I feel stupid for not realising that the change in tax credits would effect me

[pud1]

i have just received a letter stating that I am no longer going to get tax credits. I knew nothing about this. I knew that the child benefit was changing and I was going to loose at next year but missed the whole change in tax credits. I can't believe how this government are screwing us

Tilly, I'd love to know where you get a packed lunch for £1?!

Never mind the fact that low income working families would have qualified for EMA and now don't - so the list of criteria does not include students from low income families.

Our family income is less than £16K including tax credits. We would have been entitled to the full £30 EMA for son going to college. The bursary does not apply to him at all. His books for AS Levels were 4 x 25 pounds each, so £100. Fares are £10 for a student rate. Other materials are needed for the courses, which at school they would either be free or subsidised more. EMA for the poorer student at college who is aspiring to uni is absolutely vital. It's not for drink as has been suggested and it's not for cinema outings. It's for financing an A Level course which now seems to be far more expensive than it ever was in my school days.

The college bursary system is misleading. It does not cover all the students that previously were in receipt of EMA, and the colleges have a set budget to spend on their students. Once it's gone, it's gone type of thing. Many students are missing out.

Hunty - packed lunch for £1?

Bread roll - 15p
Slice of ham - 20p
Bag of crisps - 20p
Banana - 15p
Couple of biscuits - 10p
Water - 0p from tap

Hunty www.packedlunchideas.com/healthy-lunches-blog/cheap-lunchbox-ideas/

DP & i's weekly food bill is less than £50 which works out at less than £1.19 per meal but we eat organic so not eating organic would easily reduce the costs to < £1 per meal.

What kind of packed lunch is that? Biscuits, crisps, tap water ? I'd hope my youngsters would get a more nutritious meal than that. It's basically one slice of ham in a roll and a banana. That's not going to provide enough energy to cope with an afternoon, is it?

Hunty I'm not going to comment on all the rest because I don't know enough about it, but are you serious about the packed lunch?

2-3 slices of bread
Cheese, or peanut butter, or marmite, or homemade tuna mayo as filling
1 banana or apple
1 lump of malt loaf, or homemade flapjack or scone, or hot cross bun or something
Refillable bottle of water

Maybe some combinations of that come out slightly over £1, but the average won't over a couple of weeks.

I for one am fed up subsidising other people, I am all for protecting the very weakest in society, but if you have £40k coming in then after tax you nigh on £2,500 take home a mont, that is more than enough to live on. Providing you haven't saddled yourself with debt or over extended yourself on a mortgage you could not afford.

Tax credits (and housing benefit) are a subsidy to big business (housing benefit is a subsidy to rich landlords). If tax credits are slowly abolished it will mean that employers have to pay a proper living wage rather than have paltry wages subsidised by the taxpayer. Sorry this is happening to you but Labour bankrupted the country.

Orwellian totally agree.

Niceguy2 - "The left wing dig is because it's funny how a family earning £40k is considered to be affluent yet if another family received £26k in benefits (£35k equiv salary) then they are considered to be poor."

Totally agree with this. In the moonbat world of MN a family where nobody works can get the equivalent of a salary of £35k after tax and MNetters consider that to be a draconian cap and the equivalent of being sent to the Gulags yet a family earning a "higher rate" (whoop whoop) salary of an enormous £43k per year (before tax) is considered richer than the dreams of avarice. Hypocritical nonsense...

My DH earns what most on here would consider a good salary. We moved to the UK, and for job reasons had to settle in the South.

For the first ten years, we hadn't got a bob. We only spent what we had, we never re mortgaged. Summer 2008 we were offered a cottage in the Lakes for a week, told my friend, her DH piped up in a very patronising voice. You have never really had a decent holiday have you. Whilst he was planning their trip to the South of France.

Eh no, but we have reduced our mortgage from 250k to 130k in ten years, they have increased theirs from £170k to £200k in ten years. They also owe in excess of £60k on credit cards.

You wouldn't be human if that didn't make you feel a bit smuggy mc smug. I feel sorry for her and the children, but not for him. IYKWIM

What a ramble that was, but most satisfying...

