im so anxious about threats to cut ctc...

[em83]

god i feel so depressed about the threatened cut to ctc, i have been following the news religiously about this new emergency budget, and have just read an updat which was posted tonigha 22.10 which states that incomes £30.000 or over will not be entitled to ctc

im so pissed off with this and feel so anxious

I don't think its their IKEA-cushions people are worried about daysoftheweek

So many misconceptions about people's earnings I think. I think me an DH's joint income when I am working will be over their threshold but bearing in mind we will have nusery costs of over £800 pm and household outgoings of over £1000 pm I can't really see how we are classed as 'wealthier'.

I will lose CTC but if I lose CB as well we will struggle. Since me and DH both in public sector, pay freezes will also hit us.

I hate this fcukin govt.

Yes, the income in a household where both work and earn a combined income of 30-40K but have childcare expenses is very different from a household income of only one person working and earning 30-40K with no childcare expenses. I think this budget is going to force a lot of women out of work.

fifitot

You would probably be better off working If you are just in the bracket of 30,000 then say you both earn £15,000 roughly a £1000 each a month and 800 of that is for childcare for you to work then you are basically working full time for £200.

My dp earns 15,000 I don't work as I have no family and would have to work full time on minimum wage to see any benefits. We have no childcare costs and receive £480 a month CTC. Meaning technically as I am not paying childcare costs I have £280 a month more than someone earning 30,000 paying £800 who receives no benefits.

Sorry better off not working if childcare costs are that high.

Slushy i think you may have a point. I need to sit down and work out fiqures after the budget. I am on mat leave at moment and will have to decide if there is any point returning to work on the same hours (30pw) when due to return.

As it is I am having to take only 6 months mat leave. Though only work 30hrs pw this is spread over 5 days so still will have ft childcare costs.

What a nightmare. I like my job too.

"A few years back the council supplied carers itself and paid them £7 an hour. Now its all contracted out and they pay an agency £15 per hour (of which the worker still only gets £7"

Exactly. We were SCREWED by Labour, and that's just one of the ways. And yet, having been screwed, people are still willing to believe Labour's hypocritical, disingenuous misinformation about the deficit, which is going to lead to unwillingness to make cuts, strikes etc. and even more general screwed-upness.

How much longer are you going to let Labour get away with it?

I'm with lowenergy. I'm also a public sector worker in a London Council, where we have to buy our stationery with our own money to save cash. I am no illusion that my job is at risk and remain quietly amused that all of my very liberal friends are bemoaning the Tories for cuts when it's the Lib Dems setting such low thresholds.

We are 'lucky' enough to have a household income of £44k with no childcare as one of our sons is severely disabled and DH stays home to care for him. We have the least amount of disposable income of any or my peer group, who all have to have the latest iPhone/gadget/3 game consoles and really don't miss all that crap.

(I say lucky as we would prefer for DS to not have such a difficult time of it, and not to require 24 hr care)

IMO its just another way to force Mothers out of the workplace and back home. I might have to give up my job if this is all true - but then my youngest starts school in 2 years - so maybe I just need to struggle on and on until then?! I honestly don't think we would be able to afford to live without CTC.

I KNEW they would do this if they got in - knew it. Take from the ones who work hard, bother to get off their arses and go to work. It makes me so sick, now we are really panicking until Tuesday and those bastards just wander round looking smug with themselves.

I might just fucking emigrate!

Do you know what I think? I think if they just scrapped the "You don't need to tell us what child maintenance you recieve, we don't take it into account" then that would make a big difference. I know of women who receive £400 a month child maintenace from an ex, but it makes no difference at all to their tax credits?! THAT is crazy, where is the logic in that?!

And if they abolish CTC for people who earn over £25000, the first thing I will do is look into applying for housing benefit - and I am guessing with a drop in income of £315 a month, and rent of £775 a month, I would bloody well be entitled.

Idiots. The lot of them.

Just to play devils advocate for a minute here. If one member of a couple is forced out of the workplace and is back home (does not automatically have to be the woman), might it be better for society?

It would free up much needed jobs for others, I am thinking particularly of those families where no one is in paid employment. Spread the jobs around more evenly. I would rather live in a society where most families have some earned income. So many people on here talk about equality for all - would that not be a way to help redress the gap between richer and poorer?

DH and I were both made redundant at the same time and although we are fine now, at the time we thought it seemed crazy that so many families were either busting a gut and hardly seeing their children, or not working at all and worrying about money.

The only positive I can see is that perhaps the cost of living and housin prices will fall if more families have one income.

It is however going to hurt this generation. However if it means that life is easier for our children maybe it is worth paying - just.

Actually, watching the bloke from REFORM on The Big Questions this morning, it seems the cut to CTC is possibly just the thin end of the wedge.

Not surprising from a right wing think tank I suppose. More surprising was the audience support for their ideas.

If your self employed, its works on your profits - hence we dont get a penny even though we draw a small wage from the business. I work two days a week for my hubby so have to pay for nursery. SO both children cost me £350 - £400 per month in fees. More than I take in wages.

I feel the money would be more just on helping working parents manage with childcare fees. The money should be paid direct to the carer.

There is far too much emphasis on low income. Even a middle income with both parents working you can still be bad off - as some parents are easily paying £1000 per month in nursery fees. A car and fuel, average mortgage, bills etc no way as there people rich! I would class a high very good combined income realisticly £65k pa. Not £25K.

I've never agreed with just giving more money to low income, it becomes a way of life and not all parents put it towards child welfare (got to question the alcohol/drug problems we have). Some people seem to think their benefits should reflect the same value as someone who is working - how's that fair? Many of us were brought up in the 70's - there wasnt much money about then but we eat well and life was happy.

