goodbye family credit..forever..Now what?

krisskross

chugalug wrote:

All this assumes that employers will pay decent wages and that the jobs will be available when we all retrain. Think how many young people will have degrees in a few years and the aim is for at least 50%. If you were an employer would you employ a younger person who is cheap but educated or an older person with experience but who is expensive (and who is also likely to be less malleable). Not true in all cases but we all know there are teaching assistants who are cheaper than teachers, care assistants who are cheaper than nurses, community officers who are cheaper than police etc etc. Its not as simple as an individual responsibility to retrain.

Sorry but this strikes me as a real defeatist attitude. Go and train as one of the nurses or teachers or whatever you fancy. You WILL find work, and well paid work, if you have a skill to offer. Employers are not stupid and are already complaining about the number of University Graduates who have no grasp of basic English grammar and spelling or have not mastered arithmetic.

And if you retrain, whatever your age, you will be starting at the bottom of the ladder along with the youngsters, it is up to you to sell yourself and convince a prospective employer that you could do the job better than anyone else.

Since I retired and I definitely am not looking for, or wanting to work, I have been offered THREE posts. The work is out there.

krisskross

funnyguy wrote:

Thirdly as I originally stated at the beginning ,their is no stepping stones to reduce the tax credit credit when your child leaves school..just a complete cut off.WHICH IS WHAT THIS THREAD IS ORIGINALLY ABOUT..

So you would have been happier if your money from tax credits had been reduced over the last 3 years so it did not come as a shock to you? I expect you wanted to keep it until the child left school THEN have it reduced gradually rather than stopped. Sorry but you know how old he is, you knew it was coming.

msmicawber

I must admit to being rather puzzled by this post as well. I too receive tax credits and child and housing benefits, but am aware that this is because I have two dependent children therefore expect it to stop as soon as I either improve my earning capacity or the children are no longer dependent on me, so can't really understand how this situation has crept up on the OP, if that's what he is saying.

Also, with the last child having flown the nest, it opens the possibility of moving to a smaller, cheaper property, thereby reducing outgoings further, or moving to somewhere where they are more and better paid jobs.

viktory

There is not a lot of point in responding to funnyguys post (#50) as the points I would have made have been posted by krisskross and msmicawber. Also, I don't want to appear as though I am picking on one particular poster.

The only answer to the dilemma is to look for a higher paid job, or take on a second job.

Perhaps this thread will serve as a warning to other families on tax credits - be warned - tax credits will stop once they have fulfilled their purpose. Make provision early on. Save, get a second job, do whatever it takes.

chugalug

krisskross wrote:

Sorry but this strikes me as a real defeatist attitude. Go and train as one of the nurses or teachers or whatever you fancy. You WILL find work, and well paid work, if you have a skill to offer. Employers are not stupid and are already complaining about the number of University Graduates who have no grasp of basic English grammar and spelling or have not mastered arithmetic.

And if you retrain, whatever your age, you will be starting at the bottom of the ladder along with the youngsters, it is up to you to sell yourself and convince a prospective employer that you could do the job better than anyone else.

Since I retired and I definitely am not looking for, or wanting to work, I have been offered THREE posts. The work is out there.

I was just stating the reality for a lot of people, not everyone lives in a prosperous area! You can retrain all you like but if there isn't a job then there isn't a job. You can't expect everyone to up sticks to look for work when they're heading for retirement.

I did voluntary work when the children were at school and from that experience got a job I loved on a good income of the average wage. That's plenty for me as I only have one child at home now and have a HA property. Having said that, if I had to buy a property it wouldn't be enough (not in Brighton anyway).

I'm okay cos I foresaw my situation with tax credits when they first came out but for many people, especially those who are new to tax credits, the drop in income is a bit of a shock - that's what this post was originally about.

Also, when tax credits stopped for my older children I was still supporting them. It takes a while to get on your feet especially with housing being so expensive. It wouldn't have felt right just abandoning my kids the minute money for them stopped. So, yes, it is hard but possible to manage the transition if you plan ahead.

j-baby-scotland

Pennywise wrote:

I read recently about the USA system where I think benefits are paid for a limit of 5 years without exception and most claimants came off benefits long before the time limit as they realised that they had to make their own arrangements eventually, and once that was accepted, they tended to do it quite quickly.

Here's a link to perhaps the article you read on the US system... by Will Hutton of 'The State We're In' book fame.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/story/0,,1863995,00.html

It does recognise that there are problems though...

'It's not all rosy. There are signs that some teenagers with working single mothers suffer acutely from lack of parenting, and there is a hard core of some 10 per cent of single mothers and other claimants in desperate straits who have neither benefit nor work. Poverty is still widespread.'

More time will be needed to see the knock-on effects I suspect.

funnyguy

I still get the impression some people are not hearing what I am saying>I am not going add or redefine anything I have already said,But I still am looking for a job..and I am sure one will come eventually,I mean they came the last 3 times I was made redundant..If any of you get the daily express,today,their is a very interesting account how clinton got those on welfare benefits reduced from 6million in 1994 down to 4 million in 2004 by telling people that benefits would be drastically reduced if someone stayed on them for more than 5 years..it certainally as turned the counry around..whereas our government makes it harder to be better off working in many cases..Anyway this is enough of this thread for me,,,thanx for everyones contribution . bye all..

j-baby-scotland

Hope that something turns up for you funnyguy.