Too Many Cuts...come join the #Frothers and have your say

[AnyFuckerForAMincePie]

This is the 3rd thread in a series.

It is for people who are horrified, frustrated and downright sad at the erosion of human rights with respect to how this country is being run, just now and in the recent past

it is apolitical in nature, but of course due to many recent initiatives by the recent govt, there will be rants against our current "leaders"

please join in

I shall post the link to the old threads, our "Too Many Cuts #Frothers" blog that is attracting a lot of widespread attention and a little bit of what we are about in a moment

Is there any way on MN to isolate one post - like on moneysavingexpert - and link to just that?

Hunty's post above explaining in laymans terms, I want to get it across to as many people as possible. I know there's a similar post on the blog but the way she has explained it above will actually get through to people, I agree that the government has been very busy ensuring that joe Public thinks the poor are scum and therefore they don't care about the changes upcoming.

I think it deserves a whole blog post of it's own. Not an Idiot's Guide but a "Guide to the Idiot's benefit system".

Argh, just typed a long post and managed to lose it

But basically -

The UC changes are very, very scary indeed.

AvadventK - no, but maybe this should be a blog post

Actually, does anyone know if there's an idiots guide to incapacity benefit/ESA?

been trying to work out something based on a person's circumstances and I can't remember the conditions for receipt.

Hunty - so basically, the changes to tax credits that brought the threshold for qualifying for small amounts, and childcare etc down from 40k to 24k, will be then reduced again to 17.5k.

Blimey. That's going to fuck up a lot of people!

Thank you HuntyCat for that explanation.

Blimey so even if you are in receipt of DLA, and failed ESA you have to work 35hours a week, there will be no wtc for you! protecting the most vounerable eh?

gallic I tried to do this for my presentation at the conference, and ended up with a v simplified version that doesn't even cover the full horror. When I was a Health Adviser for the CAB 13 years ago it was fairly complicated, but nothing like now, and I could carry it in my head, except for very exceptional circs when I used CPAG or the other one - Disability Rights Guide or something.

These days I look at Benefits and Work website for a very comprehensive explication of ESA.

Hunty
Can you write that up as a blog post - the one where you so succinctly laid it all out.

That is what made me finally understand it all. I have been battling with all the figures that are being posted but that made it very clear.

If you could write that up as a post and add maybe one or two examples - perhaps yourself and one other poster?

A Lone Parent with 4 dc (my situation) has an earnings disregard of £HOLD ON - You only get an earnings disregard for the first 3 dc - after that you get no disregard. BUMS.

So, my maximum personal earnings disregard would be £9,000pa. Anything over that will cut my UC by 65p in every £1 I earn.

But that earnings disregard is lowered by 1.5 times the amount of housing support given within UC. So if I have £120.36 a week rent, that would be £6,258.72 pa. 1.5 times this is £9388.08.

Which would take me BELOW the minimum disregard limit - so my personal disregard would be the lowest possible level, the minimum disregard limit, which is £3,300pa for a lone parent with 3 or more dc. So anything I earn over £3,300pa will reduce my UC by 65p in every £1 I earn over that level. And it is done on Gross earnings, not Net. That works out as a disregard of 63.46 a week.

If I worked for 20hrs a week at NMW, I would earn £HOLD ON AGAIN. To earn the £212 a week after tax, or £228 before Tax & NI - A Lone Parent MUST work 37.5 hrs a week minimum?! Yet they are saying that a Lone parent can meet the amount earnt in 20 hrs?! That means that ANY Lone parent on NMW working for less than 37.5hrs will be subject to conditionality, surely? FFS.

I'll do it on 20hrs at min wage first...right, 20hrs at NMW is ON the tax & NI threshold, so I would assume that no Tax and NI is due. So earnings would be £121.60p/wk. Take away the first £63.46 which is my earnings disregard, and I am left with £58.14. 65% of this will be taken away from my UC, so my UC will be reduced by £37.79. Child Benefit IS included (i.e. the amount of Child benefit paid will be taken away from the £500/wk UC ceiling.), so my maximum entitlement to UC would be £439.50/wk after Chb is deducted.

£439.50 UC - £120.36 Rent (covered by HB presently)= £319.14 UC.
£319.14UC - £207.00 that I currently get from CTC/wk for 4 dc = £112.14UC
£112.14UC will be the MAXIMUM that I can get to cover what would have been both my WTC AND my childcare element of WTC.

Which, when you consider that right now, WTC for a lone parent working 20 hrs/wk is £74.42, that only leaves £37.72 . But THEN, before I take out childcare - I have to reduce my income by 65% for anything I earn over the disregard, which is £37.79. AAARggh! I will post this info in a clearer manner in a sec...

Right - More succint, for clarity.

A Lone Parent, with 4 dc, who is working 20 hours a week, at NMW:

Under current WTC

Gets £207.00 CTC
Gets £60.50 ChB
Gets £74.42 WTC
Gets £210.00 WTC (childcare element)
Gets £120.36 HB
Gets £121.60 earnings.

So a Total of £793.88/week.

Under New UC

Gets £121.60 Earnings p/wk
Gets £500.00 UC. This is reduced by £60.50 due to Chb.
Leaving £439.50 UC. This is reduced by 65% of any earnings over the disregard of £63.46. Which means I subtract £37.79.
Leaving £401.71.

So a total of £523.31/wk.

YES, they are saying that there will be 'transitional protection', but they expect this to stop at ANY change of circumstance - be it your youngest dc turning 1yo, turning 5yo, you moving house, your rent increasing, you taking a job, you earning 1p more an hour - basically ANYTHING they can think of to STOP the transitional protection.