As much as I do beleive in helping those who want to help themselves I think it should be a short term solution not a way of life forever.

There are more vocational/higher education opportunities with childcare facilities now more than there has ever been but people just want to reply on benefits. My hubby will work 12 hrs 7 days a week if needs be and also a lot of our empoyees are happy to look long hours too.

I have just read in the mail that public sector pay over 18K will be frozen and we will have to pay more to get our pensions.

I think it should be over £25K but other than that I think it is fair enough.

We probably need to wait for the Chancellor's speech on Tuesday to be sure although may be it's the most leaked budget ever.

Whoever said they hate this government really ought to be blaming the high spend like there's no tomorrow last labour lot who got us into this mess. Most families who are careful with money know you can't spend spend spend. The day of reckoning always comes.

Poverty traps have always been very difficult. The working family tax credit and things like that, childcare cost help for the relatively poor etc were all trying to ensure people might be better of in work than out of it.

By the way none of this is sexist. Is everyone earning much less than their men and ifs o why in 2301! Rhat's amazing. Surely if you earn double your husband and benefits etc change it's more likely the man gives up work than the womrn or do all the women on the thread or most earn pathetic little pin money amounts? If they do why is that? Are they less clever than men, less hard working or do they target richer men for marriage and always marry up?

Interesting take Xenia, you don't think the worldwide recession had any impact on UK finances then?

Frankly I am not going to blame Labour. It is the Tories who are choosing THESE cuts. Raise income tax, reclaim all the unpaid business rates in this country, there are other things to do than simply target middle income families, who on paper may seem 'well off' but actually struggle and need their CB and CTC.

BTW boiledegg both me and my DH practically paid our own way through university to train for careers, hence we were not able to earn a decent wage until our mid to late twenties. BOTH of us like our jobs, if one of us has to leave, it is likely the job will not be there in the future. Why should anyone who has deferred a decent salary to train as a professional have to pack it in to free up jobs!

Truth is the Tories are shit scared of cutting benefits to the poor or pissing off the rich by raising taxes too high - instead they find a middle ground they think will work. We will slip into another recession because there will be no spending power and thus no growth. However if it means it hastens this shower out of government quickly I will happily take it for a while.

or the behaviour of the bankers.

what gets me the most annoyed at the moment is the blame on public sector workers. i work for the local government and with my mileage included only bring in around 22k a year, I was already informed at the beginning of the year that there would be no increase this year, this is before the coalition government got in, so what they are saying is rubbish on pay freezes for 1 year as in effect I am already on pay freeze.

Does everyone forget the banks were the cause of the recession and they are the private sector, but it seems to me instead of them giving any money back they are patting themselves on the back with large bonuses.

Friends of mine that work in the private secor are earning more than me with yearly bonuses. What do I get Sweet FA, but yet the cost of living is going up yearly if not monthly, and in the budget VAT, NI, probaly petrol ect is going up but I am expected to take a pay freeze for at least another year, lose CTC, Pension reform.

To me where is the fairness (hmm)

Got to agree tink. Public sector pay has been behind inflation for years thus technically you get a pay cut. You get no bonuses. The fact we pay into a pension and have reasonable job security is supposed to compensate for this.

So............it's a triple hit, target CTC, pay freezes/cuts and take away your pension rights.

Not everyone who works for a bank is earning big money with fat bonuses. We have had pay freezes, no bonuses and little job security for a couple of years now.

There have been many more job losses in the private than public sectior.The only employment growth in the North in the UK and Scotland under Labour has been in public sector jobs.

The reasons for the crash are complicated. We have always had economic cycles. You could argue they are natural corrections just part of the cycle of life. It's a female things almost like menstrual cycles and the earth going round the sun etc and we just have to deal with the ups and downs. We might have paid back more public sector debt when we had the chance but we chose not to and so things are harder now. I think 10% of all tax paid is simply going ton interest on the national debt at the moment.

I am interested though in how to increase incentives to work over claiming benefits. It's been a very difficult issue for many years and you edn up with income groups where too much is taken in tax to make it worthwhile. If we paid everyone over 18 £200 a year regardless of income and earnings and abolished all benefits and state pensions that might work. The lazy or those who couldn't get jobs would have their £200 and those who chose to work at £200 a week would have £400 and there would be little incentive not to work. Anyway it's going to difficult whatever happens (except for people like me but that's a different issue).

It was interesting watching the politics show this morning, talking about public vs private sector.

It's true that up here in the north, something like 1 in 3 jobs are in the public sector. However, the discussion this morning pointed out that, in fact, there is more public spending per head in the South East than the North, however, there is also a much healthier private sector which skews the figures.

The conclusion seemed to be that it's not the amount of public sector jobs in the north that's the problem, it's the lack of private sector employment that makes it look so.

The reasons for that probably do go back to the 80's, when we lost many of our heavy industries, coal mining, ship building, steel works etc. Although huge efforts have been made to help reduce unemployment, the inbalance between public and private investment is clearly still an issue.

Wubblybubbly, you don't think the failure to save during the boom years (which Keynes would have said was vital) had any effect?

You don't think the fact that Labour encouraged the economy to be over-reliant on the financial sector (and the public sector) had any effect?

I'm amazed that you can just sit back and blame "the worldwide recession".

That is very interesting wubbly. If you look at towns that in the past had an industry it is often true that the public sector is now the biggest employer, often employed to clean up the mess left by mass unemployment.