If benefits stop as the government have no money

krisskross

Chrysalis wrote: »

The vast majority of that is on pensions. No government would dare limiting child related benefits not even the tories I expect, did a tory MP resign when he suggested capping child related benefits?

Problem with trying to save on Retirement pension is that it is actually an entitlement with criteria that have to be met. Take me for instance, although I worked and paid NI from age 16 to 59 I only get £52pw pension as I was silly enough to only pay the small married woman's stamp. Most people claiming SRP will have to meet the criteria and most will have paid in for many many years. So as I said not so much a benefit as an entitlement.

Child related benefits on the other hand merely call for the existence of a child, actual child benefit is completely non means tested and child tax credits are paid up to a very healthy income level. There is no requirement to ever have to pay any contributions to receive these payments and surely this shouldn't happen?

PasturesNew

Oldernotwiser wrote: »

Have to disagree with you on that. I don't know anyone who was able to buy or rent a place on their own in the 70s. In fact, it always amazes me that people in their twenties nowadays think that they ought to be able to have a whole flat to themselves rather than share with others. Remember "Man About the House" - that was (and perhaps still should be) the norm.

In about 1980 I knew a girl who had moved out from home into town. She was sharing a 1-bedroom flat with another girl. They shared a bedroom. And when I stayed over I slept in there too.

It was perfectly usual and normal for people to share bedrooms in rented flats back then.

Things were a LOT more expensive in those days. And income tax was 30-33%. Inflation was very high too (well over 10%).

I know if one of them had moved out I'd have not been able to afford to move in there. And things weren't "posh" like these days. Accommodation tended to be small, no central heating, no double glazing, etc. It was all very basic and you were grateful you had somewhere.

MANY less rights. People never thought about their rights, or the new buzz word entitlements.

I even had a friend who had 11 brothers/sisters and they were living with their parents in a caravan (not a posh mobile home). And they had to all walk 3 miles each way each day to school. Mid-summer or mid-winter, along an unlit, pitch dark, road with no pavement or proper road edge alongside fields.

Nobody had much/anything really.

Outside loos and tin baths were common.

I knew a married couple that rented a 2-up-2-down house in Cambridge. I went to see them, the kitchen was just an old cooker and a sink ... and their tin bath was hanging on the wall above the open fireplace. That was about 1977.

Back then you accepted that if you lost your job or didn't work you'd just move in with family, bunk up together in rooms, just get on with it.

Loopy_Girl

PasturesNew wrote: »

In about 1980 I knew a girl who had moved out from home into town. She was sharing a 1-bedroom flat with another girl. They shared a bedroom. And when I stayed over I slept in there too.

It was perfectly usual and normal for people to share bedrooms in rented flats back then.

Things were a LOT more expensive in those days. And income tax was 30-33%. Inflation was very high too (well over 10%).

I know if one of them had moved out I'd have not been able to afford to move in there. And things weren't "posh" like these days. Accommodation tended to be small, no central heating, no double glazing, etc. It was all very basic and you were grateful you had somewhere.

MANY less rights. People never thought about their rights, or the new buzz word entitlements.

I even had a friend who had 11 brothers/sisters and they were living with their parents in a caravan (not a posh mobile home). And they had to all walk 3 miles each way each day to school. Mid-summer or mid-winter, along an unlit, pitch dark, road with no pavement or proper road edge alongside fields.

Nobody had much/anything really.

Outside loos and tin baths were common.

I knew a married couple that rented a 2-up-2-down house in Cambridge. I went to see them, the kitchen was just an old cooker and a sink ... and their tin bath was hanging on the wall above the open fireplace. That was about 1977.

Back then you accepted that if you lost your job or didn't work you'd just move in with family, bunk up together in rooms, just get on with it.

That is all true but the mortality rate higher as people were living in such poor conditions and weren't eating properly (no Jamie Oliver in those days!!)

Seriously, who would ever want to go back to those days? And unfortunately, people nowadays wouldn't know how to 'make do'. You try telling your deprived area family to cook a meal from scratch - they would look at you as if you had come from Mars!!! Sad I know but indicitive of how things have changed. Years ago you got lessons in how to cook and sew and all that jazz. Now you get how to work a PC so you can get a job in a call centre.

I'm glad I live now bringing my family up where I am aware of good health and the such rather than years ago when your parents smoked in front of you and you got a stick of rhubarb and a poke of sugar for your lunch!!

bestpud

mitchaa wrote: »

I see no reason why a British government could not cap child related benefits to 2 children.

Something needs to be done about benefit spending and the tories have already stated that they are willing to sort it out.