Which means that after ANY change of circumstance, I will lose the transitional protection, and be £270.57 A WEEK WORSE OFF than under the current TC system, for doing the same job!!

And, I might add - my outgoings would be significantly MORE than I have coming in under the new system, what with between £88 - £108 a day childcare WITHOUT SN childcare for DD, and my Rent of £120.36/wk. For a bog-standard 2.5 bed mid-terrace shoebox...We would LITERALLY be homeless and starving!

O.M.F.G.

That is all.

Did I REALLY want to know that? Did I really want to know the outcome of those maths?!

Oh, Hunty :(

Get it up on the blog. Just as it is, you don't have to write any more than that.

Write out the abbreviations so it is clear and post it as it is.

Nothing anyone could write, could make it clearer than those figures.

MmeLindor - for a blog post - which post are you thinking of? (they all look jumbled to me, with my head in figures etc). Just tell me the time of the post, and I will try to condense the information into something readable...

Hunty yes me, thanks for that info.

it's all bloody crap.

I weep for people up and down the country, and for us as society!

These figures don't seem to add up to a WELFARE SYSTEM, to someone 'fick like me. They seem to be a PUNITIVE SYSTEM for not earning more than NMW...

(Hunty I haven't done the maths, too damned scary. Hiding under my cloak of anti depressants these days, only way I can cope with the news and the changes).

Hunty

This:

Right now, if you work for 16 hrs a week, there is no 'conditionality' on how much you earn a week, no making you look for extra hours, no making you take on a second job, you get WTC and 70% of your childcare covered up to a certain level.

On UC, if you are a lone parent, or disabled, or a carer, you need to be working for 20 hrs a week at minimum wage to not have to meet 'conditionality'. So if you are currently working 16 hrs a week and claiming WTC, there is NO conditionality, when UC comes in, you will be under the earnings threshold, and will be told to:

1. Get extra hours at work.
2. Take on a second job to make up the hours.
3. take a totally NEW job that earns enough to take you over that threshold. And if you don't - they will stop your UC for 3 months for the first time you don't meet those conditions, 6 months for the second time, and 3 years for the third time.

This is basically the total dismantlement of the Welfare system.

They will be lowering the amount of your childcare costs they cover - so if you will be unable to cover both your childcare costs and your rent, even working 20hrs a week, you will STILL have to do it, even if you can't eat - because if you DON'T - they will STOP YOUR UC.

I just want to crawl under a rock and die now, TBH.

If you have been on ESA in the WRAG for a year, you will also be subject to conditionality, because after a year, you will be passed back to UC. Even if you are still ill or suffering from your life-long disability.

And if you have a disability that is not classed as severe enough to qualify for ESA (like epilepsy, if you have less than 700+ seizures a year), they don't give you the 20 hrs a week condition - they give you the 35hrs one that fully fit people get.

A couple has a HIGHER level of conditionality - minimum of what you would earn on NMW for 35 hrs a week. And EACH person in the couple has to meet their OWN conditionality requirements, so the person designated as the 'main carer' MUST work for at least 20hrs, like a LP, and the OTHER paerson MUST work for at least 35 hrs, like a single person with no dependants.

and your maths example

I agree just put in a key

ie Child Benefit= CB, CTC=ChildTaxCredit, WTC=WorkingTaxCredit, HB=HousingBenefit, CSA=ChildSupportAgency

DP and I both work full time. we have one child and own our very small flat.

We think we're reasonably well-paid. Between us, after tax, and including child benefit we take home approximately £700 a week.

We're not entitled to tax credits or council tax benefit and if we rented, we wouldn't be entitled to housing benefit either.

From January, we will have to pay almost £200 a week for child care.

I'm not suggesting anyone on benefits would rather not be in a better position or doesn't need them, but when you do maths like that, I'm beginning to understand why people think benefits should be less and that there is a disincentive to work.

I'm not sure the UC is the answer or that the carrot and stick are present in the right proportions.

I hardly dare ask this - Hunty, your calculations equal a current salary equivalent of about £50k pa. Is that right?

If so, I wouldn't publish it. I realise you'd get about the same on NMW, with bolster benefits, but there must be an awful lot of people running a family on, say £30k.

Did I get this wrong?

So Hunty I have to work for 20 hours a week as a carer then, OK.

Once ds4 is 5 do I still get to work 20 hours only or does that end, with carer status?

i'm aware how feeble this sounds, and it is feeble, but huntycat i'm really scared. i'm a disabled single mum currently on IB and DLA and obviously getting CTC and HB.

i know i could not work 20hrs a week - even if there was a 20hr job i could access whilst taking care of ds single handed. i'd say i could possibly manage it one week in 15 given my health record over the last 5 years that should be more of an ashamed face than a sad one - or a mix of the two.

i don't know how we're going to survive.

it is all so deliberately targeted.

do you know what i will sadly predict headline stories of mother's killing their children and then themselves rather than end up starving on the streets.

i don't know whether to read more and scare the shit out of myself or bury my head in the sand.

apparently people like me and my son don't deserve to live in this society anymore.

Peachy - You get to work 20 hrs a week until he is 12 whether he has care needs or not PROVIDED your DH is working 35hrs+. If your DH is not working 35hrs+, then yes, either HE will have to work more hours, or you will. Between you, once your DS4 is 5yo, you will have to work 55 hours a week.

GN - many of those families won't be looking after disabled children.

and my income by the way comes to about 14k all in - so for rent, disability, ctc's etc. is that low enough?