In hoping the benefits cap may prove to be A Good Thing?

[thepeoplesprincess]

In the long run. For private renters anyway.

As things currently stand, private landlords are getting away with charging extortionate rents that few can afford because the shortfall is made up by Housing Benefit. So if benefits are to be capped, landlords will (hopefully) be forced to lower their rents to affordable levels or sell up if they can't find tenants that can and will pay hundreds of pounds a month. Either will be great for the average Joe IMO.

TotemPole - ours aren't of an age where i've seen all they do, but DH has looked into what the curriculum scope is later on at A Level (etc), and says he's not really very happy. Like MrsHeffley's DH, he has actively tried on a few occasions to gets ours more involved, using bits from his work as examples (DH dept has a strong R&D angle to it though, even though it's a commercial/private company, so he's able to talk about some really cool things that otherwise they might not know about). Without revealing where my DH works, one arm of his company did something to do with Apple software a couple of years ago - don't know much more than that but seemed to impress DS.

And then DS toddles along to his school IT lesson to cover more Word and Powerpoint! It's hardly surprising that our best and brightest sometimes struggle to engage... "Dp says schools teach the reading of it but not the writing." - I think I will pass this onto DH, he'll like that way of putting it, to be honest! Very spot on. Sorry for the derailed thread, OP!

They don't seem to teach them to build anything only play with software.Our dc 8 are bored and say it's too easy.Don't get me wrong they do lovely stuff and produce nice bits of work but sadly they're not building or writing and my dc(and I suspect some of their friends) would be more than capable.

Dtwin 2 wants dp to teach him how to write Java but I know there is stuff out there aimed at kids so that's what I'm looking into.Dp can explain all this far better than me.

The problem is I suspect most primary teachers can't do this stuff and why should they be able to.I'd far rather they be good at teaching reading/writing than cutting code. Don't know what the answer is as unless schools get specialists in and offer decent amounts to compete with the industry I don't see how they can change things.

Sorry I won't hijack anymore. Would just add I'm sure others can explain all this better than me as I'm a complete ludite.

Oh primary age. I thought we were talking about secondary school.

I don't see many 8 years old being able to code in Java TBH. If your DCs are more advanced then maybe they'd handle it.

Yes hence my looking into something aimed at younger kids.Some primary schools do teach it but need to find out what they use.Dtwin just wants to build and write stuff.

They don't teach programming under 16 these days at most schools. IT is using Micro$oft programs in such a way as to be a basic "admin skills" course.

MrsHeffley have you seen Scratch? Its basic loops etc with a fun java) interface aimed at primary aged children.

What will happen is that people will move into overcrowded rundown housing renting from 'slumlords', families in damp and dangerous conditons - this happens already, I don't know how often but I personally know of two families living this way.

The £26,000 cap includes income based benefit, contributions based benefit and LA/HB - I'm not sure about CTB and Child benefit. The only other people who will have child benefit considered as 'income' are those earning over £44,000. DLA is exempt just as it is for working people.

The homeless will be the worst effected as a family in a B&B (that the council has housed them in) will have almost no money left after the board has been paid - these people already have nowhere to cook so find it hard to eat and live in very stressful conditions.

People who do have homes even if they are overcrowded will cut back on heating and food to pay the rent. They will go to food banks and soup kitchens, the parents will miss meals and the children will rely on school meals - the landlords will be paid and will not loose their benefits, it's the claiments that will suffer.

The woman on the news, who said why should she have to move, when she was having her rent paid, and receiving more than 26k, made my blood boil. Her sense of entitlement, when dh and I are out working hard, made me see red.

I think the cap is a good idea as we need an incentive for people to work rather than stay on benefits long term. At my dc school there are families where no adult has worked for 3 generations and they all turn up on masse to collect their kids from school. The teachers spend most of their time with these kids as their educational attainments are so poor. Their families never read with them or support them educationally despite not working I can only surmise they spend most of their time smoking skunk as they reek of it. The adults have no incentive to work as they get enough from the state to get by(and also by selling knock off at the parents coffee morning). They don't push their kids to do well at school because what's the point if they'll get housing and money from the state without working. I think the lords are being naive about people on long term benefits who are perfectly capable of working but just don't want to.

