The recession, benefits, the safety net, and the learning curve

dopester

Max_Headroom wrote: »

£150,000 ish in I guess

The calculation you're referring to was guesstimating "market-value" at £140K, with an STR at around £120K - £125K. It is a joint-fund but yes, lot of saving, restricted spending, a few investments, and helped along by the power of compound interest.

Time over, I'd have bought with a big mortgage earlier on, and allowed HPI to float us to asset value wealth. Continued to save just as hard, and then STR'd, even now, for best of both worlds.

Missed opportunity I'll admit, yet by the time we'd started to get our savings properly building up, HPI gains had already made asset values look very poor value. More so when measured against all the effort and discipline going in to building savings / deposit.

It doesn't take that many new market participants every year, buying at higher prices to boost values for all, as that is how markets work. So many of the pensioners around here have their homes decades, and seen them rise in value to peak crazy values..... simply because of a smaller percentage of buyers paying more for the available properties which come on the market, through the course of every new year.

On the otherhand you've seen asset value double, then double again. Say £150K market value now then, (not the £140K I guessed at earlier.)

Therefore, even being generous, and say you took a 100% mortgage back when you bought your place. That puts it at just a £37.5K mortgage, that you've obviously feel proud of having scrimped and saved to pay back 10 years early, leaving you with a house valued at £150K.

I don't feel bad about the STR suggestion as I won't be buying until values fall at least another 50% - which honestly believe they will. Too many people asset rich, relying on changeable values, but poor on real money.

dopester

Max_Headroom wrote: »

I got confirmation of the claim through yesterday, saying that they would only pay me from the point I signed on, not from when I was made redundant, as I had delayed in making the claim.

The clear inference being, I was being punished, fined in effect, for not immediately grabbing whatever benefit I could but initially trying to survive without.

Clearly the culture as far as the benefit office is concerned is that we should all be grabbing as much as we can as soon as we can, and if we try to get by without claiming and then find that we have to we will be financially penalised for having tried to avoid claiming!!

Maybe there is more administration and costs added when people come in asking for benefits to be backdated?

It certainly sounds simpler to just begin when new claimant makes the claim, rather than having a benefits agency employee use more time and resources going through stuff to validate a backdated claim.

Also maybe government doesn't want to be in a position where estimated benefits cost are suddenly boosted by great waves of people coming in wanting to claim for 1, 2, or 6 months previous?

lynzpower

I agree. I mean, how is the DWP to know exactly when you got laid off/ lost job etc.

The DWP knows when you tell them, this in thier language is signing on.

If you dont sign on it might be because you are not entitled ( OH has a good wage, you have savings etc) or because you are, in thier eyes, not yet unemployed. You cant sign on if you have ( IIRC) over 16k in savings, you are notentitled to cash but you can get your NI stamp ( not many people know this bit) SO you might have 18k so you have to wait a few months till you have spent the 2 an a bit K until you are under threshold. You couldnt have the DWP backdating the claim in this case could you

I dont agree that it rewards people for not trying to survive the DWP, after all the DWP was not designed and executed for people to consider living without it, it is a safety net and therefore you tell them when you need it.

Max_Headroom_3

lynzpower wrote: »

I
I dont agree that it rewards people for not trying to survive the DWP,

Well it would have rewarded me in those exact circs!

As for the rest, it's not rocket science to simply action the claim from the date given, just requires the entry of a different number on their computer.

Very poor show in my opinion, but I've learned my lesson and shall henceforth claim as much as I can as soon as I can, whether I feel I'll need it or not.

That, clearly, is the preferred response as far as the benefit office are concerned.

treliac

Max_Headroom wrote: »

The clear inference being, I was being punished, fined in effect, for not immediately grabbing whatever benefit I could but initially trying to survive without.

Clearly the culture as far as the benefit office is concerned is that we should all be grabbing as much as we can as soon as we can, and if we try to get by without claiming and then find that we have to we will be financially penalised for having tried to avoid claiming!!

Is it any wonder the benefit system is in such a mess...? :rolleyes:

Thanks Max, will take note of this should we find ourselves back in the same situation.

When it last happened we were young, the children were tiny and DH took any casual nightwork available as an interim measure so that we could work round the clock between us and look after them.

No idea what the situation for work would be now, probably far from good given increased age. (Bit of a joke, the govt suggesting people will be able to keep working until they're 68 or more!)

We certainly don't have a fair benefits system and, coming up to an election, it's one of the things high on agenda for my vote. Labour's finished anyway. Just remains to be seen what the Conservatives would do differently.

