Income brackets: what is prception of low/middle high

SandC

I was just pointing out that £2k per month salary is good and as you can tell by the extra payments in tax credits even if you had 4 kids the government perceives it to be sufficient as well.

lostinrates

SandC wrote: »

I was just pointing out that £2k per month salary is good and as you can tell by the extra payments in tax credits even if you had 4 kids the government perceives it to be sufficient as well.

I don't understand that.

If th government are giving you money for your 4 kids at 30,000k then presumably they think you need that £220 extra, so thats not considered that 30,000 is enough for that person and their family, surely?

PasturesNew

The whole benefits/tax credits thing is so complex that people can't work it out. There's no one single page where you can click and change income/number of kids/ages/rent/council tax etc and instantly compare different things. For example, a single parent getting free school meals won't even think of the school meals as income, nor will many of them recognise housing benefit and council tax benefit as income. They only count some of their income because they've overlooked/forgotten the other bits and pieces.

Here's a very complex but detailed document listing every item/amount etc... and if you can work it out from that you're a genius.

Why can't they put that into one straight forward webpage so you can poke about with figures .. giving one big figure at the bottom in bold, and alongside that what salary (pre-tax) that equates to.

http://www.dwp.gov.uk/asd/asd1/TBMT_2008.pdf

e.g. having free school dinners is worth £4.96/child (for a working person they'd have to be earning more than that as they're taxed on it).

SandC

lostinrates wrote: »

Leaving aside the point I asked before about geography I think that they say to check for entitlement if you ar a household (with children?) earning less than 60K is that right?

If some sort of hand back from the government is indicatory would that make an individual of 30 or a household with 60K entering middle income?

Or with the new mortgage scheme is the 'wealth' in the house negligable?

Is someone under, say, 30 earning 30K as 'well off' as someone of 60 earning 30 k but with more money in their home and savings?

(points of debate not views BTW)

Again it's relative to circumstances. As in having children but also say someone of age 24 (which is the age I bought my house) but on the same salary as me would not consider themselves to be in the middle range of income bracket, purely because of their expenditure on the mortgage (actually wouldn't be able to buy my house anyway if I were trying to purchase it on my current salary but you get where I'm coming from?).

There is a perception of income brackets but it all gets blown out of the water when the individual takes their own circumstances into consideration. It is often too hard to separate the salary from the outgoings. This is really about lifestyle against earnings and not about whether a salary is high or medium or not.

But basically minimum wage is around £11k for a full time worker. That is the low that we must consider. What is more difficult is deciding what middle and high is.

SandC

PasturesNew wrote: »

The whole benefits/tax credits thing is so complex that people can't work it out. There's no one single page where you can click and change income/number of kids/ages/rent/council tax etc and instantly compare different things. For example, a single parent getting free school meals won't even think of the school meals as income, nor will many of them recognise housing benefit and council tax benefit as income. They only count some of their income because they've overlooked/forgotten the other bits and pieces.

Here's a very complex but detailed document listing every item/amount etc... and if you can work it out from that you're a genius.

Why can't they put that into one straight forward webpage so you can poke about with figures .. giving one big figure at the bottom in bold, and alongside that what salary (pre-tax) that equates to.

http://www.dwp.gov.uk/asd/asd1/TBMT_2008.pdf

e.g. having free school dinners is worth £4.96/child (for a working person they'd have to be earning more than that as they're taxed on it).

well I looked it up here:

https://www.taxcredits.inlandrevenue.gov.uk/Qualify/DIQHousehold.aspx

And it does give you a figure. But of course as you say, how can you compare it to benefits. However, I doubt very much whether you would be better off on benefits than having a £30k salary even with 4 kids but I could be wrong.

Perhaps that's just my outlook, it would be a no brainer if I could get a job of that salary to consider not working.

SandC

lostinrates wrote: »

I don't understand that.

If th government are giving you money for your 4 kids at 30,000k then presumably they think you need that £220 extra, so thats not considered that 30,000 is enough for that person and their family, surely?

Yes but you responded above as if the extra wasn't worth having - as in you considered this a small amount. It actually is only child tax credit and there is no payment for working tax credit. So it is considered £30k is sufficient to live off. It's basically a contribution towards the £100 per week childcare costs - I believe that under around £50k they consider that everyone should be entitled to financial assistance with childcare if they work.

PasturesNew

SandC wrote: »

well I looked it up here:

https://www.taxcredits.inlandrevenue.gov.uk/Qualify/DIQHousehold.aspx

And it does give you a figure. But of course as you say, how can you compare it to benefits. However, I doubt very much whether you would be better off on benefits than having a £30k salary even with 4 kids but I could be wrong.

Perhaps that's just my outlook, it would be a no brainer if I could get a job of that salary to consider not working.

You can invent scenarios etc there, but it involves going through lots of screens and making decisions you don't know are coming .... it'd just be nice to see it all laid out on one screen so you can just jiggle the figures. e.g. "what if I earned £1k more", "what if I had 1 more child" "what if the children were 5 years older" "what if my rent were £100 more per month"... fiddling and comparing at the drop of a hat.

lostinrates

SandC wrote: »

Again it's relative to circumstances. As in having children but also say someone of age 24 (which is the age I bought my house) but on the same salary as me would not consider themselves to be in the middle range of income bracket, purely because of their expenditure on the mortgage (actually wouldn't be able to buy my house anyway if I were trying to purchase it on my current salary but you get where I'm coming from?).

There is a perception of income brackets but it all gets blown out of the water when the individual takes their own circumstances into consideration. It is often too hard to separate the salary from the outgoings. This is really about lifestyle against earnings and not about whether a salary is high or medium or not.Argh, well, I think income can be assesed separately from outgoings! I think thats a key difference in our approach here? I think some expence is enforced (eg, for example, taxation levels) but a lot is choice, my horses, someone elses CH, another persons house.

The tricky bit from my point of view is where choice becomes practical.

But basically minimum wage is around £11k for a full time worker. That is the low that we must consider. What is more difficult is deciding what middle and high is.

You see, I'm not sur thats the right basis to evaluate on. I think income includes, after a fashion and tax credits and benefits etc etc, so I think by the same virtue you apply to minimum wage I would apply to the point at which people are not entitled to anything back/off whatever as the starting point. Ofcourse, by doing that you'd have to rearrange all the levels of taxation etc to make it fairer, because IMO 60k is sufficient without help for an average family without tax credits but only if you ar paying less of it off in tax in the first place!

lostinrates

SandC wrote: »

Yes but you responded above as if the extra wasn't worth having - as in you considered this a small amount. It actually is only child tax credit and there is no payment for working tax credit. So it is considered £30k is sufficient to live off. It's basically a contribution towards the £100 per week childcare costs - I believe that under around £50k they consider that everyone should be entitled to financial assistance with childcare if they work.

No, I didn't!

(i did infact the maths out on the screen and deleted that bit..:operception is causing an awful lot of heat in this thread!

I was simply saying, as written that I don't think the government consider that sum sufficient (30k) if they are giving peopl more for that circumstance. Thus it can b argued the income is low (for that circumstance or overall.)

I apologise about getting the credit type wrong, as I say, I'm not familiar wih them.


I'm suddenly intrigued in the naming of credits too as a result of all this.

SandC

The more I think about it the more confused I am getting actually.

I still maintain I'm middle you see, but I am earning less than £20k. Then again I think the middle range could really be perceived as quite vast.