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The Benefits Cap

The Benefits Cap


  • Total voters
    153
  • Poll closed .


BLOCK F

Well-known member
Feb 26, 2009
6,723
The worse the benefits systems gets the higher the crime rate will go up, ask any semi intelligent American.

Off hand,I don't know any,and most of the ones I see on the telly at the political rallies appear to be stark staring bonkers!
 




bhaexpress

New member
Jul 7, 2003
27,627
Kent
Off hand,I don't know any,and most of the ones I see on the telly at the political rallies appear to be stark staring bonkers!

I do ! (and that doesn't include my ex wife). Fact, they have the highest number of people behind bars (per capita) of any country in the world. They have near useless and underfunded Welfare and Health systems and yet their politicians have no qualms about paying astronomic amounts electing people at all levels. People commit crime just to survive. The reason ? Americans hate paying taxes.
 
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fly high

Well-known member
Aug 25, 2011
1,733
in a house
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.

A well thought out argument, Tory policy therefore must be to help the rich? You say they only exist to make the rich richer & poor poorer but interestingly in the previous 12/13 year under a Labour government the gap between rich & poor grew at a faster rate than under previous governments.

Blair told Frank Fielding to think the unthinkable on welfare then when he did Blair didn’t have the balls to go through with it & sacked him instead.

I believe most people on benefits don’t come close to receiving the national average wage but there is a significant number that do and some who would need to earn closer to £50K a year & some even more than that, to sustain their lifestyle. Should those of us who earn well below the national average, paying our taxes, continue to fund these people? It is a very complex issue, some will need more than others especially those with sever disabilities but the problem with any benefits system is some will get more than they need & some less, it can never be fair to everyone.

I have friends & family who have always worked hard but earned a lot less than the national average, they have had to be careful with their spending, small families, small homes, no foreign holidays, no Sky or such like. To me poverty is not having food on the table, not have the heating on or even somewhere to live but that is not the measure today. It is relative to the national average wage therefore if a family is receiving that amount in benefits then surely they can’t be living in poverty.
 


BLOCK F

Well-known member
Feb 26, 2009
6,723
I do ! (and that doesn't include my ex wife). Fact, they have the highest number of people behind bars (per capita) of any country in the world. They have near useless and underfunded Welfare and Health systems and yet their politicians have no qualms about paying astronomic amounts electing people at all levels. People commit crime just to survive. The reason ? Americans hate paying taxes.

I said they were bonkers!
 


I am in favour of the cap, although I think the way that the government are trying to impose it is a bit crazy. For starters, the measure benefits are compared against should be income, not earnings (i.e. should take into account benefits received by the median household, not simply the amount they earn). The level of the cap is very arbitrary anyway.

On a side issue - the opponents point out that the imposition of the cap will lead to increased poverty, but I have two issues around the way this is measured; poverty is defined as being in a household where income is below 60% of the median household income. On the one hand, this conveniently ignores the downward effect on household incomes of the cap (i.e. if you used the mean rather than the median, this would to some degree lower as a result of the cap, but the median will not as the 'middle' household will not be affected by the cap). Secondly, this seems again a rather arbitrary way of defining poverty - nothing to do with need or the ability to subsist but all based upon incomes. Is this a decent (or accurate) way of measuring true poverty?
 






Uncle C

Well-known member
Jul 6, 2004
11,711
Bishops Stortford
Secondly, this seems again a rather arbitrary way of defining poverty - nothing to do with need or the ability to subsist but all based upon incomes. Is this a decent (or accurate) way of measuring true poverty?

I think you will find a more useful measure of poverty is the inability to afford a 42" flat screen TV, cigarettes, holidays abroad and the latest Mobile phones.
 






Titanic

Super Moderator
Helpful Moderator
Jul 5, 2003
39,929
West Sussex
... 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.

Blimey, do they run multiple geographically dispersed parallel sysplexes, with zBX ensembles?
 


bhaexpress

New member
Jul 7, 2003
27,627
Kent
Blimey, do they run multiple geographically dispersed parallel sysplexes, with zBX ensembles?