BitterAndTwisted

What Max described is exactly what happened to me several years ago. I spend months and months trying to find a job, any job while living off my redundancy and savings and when I signed on I was down to my last £30 four days before Christmas. The "adviser's" response when I told her that I was looking for temp work was to ask me why I hadn't tried to find a permanent job! They took weeks to process my claim and when the time came around to attend my first fortnightly interview I didn't go because I had luckily just been placed in a temp role a couple of quid above minimum wage and couldn't see that I could afford the time off to attend the interview, also I was mortified that I would have to explain why I needed time off so very soon after starting. They stopped my claim and I received the princely sum of £18! The no HB and CT benefit was crippling.

Next time I'll make a claim the very next day I finish working.

Can I go on a rant about the quality of the workers I encountered at the Jobcentre? SO humiliating to be patronised by what I considered to be my intellectual inferiors when I didn't fully understand the processes. I went to them for some practical help and was treated like a bogus claimant.

abaxas

fitzmum wrote: »

My husband has been laid off and has to go to 'sign on' next week. Does that mean that they will take into account what he earned last year when calculating any WTC or CTC? How can that be right? We need help NOW - regardless of what he earned LAST year. Its crazy!

What is more 'crazy' is that you expect to be helped. Why not save for a rainy day? Lots of other countries manage without our benefits systems and people survive.

Oops, I forgot it's old fashioned to be sensible and forward looking.

lynzpower

BitterAndTwisted wrote: »

What Max described is exactly what happened to me several years ago. I spend months and months trying to find a job, any job while living off my redundancy and savings and when I signed on I was down to my last £30 four days before Christmas. The "adviser's" response when I told her that I was looking for temp work was to ask me why I hadn't tried to find a permanent job! They took weeks to process my claim and when the time came around to attend my first fortnightly interview I didn't go because I had luckily just been placed in a temp role a couple of quid above minimum wage and couldn't see that I could afford the time off to attend the interview, also I was mortified that I would have to explain why I needed time off so very soon after starting. They stopped my claim and I received the princely sum of £18! The no HB and CT benefit was crippling.

Next time I'll make a claim the very next day I finish working.

Can I go on a rant about the quality of the workers I encountered at the Jobcentre? SO humiliating to be patronised by what I considered to be my intellectual inferiors when I didn't fully understand the processes. I went to them for some practical help and was treated like a bogus claimant.

This is absolutely my experience too.

I have found myself out of work now and again. When I left Uni, I too tried to find temp work and eventually got it before the date of signing on again, and recieved 4 quid for about 3 weeks,I could not understand how theyd done it, but it seems from what Ive read on here - IN CASE YOU HAVENT SEEN THIS! - Student loan is classed as income. So if one of you in a couplerecieves a student LOAN ( of what 4k a year?) you both have to live on it in some cases, as the spouse "earns" too much for contribution based.

Indeed my OH who temps in london at 7.40 an hour, was supposed to support himself, me and my mortgage and service charge on that. All the food all the bills, any debt payments we had. It was totally impossible.

The job centre is never going to be able to work, run by a government like this, to respond after the bubble they helped to create and planning properly for it to go pop.

It takes 2 year ( I think?)to actually train as a careers advisor. There are clealry a lot of skills and knowledges needed to be able to impart those skills. Do job centres actually have proper careers advisors? Or do they just have sales consultants from the likes of Reed. Interestingly the Reed Single Mothers project "we guarantee all single parents an interview for a job" it screams out on the window, seemed to be closed down when I drove past the other day.

I have never had any advice. When I went again to try and sign on after the priod of illness above they ask dumb-as-hell questions. "can you tell me three things you have done this week to find work?" Im not blaming the staff, but theres an organ grinder somewhere thats come up with this script they have to say, to patronise all but the most pathalogically lazy with the response "where shall i start". One girl looked at me strangely when I said I would "look for jobs in community care magazine"- but then again you cant expect anyone behind the counter any more than basic benefits and to try and suss who is swinging the lead, otherwise its just the processing of the desperate.

I have been to a couple of inner city Jobcentres in London and they are really quite intimidating places at times, so for those who may lack cofidence after 20 years i nthe same job, want to feel supported and that environment, doesnt make people feel that way. And I think the public feels it SHOULD, and we pay for this in the good times, so why is my brother/ freind/ mum getting treated like an idiot down the Jobcentre in te bad times? Its not his fault the cxompany went bust..." etc

I worked as a social worker, and its totally my experience that the DWP lets so many people down, it is heartbreaking to see this day after day. No, you cant be allowed £5 food voucher to feed yourself after the DWP c**up your claim. NO weve stopped your payment as you dind t reply to a last letter but thats cos we sent it to a hostel, we know you get moved about , and you wrote && told us you left, but cos of that no cash for 3 weeks" NO, you have earned too much NO you have a property in your name in another country that you could live in, however you dont even have the bus fare to get to the airport, let alone the means to get overseas NO, we misread a lame photocopy of your details and put your DOB in wrong so your paymetns have been stopped for inconsistency NO, you cant have any money to live on this week.

