Welfare reform - Tax credits next?

MissMoneypenny

LilacPixie wrote: »

Fact is essentials are roof over head, food, warmth, clothing. That can be provided on minimal benefits. There is a website some posters from the old style board created on feeding a family of 4 on £100 per month allowing for the recomended daily intake of vitamins and minerals, 5 a day etc. So it is possible to have a very low food budget and still survive/no die. Just no room for fizzy drinks, junk food etc.

Here it is
http://www.cheap-family-recipes.org.uk/

ILW

As I and many have said before, if you cannot earn enough to support a family, do not have kides expecting others to pay for them. simple really.

Jojo1daffy

That would be most people not having kids then.
Try feeding a 12 year old boy on 45p a day! My son will have a full Sunday dinner (with meat which one poster did not appear to think that poor children should have) and an hour later be starving again. He started high school in age 11 trousers that had some 'growing room' and 4 weeks later was in age 13s. He's now 13 and wears men's size medium-large clothes, shoes cost a fortune (he's in size 11) and goes through trousers at an alarming rate - he's now almost 6 ft tall. He's far from overweight, skinny really because of the growth spurts and his food bill alone accounts for more then half of what I spend for 3 of us. I spend an average of £65 per week which is not excessive and allows a few small treats.
I don't think any of you seem to be speaking from experience of actually trying to feed and bring up children in this day and age.

Oh and the '40% v 70% council house non-working household members' comes from the change in function of council housing. It was built to rehouse people whose communities were devastated in the second world war and those that were displaced during slum clearances, so people were housed because mass social housing was needed. Now it's required in times of individual need that can arise from unemployment so it's not surprising at all that nowadays 70% of council housing has households with no-one working. It's the function that social housing serves.

Jowo_2

For me, the true signifier of just how dumb tax credits are was when I found out that 9 out of 10 families qualified for it. What kind of dumb allowance is that when the majority of households receive it?

The second thing that showed me how dumb tax credits are was when I found out a single parent of 2 children receive £200 per week in benefits, plus council tax and free rent, which is more typically than they can earn to support their family (the net income from someone on National Minimum wage for a full time job is approx £210 per week). £100 per week of their unearned income is tax credits which is a bizarre concept as it implies they are being given a tax refund when in fact until fairly recently, there was no requirement for a single parent to work until their youngest child reached secondary school.

My sister is a manager of a financial call centre and tax credits mean that she has loads of team members who won't work an extra hour when offered as it adversely affects their benefit entitlements (principally tax credits). It was supposed to tempt people back into employment but now it's a lifestyle benefit where great swathes of people earn the same in their benefit/part-time employment combination as someone in full time employment. Mental.

I also have a friend whose husband works in a low paid retail job and she freely admits that the tax credits, child benefit and LHA they receive almost double his income and therefore removes any need for her to go back into work until she is forced to.

365days

My bug bear with Tax credits is that maintenance payments or lack of are not taken into consideration. How can someone in exactly the same position as me but getting say £300 a month maintenance be entitled to the same tax credits? Surely they are £300 a month better off than me?

daveyjp

ILW wrote: »

As I and many have said before, if you cannot earn enough to support a family, do not have kides expecting others to pay for them. simple really.

A family has an income of £50,000 a year. The 5 children are all well cared for, roof over their heads - budgets are tight but the family cope admirably. Then the main income earner dies.

Now what?

davilown

daveyjp wrote: »

A family has an income of £50,000 a year. The 5 children are all well cared for, roof over their heads - budgets are tight but the family cope admirably. Then the main income earner dies.

Now what?

Life insurance and the spouse goes out to work full time perhaps? As you say, well cared for and plans for potential eventualities.

This would therefore be a planned family

flashnazia

daveyjp wrote: »

A family has an income of £50,000 a year. The 5 children are all well cared for, roof over their heads - budgets are tight but the family cope admirably. Then the main income earner dies.

Now what?

Only those that have paid into the system should get support. Anyone else can get vouchers.

dori2o

Doctor_Gloom wrote: »

Tax credits are a typical dumb Labour idea. You get a job but it doesn't pay you enough to live on. So you have to fill out a load of forms to claim money off the government. Then they mess up and overpay you tax credits and you have to pay it back. But you have no money to pay it back because you spent it. What's the point in jobs that don't pay enough to live on? What an expensive bureaucratic nonsense.

The problem is in order to increase the income from employment by enough to cover the extra they get in tax credits, it would mean having to increase the minimum wage, which many employers simply cannot afford, but I agree it is a silly way of doing it.

Personally I would increase the minimum wage to £9.00 (approx £16k for a 35 hour week) and reduce the taxes that businesses have to pay to counter the problem.The Government will still have the same money as although they won't be receiving asmuch incomefrom tax, they won't be paying out as much either. This also reduces the amount of fraud from those who say they are working the required hours but are not and still getting the benefit. Under this scheme they would have to work to get the full benefit.