Government cuts affecting women disproportionately.

[ElephantsAndMiasmas]

Heard in a R4 doc that £5billion of the £7billion raised by the emergency budget has come out of women's pockets.

Also got sent a link to this event, which sounds interesting: Women At The Cutting Edge

So what do you think? Are they targetting women on purpose? Or is it just a by-product of the traditional Tory Appeal-to-the-Rich-and-Wannabe-Rich mentality. I.e. because women are lower paid and more of us live in poverty, why should they listen to us?

Anastasia, there is plenty governments can do to help equality that doesn't involve making women dependant on the state. gender pay audits would be a start. Making maternity leave transferable to fathers would help. Under Labour, the government would favour companies with good ratios of senior women etc (not sure if the Tories are doing this too but certainly has had an influence on companies i've worked for. None of these cost much either.

There are no inheritance tax breaks the cut in inheritance tax was not put in the coalition agreement and will not happen. The coalition has raised the income tax threshold by £1000 to £7475 which has lifted 880,000 people out of income tax altogether and they intend to have raised the threshold to £10,000 by the end of the Parliament.
Add to that public sector workers who earn less than £18,000 will not recieve a pay freeze but will instead recieve an extra £250 a year then I think the coalition is doing its best to help those who are low wages whilst dealing with this deficit.

Cap on max weekly benefits which will have a huge impact on people who are already high risk of poverty ie large families in cities

vs

£150 pa for people on the basis that they are married. No other reason, just married.

Ridiculous.

I think capping benefits at the median income is the right thing to do as why should anyone recieve more than the median income in benefits. I disagree with the married tax allowance and think the money could be better spent I don't think its evidence of an attack on poor people as it will be paid to all married people regardless of income so married people on low incomes will recieve it. I still don't think its a good policy but its not an attack on the low paid.

???

I didn't say the married persons allowance was an attack on the poor???

You asked how the tories were taking from the poor and giving to people who were welathier.

I responded that they are capping benefits, which will have a huge and awful effect on the poorest families (children) in the country, and at the same time giving money to everybody who is married, many/most of whom do not need it.

It is ideologically driven, why bother to pretend otherwise.

Effectively they have taken a poor child's food money, and given it to the Queen. Makes excellent sense if you are a tory, I'm sure.

But they aren't taking from the poor as they are taking 880,000 people out of income tax and have plans to takes 100,000s more by the end of the Parliament. This tax break is going to be worth around £700 to people on low incomes and this is in part being paid for by tax rises for wealthier people.

And what of the 50,000 people who are affected by the cap? What of the people who are going to have to remove their children from school, leave their support networks and be sent somewhere else? These are entire communities that are going to be decimated. And where will they be sent? How are the children (who are already most at risk of poor life outcomes) going to cope when removed from all their friends and teachers that they have forged relationships with? Some of these children will have difficult home lives - who will be there for them? What of the people who have mental health issues - removing them from their support networks helps how? What of the ones who are doing unpaid care for their parents? What of the relationships of the children with wider families?

I know that the tories think this stuff doesn't matter. But it does matter, it really does. It's getting people who are in the shittiest position in society and putting the boot in, just for a laugh. And like I say, it's ideological. It doesn't even save much money.

I still don't think that is unreasonable for the Government to cap benefits at the median income. Your also not mentioning that for a person to earn 26k without the state supplementing their income then they would need a job paying around 35k as they would have to pay tax and national insurance so the cap is really limiting benefits to the same level of income as someone on 35k. I don't think this is unfair at all.

I know you don't think it's unfair huddspur

I do. I don't personally understand why anyone would think that the things I've listed in my post are not problems, and that it is fine to subject children to huge upheaval and worse poverty simply because the government doesn't like their parents. I think that's unfair. Tories don't.

Cuts are not inevitable, they are ideological. The government could choose to up tax rather than reduce the state. They choose not to. In gender terms, with this being a feminist board, tax increases hit men, reduction in the state hits women. The current discourse on 'inevitable' spending cuts is a gift horse to an ideologically driven Tory reduction of the state.

I just can't see how it can be right that welfare payments should allow people to get an income that puts them in the wealthiest 40% of the country in terms of household income.

I say this as someone who has been on benefits for 4 months earlier in my life and a Lib Dem voter

They don't get it as income, huddspur. The majority is housing costs - it's not money in their pockets. The fact that there is not more affordable housing / social housing is not their fault. The result of this is going to be awful. And it's not necessary.

It is a form of income for them as it means that the Government is paying their housing costs for them which a family/person who was not on benefits would have to pay for themselves.

I agree with you regarding affordable housing and it was a great mistake of Labour to allow the property bubble to develop the way they did to fuel their boom.

I stand by my original points regarding people on welfare not more money than a working person earning 35k before tax. The cap will also save a small amount of money that is crucial given the dire state of the public finances.

Hahahaha labour mistake that there is no social housing. Now you're just on the wind-up

Am pleased that you are completely comfortable with the concept of taking some of the most deprived children in society and ripping their lives apart, because you don't like the fact that their parents through no fault of their own have been put in expensive housing by their LAs.