Happyinherts I was suggesting something that wouldn't have MNers up in arms as judging by the teens that DH teaches, their lunch seems to consist of a bag of chips, a mars bar and a can of coke - still around a quid though.

Half a bag of pasta(40p), a tin of tuna(£1), a tin of sweetcorn(40p) and a dollop of mayo will make enough tuna pasta for 3-4 days.

Or use the left over chicken from the Sunday roast to make chicken and sweetcorn instead.

With an apple or banana and something sweet, you can do it for £1 a day.

No employers would not be forced to pay a living wage if tax credits were abolished. Did most employers pay a living wage before they were introduced? Don't think so. And Labour did not invent tax credits. Supplement to poor wages/subsidising employers wages has been around a very long time. Before tax credits was family credit, before that, family income supplement. That's as far back as I know about (more than 26 years)

the problem with the concept of a living wage, is that a single person, needs a very different living wage than a family of 5 people.

and housing costs are so ridiculous. It is ok to be on some of these rubbish wages if you live at home or DH/partner earns reasonable money. I earn less than I did in 1991. it is a joke.

thanks Hunty for sharing about your DD. must be a struggle.

Living costs have increased mostly because of the cost of housing. Blame that on Labour. During their 13 years they presided over a huge housing bubble, kept interest rates low when they should have raised them, oversaw the huge expansion of parasitic buy to let, allowed millions of people to enter the country without ensuring that there were enough homes for all these people, let the banks give away 120% mortgages and continue with right to buy. All these things mean that housing for many people takes home a huge percentage of their income or the bulk of their benefits.

The problem with supplementing income with various benefits, either tax credits, housing benefit or others is that it means that over time, not only have people become reliant on them and refused to work more than 16 hours but employers have also realised that they don't need to pay people more as the government (taxpayer) will do that. Now the bubble has finally burst and all these extras are being removed because they are unaffordable and have caused a culture of entitlement without effort. What the government is doing is trying to reverse this. People have got so used to sucking off the teat of welfare that they haven't thought about what happens when all the milk dries up.

Employers aren't suddenly going to start paying their lowest-paid workers more just because Tax Credits are abolished, otherwise there wouldn't have been a need to set a legal lowest limit for wages in the first place. Rents aren't going to fall just because housing benefit is being cut, because the BTL LL's still need to cover the extortionate mortgages they took out to buy the houses. Otherwise it would never have been necessary to pay housing benefit to those in Full-time work.

All reducing Tax Credits and Housing benefit will do is create lots more POOR homeless people than there currently are. Because if you are evicted due to rent arrears, your council has NO duty to house you. And if you can't afford to pay the rent in the place you are already in, then you are hardly going to have the funds to pay a Private Rent deposit of 2 months rent in advance, are you? And that's if you can even find a LL who will rent to a person whose wages don't cover the rent...

It's NOT, absolutely not, that 'People have got so used to sucking off the teat of welfare that they haven't thought about what happens when all the milk dries up' - it's that there IS no solution to the problem of the cost of the Welfare state bill that doesn't involve ALL employers paying a LIVING wage (And by the way - a student living at home has a different, lower NMW to someone over 21 who is likely to have their own home and possibly family to support.) to their employees, and setting Rent Caps on Private LL's.

Those are the ONLY solutions to the problem of the costs of the Welfare State that don't involve people suffering from the effects of poverty and homelessness.

But it's never going to happen.

Orwellian - Renting a SOCIAL RENTED home in my town would cost (currently, with the OLD tenancies of very low rent costs compared to other types of housing) 63% of a NMW worker's wages. It doesn't leave enough even in Social Rented Housing, rented from a Council or Housing Association, to pay all your other essential outgoings.

That percentage rises to 89% of a NMW workers wages for Social Housing under the new tenancies that are 80% of the 'market value' for my area.

And it rises to a whopping 112% of a NMW workers wage for a Private Rented house in my area.

