cuts - Wednesday's Spending Review

[mrsbaldwin]

Brace yourself ladies - these cuts are big, there will be tens of thousands of public sector redundancies and it's said (by the Fawcett Society amongst others) that they will disproportionately affect women.

Some workers will get some sort of payoff, and some will be pleased to go. Some will find new jobs.

But I reckon the overall effect (licks finger and holds it in the wind) will be to drive down women's wages, meaning that once you are made redundant from your public sector post you may find more work but it will be at a lower rate and the extra competition for jobs across the board will drive wages down across the board. This may be true for men as well but I think it will affect women - mums - more.

If you are watching the press coverage on Weds, what do you think the effects of the cuts and the job losses for women (and mums) will be?

The public sector was far too big with people doing total non-jobs

merrymouse, it's mr.rose of marks and spencers who has all the jobs ready for the sacked public sector workers .

however, what with half a million people being sacked being about the same as the population of leeds or shefield, or somewhere in between, being on the dole, that is a lot of marks and spencers he needs to start buliding. Now, that is also a lot of ready meals he needs to be cooking. if there are that many people working in the shop part time with no help to pay the rent or childcare, they will be unable to afford to buy the ready meals.

oh dear, maybe he has shot himself in the foot?

Ds3 will be up shortly and then i need to fit in a hr physio and 30 mins ot for him all before school but hey hes my child and we all know thats what parents of nt children do every day

.Not forgot the comments earlier about disabled children either

But thos mere peasant is of to bed better make most of it becuase hey ho it be straw mattress and a barn for me if some people have their way or if im lucky a tied cottage to someon in ivory tower 4 kids to one room hey better be carefall might get ideas above my station

or his greed will be his downfall.

You almost certainly know someone who claims Incapacity Benefit or as it is now known, ESA.

Over 20 Million people in the Uk suffer from some kind of debilitating condition such as cancer, heart disease, kidney failure, bowel disease, arthritis, diabetes, MS, Parkisons, Alzheimers, Osteoporosis, and on and on.

Yet only 2.5 million of these people claim sickness benefit. They are the most afflicted, the most disabled and the most vulnerable in our society. Of those 2.5 million, I have no idea how many are married, but one might assume it would run into the hundreds of thousands, possibly even as many as a million. That's a million vulnerable people totally abandoned by the welfare system that need it the most.

Today, the government announced they would stop ALL payments to those who had been sick for over a year and had a partner in work. No matter how little that partner earned and how much extra time they spent as an unpaid carer, they now had to bear the full burden of a partner unable to work.

This cut amounts to £5,102.20 a year. That's over 3 times the amount lost in child benefit to a worker on 44k or more.

This will either lead to divorce as the only way to be able to survive, or the working partner giving up work to become a full time carer and the entire family living on benefits.

Please help me to explain that this is probably the nastiest cut in the CSR. Please support my blog and share it if you like it.
This will cripple families trying to stay together in adversity. Help me to fight this.

diaryofabenefitscrounger.blogspot.com/2010/10/tories-to-encourage-divorce.html

Oh, and I only set the blog up 10 days ago, but already it has been a tremendous success. With your help, I can make it a powerful voice for the sickest and the weakest.

Suey, I think you may be correct, stat wise I understand it will be women that will be left as men do not tend to stay in marriages and stick to sickness and in health, where as women will stick with ill husbands... maybe like myself (hubby left shortly after I was diagnosed and two days after kids were diagnosed he announced he was going the following week), he does not see them, so I am left disabled and my health got worse being a single parent and my children have additional needs, they are not elegable for dla and I only get the lower care component, I don't get help with being a parent, my children's life is not a great quality as it is just me, i spent £75 in boots today for supplies for the children's and my needs, I get about £18 per week, it does not even cover the cost of someone to cut the grass, which is so long now as I can't cut it, there is no one else to and I can't afford to get someone to do it. I moved to this house with a husband and was more mobile...

for those complaining about disabled people, you never know what is lurking in your body or (my children have mild symptoms as I had as a chid, and one day they may end up like me) please don't judge people with sn kids, there for the grace of god go you...

So it looks like my daughters will struggle with uni, their father won't help, he is too busy adjusting his salary to lower it for court purposes, to avoid paying maintenance and getting into massive debts, shopping for cake in fortnam and masons, gambling, multiple holidays and the like to get into six figure debts... lessons he learned from his colleagues who caused this recession, the narcacistic lot, who use your pension funds on strip clubs and white powder, business trips with the mistress etc.... that is why the country is in a mess, and so many people look up to those flakes, who feel so guilty they earn so much they have to flitter it away... I have met ceo's and they are such narcacists, they want to look good so they have charity days and build schools in poor countries and have their names all over them.... they are the cause not disabled folk!

