Benefits cap

Ali

Why should well people subsidize unwell rich people who use the NHS ? Thought this article in Saturdays Guardian has got all this about right <http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/oct/08/alan-johnson-cameron-chainsaw-mob>; To coin a phrase “It is ideological stupid !”

Siolae

@Ali hear bloody hear! I am genuinely scared about what is happening. It is increasingly feeling like a return to the early 80s but at least then they were upfront about it.

Arkady

I'd love to be ble to see the tone of the conversations right now if Labour had won. Recalling that Darling said he would have to cut "deeper than Thatcher", and that the difference between Labour and Coalition planned cuts are rather marginal in the wider scheme of things, this 'it's all ideological' chat seems to be head-burying to me. I think we can meaningfully distinguish between benefit payments like child benefit and the NHS proper. 'Health is not for sale', as the the Italian Union workers once chanted. Giving a universal benefit to the middle class to spend on extra bruschetta for Tarquin does not, in my opinion, have the same importance.

Siolae

@Arkady. At no point did I say I agree with universal benefits. I don't. However the way the cuts are being implemented is both unfair and will cause unnecessary suffering for large numbers of people who in no way contributed to the problem in the first place. (incapacity benefit claimants being only a few) Anyone who works in education, and particularly in pastoral care is already beginning to see the results of increased poverty levels. The notion that those in real need are being protected is laughable. Meanwhile bankers' bonuses went up 10% in the last year. I would be equally pissed off if it was Labour.

Arkady

@Siolae - apologies, I was replying to Ali. That said, you appeared to be agreeing with her statement where she defended universal benefits.

Ali

I don't think Alistair D would have come across as "gloating". You just need to see the Cabinet Secretary in action - he is loving it !

Siolae

@Arkady I was agreeing with the Guardian article Ali posted rather than the idea of universal benefits. This is what scares me: that the cuts are going to do such immense damage and are being rushed through without a clear analysis of the consequences.

andy

I'm beginning to think that the headlines on friday 21st (after the 20th announcement) will be "big cuts, but a lot slower than expected"

ADGS

Yeah, I'm hoping that they're being talked up so that what we do get, while severe, will still make everyone breathe a sigh of relief. But that does rely on an assumption that Osborne has at least some basic tactical common sense.

sahara_dessert

All I can say with regards to benefits is that for the first time last year after a degree and earning a decent wage all my 16yrs of working fulltime I couldn't afford to live after the recession hitting the industry I work in and being on the dole for longer than a month.

I turned to housing benefits after 6months when my redundancy pay had run out... Now that I'm back working as much as I can freelance I can't actually afford the place that housing benefits were paying the full whack for!!

So I can SO UNDERSTAND why people scrounge off benefits and can't be bothered to get 'proper' jobs. It has opened my eyes to the whole way it operates and it doesn't help people to get motivated to fulltime employment at all.

Don't get me wrong though I would much rather work than watch paint dry at home all day - but it was a real revelation and made me realise how easily it can become a 'way of life'.

Ali

I thought this was quite interesting from Stephanie Flander’s blog on the BBC web site “Labour tilted the tax and benefit system in the direction of children and families, particularly low income single parent families. For better or worse, that is what their target of eradicating child poverty encouraged them to do. It is going to be hard to raise serious money from the benefit system without tilting it back. According to the IFS, single parents are now about 13-16% better off as a result of Labour's tax and benefit changes, depending on whether they work. Non-pensioner households without children, on average, are worse off than they would have been if the 1997 system had remained unchanged. (These averages exclude people earning more than £100,000 a year who have been hit by higher tax.) Interestingly, given this week's debate, Labour's changes also turn out to have favoured families with "stay at home" mums. Other things equal, the average one earner household with children was nearly 6% better off in 2010 than they would have been under the old system, whereas, households with children where both couples work were just over 1.2% worse off. But note this last group still did a lot better than dual earner couples without any children in the house, who were about 4% worse off as a result of the changes Labour brought in. The upshot is that the coalition is not going to be able to take a lot of money out of the system they inherited without leaving a lot of families worse off. Put it another way: "family-friendly" deficit cuts on the scale that Mr Osborne believes to be necessary are almost certainly a contradiction in terms.” Any views from single parents on this to counter views of the single non parents who are commenting on here