"What will happen is that people will move into overcrowded rundown housing renting from 'slumlords', families in damp and dangerous conditons - this happens already"

And this will affect all of us: TB (and/or other diseases) - Coming soon to a town near you!

Sensationalist? No, not really.

I had to subject my son to a BCG as a baby to protect him from TB as there are high levels of TB in the London borough where we lived (Hackney). (It's a horrible jab by the way, much more of a nasty experience than the others, and a 1 in 200,000 chance of getting pretty ill from it).

A study into why TB is so high in Hackney found that the single most important factor was poverty, and the specifically mentioned overcrowding due to poverty.

The article in the BMJ actually suggested the best way to combat TB woud be to bring people out of poverty.

Drive more people into poverty and there will be more disease, simple. And that could affect you. (It'll certainly affect your taxes at any rate).

"For those who are doing the right thing who have fallen out of work, we will support them and make sure they get back to work.
"Councils will be able to work with certain key families who may need a little bit more time to make some changes to their circumstances while they push them through the cap and into new housing."

What? So he's going to find some extra money to fund a carer for my violent autistic/adhd son then?

Where are all these jobs going to come from anyway? Who is going to provide childcare for those evening/weekend jobs such as those in retail/cleaning/shift workers.

Dont tell me there are 'school hours jobs' because they are few and far between

very reassuring!

Mother and sheepgomeep- well said. And the job and poverty issue is only going to increase as they force more people into substandard housing or into sharing with their families. Its almost Victorian an idea. We watch programmes like Call the Midwife and baulk at the conditions these people lived in, the diseases they caught- well, we'll be meeting these diseases in RL shortly if the Tories have their way. Its impossible to find decent, well paid work in this country, even harder to find work that goes around school timetables and holidays. Then you must find an employer who doesn't mind if you can't be at work due to your child being unwell. And any chance the next generation had of pulling themselves up in the world is being snatched by Uni fees too.
Mumzy- way to generalise there! D'you read the Daily Mail by any chance? I know a few families back in my home town in Kent who aren't working, it doesn't always equate that they are "skunk smokers" who are too lazy to read to their kids. In fact, the more two parent families who are forced to have both parent's in work, the more kids there will be missing out on education at home, on books at bedtime, as their parents will either be just home from work, or still at work. Do we really want to go back to having latch key kids?

It shouldn't be a god-given 'right' to receive benefits, nor should individuals be allowed to become dependent on the state. I claimed benefits for several years & found that the motivation to work depleted as time went on. There has to be a cap or we are simply opting out of resolving the problem. People should be in work - any kind of employment - unless they are incapacitated or caring for another. Research shows that a working population is mentally, physically & economically healthier. Read the article in today's Times by John Bird ( the founder of The Big Issue) - he says 'you don't help the poor by making them dependent on handouts'.

20 I'm telling you what I see in the playground on a daily basis and that is the reality of the lives of lots of families on long term benefits. Benefits trap you into accepting a life which is precarious because you are dependent on other people providing for your needs and strips you of ambition and aspiration for yourself and your dc. And no the DM is not my paper of choice I read The Times. Actually there is an interesting article by the Big Issue founder John Bird in The Times today saying essentially the same thing( unfortunately can't be linked). FWIW my parents are immigrants to this country and came with nothing except incredible stoicism and the ability to work very hard. In order for my father to bring his family over he had to prove to the immigration service he could provide for us and we would not be a burden to the state. Within 5 years of arriving he had a steady job( working in a restaurant) and had bought a house. My parents have never been out of work despite poor English and lack of recognised qualifications. My feeling is if they can do it why can't a lot of able bodied people who are claiming long term benefits and who have the advantages of being born and educated in the UK!

A better incentive would be to provide decent affordable childcare that caters for evenings/weekends/nights and actual jobs for people to go too.

But then I'm living in dreamland..

There aren't enough jobs. For the love of all things good and holy will people please start to understand this fact before posting that people should work. Of course they should and in ideal world they would. In reality that will never happen.