Minimum wage is not a liveable wage. for someone on minimum wage working 37.5hrs a week (which is what most jobs in my area are for) will earn less than £12Kpa before tax. I'm sorry but you cannot support a single person on that wage, let alone a family.

The solution to cutting the benefits bill (a lot of which goes to people in full time employment, on very low wages) is to raise minimum wage to something approaching £12.80 an hour, which for a 37.5hr week would give a pre-tax income of £25K-ish pa, which is classed as the 'average wage'. Can you see big business bosses raising minimum wage from £5.85 an hour to £12.80/hr? NO. Because that would decimate their profits.

Minimum wage was brought in ostensibly to protect low wage earners from being paid servitude wages. What it actually was brought in for was to keep some employers in the country, as the employers no longer had to pay anything near a living wage to most of their staff. The minute you start to make employers pay a living wage is the moment they shut up shop and take it to India or any other country where they can pay 30p a bloody week.

If you take away minimum wage, it just gives employers carte blanche to pay £3 an hour or less, therefore making it impossible for people to work and survive, thus creating a whole new body of unemployed. Which is what the country doesn't need.

Mummiehunnie - Life is incredibly hard with an illness or disability to cope with. I hope you'll join me on my site sometimes and it can be a voice for people like us.

TBH I'm trying to work out how my family will be affected...and I'm not finding it that easy!

The social housing change will affect me, as I'm due to move due to overcrowding in the next year, thus will have to sign a new tenancy agreement. If I'm understanding it correctly, rent on a 4-bed HA at the moment is £600pcm, private 4-bed is £1,200pcm. So the rent on the HA 4-bed would rise to £960pcm. An increase of £360pcm. . So how does that work with the benefits cap?

Does the cap affect my family as DP works, and by April next year, we will have 4dc. We get £150/week CTC for 3 dc atm, £80/week WTC, and (currently, in HA 3-bed) £56/week HB. that adds up to £286/week in 'benefits'. If you include my CB we get (currently) £46/week CB. Is this included in the cap? thats £332/week then. With an extra child, therefore more CB, more CTC and increased costs on housing due to forcibly being moved due to overcrowding (will be kicked out of HA property) and the increase in social rents for new tenants....

£180-ish CTC for 4dc. £80 WTC. £111 HB. £59 CB for 4 dc. Total benefits weekly £430. SO if DP's income dropped to £12K instead of £16K...we'd be getting more than £500/week benefits because we'd get more HB and more WTC if DP earnt £4k pa less. So I think we'll be ok-ish, but someone on £12K pa with 4 dc who is working will be royally screwed. DP had better not lose his job in June next year when they cut his team at work in half, as all else that's available is jobs for £12K and we'd be royally screwed on that.

So the government IS trying to stop the 'feckless unemployed' from living the 'life of riley' churning out dc when they aren't working, by this benefits cap, as if you have 2 dc and are on benefits you'll be ok, but have 3/4/more dc on the dole and you'll not be able to live in comfort, i.e. off your arse and in a job.

Problem is...by doing this, they have also made things worse for some of the very poorest workers in society, because anyone with 3 or more dc that earns less than £16K pa is fucked, really. Just as fucked as someone scratching their arse not bothering to work.

I am now counting myself as lucky that DP earns enough to get us through this, on £16K. Didn't think I'd ever say that.

Big society - yep it'll definately enlarged somewhat disproportionately for some women who will lose their jobs, have to balance shrinking budgets due to the public sector/welfare cuts announced by the chancellor today. I suppose that those of us who live in more urban/socio economic deprived area will see rising crime, no investment-jobs, high unemployment etc - whilst we are supposed to volunteer our time(Big Society plus no jobs or services due to neo-liberal shrunken state) - in between rolling the clock back to the 1950s as primary carers - oh yes whilst volunteering our precious time for an ideological whim - oh but I already work for a pittance, am a mother, housekeeper, parent governor - so the economy has been exploitative for some time and looks like the future holds more of the same - I worry for my children ... no debts for elist class just for those who may aspire to close the inequality gap - but will pay for rest of their working life for the priveledge mmmm - the city must be looking forward to the private sector driving down wages & cheap graduate labour- and what of bankers bonuses ...

