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.

Madnortherner the families affected by these "nasty cuts" as you put are still going to be getting £35K,they are simply going to have to move to live within their means(like we all have to).

Not sure getting in touch with charities is necessary as thousands of families have to do this for work reasons every year,kids in forces families will do it every 1 or 2 years. Nobody on these threads bemoaning families having to move seem to give a stuff about them.

sunshine: "1.3 million people are now working part-time because they are unable to find a full-time role"

Do you know their reasons for certain? How many are choosing to work PT so that they can fit around family commitments and are making use of the flexible working schemes that have only really become available in recent years? Do you have a proper breakdown of that figure?

bubbly it's from the Office of National Statistics and is based on job seekers registered at their local JC who have been looking for full-time work and only been able to find part-time.

Most women in part-time work will not be on the radar of the statisticians anyway, since if their partners are working they do not count.

ashamednamechanger - trouble is most of the jobs will be where the money is won't it.

If you are on benefits then what's the chances you'll find a job in a depressed area? (Let alone how do you find somewhere else to live if you have no money/car moving costs to relocate).

Luxury 8 bed villa

Okay then

"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."

I grew up in Hackney. I lived for many years next to a road dubbed "murder mile" on account of - unsurprisingly - the frequent murders around there. On my road there was obvious crack dealing, and very vulnerable looking prostitutes hanging about. Definitely not posh.

However I have seen house prices there go up from about £50,000 for a 1 bed flat to £250,000 since the 90s.

It costs £1000 a month for a 1 bed flat now.

Findaproperty says it's £2,128 average for a 4 bed house.

This is the reality in London, even in the rough areas.

It'll cause widespread relocation IMO. Probably to Sunderland.

"If you can't afford to live in an exoensive area, then move."

Can you think that one through for a minute?

Do you really think it benefits society for families who have lived in the same area for ages to move because of this cap?

It will cost the state more money, as people will have to move away from existing family and support networks they have, and some will have to reply on public services more as a result.

Children will be uprooted from schools and people forced to leave their jobs.

How does that help anyone?

Do you really think it would benefit London, for example, to only have rich people in it? Where will the people come from who do the shitty jobs?
Will they have to commute into London, creating a new generation of latch-key kids? Or give up work and go on benefits maybe?

It's a terrible idea.

£2128 a month equates to just over £25,500 a year.

That's the rent for a 4 bed in a deprived bit of London, you probably wouldn't want to live in, not a posh bit!

The problem is the price of rents, not the people.

Can't you see that?

I didn't think this cap would affect low paid workers so much. I thought it was a cap on benefits. So someone could still earn £10-15k a year and get top ups.

I don't know where to start.

Why the rent for a four bed place, why not three beds? We had three beds with three children when we were both working full time in the city.

If I was a single mum I would give up a bedroom and sleep on the sofa for my children. Worse things have happened.

We have lived in the worst flats, seriously, when the double decker buses went past the building shaked, it was infested with mice, we were broken into twice.

We have been grossly unaccomadated.

We have both just worked and worked. Yes London rents are high. You just take what you can afford and work your way up. Ask your Granny, she would probably say that London rents are high, they always have been and always will.

Can I just repeat, because it gets lost, that this cap will apply to sick/disabled benefits.

Included in the cap: ESA (too sick/disabled to do any work)
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . Carers Allowance (looking after a disabled person)

Household is exempt: DLA (so sick/disabled needs personal care or has severe mobility problems).

Rather obviously, there are a lot of sick/disabled people not eligible for DLA. They're still quite likely to need some level of care, and may live with extended family or incur extra costs to cope. And they can hardly be incentivised to, er, not be ill (wow, think what we'd save on the NHS if that were true!)

And the govt plans to cap precisely these households.

Why the hell does everyone think it's their god given right to live in London - one of the most expensive cities in the world?!

I lived in London all my adult life and was in a very small 2 bedroom flat with my husband and 1st baby. I loved where we were living and really enjoyed all the facilities London had to offer. We needed a bigger place for a family BUT WE COULD NOT AFFORD IT. So we moved out.

We now live in a large 4 bedroomed detached house 200 miles away from London where 3 kids and us can live comfortably. I appreciate the area we live in as it's more rural but if we could afford it, we would still be in London.

Working families have to make these types of choices all the time. It's a fucking joke that those on benefits seem to be exempt from having to make these financial choices in life because it's seen as their god given right.

As for the numbers of people on ESA.......do you honestly believe that none of them are coasting the entitlement culture. I knew literally thousands of people in London ( through my job) who were normal, young, fit people who were off sick for reasons such as "back pain" and "depression" when they were playing all sorts of sports, going on more holidays than we could possibly afford and mostly working on the side.

Yes I'm sure I'll get a flaming from the MN PC ostriches who don't want to take their head out of the sand but this is what is happening in many areas and it is wrong on so many levels.

I am 100% supportive of a welfare state and the NHS but to just keep throwing more and more money into it is plain and simply WRONG.

motherofallhangovers - Although I understand the point you are trying to make, using Hackney as an example is not a good one. I lived in London during the 80's and worked in Hackney for a bit. It was a strange mixture of very expensive private houses - to rent or buy, and lots of poor quality social housing. But it was very expensive to buy or rent even in the 80's.

None of my work colleagues could afford to buy in Hackney. Everybody was forced to buy or rent in places like Enfield and commute in. Only person I knew who could afford to rent privately in Hackney was 1 person renting illegally a sub let council flat. Another colleague was "lucky" and had a council flat with cheap rent. I seem to remember 1 bedroom flats were renting for £150 a week in Hackney in late 80's - apologies if my memory on this detail is wrong.