When you bear in mind that Council Tax, Gas, Electric, Water, Clothing, Travel to and from work, and food are other BARE essential costs of living - if your rent costs 112% of your income...how in the name of HELL do you pay it if you don't get state support?!

(And yes, I HAVE done the maths very thoroughly for those figures.)

And, I have to say, why on earth should someone who works full-time not have the money to pay for a TV license, a telephone and broadband? Why should they slog their guts out just to increase profits for someone else with absolutely NO enjoyment in life whatsoever?

These people aren't worker bees in a hive, they are real people who wish to have a sensible work-life balance themselves. They can't all better themselves, or who would be left to do the jobs that they aren't doing any more? And that's the same reason why they can't all move to somewhere the housing is cheaper - because if there is no-one low paid that lives in an area, then there is no-one to do those low-paid jobs. Because when you are low-paid, you physically can't afford to travel that far to get to work - or you can't eat.

And those that are working part-time are almost always working part-time because they are Lone Parents, and their childcare costs for working Full-time are more than their wages, or those that have caring responsibilities.

I know no-one that is in work currently, and working part-time and claiming Tax Credits, that hasn't got a very valid reason for working part-time. And I know a lot of people who are on either Income Support, JSA or Tax Credits. (Though mostly Tax Credits TBH.)

If your wages were £45.60 a day before Tax, and the 30% of the Nursery costs that Tax Credits DON'T pay (£15.60 left to pay), leaves them just £30 a day, for a full days work, before tax. (At least in my town.)

This means that it doesn't cover their essential living costs if they work Full-time - hence a lot of Lone Parents working part-time. As well as that, they have no-one to share the household duties with, so they have a full-time job to do at home too. And in my town, most jobs are zero-hours contracts that Lone Parents just cannot take - apart from that, most jobs available are for 15 hours - not enough to claim Tax Credits, so if they have managed to find a job with set hours for 16 hrs - they are unlikely to be given extra hours now.

THAT means that they will be faced with a stark choice when the new Universal Credit rules come in that they HAVE to work 24 hrs to qualify for UC. Carry on in their job of 16 hrs a week, and not get their childcare paid, not get their wage top-up that is essential to bring them out of poverty - or give up work BEFORE Universal Credit comes in.

I think destroying the connection between having a family to support and the wage that you earn hasn't helped, as TheRealityTillyMinto points out. Some ways of living are undoubtedly more expensive than others, but society is expected to support all of them and express no preferences, for fear of being accused of unfair discrimination. The result is that those left in the position they are in through no fault of their own are mixed up with those who, frankly, made poor, selfish and expensive choices, and the cheapest model of living out of the many available in today's society is the only one employers feel the need to support - ie singleton with no dependants. If there is no majority model of the British family to be preferred in modern life, then there is no pressure to support any of the available models bar the cheapest.

And I don't think, tbh, that feminism has done a good job of sticking up for all women. Instead, it seems to me that a lot of feminists were intelligent, upper middle class women who didn't like staying at home caring for their children, the house and the local community, or having nannies care for their children while they twiddled their thumbs, and therefore denigrated that role just as much as men did, instead favouring going out to work at what used to be men's jobs in order to earn financial freedom, in order to be free from being stuck at home and being told how their husbands would like their money spent. This merely served to encourage the view that going out to earn a wage was superior to "staying at home" and nobody spent enough time considering what "staying at home" actually meant or what its actual value was. Over time, therefore, its value has come to be viewed as extremely low - patronisingly viewed to be the preserve of those who haven't got anything better to do, or who can afford to do it as a frivolous luxury. And now huge efforts are being made to keep those who do stay at home away from their children as much as possible, by talk, for example, of increasing school hours, etc, because by and large the view is that those who are now staying at home with their children are mainly those who don't know how to look after themselves, let alone their children or local community. Schools are now expected to take over great swathes of a child's development that used to be covered by most families at home - and we wonder why the curriculum is packed to overflowing. So, the search for financial freedom just results in financial slavery for almost everyone in the end, and a financial slavery that is harmful to families.

