Another one of those benefits threads

ILW

Wookster wrote: »

Did anyone see the Channel 4 news last night - which had a piece on anti-social behaviour. Part of it focused on a mother who was on benefits and who had 9 kids, didn't control/ discipline them at all and then wandered why they were doing drugs, behaving anti-socially etc. She couldn't have less aspirations, and from that sort of background neither will her kids.

This sort of thing is just shocking but in a democracy its very very hard to see what practical solutions there are to these sorts of problems, aside of one to one support for everyone (mother and children) involved and that is clearly extremely expensive.

It is a problem that grows exponentially which makes it worse.

The question has to be asked, if it were not for the benefits system, would she have had those nine kids in the first place?

Shakethedisease

I agree to some degree, sjay - in many areas, there is not that much difference between non-working (or barely working) single parents and couples in the same situation. However, there are areas where there are advantages to being a single parent - specifically point 3 of the points I made above.

Carolt.. What would you do if your husband lost his job ? What if he left ? Happens to thousands of us every month..Unless your uniquely immune from the above. Would you claim LHA or not ? Would you feel 'justified' doing so ?

The question has to be asked, if it were not for the benefits system, would she have had those nine kids in the first place?

Before benefits were in place ? I think large families like these were actually the norm ? Only, a lot of the children died when they were infants and a lot of the mothers died in childbirth because they couldn't afford a doctor and the hospitals were so crap.

Life was cheap. Unless you earned a wedge. Most didn't, so a lot of children died. Childcare was something for the rich to worry about, otherwise you just accepted that no money = no food/heat/light and medical care. Nowadays I guess the NHS takes care of the medical.. capping benefits would still = no food/heat/light.

But you're only showing an 'extreme' example.. why not quote that 'the 'average' single parent has x kids, and is divorced/never married and is x years of age'. Might be a tad more representative than this drivel/rants. Anecdotal Oh 'I know loads that have plasma tv's' and the never-ending !!!!! 'examples' we get in the papers. It's all rubbish. 9 kids in this day and age is completely unrepresentative of the general population as a whole. Why keep on highlighting them and lumping the whole lot in with them ? It's crazy !

Concentrate on averages. It's accepted in house price land where the average ftb is 'blah',the average 'btl portfolio' is 'blah blah' and the average/mean wage is is 'y'. What's the deal with the average single parent then ? Anyone know ?

How many kids do they have ? And did/do they work ? Or did they work before they found themselves single ? Are they 'workshy' because of this, or is it just because they can't afford to work because if they do they'll lose their home ? Or not ? Far more enlightening !!!

treliac

Shakethedisease wrote: »

Before benefits were in place ? I think large families like these were actually the norm ?

That was nothing to do with benefits.... there wasn't the contraception. People are able to make decisions now.

Shakethedisease

That was nothing to do with benefits.... there wasn't the contraception. People are able to make decisions now.

Hmmm..and what percentage of children born in this country do you think are actually planned pregnancies ? 40%, a quick google, are unplanned.

And what happens even if they are planned.. and then your circumstances change ?

We then lump you in as a scrounger ? 3 kids and single.. how very dare you get LHA and benefits.. that's what this thread is about isn't it ? Better off being single ? Shame it disregards most of the circumstances though.

Contraception may be more available, but so is Divorce right ? Or relatively long-term relationships breaking down ?

One prevents having children, the other leaves (primarily) one parent to cope financially with the kids born during the marriage/relationship. That often means not being able to work. No social housing = private rental levels/costs for EVERYONE.

Feel free to offer a solution to this. But I'd reckon divorce ( purely numbers-wise NOT per se ) is far more of a problem in creating single parent families than lack of contraception is.

Spartacus_Mills

carolt wrote: »

I've been holding this in, but there's another whole very cross benefit thread in me that needs to come out - I did some calculations on the wonderfully-named 'entitledto' website just prior to the election and was shocked to discover how utterly pointless my bothering to work was (at least financially - I couldn't live with myself if I was a leech like this woman...).

Sorry to all those who hate these threads - but I don't think the point can be said enough that we as a country simply cannot afford to incentivise people in this way - to deliberately divorce, not work and have innumerable children.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1276818/I-afford-stay-married-lose-200-week-benefits-says-mother-seven-children-fathers.html

No doubt you will be the first to !!!!! when the government tries to do something about it.

Rothschild

If i choose to have kids (lets say 4kids).

(Im a man, but so i i got a girl pregnant, she had the kids, but then left me with the kids)


Id be on about £90,000 - £100,000 per year in benefits. (And thats non-taxable cash in my bank!)

