The Benefits Cap

[Bozza]

Having helped a friend with MS revise their claim for Disability Living Allowance it now seems that "If Stephen Hawking can earn millions, why can't you?" is the order of the day.

I shit you not ...... some days he can walk to the shops on his own = get to work

Irrelevant to this - the disabled are excluded from the cap.

 

[supaseagull]

The cap is far too low for people in the South East of England but too high for the North East and that's where the issue arises.

 

[bhaexpress]

I'm in favour of it for the simple reason most people on Benefits don't get anything like the National Wage. Only people with high rents come into that situation.

 

[Deleted member 22389]

The whole benefits system needs changing. Benefits have never been fair and has always penalised the people who have worked hard and been honest.

The amount of benefits you get, should be calculated on how many years you have worked and how many years you have contributed to the system regardless of how much you have earned.

There is no such thing as poverty. Poverty to me is not having a roof over your head, not having anything to eat. That's poverty.

Probably going to be called every name under the sun, but the problem is loads of jobs have been taken by people from Eastern Europe and other countries outside the EU. They should have been used to get the long term unemployed off benefits and back in to work and low cost child care. This should have been a priority.

This country is screwed financially on so many levels.

 

[Falkor]

Irrelevant to this - the disabled are excluded from the cap.

Not so true we are not being effected by the cap, but there is also a change for us in the welfare bill which will effect alot.

 

[Uncle Spielberg]

The simply fact is he is a Tory. Tories will always seek to cut public spending wherever they can and give that back to the haves in the form of tax cuts. The rich WILL get richer and the poor WILL get poorer under a Tory government. Heartless bastards the lot of 'em.

In line with the devoted followers of science on this board - the above is a FACT and anyone who doesn't agree with me is at best an idiot or, to be more precise, a deluded wanker.

Disclaimer : The fact that we don't technically have a Tory government but a coalition between them and the Liberal Democrats does not affect the validity of the above statement as the Liberal Democrats are toothless dirty sell outs who will go along with anything just to get a seat at the top table.

This happened under Labour as well from 1997 - 2010.

 

[Thunder Bolt]

The cap is far too low for people in the South East of England but too high for the North East and that's where the issue arises.

I wasn't sure what the cap was until the news this morning. It's set at £35K a year which is the average wage. As Bozza says the disabled are excluded from the cap.

 

[Uncle Spielberg]

At my local bookie there are literally dozens of middle aged Men who spend all day, everyday there as they do not work and are presumably on benefits. They must be signed off long term. They still find enough money to back Horses everyday. I also spoke to a bloke I know who has impregnated another Woman with his 9th child. The 4 Women in question are all in council accomodation, receiving benefits, he does not work at all. The option of wearing a condom was not even considered because the state will pick up the cost of raising the child. As a single person with no dependants I am entitled to the square root of f*** all and would be homeless, maybe still will be, but have paid in probably in excess of £ 100k in my working life to the state system, but now in my hour, well years of need I am entitled to f*** all. How can this be right ?

 

[Hillian1]

Holy f***ing dodo, 26k per year, equivalent to 35k per year as tax free?

That's made me bloody angry, I'm sure there are needy people in the country and all that but 26K?

 

[Falkor]

Very small amount of people get 26k a year really i would think and hope

 

[drew]

The whole benefits system needs changing. Benefits have never been fair and has always penalised the people who have worked hard and been honest.

The amount of benefits you get, should be calculated on how many years you have worked and how many years you have contributed to the system regardless of how much you have earned.

There is no such thing as poverty. Poverty to me is not having a roof over your head, not having anything to eat. That's poverty.

Probably going to be called every name under the sun, but the problem is loads of jobs have been taken by people from Eastern Europe and other countries outside the EU. They should have been used to get the long term unemployed off benefits and back in to work and low cost child care. This should have been a priority.

This country is screwed financially on so many levels.

The flaw in your suggestion is that you take a couple in their mid to late 20s, have both had full time jobs for about 10 years and now have two kids and a mortgage and all of a sudden both have their jobs taken away through no fault of their own and you are saying they should get less than a couple who might be in their 40s who just have happened to have worked for 20 years. There is absolutely no logic in your suggestion. It's a benefit system, not a savings account.

 

[drew]

Very small amount of people get 26k a year really i would think and hope

I believe the estimated number of households affected is 50,000 and the change will save on average £93 per week or £270m per year. However, IDS has already said they will be working over the next year before the cap is supposed to take effect to make sure no one becomes homeless. Why aren't they doing this now. Why have a relatively arbitary cap when all they need to do is work with those households in terms of getting them into appropriate housing, work programmes etc.

 

[Deleted member 22389]

The flaw in your suggestion is that you take a couple in their mid to late 20s, have both had full time jobs for about 10 years and now have two kids and a mortgage and all of a sudden both have their jobs taken away through no fault of their own and you are saying they should get less than a couple who might be in their 40s who just have happened to have worked for 20 years. There is absolutely no logic in your suggestion. It's a benefit system, not a savings account.

At the moment the benefits system is unfair. I agree after thinking about it, that yes for a young couple it would be completely unfair, How would you change it?
Then we had the benefit cheats as well. All the stories I have read, they get slammed in jail but never have to pay a penny back.

 

[bhaexpress]

Because of my age, I can only get contract work. The last one I did the place I was working at gave me a three month contract which was the only reason I accepted it (bearing in mind I had to take a bus, a tram then two trains, okay not that arduous but fairly costly. What happens I now have to wait until my council condescend to pay me some housing benefit. I wasn't working before Christmas for a couple of weeks and I have still not had a penny in any benefit. This administration has cut back staff in all areas of Benefits and whilst I can manage I bet plenty can't.

Oh, I'd be delighted to get £26,000 in Benefits but that will never happen.