Siolae

The reality is the cuts are likely to force a lot of women out of work, regardless of what they say about making work pay. The only reason I was able to go back to work after my daughter was born was because Labour had introduced child tax credits and that paid part of the child care. Under the old system I simply couldn't have done it and I wasn't on a very low wage. This is because the cost of childcare is astronomical in London: 8 years ago I was paying £150 per week to a child minder (couldn't afford the £220 a week the local private nursery cost) and I was a single income household. I would imagine the costs are higher now. With rent and bills on top my wages just didn't cover it. It was the only reason I wasn't on benefits. Obviously it was my choice to have my child but by working at least I was paying back into the pot, and because I was able to keep working I have progressed in my job and continue to pay in increasing amounts of tax. None of which would have happened if that benefit had not been available.

twinspark

@Arkady - You have a tendency to overlook what's in front of you.
See Andy's opener for this thread '..I'm not interested in people making party political points..' etc. Hence that description in my response. You were obviously looking down the wrong end of the telescope.

@Andy - It is indeed a good idea to try to 'ignore motives' In practice I'm not sure many of us could get past two or three sentences or para's without reference to this or that a party's view.The 'effects' are described in copious commentary from the media and in the house.
I understand the appeal of 'impact and facts' but not even the architechts of these grand plans have real detail on that. I'm sure they have no idea what to do if their deficit reduction plans don't work either.

andy

*The 'effects' are described in copious commentary from the media and in the house.* - but the commentary is commentary, not fact. Fact, for me, is someone saying "because of changes x and y, I'm going to do z". Are people really going to move out of London? Or will private rents come down? Or what? People can respond in a number of ways to these changes. *I understand the appeal of 'impact and facts' but not even the architechts of these grand plans have real detail on that.* - I agree, but I think that's the point. It seems that many of the consequences of these changes are unknown. So whilst "this is all terrible" is a perfectly reasonable response, I'm more interested in people's practical response. For me, someone saying "As a result of this change, I'm going to do this" is what's missing from the argument. One of the best things I saw on the recession was on a football forum, where people were reporting what was happening in their company, their family or to their job. It was so much more illuminating than a media narrative about 'cuts' in the abstract.

andy

@siolae - Childcare costs seem like another big issue, especially in London. It just seems so expensive, even for dual earners.

Ali

Had to laugh a bit at a government document which has been leaked from number 10. Apparently the Government is a bit concerned that it is not being viewed as to quote “the most family-friendly government ever". During the last election the Tories had the concept a creature they dubbed the "Holby City woman" – middle-aged women doing clinical or clerical jobs, who they apparently sucessfully targetted in the demise of GB but feel they are now loosing. ( I wonder why?) There is more about the leak here <http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2011/sep/13/government-plan-win-back-women>; If you want to read the actual restricted doc it is here <http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/interactive/2011/sep/13/leaked-memo-women-coalition-government>; Maybe DC should refrain from the sexist remarks he seems to have habit of using in the House. Some of the stuff in there is quite interesting although it would be interesting to see how shortening school hols or introducing personal budgets for maternity services to allow women to shop around for services will go down with folks. Getting quotes to have your baby whatever next ! I also see from other sources that the Universal Credits bill which IDS is pushing through has a move from bi weekly benefit payments to monthly. Apparently this prepares people for work !