Top quality PCs for a start, totally unnecessary for what they were using them for. They're no means the first charity I've worked for and in fact I went from the British Red Cross to there who, despite being a much bigger charity, were a lot more sensible with their donations.
 






Dandyman

In London village.
My wife has just retired from being a Head Teacher in Bognor and has told me that the education system is now encountering a load of third generation benefit claimants so yes lifestyle choice it clearly is - you may not like the truth but it is f***ing well out there...

Still no doubt it is all the Tories fault....:facepalm:

So, over a million people have made a "lifestyle" choice to live in poverty in the last couple of years ? I've read some drivel on here but that takes the biscuit.
 


Sep 1, 2010
6,419
Ohhhhhhhhhhh what durge. Within the topic comes the utterly shite point scoring between the main political parties. They are ALL deluded wankers in 22 yrs of being able to vote, we have not had a political party in charge of this country that has a f***ing iota of what is needed or wanted by the robots that continue to vote for the same 3 parties(in the main) in a political system so bloody up it's own arse it's untrue.

Anyway. Benefits cap....................of £10000 and earn some more on the side with community run projects that you have to sign up for
 


Wardy

NSC's Benefits Guru
Oct 9, 2003
11,219
In front of the PC
Well the bill failed in the Lords last night. Not because of the amount but because the cap includes Child Benefit. Secondly for those that say this is a Tory policy and would not happen under a Labour government need to take a look at what Labour is saying. They agree a cap is needed they do not even have too much issue over the amount, what they are saying is that they do not agree with the way it is being introduced. They do not say however how it should be introduced.

As for a regional cap that will never work all the time Universal Credit is coming. This is going to centralize the benefit system. This in itself goes against all reason. The only thing that will not be part of it is what is currently called Council Tax Benefit. This will stay local and be renamed Local Council Tax Rebate (at least that is what they are calling it this wee), this will come in to force from April 2013. However there are a few issues with it. Firstly the amount of money a local council will get from central government will be cut by 10%. They are also saying that certain groups of people cannot be any worse off then they currently are. Looking at the plans which are still not law and not likely to be until April or May 2012, the only people a local council are going to be able to reduce help for while still managing to balance the books are working age people with no children.

I am part of the group which has been set-up in my council to look at introducing this. However we do not currently know the rules we are working to so it is hard to know what to plan for. Add to that the fact that it is up to the council to design and run its own scheme, unlike now where it is a national scheme, means you could end up with 400+ different schemes come April 2013. Then there is the fact that all the major software developers that do software that councils use for benefits and council tax are saying that even if they were to start developing software now it is not going to be ready for next April.

I am not against Universal Credit but thing it should be run locally by councils. They are the ones with the local knowledge and have the experience of providing people with help to meet their housing costs (which is the only local part of Universal Credit). The other parts Job Seekers Allowance, Income Support etc would not require to much extra work for them. However the DWP have a history of making bad decisions and bad software causing major problems.
 




Garage_Doors

Originally the Swankers
Jun 28, 2008
11,790
Brighton
So, over a million people have made a "lifestyle" choice to live in poverty in the last couple of years ? I've read some drivel on here but that takes the biscuit.

Since when has living off benefits been anywhere near being described as poverty? ever been to Africa?
I am not aware of any person claiming benefits that does not have a roof over their hears or has ever gone hungry, would love to here your definition of poverty.

Many benefits claimants who's sole income is from the government have a far better standard of life that a lot of people on minimum wage.

Unfortunately claiming benefits is a viable "lifestyle" choice and has been for many years, did you not realise this?
 
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D

Deleted member 22389

Guest
If you took a vote in this country today, most people would agree that we need The Benefits Cap. Its in the best interest of this country. This country annoys me. Why is it we always have a set of morons trying to get in the way and ruin the plans.

What a surprise that Labour and the Lib Dems are trying to create problems. It just proves again how out of they are with the general feeling of people in this country.

If it was my way I would sack the lot of them, they are all bloody useless.
 