 

[Deleted member 22389]

Because of my age, I can only get contract work. The last one I did the place I was working at gave me a three month contract which was the only reason I accepted it (bearing in mind I had to take a bus, a tram then two trains, okay not that arduous but fairly costly. What happens I now have to wait until my council condescend to pay me some housing benefit. I wasn't working before Christmas for a couple of weeks and I have still not had a penny in any benefit. This administration has cut back staff in all areas of Benefits and whilst I can manage I bet plenty can't.

Oh, I'd be delighted to get £26,000 in Benefits but that will never happen.

If people have been getting 26k a year or more I would like to know how. Takes the piss out of every single person who has worked hard, paid their taxes. And especially in your case, this is where the benefit is unfair. Where is your help?

 

[kevtherev]

Holy f***ing dodo, 26k per year, equivalent to 35k per year as tax free?

That's made me bloody angry, I'm sure there are needy people in the country and all that but 26K?

This, does not really motivate you to go to work does it?..im really struggeling atm,never been out of work in my life.earn a decent wage and im always skint.this country is a complete joke.if you chose to sit at home on your arse,you should not get f*** all.

 

[bhaexpress]

If people have been getting 26k a year or more I would like to know how. Takes the piss out of every single person who has worked hard, paid their taxes. And especially in your case, this is where the benefit is unfair. Where is your help?

I don't take it personally, this country is in a mess financially and let's be honest, although I seldom work people my age let alone my experience I thing that younger people should get more chances, after all, I've lived most of my life now and young people need the opportunities. What did disgust me though was just before the end of last year I worked for a large charity and they had quite a few volunteers. The young ones were treated like dirt and I even got moaned at for wasting my times (which I wasn't) when I explained to them how I dealt with certain problems. What also annoyed me about this charity is the amount of money they spent on IT. Few banks have kit as good as theirs, disgraceful organization.

 

[bhaexpress]

This, does not really motivate you to go to work does it?..im really struggeling atm,never been out of work in my life.earn a decent wage and im always skint.this country is a complete joke.if you chose to sit at home on your arse,you should not get f*** all.

To be fair it does affect people who happen to live in an area with high unemployment, something that is not helped by the fact that Job Centres will not pay traveling expenses unless they are a long distance away. The catch there is that few people can afford to up sticks and move to a new area, especially if they have a family. What this government could do (but won't) is vastly overhaul training programs, I have an HNC in IT taken twenty years after I started in IT and frankly it was almost totally pointless, a dreadful waste of public money I did it for a year as a full time student. It would have been much cheaper for them to send me on a Microsoft course or some such but perish the thought of the government putting money into Bill Gates pockets. Ironically they spend millions on Microsoft Products (as they did when I did my HNC.

I'm certain that this is the same for most professions.

 

[BLOCK F]

The simply fact is he is a Tory. Tories will always seek to cut public spending wherever they can and give that back to the haves in the form of tax cuts. The rich WILL get richer and the poor WILL get poorer under a Tory government. Heartless bastards the lot of 'em.

In line with the devoted followers of science on this board - the above is a FACT and anyone who doesn't agree with me is at best an idiot or, to be more precise, a deluded wanker.

Disclaimer : The fact that we don't technically have a Tory government but a coalition between them and the Liberal Democrats does not affect the validity of the above statement as the Liberal Democrats are toothless dirty sell outs who will go along with anything just to get a seat at the top table.

The above is mostly drivel.

It must be right to try and attempt to make work pay,but this is never going to be an easy thing to do.Past Governments have looked at this and then quietly backed down as it has seemed an almost impossible task..........and it probably is!However,that is no reason to do nothing and an attempt to control spiralling benefit costs that the country cannot afford is surely the Government's responsibility to do something about.
I am no expert on the benefits system,but believe that much of the huge payouts we often hear about are for rental payments where families are either living in expensive areas of London or have heaven knows how many children and require a house the size of Buckingham Palace to put them all in.Well,I certainly have no problem in insisting that families move to a less expensive area;those not on benefits frequently do this for a variety of reasons.As far as numbers of children in families are concerned,there should be a limit to the amount of Child Tax Credit and Child Benefit that a family can receive.i.e limiting it to say no more than 3 or 4 children.( I don't think this is the case now,but I am sure some learned soul on here can enlighten me)This is no quick fix,but over time may make those who think a kid is a passport to more benefits,think twice about bringing another child into the world that they can't really afford.
This is not having a go at the poor;most of us who pay for ourselves have to decide where we can afford to live and how many children we can have.

 

[bhaexpress]

The above is mostly drivel.

It must be right to try and attempt to make work pay,but this is never going to be an easy thing to do.Past Governments have looked at this and then quietly backed down as it has seemed an almost impossible task..........and it probably is!However,that is no reason to do nothing and an attempt to control spiralling benefit costs that the country cannot afford is surely the Government's responsibility to do something about.
I am no expert on the benefits system,but believe that much of the huge payouts we often hear about are for rental payments where families are either living in expensive areas of London or have heaven knows how many children and require a house the size of Buckingham Palace to put them all in.Well,I certainly have no problem in insisting that families move to a less expensive area;those not on benefits frequently do this for a variety of reasons.As far as numbers of children in families are concerned,there should be a limit to the amount of Child Tax Credit and Child Benefit that a family can receive.i.e limiting it to say no more than 3 or 4 children.( I don't think this is the case now,but I am sure some learned soul on here can enlighten me)This is no quick fix,but over time may make those who think a kid is a passport to more benefits,think twice about bringing another child into the world that they can't really afford.
This is not having a go at the poor;most of us who pay for ourselves have to decide where we can afford to live and how many children we can have.

The worse the benefits systems gets the higher the crime rate will go up, ask any semi intelligent American.