Why not cancel the married peoples allowance and not have the cap? Eh?

IDEOLOGY the poor must be punished. Them and their scummo scrounging children.

What do children like and need? Stability?

Oh look here's some reallyu deprived children. Let's tear them away from everything they know. Why? Oh just because, you know, we don't like them.

Result? A lot of really fucked up children. Nice one!

And for their next trick.... God I dread to think.

Doesn't matter though does it huddspur. You're absolutely tickety-boo with that. And it's going to happen. HOORAY! Hang out the bunting and caper on the streets.

I didn't say it was Labours fault that there is not enough social housing. Government policy in the last 30 years has been that the amount of state owned and controlled housing has been drastically reduced. This has been done most famously by the Thatcher policy allowing people to buy their houses but both the Major and Blair/Brown Government have also taken up the policy that state owned housing is undesirable and should be kept to a minimum.

Labour are undoubtedly responsible for the property boom however causing the cost of private housing to rocket by allowing too much cheap credit in the economy and doing nothing to control private debt levels within the economy.

I don't agree with the married tax allowance so I'm with you on that one but I still think the cap should be put in place as we need to reduce our monstorous deficit or the country will end up in dire straits

I can't be arsed huddspur. I know what you think, and I find it utterly unpalatable. I understand that a lot of very disadvantaged children are going to suffer enormously, I understand that you don't give a monkeys.

All fine and dandy.

Huddspur, I think raising the tax threshold is a red herring personally. For a lot of people the £700 a year break you mention will be more than offset by the rise in VAT (estimated to cost the average family £400 per year by itself) a general increase in the cost of living, the cutting of child tax credits (coming down to £26,000 joint household income in 2012 or 2013, so even less if you're a single parent), the freezing and potential abolition of child benefit, and the fact that you will now have to pay for services that were previously provided free due the cuts due to be outlined in the forthcoming spending review. (sorry for the very long sentence)

I have written to my MP because it looks as though I may lose tax credits in the not too distant future. That will be hard enough for me, but I can just about accept it in the 'we're all in this together spirit'. What really bothers me however is that if I lose eligibility for tax credits, then presumably I also lose eligibility for help with childcare costs, and without that I would have to give up work, losing my home and ending up on benefits. My MP doesn't know if this is the case yet and has stalled me with "I'll be in touch when someone gets back to me with the answer" (that was 3 months ago).

I can't BELIEVE the married people's money handout. It's going to cost looooooooads (estimate anyone?) - hundreds of millions, and for sweet FA in terms of helping people out.

If we're talking about flat rate benefits:

take away child benefit, despite the fact that raising children is of benefit to the state and costs loads of money

give away free money to people just for being married, despite the fact that being married is of no benefit to the state, and it's free to stay married.

One is a handout to help (a little) with something necessary but expensive, the other is a handout to reward people for being good boys and girls and saying I do.

Welcome to bizarroworld.

Quite, elephants.

And that's from a married woman who will get to keep her CB, at least for the moment.

Just because I wanted to be married doesn't mean anyone else should.

And it takes the money from the woman (in child benefit) and gives to the man (in tax allowance) (obviously where the woman is carer and man main earner but that is pretty common). How many of us know women who are left responsible for child costs while the man spend his 'spare' money? And how many men use money in order to control what the woman can or can't do? So taking from the woman, to give to the man, whilst it may seem like it evens out does not do so. It shifts the balance of power away from the woman.

I think there is a lot of unseen inequality too. I work in the public sector and the current situation is resulting in the following:

• More work, less staff.

• The threat of job losses and prssure to meet targets mean that people are doing a LOT of extra hours for no pay.

• No flexibility in the work place. Flexible working requests are being refused on business grounds, where efforts would have been made to resolve problems in the past. (i.e inability to recruit into job share posts)

• Changing shift patterns without consultation (afecting the availability and practicality of childcare)

All of these disproportionately affect women, in addition to pey freezes etc.

I am not saying that we dont need cuts, we do!, but there should be some thought about, and mittigation of, the inequalities this situation is creating.

I personally think the cap would be fine if it were weighted for housing- not posher housing just local prices. What was the Guardian estimate yesterday- over 100k was it famillies needing to move? many of whom will be genuine benefits needy: the HB amount is not limited to stop it affecting teh sick or disabled.

But that's OK, disabled people don't need support systems do they? it's not as if such things help people into work, or keeps their MH costs low (both personal and financial), or saves the state a fortune in care services, or that keeping famillies intact and feeling part of a state rather than poutside it might have a potential long term effect on employment, or crime....

But then when carers are actually going on diets to lose weight so they can stay alive becuase they think there will be no care for their disabled kids- there's an issue, no? In a civilised society people should not lose sleep over that.

This year we raised money for Pakistan at school, last year Haiti and next I shall be nominating Shelter. Seriously. And thanking my stars I am far from London and even if I cannot find work and we end up on HB (because us low paid working famillies can as much as anyone) it's only dropping £52 a month here. Only, I say. I wish!

ElephantsAndMiasmas, AliceWorld and SanctimoanyArse I think your posts are excellent.