Max, if you can be grateful for something right now, be grateful you have your faculties and you totally know wht you are arguing for, you can fill those forms in properly, and if you can fill in an application form properly, and in time you WILL be offered another job. You will always have your own home, and to an extent you are free of so many of the vageries of the DWP.


Rant over

mvengemvenge

lynzpower wrote: »

The job centre is never going to be able to work, run by a government like this, to respond after the bubble they helped to create and planning properly for it to go pop.

It takes 2 year ( I think?)to actually train as a careers advisor. There are clealry a lot of skills and knowledges needed to be able to impart those skills. Do job centres actually have proper careers advisors? Or do they just have sales consultants from the likes of Reed. Interestingly the Reed Single Mothers project "we guarantee all single parents an interview for a job" it screams out on the window, seemed to be closed down when I drove past the other day.

I have never had any advice. When I went again to try and sign on after the priod of illness above they ask dumb-as-hell questions. "can you tell me three things you have done this week to find work?" Im not blaming the staff, but theres an organ grinder somewhere thats come up with this script they have to say, to patronise all but the most pathalogically lazy with the response "where shall i start". One girl looked at me strangely when I said I would "look for jobs in community care magazine"- but then again you cant expect anyone behind the counter any more than basic benefits and to try and suss who is swinging the lead, otherwise its just the processing of the desperate.

I have been to a couple of inner city Jobcentres in London and they are really quite intimidating places at times, so for those who may lack cofidence after 20 years i nthe same job, want to feel supported and that environment, doesnt make people feel that way. And I think the public feels it SHOULD, and we pay for this in the good times, so why is my brother/ freind/ mum getting treated like an idiot down the Jobcentre in te bad times? Its not his fault the cxompany went bust..." etc

I worked as a social worker, and its totally my experience that the DWP lets so many people down, it is heartbreaking to see this day after day. No, you cant be allowed £5 food voucher to feed yourself after the DWP c**up your claim. NO weve stopped your payment as you dind t reply to a last letter but thats cos we sent it to a hostel, we know you get moved about , and you wrote && told us you left, but cos of that no cash for 3 weeks" NO, you have earned too much NO you have a property in your name in another country that you could live in, however you dont even have the bus fare to get to the airport, let alone the means to get overseas NO, we misread a lame photocopy of your details and put your DOB in wrong so your paymetns have been stopped for inconsistency NO, you cant have any money to live on this week.

Max, if you can be grateful for something right now, be grateful you have your faculties and you totally know wht you are arguing for, you can fill those forms in properly, and if you can fill in an application form properly, and in time you WILL be offered another job. You will always have your own home, and to an extent you are free of so many of the vageries of the DWP.


Rant over

Hmmm...lot to respond to there!

I've worked for JCP for 20 years. Before that I was unemployed for 9 years. Before that I worked in private industry. So, I think it's fair to say I've got a rounded view of the issues on this thread.

Please think of job centre advisers as someone who signposts you on to people who give you more tailored advice/training. They are not career advisers, and never claim to be. Their training is mostly in benefits, processes, ticking boxes for the government. There are bad apples, staff who give poor service, it can't be denied.

However, most people I know go into the job thinking they are going to help people, move them on. When you get that help thrown back in your face again and again and again, it naturally starts to colour your view of claimants in general. This is just human nature. You literally wouldn't believe some of the incidents that go on in job centres. Some dangerous, some ridiculous, I've often said if we wrote a sit-com about it, it would seem fantastical.

Anyway, that's my (mini) rant over. All I'm trying to say is that nearly all JCP staff try their best for people, but often situations deteriorate because either systems don't produce results quickly enough or you're telling people something they don't want to hear. Please bear in mind that the benefit rules, the computer systems and the procedures to operate it all are not the fault of the front-line staff, they are just the tools they have to work with.

ceridwen

abaxas wrote: »

What is more 'crazy' is that you expect to be helped. Why not save for a rainy day? Lots of other countries manage without our benefits systems and people survive.

Oops, I forgot it's old fashioned to be sensible and forward looking.

Two faults with that argument:

a. One might not earn enough to be able to save - I know that one personally.:rolleyes:

b. How do you know that people manage to survive without a benefit system if need be? Do you have the statistics/time spent in living in these countries/etc to be able to prove that assertion?