Goodbye Spongers!

[ShakesPear]

Anyone else thrilled that the family on benefits living in a £12,000 pcm in London house paid by us will no longer be getting that benefit?

In fact I wonder if the cap on unemployment benefit is to high!

PLEASE no one report Hb's post. I want everyone to experience the laugh out loud silliness of that wonderful post.

"JUST LOOK AT THE FACES OF THE PEOPLE WHO RUN THIS WEBSITE, LOOK AT YOURSELF IN THE MIRROR, DO YOU SEE LOVE AND HUMAN WARMTH?......NO, YOU SEE CONTORTED, COLD, MEAN, MISERLY FACES, EYES AND MOUTH SCREWED UP, FALSE LOOKING CONTRIVED EXPRESSIONS, A LOOK WHICH SHOWS THESE PEOPLE FOR WHO THEY REALLY ARE, SELF LOATHING, UNHAPPY, INSECURE WORST OF THE WORST, LIFES REAL LOOSERS."

Could it be that it is actually your face you are stearing at?

So the figures are, this will affect 50,000 families and save 425 million pounds.

It's not going to affect the vast majority of working people who calim benefits, or even families solely on benefits. There isn't going to be major civil unrest over this because the majority of people aren't affected. It's not like the poll tax. In the same way I don't see the masses turning out for the poor hard done poppets earning over 40K a year who will lose their child benefit.

People will complain, but I'd be very surprised to see riots (or even sedate middle class marches) over these two measures.

I think the point about benefit scroungers is a fair one. Under the new poilicy the tories are proposing the benefit cap will still be £26k/year or £35k/year in pre-tax equivalent.

That is clearly way too high.

I don't mind losing CB at all but in return I want to be sure that every £ my DH and I pay in tax goes to the right people ... and people don't need £15k more than the median wage in the UK in benefits!

I agree with Chil. The incredibly high house prices, particularly in the SE England is making it very difficult for normal people to live a decent life.

There is an expectation that if you invest in property you will earn money. No where else in Europe is this expectation. In Germany you buy a house to live in, so you don't pay rent all your life. If you are lucky your house will not depreciate, but no one expects houseprices to rise by 10, 20 or 30%.

It is unfair to the honest people who are for whatever reason claiming benefits to which they are entitled to assume that they are all living in massive mansions, funded by the tax payer. Most are living in poverty.

In this country there is unfortunately a huge vested interest in keeping house prices high. The baby boomers have made a fortune from house price inflation and big final salary pensions (that were never affordable). The main political parties pander to them as demographically they are all important.

The bottom-line is that the post WWII nation state with its "cradle to grave" benefits culture was never affordable. Unfortunately the younger people are now having to pick up this bill and are saddled with huge national and personal debts as a result.

House prices have definitely been artificially propped over the last few years. It can't be maintained. There is a correction underway though many seem unable to believe that that may be the case. For the vast majority it will make absolutely no difference. The only people who it will affect are those who become trapped in negative equity and are unable to meet their mortgage repayments. An absolute tragedy for these families of course but long term more affordable housing will benefit everyone.

Thrilled!

'Personally I'd like to see more people starting their own small businesses if they can't find employment.'

Ah yes. How many small businesses had to shut down in the past couple of years?

Siasl, the thing about the benefit cap being £26k/year is that most of that £26k is made up of housing benefit - the family doesn't actually see that money, it's just money poured into the pockets of private landlords to pay overinflated rents.

If a family receives benefits capped at £500/wk, and £400 of those benefits go directly to the landlord to pay the rent, the family still only has £100 to live on.

If there were still adequate social housing supply - or housing was less expensive - then cost to the state of subsidising housing would be far lower.

Thrilled that families will be homeless you mean? No I am not thrilled, smug, pleased or happy. The plight of those less fortunate than myself does not make me feel delighted in the slightest.

HB Calm down dear! I was brought up with my 3 brothers and sisters as a young child in a two roomed slum, swiftly moving on to a mansion-a two bedroomed council house! Having bettered myself I now live in a lovely area and am 'not short' as my father was when I grew up, (my mother died when I was quite young) and he was a single parent. You can't generalise as you have, about all these people on MN. I must say you are right about one thing I do like the odd Cafe Lait, can't stand the 4x4s! You should post here more often! you made me LOL!

Op do fuck off

HB I forgot to mention, has your husband got lead ears?

I did watch the Westminster council person gloating the the unworthy folk would be kicked out of Central London, they did try that back in the day with the gerrymandering stuff that went on

Chibi, i totally agree, DP works a 60 hour week just above minimum wage and we still need tax credits to get by, pathetic right, terrible state this country is in, surley the cost of living needs to come down so people can afford to live on the wages of a minimum wage job?!

Or the minimum wage needs to go up to be a living wage.

How about a maximum wage too - to be applied to bankers, politicians, footballers....

insanity after insanity

i was reading a newspaper which had a little 'how will you fare under the cuts' thingy with model families/situations

a single income family (two parent) earning 30 thousandish pounds gets substantial amounts of child tax credits and hb to make ends meet

the skintest working person i knew back home was a friend who had to pay full time childcare to go to a job earning not much over the minimum wage - they lived frugally but did not starve, were able to pay rent etc

this would be impossible here, you just could not do it without the topups

the more i think about it i think it must be a combination of artificially depressed wages (esp minimum wage) and housing costs - including rents

housing costs especially - i come from a country where a person on miniumum wage could rent a decent 1 bed flat (i know, i used to do it lol)

when i moved here and was going round to look at places to live i was thinking fuuuuck i'll just live in a hole i guess

'the more i think about it i think it must be a combination of artificially depressed wages (esp minimum wage) and housing costs - including rents'

And very high taxes. That's about the sum of it.

agree with other posters that cutting madly without making any attempt to fix the wage/housing problem is just going to throw people in to abject poverty

and it's all to come, really

i have this feeling of dread - i just want to know the worst now rather than being dripfed

You know, my ten eyar odl with ASD effectively satrted work today: in that he sold off a large batch of jewllery he ahd made.

To buy more beads? Nah.
To buy toys?
Nope.

Becuase he saw me crying over the HB cap when I thought he was asleep adn wanted to help.

Fucking fuckity fuck.

Oh I applaud his initiative; clearly us feckless (Dh employed me a carer, officially to his mroe severe younger DS) so and so's have managed to get something right.

but it's terribly sad as well.

WRT to the OP- I don;t think they should be in a £12k PCM house but I think tehre should be LA property available for them to move into.

I think they should all wait in the street whilst we empty our slops on their heads.

oh sancti

i just feel so much despair right now

Pigeons do come home to roost. That's the only comment I have on the OP. Take that as you will.

But I've just shut down our small business. No money in it anymore. We can keep on trucking away, not earning anything, or we can turn the building into a house, sell it and earn a quarter of a million profit because every bugger wants to live in the south east In terms of income, I'd have to work for a fair few years to earn that much. So.......

That's pretty much my summation of the problem actually.

'Wrong in that say a hospital porter and a cashier with 2 kids can't hope to make ends meet without government help

I don't want to deny them their tax credits etc

But surely it is wrong that they need them

Perfect sense.