I agree something must be done, but why do you think capping the rate to two children should be first?

Surely those who choose not to work have to be first on the list - even if they are the most difficult, and possibly most expensive, group to sort out?

The cuts have started already imo (no need to wait for the tories) but it is always the easy targets!

I would give my support to the govt that has the guts to deal with the tougher cases and also start clawing a bit back in from the top too!

Welfare spending is not the only dent on the public purse after all. It is also worth noting that those at the bottom may take more out in benefits but they are also pay more in, proportionally. Of course, the tories won't be looking at that end of the problem.

krisskross

Loopy_Girl wrote: »

That is all true but the mortality rate higher as people were living in such poor conditions and weren't eating properly (no Jamie Oliver in those days!!)

I wouldn't want to go back those 30 years BUT there weren't the huge number of obese children around that there are now. I bet less families are eating good , healthy nutritious food now than then. I certainly cooked everyday for our 4 children, after finishing work. We used to have fish and chips for our dinner once in a blue moon, this was the only sort of takeaway. Obesity in children is a timebomb. As for mortality rates, both my grandmothers lived until they were 90, both dying in the 1970s.

When we lived in Spain it took me a while to get used to there not being aisles of freezers containing convenience meals, but a huge fresh fish section.

bestpud

krisskross wrote: »

I honestly feel that families with children are very well looked after benefitwise. Which is why so many people have a dreadful financial shock when their youngsters leave education.

Re the child benefit - yes, I did state that my mum was talking about the early seventies and it is clear the rate fell through the roof in the late 70s and 80s. I also said it bought virtually nothing in 1990, when my eldest was born.

My point is that there has been times before now when benefits were considered a necessity and were actually a high enough amount to have a real impact on families. That was in response to you saying people used to manage without them, iyswim?

I agree families are better off now than they possibly ever have been. I do believe this is more to do with the govt wanting to keep tabs on people though, and that is why I think tax credits are not going to go anytime soon and if they do, it will be when we all have ID cards and the like!!

It is also why I think they pay them to people on pretty high incomes. Because, let's face it, £10 a week is not going to make a massive difference to someone on £50k per annum is it?

If they wanted to intervene and help people on low incomes, it would have been much better to give employers tax incentives and thereby increased the NMW. All tax credits have done is placed a ceiling on wages, as employers know the employee will have it topped up. There was simply no need to introduce a system like tax credits imo.

Trouble is, reversing that system wil not be easy now, even if the govt decided they wanted to.

bestpud

krisskross wrote: »

I wouldn't want to go back those 30 years BUT there weren't the huge number of obese children around that there are now. I bet less families are eating good , healthy nutritious food now than then. I certainly cooked everyday for our 4 children, after finishing work. We used to have fish and chips for our dinner once in a blue moon, this was the only sort of takeaway. Obesity in children is a timebomb. As for mortality rates, both my grandmothers lived until they were 90, both dying in the 1970s.

When we lived in Spain it took me a while to get used to there not being aisles of freezers containing convenience meals, but a huge fresh fish section.

People say this but I must have gone to a very 'fat' school as there were far more fat children in my schools than my children have had in theirs. Or perhaps my children have just attended the odd schools that have less obese children - I don't know. I do know there were plenty of obese children where I grew up during the 70s.

I do think perhaps more of them grew out of it by the time they reached secondary school though, so perhaps that is the difference?

krisskross

I saw a young woman in Maccyds last week feeding her what looked liked 6month old child a MacFlurry because 'I didn't have time to give her breakfast before we came out'

Oldernotwiser

Loopy_Girl wrote: »

That is all true but the mortality rate higher as people were living in such poor conditions and weren't eating properly (no Jamie Oliver in those days!!)

Hang on - we're talking about the 70s, not the 30s you know. Outside loos and metal baths, you must be joking! Avocado bathroom suites and shagpile carpet perhaps but the 70s weren't a time of great poverty. Different certainly but not necessarily worst.

bestpud

krisskross wrote: »

I saw a young woman in Maccyds last week feeding her what looked liked 6month old child a MacFlurry because 'I didn't have time to give her breakfast before we came out'

Hmm, I saw a mother with four children (oldest looked about 5/6) in our local co-op last week and each child had a packet of crisps and fruit shoot, and the oldest two had a chocolate bar and an ice lolly for their breakfast.

The she told one of them off for giving the baby (around 9mths I'd have said) a packet of normal crisps, as he was 'too young'. She'd bought mini cheddars for him instead, she said!! :eek:

I felt quite sad about it tbh.