Just been on a course about new benefit system

[buggyRunner]

Christ it's a big shake up.

I say this as someone who won't be personally affected- it is harsh.

Basically if you claim any benefits other than child benefit you're probably going to have a loss.

garlic pays up according to need but what is need and when does it become want?

no one needs to have say 4 children.
a typical 23 yo does not need to leave home if they cannot afford it.

i want better service for people how have no choice e.g. ill, disabled, children. but adults who are well need to be responsible for their own lives most of the time.

Amber Leaf. Yes, I am serious.

Why is there such an issue with removing child benefits from workless families but no issue in removing child benefits from working families? Are middle class kids less deserving of child benefit (a benefit for the child, not the parents) than the children of workless families? Why should someone earning £60k be paying tax to provide for someone else's children when their own kids have been deprived of it? They are only responsible for their own kids, not other peoples!

So that's it flatpack? That's the answer. Cut the benefits. Make the people already reliant on them even poorer?

So then their children are brought up in even worse conditions. Which often breeds a cycle of them alao being poor. And the children that do grow up to be inspired to get out of that cycle? Well, they can go to university nice and cheaply can't they? Oh wait, no they can't.

You can spit on fairness all you like. It's ok. You pay the street cleaners to clear it up after all.

but you cannot give someone money out of proverty. my take is you need to put more pressure on adults (excluding disabled) and more provision for children in workless households.

so if you are born in a workless household, you get breakfast lunch & dinner at school, homework clubs, holiday clubs etc. others can pay to use the same facilities.

Many children in benefit families are being brought up in conditions considerably better than their working peers.

Which is precisely what this Govt has the guts to address.

And how incredibly patronising to suggest that because you are poor and on benefits you can't control your fertility! If the working and middle classes can manage to control their family size, why on earth can't those who don't work?

And you know what, if working people on a fixed salary get pregnant unexpectedly they either put up and shut up and tighten their belts or they choose not to go ahead. They DON'T expect the rest of us to pay for their slip up!

"benefit families"?!

Like yours then?

Unless you don't claim child benefit, child tax credits...

I never suggested that people can't control their fertility because they were poor.

I said that people don't. That's fairly obvious. And nothing to do with income etc.

but if you are not entitled to benefits, you are incentivised into controlling your fertility as your income will not increase with birthrate.

if you are entitled to benefits, you are not incentivised into controlling your fertility as your income will increase with birthrate.

Ok, just an example. Take a 3 child family in London where neither parent is working,living in a private rental in an average London suburb. They would get the following per year according to Turn2Us;

child benefit x 3 = £8,617
child tax credits x 3 = £2,455
Income support/jobseekers for a couple = £5,811
Housing benefit/Local Housing allowance = £17,728 (calculated for a 3 bed in Outer North London)*
Council tax benefit = £1,400

Total benefits per year = £36,011.

This is not including any of the satellite benefits (i.e. Free school meals, free prescriptions, healthy start vouchers, capped water cost).

That is more than someone on an income of £50k earns per year after tax and NI!

A family getting £36,011 per year to live in London when neither parent is working is not poor! I imagine many families with a parent earning £50k per year would love to get the same amount of money without having to work at all. Crazy!

I don;t get any benefits, no. My CB will be stopped. And we pay, between us many , many tens of thousands in tax.

To which I expect your response to be along the lines of , " Oh, well you can clearly afford it yadda yadda ".

Tilly, every post of yours here is spot on and ysome peopel still Don't Get It. So let's make it simple.

For every child a working perosn has, generally they get a bit poorer. for every child a non working person has, generally they get a bit richer. See??

What this government does not understand is that most single mothers and fathers do work, we rely on help with housing benefit, the majority have to private rent because there is no social housing, I live in a private rent house, my 2 boys 14 and 19 share, my daughter 17 studying for A levels in the box room. My eldest works full time but cannot afford to move out due to high rent in this area. By the way we live in the west country, so not London. What hope for the future of those that want to try!!!!! Please give me a council house, Who would have thought that it would become a dream.

There is no social housing??? There is social housing but it's not being used properly. Why are very well off people still in social housing. Or single people occupying three bedroomed houses. My DS can't afford to move out of here either. He would like to though.