Dandyman

In London village.
Since when has living off benefits been anywhere near being described as poverty? ever been to Africa?
I am not aware of any person claiming benefits that does not have a roof over their hears or has ever gone hungry, would love to here your definition of poverty.

Many benefits claimants who's sole income is from the government have a far better standard of life that a lot of people on minimum wage.

Unfortunately claiming benefits is a viable "lifestyle" choice and has been for many years, did you not realise this?

Absolute shite. Try living on benefits for a while and then tell us what a great "lifestyle" it is.
 


Garage_Doors

Originally the Swankers
Jun 28, 2008
11,790
Brighton
Absolute shite. Try living on benefits for a while and then tell us what a great "lifestyle" it is.

I have distant relatives that live on benefits and can assure you they have a very good standard or living plus more & better holidays than i could afford.
Also said relatives have no working skills so it not like their scamming the system by working as well.
Have had many conversation with about it and he adamant he could never dream of earning the amount he receives in hand outs.
 




Dandyman

In London village.
I have distant relatives that live on benefits and can assure you they have a very good standard or living plus more & better holidays than i could afford.
Also said relatives have no working skills so it not like their scamming the system by working as well.
Have had many conversation with about it and he adamant he could never dream of earning the amount he receives in hand outs.

Will the benefits cap force more children into poverty? | Politics | guardian.co.uk


he claim

Iain Duncan Smith told Radio 4's Today programme today (audio):



We don't believe there will be an increase in child poverty because many of the assumptions being made by some of the Bishops and others is that absolutely nothing happens, in other words no one changes their circumstances. The reality is that first of all the capping at £35,000 before tax and £26,000 after actually means that we're going to work with families to make sure that they will find a way out and they will find a way out by going back to work.

We're releasing today a series of the impact assessments, those will be for public gaze later on today. Our department does not believe you can directly apportion poverty to this particular measure. We just don't believe that that is going to happen. The reality is that [at] £26,000 a year it's very difficult to believe that families will be plunged into poverty.

I'm going to look at the evidence available and ask whether this is a fair claim to make. Do you have any evidence of experience of this that might help? Get in touch below the line, email me at polly.curtis@guardian.co.uk or tweet @pollycurtis

Analysis

A report in the Observer yesterday cited a leaked government memo suggesting that 100,000 children would be pushed below the poverty line as a result of the cap. Poverty was "defined as homes where the income is below 60% of the median household income for families of a similar size". I've checked this out and while I can't reveal the sources, I'm assured that they are caste-iron. The fact that the Department for Work and Pensions acknowledged that the evidence existed, but insisted that it was not "safe" for publication, is also confirmation that the work was done even though it is now disputed.

Tim Leunig, chief economist at the liberal thinktank Centre Forum, explains the impact of the cut here using specific worse case scenarios very powerfully. He writes:

The worst hit, of course, are large families in the south-east, where rents are higher. Even in Tolworth, described by the Evening Standard as the "scrag end of Kingston borough", a four bedroom house will give you little change from £400 a week. Cutting housing benefit to £100 a week – which is broadly what the cap means if you have four children – makes life impossible. After rent, council tax and utilities, a family with four children would have 62p per person per day to live on. That is physically impossible.

Duncan Smith's argument is that these situations won't arise because people will change their behaviour – either by moving somewhere cheaper, getting a job or both.

However, Eric Pickles, the communities secretary, has warned that the cap could force 20,000 families to become homeless and that this could undermine any savings made by the cap. A leaked letter from Pickles's office last year said: "In fact we think it is likely that the policy as it stands will generate a net cost."

Duncan Smith also dismissed this saying that the definition of homelessness used in government and by the authorities was families living in inadequate accommodation with children forced to share bedrooms rather than actually being on the street. He said this was "very misleading".

Nobody will be made homelessness as a result of this. This is about fairness to the taxpayer and fairness to those were are trapped... Nobody, and I can guarantee this, no one will be made homeless in public view.


However, that does seem to be a suggestion that people will be required to live in more cramped conditions as a result of this.