London has always been very expensive to rent or buy in. And areas fairly close to central london have always been particularly expensive to privately rent or buy in, including "rough" areas.

"If I was a single mum I would give up a bedroom and sleep on the sofa for my children. Worse things have happened"

PMSL- so all single mums should sleep on sofas now?

Why can't couples also sleep on the floor on a matress? I'll keep my proper bed and matress (which I got frree from a friend) thank you very much. Besides dd often joins me there.

I do think that it's necessary to cap benefits but people do need a certain basic standard of living like a proper bed for example. I did actually sleep on a matress on the floor for the first few years of dds life.

Yup blacksausages I am sure everyone receiving benefits are living in London

I think you will find people on benefits are all over the country, what is this bloody obsession with London.

So let's say for example you got made redundant and had no choice but to claim benefits, so you no longer have any money who exactly is going to stump up a deposit and months rent and moving costs then?

I am sure in your fluffy little world it pays for itself but in fact it's not the reality for a number of people.

I think people are going on about London because it is one of the areas this will have an impact - because of high rents. In my area in the north, rents are relatively cheap and someone would have to have an enormous family to get anywhere near this cap on benefits.

The benefit cap is more than our entire household income and my husband works!! You should not be better off on benefits and not everyone is willing to work, there are people around where we live who have no intention of working!! And they are not afraid to say that they are better off not working - how fair is that?? As a family we have worked for what we have - and my husband has always worked damned hard for what we have, my job has been supporting him and raising our children. My cousin lives abroad where there is no social security - either you work or you don't have anything!!

Blacksausages - what exactly do you know about ESA? Have you read any of the accounts of people dying after being found 'fit for work', of the appeal rate that is stuck at 40% sucess raising to 70% if you have an advocate at the appeal. People being found 'fit for work' becasue they were non atendees at their medical due to the fact they use a wheelchair and the assessment building has steps?

Any idea how ill/disabled you have to be to qualify? Only 7% of people who do qualify are considered so sick/disabled as to be unemployable, everyone else is put on the work programe. It is completly plausible to be recieving IV chemotherapy and radaiation therapy, to be fighting for your life, to be assessed and be found capable of doing work related activity. This means attending interviews at JCP, maybe a few courses or a work placement and getting your CV in order.

Work providers are starting to complain (and you really arn't going to get many bleeding heart liberals in these places - they want to make money from the claiments). They are complining the people that are being sent to them are too ill and they can't do work related activity so they can't make any money from them - Boo Hoo for the providers.

it seems like common sense that you dont move people looking for work, away from where the jobs are. but have a look at this table:

www.londonspovertyprofile.org.uk/indicators/topics/work-and-worklessness/unemployment-by-borough/

unemployment in some areas of London is v higher than in Liverpool. so in london, the claimants either cannot or dont want to do the jobs that are available.

bossboggle - the benefit cap is more than my husband and I ever earn't while we were jointly working, it's certainly more than I get now I'm on benefit (though I'll be exempt from the cap).

You do know that if you recieve any tax credits or housing benefit/council tax benefit the plans are that under UC people like you who do recieve them will be expected to go and get a job until they earn enough to not recieve them, that means any money they recieve apart from CB will mean interviews at JCP and work prep - people like you are about to become potential 'scroungers' too.

Sorry, I don't get how capping ESA will detect fraud?

I don't agree with any of Hangover's points.
These people seem to feel entitled to live in an area that they can't afford to live in. Thats wrong. 'Living within your means', is drummed into all of us.
And you refer to them as having to move away from their jobs. These people are not working. They are claiming HB and other benefits, and getting more than 26k.
Pay me £35K and I'll live in most places you choose to put me!!!
And you mention the turmoil of forcing these peoples children to move schools. what so bad about moving schools? People do it all the time. People move for jobs. And guess what, their children adapt to moving schools aswell. Really? No kidding. Yes, really, its true.
These pople are taking the mick out of the welfare state and our good nature. They aren't working, they aren't contributing. They are taking more than they are giving. And they seem to have this sense of entitlement, I don't derserve to live in a poorer area.
Ummm. Yes, YOU DO.
And we're not talking about someone who falls on harm times who needs benefits for a bit. These are long term claimants, most likely.
Its just a piss take. And they're taking the piss out of you and me, me and dh who have worked all out lives.

Mind, you, not that we should be that bothered by this. They are taking the piss? So what. loads of peole do. Vodafone are, not paying their huge tax bill and the Gov letting them off.
MP's take the piss out of us.
Don't see why we should be so bothered about yet another group taking the mick out of us.

It won't happen OP for one simple reason: those renting at the lowest HB levels and even close to have their pick of tenants.

I live in a cheapa rea; we don;t have the infrastructure to take many people coming in from the cities. the cheap housing simply is not avaialble here. If anything it will push pricves up as in the absence of cheap, cheapest you can find is the best option. Why should those of us living here have to cope with much higher waits for hospital appts, social services support, harder to find schoolaces, over subscribed GPs to abalnce some concerns about an entitlement complex? Sriously? Why should those of us working just as hard here as anyone anywhere else suffer a severe dearth in public services ?

Don;t get me wrong- I am far from a NIMBY and people are welcome, we came here ourselves 8 eyars ago. But it's not JUST about people moving- it will affect the aplces they moe to, and those already there, regardless of whether those peopleare on benefits. We have Europe's largest council estate here apparenlty; but the same people use tha hospital living there as in the affluent and middle class areas. Surely even those who support the idea of the cap can see that plenty of people in no way claiming will be negatively impacted upon?