Very nice comments thanks :)

Orwellian, not planet earth, Child benefit for 3 children is £188 pounds a month, wherever yo live, so no more than £2200 per year, I cannot say for the other amounts but get facts right.

So you've been claiming CB, jupitercock? So you're a benefit family.

A working benefit family.

And that's the problem. We're in the middle of a concerted attempt to rebrand the welfare state as charity for the poorest, instead of the something-for-everything system it was set up to be.

Our welfare state has been about redistribution to people of their own money across their lifetime as well as from the richest to the poor. Education and childhood health taken care of. A bit of help in the younger child-rearing years when families are typically at their poorest. Then taxation as the parents gain promotion and earn more and the children leave home. Then retirement and pensions and personal care for those who need it. And all along the way, support for those who become ill sooner than 60/65 or who are made redundant and need to survive.

That's why child benefit was universal. And the state pension. Winter Fuel Payments. It's why prescriptions are free for pensioners - something Nick Boles MP has just suggested dropping.

Now maybe we want a welfare state and NHS that's only for the poorest and anyone above that limit should put in and never see a penny back.

But if we're going to have that change, shouldn't we at least debate it? Or even, acknowledge it?

I've seen time and again the assertion from politicians and some on here that benefits "should only be for the very poorest". And yet those very posters are themselves merrily receiving benefits. It was a helluva shock to a lot of higher rate taxpayers to discover that they were receiving a benefit like CB and it could be cut. Because like you, jupiterscock, they had divided the world into "benefit families" and "People Like Us". And completely failed to realise their part in the big picture.

Can I just say I agree social housing isn't being used properly.

My mum is disabled. She is in a three bedroomed social house. She only needs two bedrooms as one if my brothers has moved out.

The LA have put her on the exchange list but have told her the have no budget left for the adaptations needed. She can only move into something which is disabled ready. Meanwhile so many people would live to have her three bed.

The changes in the housing benefit are creating a HUGE surge in homelessness. They have not thought this through.

Yes, it's brave for them to admit they want these cuts so they can try and 'fix' society but they are stupid if the keep ignoring just how much worse they are making it.

I know someone who is living in a 3 bed property, and is on their own.

rock on serialkipper, I have written countless letters to the government, have had reply, towing the the party line, housing, tutition fees, EMA. they do not care. they think the lower working don't matter.

you are thinking that all people on benefits do not work, we do not sit on our arses, I work 38 hours a week, OK some do, but i am trying hard to send my daughter to uni, but the coalition have made this difficult.

I think the income tax limit should be raised to £15,000 a year. Sorry if this is unpopular. But why should somebody on a low wage pay tax so multi millionaires can get child benefit. I think it's right that child benefit should be stopped for well off people. But it should be combined salaries and a higher threshold. This would be fairer.

mrsDeVere

What a daft thing to say.
The amount of money a non working person gets when they have another child doesnt make them richer.
They get more money to feed, clothe etc the child.
You may nto agree with that but that is a seperate issue.

If working people have a child they have to spend more money on feeding, clothing said child.
If non working people have a child they have to spend more money on feeding, clothing said child.

AND as these cuts are going to affect everyone, not just the non workers, why do these threads always start bapping on about the single mothers with twenty kids who live in a mansion?

What about the rest of us? The ones that have worked since we were 16, subsidizing the education of a lot of the benefit bashers on MN? The ones that are now doing our best to keep going despite illness and disability?

How nice that my husband will have to be reassessed for his uncurable and progressive disease. The threat of losing his car should do wonders for his health.
I cant wait for my little boy to be poked and prodded by non medical assessors. He will love that, it wont freak him out at all, nuh huh.

How do you propose people are assessed for disability benefits then Mrs De Vere?

Why do you think someone with Multiple Sclerosis who has already been diagnosed and assessed and awarded DLA needs to be assessed Jupiter

Just to check in case he has been cured?

And as you ask - how about using qualified medical practitioners who are not paid to fail applicants.
And how about NOT using no medically trained administrators to make the decisions?

How about NOT assessing people without physical conditions using a tick list designed to assess people WITH physical conditions?

That would be a start.