Duncan Smith said that people would be helped into work by other reforms introducing the universal credit, reassessment of people with disabilities and the Work Programme. However, this relies on there being jobs available to them. This report from the Institute of Public Policy Research last week suggested across the country there are four people chasing every vacancy and in some areas of the country there is a jobseeker to vacancy rate of 20:1.

Separate independent research has identified the welfare cap as having a direct impact on child poverty. This report by the Institute for Fiscal Studies for the Family and Parenting Institute in January suggested that taken together coalition policies could tip 500,000 children into poverty by 2015, identifying 100,000 children in larger families who are particularly vulnerable to the benefit cap.

For all family types relative poverty rates fall in 2011–12 before increasing from then on. Poverty rates for larger families change by the largest magnitude over this period, presumably because these families are more highly concentrated around the poverty line, meaning that small changes in their incomes or the poverty line moves larger numbers of them into and out of poverty. Absolute poverty rates increase significantly in 2013–14 before stabilising thereafter. This increase is concentrated among households with four or more children (100,000 of the overall increase in absolute child poverty of 500,000 comes from this group despite less than 10% of children living in households with four or more children): as we can see from Table 2.3, these families see their incomes fall by the most in this year also. This is likely to be driven by the imposition of a cap on the total amount of benefits that can be received at £500 per week: as we shall see in section 3, this particularly affects large families.

There is quite extensive evidence to suggest that some children will be tipped below the poverty line as a result of the introduction of the benefits cap and that larger families and those in the south and city centres where rents are highest will be most negatively affected. Claims that any effect would be ameliorated by people changing their behaviour for example by moving house seems to be an implicit acknowledgement that people will be expected to live in cramped conditions. Claims that the "workshy" might get a job are limited in reality by the lack of jobs available.

However, the DWP is going to publish its impact assessments later today which Duncan Smith seems confident will show a different picture. I will update this blog shortly when I've had sight of those.

10.47am: The DWP has just published the impact assessment here (pdf). I'm looking at it now and will update shortly.

12.04pm: My colleague Patrick Butler who is live blogging the welfare debate through the day here has written a good summary of the main points in the impact assesssment. He writes:


The Department for Work and Pensions assumes that the policy will save up to £515m over the four years from 2013 (on best estimates)

So who will be affected? The impact assessment states:

a. Larger than average, in the most part with three or more children, and thereby receiving larger than average Child Tax Credit payments and Child Benefit payments; or b. situated in high-rent areas, and thereby receiving large Housing Benefit payments; or c. both of these factors combined.

In geographical terms the vast majority of households affected are in greater London (54%), followed by the south east (9%), and the north west (6%). It lists those local authorities where over 1,000 people will be affected by the cap. They are:

Barnet, Birmingham, Brent, Camden, City of Westminster, Croydon, Ealing, Enfield, Hackney, Hammersmith & Fulham, Haringey, Harrow, Islington, Kensington & Chelsea, Newham, Redbridge, Tower Hamlets, Wandsworth

Scotland and Wales will account for 3,000 and 2,000 families respectively, the bulk of them in the cities of Edinburgh, Glasgow and Cardiff.

How much will these 67,000 households lose? The impact assessment estimates that:

• 45% will lose up to £50 a week (in 2013-14)
• 26% will lose between £50 and £100
• 12% will lose between £100 and £150 a week
• 17% will lose more than £150 a week

So, that's more families affected than expected, the bulk of them in London and the south east where housing benefit payments are highest. Larger families - meaning families with three or more children - will be disproportionately affected.

It's clear that although we know that an estimation was made of the impact of child poverty and leaked accounts put that as high as 100,000 additional children below the poverty line, it has not been included. I've been speaking with some data experts and my collegues on the Guardian datablog to see if there is a way of modelling the effect ourselves. But it is looking very tricky.

I've also just been speaking with Sam Royston, a policy adviser at the Children's Society which has been campaigning heavily on this issue, who said:

They could have worked out the impact on child poverty but it's not in there. From this you can't work out how many would be pushed into poverty because they have not given the breakdown of family size and income in details. This is obviously going to have an impact on children, I would suggest child poverty was an important part of the impact assessment and it has not been done.