"THAT means that they will be faced with a stark choice when the new Universal Credit rules come in that they HAVE to work 24 hrs to qualify for UC. Carry on in their job of 16 hrs a week, and not get their childcare paid, not get their wage top-up that is essential to bring them out of poverty - or give up work BEFORE Universal Credit comes in."

24 hours is still part time, its hardly asking too much for an adult to be expected to work 24 hours a week. It could have been set at 37 hours as in 9-5.

Yes circumstances change but anybody knows that having children means you have to support them and that marriages can break down. That doesnt mean that you can choose to work very little or not at all.

Bringing in that parents are expected to work will ensure more children grow up with good work ethics and will hopefully break the benefit cycle for themselves. UC in theory sounds good but anything is better than what we currently have.

I thought the 24 hours increase from 16 hours didn't apply to lone parents, only those with partners. Which I think is fine, as if there is one partner not working, then childcare shouldn't really be an issue. Of course, suddenly having to find 8 extra hours of work a week might pose a problem for anyone :(

Does anyone have a link to lone parents with 5-12 year olds being expected to work 24 hours? The only info I've found is that they're expected to be available and looking for work that fits around school hours, allowing time to drop off and pick up.

THIS April, Tax Credits changes from being qualified for when you work 16hrs a week to 24hrs a week - so if you work 16 hrs a week, and you have dc of ANY age, you will no longer be entitled to claim TC's. You will HAVE to work 24 hrs a week to qualify. This starts in just a few weeks time. I am unsure what will happen to those people that CAN'T find the extra 8 hrs a week - either they just totally LOSE that whole avenue of support entirely (Does that include childcare too? I'm not sure, I need to do more hunting on that issue), OR, as is the case now, for those that work 15 hrs a week or less, they will have to claim IS/JSA (depending on circumstance), declare their income, and only get to keep £20 a week of it. WITHOUT getting any help with childcare.

So that's NOT just for Lone Parents, it's for everyone claiming TC's.

IMO, it's being done to EXPAND the work-for-welfare scheme surreptitiously to those who are currently IN paid employment. Because if you are currently getting WTC, WTC childcare element, CTC, some Housing Benefit AND your wages, you are actually costing the Government MORE than if you were unemployed!! This way, they get to sneakily cut the support for those currently IN work, making them work for what will work out as LESS than JSA rates once childcare costs have been taken into consideration.

I am trying to find out, desperately, what EXACTLY the DWP are going to do with all these Lone Parents that are currently working 16hrs a week for NMW that will just be unable to continue to work without the financial top-up of WTC, WTC childcare element, CTC and Housing Benefit, but just CAN'T get the extra 8 hours a week work.

All I can see is that they either expect them to starve and become homeless in order to cover the childcare costs - as the cost of rent and food will take care of more than they earn WITHOUT their childcare costs - or they actually DO expect them to give up work - thus meaning that they will be without ANY benefits for months ANYWAY because they would have given up their job 'voluntarily'. I can't fathom out the answer because the only two real options BOTH mean extreme poverty for tens of thousands of Lone Parents and their children...I think the Country is sitting on a poverty time bomb that will become apparent in less than 8 weeks time...

The Lone Parent thing is for NEXT April, to coincide with the start of the new Universal Credit - it states that a Lone Parent whose YOUNGEST child is aged over 5yo will have to be working for 24 hrs a week, or face being forced to go on a work-for-welfare scheme (Your Universal Credit will be sanctioned, or stopped, if you refuse - despite what Ian Duncan Smith is saying in the media). If your youngest child is over 12yo, you will be expected to work 30 hrs a week.

from the DWP www.dwp.gov.uk/docs/ucpbn-11-conditionality-threshold.pdf, 5. A personalised threshold that reflects a claimants circumstances:

b) Lone parents with children between five and 12, for example, will only be expected to look for work that is compatible with school hours. Similarly, couples with young children will be able to nominate a principal carer who will be treated as a lone parent for conditionality purposes. We have also made clear that individuals with caring responsibilities would only be expected to look for work that is compatible with their caring requirements, while claimants with work-limiting health conditions may also only be expected to work part-time.