Big society - yep it'll definately enlarged somewhat disproportionately for some women who will lose their jobs, have to balance shrinking budgets due to the public sector/welfare cuts announced ehe coalition relished today. I suppose that those of us who are not in the South East will see rising crime, no investment-jobs, high unemployment etc - whilst we are supposed to volunteer our time(Big Society plus no jobs or services due to neo-liberal shrunken state) - in between rolling the clock back to the 1950s as primary carers - oh yes whilst volunteering our precious time for an ideological whim - oh but I already work for a pittance, am a mother, housekeeper, parent governor - so the economy has been exploitative for some time and looks like the future holds more of the same - I worry for my children ... no debts for elist class just for those who may aspire to close the inequality gap - but will pay - the city must be looking forward to the private sector driving down wages - and what of bankers bonuses ...

oops sorry posted thrice - am a newbie

It seems to me that a large part of this budget was a sop towards older people to the detriment of younger people. Perhaps the coalition is breaking down and they desperately need to get oldies to vote tory next year?

Halloweese, you've illustrated very neatly why we will always argue from totally different perspectives.

You seem to believe that a street cleaner (for example) is not deserving of the same amount of money as a CEO (for example).

Why is this? It's not because the working environment is more advantageious. It isn't because the work itself is harder.

Perhaps it's because the CEO is cleverer - therefore deserves to be rewarded for something he/she was born with? No? Or because they are in charge of lots of other, poorer people - while the street cleaner is in charge of no one? Again, a talent for organising and delegation is not something everyone can choose to have.

You fail to explain why you reckon the street cleaner in my scenario is not of equal value to the CEO, either in terms of humanity, social usefulness or status.

I guess there will always be people who believe that we are not all born equal, and that some people deserve to have more money, for no other reason than that they are privileged. I'm not one of them.

advantageous, sorry for typo.

I expect it will at some point, Riven.

It usually does.

AlpinePony and all the other SN bashers. Fuck right off - yes we parents of SN children DO save the nation money by NOT sticking our kids in SN nurseries where the staff are paid far more than we are. It is NOT the same as caring for a NT child - get out of your fucking ivory towers and take off the rose tinted spectacles dearies because you are ignorant fuckwits.

I don't see caring for my DS as a "job", I have a job already and even if I got no DLA I would still care for him because I love him. The DLA helps fund certain things which support him and which I could NOT fund without it. Drama group in a special needs centre for example. He wouldn't die from NOT attending but it certainly helps his social skills and this will be invaluable to him and the rest of society when he is an adult and hopefully in work.

And my DS is "only" autistic - try doing what Riven or some of the mothers with children who have severe physical disabilities do and then tell me that "it's just caring for your child"

I cant beleive the goverment have attacked mothers mainly and nobody is doing anything about it.....If we lived in France there would be riots....They cut tax credits firstly which in a way i get...I was never entitled to them anyway but child benefit is to be taken away...I mean it is saying hey mothers we dont want you to stay off with your children at all...so when your on mat leave and you get SMP you wont get any CHB either...so never mind staying off 9 months get back to work sooner...This has been going since the 70's and everybody have seemed to take it lying down......

The cuts will hurt everyone but what else could have be done osbourne could have taken all benefits away except for the really poor and elderly. Also we keep blaming banks but how many people used credit that they couldn't pay back. When I was living in London 5 years ago the amount of credit cards or loans I was offered seemed silly. We all know lending money to people 5 times more then there yearly income does not add up. Also people on benefits should not be allowed credit. On a final note I am getting abit tired of people expecting the rich to pay for everything and blamed that they have better this and that. Alot have worked extremely hard for there money and shouldn't be discriminated against.

I am not sure the cuts WILL affect everyonm but rather the poor and disadvantaged. The rich can afford to pay, as always.

What else could have been done? Tax rises would be a start.

Tax rises for the better off???

nichola the government shouldn't be encouraging people to stay off work and rely on child benefit

kiwichick - so it's perfectly reasonable for a very wealthy pensioner to keep receipt of winter fuel allowance, bus pass, tv licence each year

at the expense of

Lower paid family man who having been made redundant and takes a part time job because it's the only one offered and he thinks he is doing his bit by not draining society being totally unemployed. Now finds he has to find another 8 hours employment, which could mean he loses the job he has to find another one. Partner either caring for young family or elderly parents because can't afford childcare and carers allowance deductable from family income.

Tell me how this is fair.

And don't even get me started on the fate of
the sick only being allowed a year's benefit. Or respite being removed from a single parent trying to cope with a severely disabled 17 year old son.

All in this together huh?