They have revised upwards the number of households affected from 50,000 to 67,000; the number of children have been revised up from 210,000 to 220,000. The key thing is that the main impact of this is on children, not on adults. For a policy targeted at non working adults to impact on children seems like a very badly targeted policy. Child benefit is paid for children's needs, not the parents' needs. It is extremely important to remove that form the cap. Even after it's removed from higher rate taxpayers a household could get upward of £80,000 and still get child benefit. By comparison this is saying that those on benefits would lose child benefit.

The £275m savings as a proportion of the £192bn spent on welfare payments in 2010 is tiny. It's 0.1% of the welfare bill. Reducing child benefit would reduce the savings by 100m 0.05% of the budget. This is a tiny amendment. This is not deficit reduction plan destroying.

1.11pm: I've just been speaking with Robert Joyce at the Institute for Fiscal Studies who carries out independent analysis of the impacts of government's tax and welfare reforms. I wondered whether he could help us model the impact of the new benefit cap on the number of children in poverty. He said that he couldn't and that he believed that the government's claim that the assessment of the impact was "not safe" was fair:

The data that's used to estimate the effects of welfare changes is basically a sample of households. Roughly speaking each household we have data on represents about 1000 households in the population. If they think 67,000 households are affected we would only have a sample of a few dozen households in the data to work with. So it's difficult to say anything robust based on that.

Joyce confirmed that it was extremely likely that some households that were above the poverty line would move below it as a result of these changes but he gives quite compelling - and slightly disturbing - reason as to why that might not actually be a huge number.

Out of 67,000 it seems very likely that some are above the poverty line and some will move below it. My gut feeling is that it might not have large impacts on headline numbers. A lot of people who are receiving benefits may well already be in poverty. If they have a lot of children once you've adjusted income for family size despite the fact that they receive more than £500 a week it's perfectly possible they were already in poverty. This will just push them further.

It would be a small impact relative to changes in poverty that you might ordinarily see from year to year and relative to the changes you will see from the broader reforms. This will almost certainly be small compared to what else is going on. We've forecasted poverty up to 2015. From 2013 onwards we estimated that the combined effect of all of the coalition government's reforms would be to increase child poverty by 300,000 children.

He also described the cap as "arbitrary".

What they are doing from an economic point of view doesn't quite make sense. If they are really worried about particular families receiving huge amount of benefit it comes down to either a small number with a lot of children or people with particularly high housing costs. If that's what they are worried about then it would make more sense to target those issues more generally rather than applying essentially an arbitrary cap. It's not obvious to me that the maximum should be related to average earnings. From an economic point of view it is very arbitrary. If you choose to apply an arbitrary number as a cap on benefits then you are applying the same cap to families in very different circumstances. You are not accounting for the very large differences in circumstances across households.

1.37pm: Daniel Boffey, the Observer's policy editor who has been closely following this debate, has just emailed me this summary of where he believes the debate has now got to:

The argument has basically come down to those who want the cap to be based on average earnings (the government) and those who want it based on income (the Bishops). If you base it on average earnings you ignore that the average family earning £26,000 a year also receives child benefit for each of their children. The government's proposed cap ignores how many children are in a family. It is irrelevant. The Bishops say the size of a family should not be irrelevant in welfare decisions. They believe a humane state should take the size of a family into account and look to protect children in large families, for example where people have taken on the children of others, for whatever reason.

3.13pm: Below the line, the comments are dominated by a debate about whether £26,000 is a reasonable income. I thought the figure needs a little context. It is very roughly equivalent to average household England, but how does it compare with the poverty thresholds? The headline measure for child poverty is a household with an income that is 60% of the median household income. But this is equivalised for family size. The following are the different thresholds for different types of households, provided by Child Poverty Action Group from the official figures. These show that in fact a family with five children can have an income well in excess of £30,000 and still be classed as in poverty.
 


jakarta

Well-known member
May 25, 2007
15,738
Sullington
If we really are spending £192 billion pounds a year on welfare payments then all I can say is it is utter f***ing madness and we need to make far more substantial cuts!
 


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