Wants to live where sheepgomeep lives.

More money should go to working people both those with kids, and those without. You should never be better off on benefits than working. Sadly, this is not the case at the moment.

OH. and I hate hearing people saying there are no jobs out there. There are LOTS of jobs out there - maybe ones that people don't want to do (cleaning jobs for eg) but if you needed a job, you would find one. Last year I worked 4 jobs side by side, 7 days a week. Cleaning toilets, public areas, barwork - all crappy jobs, but they paid my mortgage. But then I'd rather have my pride than sit on my ass sponging off hard working tax payers.

I went to see the Da Vinci Exhibition at the National Potrait Gallery today and about half of the staff working there were not British as is the case with most places in London. I think the current benefits system means you are not significantly better off by working in lower paid jobs so if you can claim benefits you do, so these jobs are now being done by immigrants who are not entitled to benefits. Madness!

The people who lose out most in any benefit system seem to be the single people with a mortgage.

It seems grossly unfair to me that if as a single person you have a modest job (let's say earning £25k before tax) and a mortgage, you can lose your job and be entitled to nothing more than £67.50/wk JSA and council tax benefit.

In the same position but renting and with a child, you'd be entitled to VASTLY more money. Not just a reasonable amount to cover the expenses associated with raising a child.

How can that be fair?

This thread has depressed me almost more than the news it's discussing. Can someone point me to a charity or still-running council service where I might be able to help the children of families who will be affected by these nasty cuts?

I now realise why I usually steer clear of AIBU threads - only came here because it's made discussion of the day.

Are there lots of jobs out there? Really? Why then the recent ONS figures stating that there are:

2.68 million unemployed (don't forget this only includes the visible unemployed, so will not count the unemployed wife of a working man who desperately needs to get a job herself in order to pay the mortgage)

1.3 million people are now working part-time because they are unable to find a full-time role: the highest number since records began in 1992.

On average, there are 23 people applying for every available job. Some sectors have as many as 50 applying per job, while graduates are competing against 69 rivals for each job.

So much depends on where you live, your transport links and whether or not you have children. It is not always as easy as 'there are always jobs out there, just get one.'

I agree with sheepgomeep that affordable childcare would be a good incentive for parents to get back to work. At one of my workplaces the nursery was means tested for all staff. The consultants would pay the full amount and lower paid workers such as Healthcare assistants and cleaners paid a percentage of the fees. As a result we had very loyal hard working staff

I will most likely lose my job later this year. I spent years qualifying for it, it is my passion (if it infuriates me at times because it is my passion), I am completing an MSc in it at present, I am pretty skilled at it.. forgive me if I don't think it's amazing that "there are LOTS of jobs out there, maybe not ones people want to do". I don't earn a fortune as it is, but I am absolute shockingly bad at cleaning and it would destroy me. This is not to say I think the state should sustain me long-term on benefits, but I would like the opportunity to "find my feet" and devote some time to perhaps getting a job in my field where I can continue to contribute usefully to society than just "keep my pride" and do something that takes up all my time and energy and takes away all my confidence.

The hard-core benefits users, the ones who know how to maximise what they get from the system, will find a way around this cap. It will disproportionately affect people who are temporarily unemployed due to the recession/mass cuts in the public and private sectors and whose skills really are better utilised in providing services/their skills in some other way than taking on a job in Poundland that is the only option for some who don't have the same skills to fall back on.

This will probably put the cat among the pigeons, but....I think if you want to live in an area where the average rent is very high then you should be able to afford it. If you can't afford to live in an exoensive area, then move.
Most folk will probably argue that they NEED to live in posh areas to be close to work, but those with huge families and no jobs obviously don't NEED to live in those areas.
My DH earns about £20K. We live in an area where that is a very good income. But, if we suddenly decided to upsticks and move to Chelsea or wherever the 'place to be' is at the moment, then we would not be able to afford it. So, we stay where we are, enjoy a good income/lifestyle in an area that allows us to do this.
We do not get ideas about moving to a luxury 8 bed villa in a posh area that we KNOW we cannott afford.
That is the poblem....people living on benefit beyond their means.