As i live in Kensington in Central London, and the lha rate here is roughly £7,600 per month in housing benefit for 5 bedrooms entitlement.


Plus then would get all the extra child benefits, child tax credits, and income support unemployment benefits... ect



So if i did that and claimed the £100,000 per year benefits that would be nearly double my current salary!! :O

SingleSue

You wouldn't need 5 bedrooms, in social housing, you are adequately housed even with children sharing a room.

I am adaquately housed (by family size) with 3 bedrooms and 3 children plus me and we were adaquately housed with 3 children plus me and hubby too.

It is not one room per child, same sex children are expected to share.

A friend of mine has 6 children (she is a widow and her husband worked for their entire marriage as did she - she does not receive benefits as her husband put by for a decent pension in case anything happened to him), she has 3 bedrooms.

carolt

Spartacus_Mills wrote: »

No doubt you will be the first to !!!!! when the government tries to do something about it.

What is !!!!!?

What exactly do you think I will do???!

Genuinely mystified on that one...

carolt

Shakethedisease wrote: »

Carolt.. What would you do if your husband lost his job ? What if he left ? Happens to thousands of us every month..Unless your uniquely immune from the above. Would you claim LHA or not ? Would you feel 'justified' doing so ?

The quote from me that you gave had nothing to do with claiming LHA - it referred to the facts that in the current system, there is a massive bias in favour of single parents as they are not required to even seek work (let alone take it) until their youngest child is 7 years old. That compares to 1 year old for couples. As my youngest is 3, if my husband left me tomorrow, I'd be better off in terms of hours needed to work, as I could then afford to give up the work I currently have to do to make ends meet.

That is ridiculous.

As to whether I'd claim LHA - yes, of course I would.

And nowhere in my posts will you find that I object to LHA. What I do object to is the ridiculously high maximum levels, and the fact that you can choose your area. I certainly wouldn't wish to abuse the system by moving to Kensington, no.

I also think the current system where there are minimum room sizes and numbers of bedrooms applicable to those claiming benefits, but those earning above a certain threshold just have to make do with whatever they can afford at their salary, is also very wrong - I don't think it is right that those who work actually have less rights in this area than those who don't work at all.

carolt

SingleSue wrote: »

School trips are not free in this area, there isn't even a discretionary fund at the school (either schools), I have to pay what everyone else has to pay...working or not.

Cost of work clothes and dry cleaning? I've heard I can get a one off grant to buy interview clothes, again though it has to be applied for and is not guaranteed but never heard of the dry cleaning bit!

Yes, I do get free school meals but eldest doesn't use them (long story, lots of battles with the school over the salad choice and the amount).

There is no school uniform allowance here and no discretionary allowance from the school, as per the school trips, I have to pay what everyone else has to pay, working or not.

Our area is not so bad with rent, my rent is less than £100 a week (think it is currently £83) for a 3 bedder...our maximum LHA for a 3 bedroom house is £136.93 per week, average non social housing rent in this area for a 3 bedroom house is a wee bit more than that, so would have to be topped up out of the claimants own pocket.

So not everything is free, some things come down to area.

I think you missed some of my points - there is no 'fund' for school trips at my kids' school, but if you cannot afford trips, then you can go and have a private chat with the head, and you are not required to pay. This is to avoid the situation where poorer children are left out of all school trips. Which is fair enough; except that it leaves the working poor out of most of those equaations - it would be harder to justify, without going through a full pound-for-pound budget with the head, something most working parents would baulk at. Much easier for those on benefits who are assumed to not be able to afford such things.

Re the work clothes and dry cleaning, I wasn't suggesting that there was some sort of fund to pay your dry cleaning! lol! Just that by definition, if you're not working, you don't need lots of work clothes and won't get the clothes you're not wearing dirty, so won't incur the expensive dry cleaning bills in the first place! Yes, I agree job seekers need an interview outfit, or maybe a couple, but inless they're very active job seekers, with a new interview every day like a working person, they're unlikely to incur the same cleaning costs.

Normal clothes can go in the washing machine - it was specifically work suits etc I was referring to - I can hardly put my OH's suits in the machine, and they are pretty much a uniform for his job - he has to wear them. So they count as a work-related expense that someone not working would not have.

Re your rent, it is not that high as (I believe?) it is a social rental. I have no problem with that; I just would like to see a return to building more social housing (with the right to buy removed) so that the taxpayer in future could be paying low rents for properties like yours, rather than high private rents, as is largely the case at present.