Roy

_[...] sucessfully targetted in the demise of GB [...]_ I was sitting there wracking my brains tying to figure out just when _was_ the 'demise of Great Britain' of which you speak, before I figured out what you meant :-)

Ali

I suspect that might come if the Euro colapses !

sgc

I am the Hackney single parent ADGS mentioned above, and no, it is not very likely to affect me BUT I have incredibly cheap rent on my council flat, if I were living somewhere comparable (i.e. big enough for me and my kid, not in any way a palace) privately rented it would quite conceivably cause some problems, and if there were more than two of us in the household I can see it being quite easy to be screwed by that cap.

The main problem, I think, is the ridiculous level of private rents in London - if they could somehow cap those then it would automatically reduce the housing benefit bill, surely?

sgc

Oh, also, it's rarely as simple as "just move somewhere cheaper!" because, well, moving costs money, particularly if you have an entire family's worth of stuff to move with you. I have friends who are a single income household - no kids - and when he lost his (well-paid enough to rent a house in a small town, not enough to save much) job everyone said "oh, why not move into a smaller house? You'll save loads!" Except that with the cost of moving, plus the fact that they probably wouldn't find anywhere very quickly, and the fact that they had a fixed contract on their current house, and they'd either have to get rid of a lot of their stuff or put it into storage, it would not have actually saved any money over the first year or so, if at all.

Bridget

I have a friend who just lost her job and is single with a low income, first thing she did was hand her notice in on her flat, she has furniture in storage and will go and live on peoples sofas if she has to. People do do it, they have no choice.

Ali

I wonder how many will slip past the sofa stage and end up on the street

rainbow_carnage

In many ways, it's easier if you're single. Tomorrow is my last day at work. My contract has run out, and there's no money to extend it. Obviously, I'm looking for something else, but there isn't much out there. The last job I applied for had over 200 applicants. So, after lots of expensive education and years of working, I'm about to become unemployed. And what I can expect to get from the government? Fuck all. Job Seeker's Allowance is £67.50 a week. And if I do any freelance work at all, that goes down to zero. I can't get housing benefit or council tax benefit because my husband is employed. He makes enough to pay the rent and utility bills. All other expenses (food, transport, etc) will go on a credit card, until I find a new job. If I were single, I could get housing benefit to pay the rent. If we just lived together but weren't married, I could at least get my half of the rent paid for. But because we're considered a family, I get nothing. Last time I was unemployed, I didn't even bother to sign on. It wasn't worth the hassle.

Ali

You should sign on as I think you get your National Insurance Contributions paid for you which counts towards you pension What kind of work are you looking for you never know there might be someone on here who could help ?

sgc

It's also rather more complicated for my friends as the reason he's the only one working is because she is severely disabled, but nonetheless, just because people do make themselves homeless in these situations (living on friends' sofas is homelessness, albeit a less dire version) doesn't mean they should have to.

miss annie

Re. housing benefit - you can't claim housing benefit paid for a one bedroom flat for a single childless person if you are under 35. The government consider that you are able to share a flat/house up to that age. I think that that's fair enough if you expect the state to pay. I lost my well paid job last winter and the job I do now really only just about covers the rent and bills with nowt left.It's tough but I'd rather work than claim benefits. @rainbow carnage It's obviously not what you want to do, but all shops are just about to start hiring Christmas temps. Usually flexible hours and not very well paid but you might find something to tide you over. Good luck.

rainbow_carnage

@Ali - I'm not picky. Needs must and all that. In my day job, I do research in various social science disciplines. I do theatre things the rest of the time (playwriting, dramaturgy, teaching). I can do admin, too. @Miss Annie - I don't see why age has anything to do with it. 35 is an arbitrary cut-off. I could understand it if they limited it to a studio for a single person living on their own, though the difference in price between a studio and a one-bed is often minimal. My friend's sister was unemployed last year. The two of them shared a two-bed flat. Housing benefit paid for half of their rent. Unaesthetic and I rent a one-bed flat. We can't get any housing benefit at all. That doesn't seem fair. The govt is assuming that because we're married, we share our finances. Plenty of couples don't.