to worry over.

Personally I think that it should be used, as you said, as a safty net...a needs must, basis and not just a way to 'work the system' so to speak.

I should say I am on benefits- but its carers allowance, something I would clearly not choose to need (I have two disabled children).

I do agree it should only be as a safety net but how do you do that? Even making certain benefits time dependant wouldnt work ATM becuase its going to be a good while before some people can find work again- honestly, you look around here, you start to wonder if anyone will have a job soon!

Oh I know...at the moment we are in a dire situation with jobs, so yes it is not easy to find one. I know someone who has many qualifications and he took a job as a cleaner when he got laid off as he would rather do that than nothing.

I am talking more about the people who in a normal economy don't even look for work or consider working as they would rather just get money from the government. It is a very touchy subject...so I really hope I am not coming off the wrong way!

And no, I do not work. I would love to however. When I first moved here (I am American) it was hard for me to find a job. I then became pg with DD and nobody would hire me because of that. I worked with an agency to build up my CV. When she was 6 months I went back to the agency and started looking again. When she was 9 months I became pg again and had the same problems. I am due in a few weeks so have left the agency for now and plan on looking for work once this one is 4-6 months old. I am actually calling about a work from home job today...only 6 hours a week but it is something.

Sorry to give my life story but there it is!

In a way however I wish there was more help out there for people who are living on the line. Working hard but not even getting £10 off their council tax..I don't understand how they judge someone's needs sometimes...