EMA withdrawall

Oldernotwiser

woodbine wrote: »

perhaps you were lucky and saturday jobs existed back then?
one n east college on C4 news estimated that upto a third of this years students wouldnt be returning in sept due to ema being withdrawn,if thats anywhere near true for the rest of the country then expect another 300,000 16-24 year olds on the dole

16 and 17 year olds can't claim JSA anyway and poor families will lose far more than £30 per week in child benefit and child tax credit if their children leave education.

oz0707

Will it really be compulsory to stay on in education until 18? What a joke. Kid's who aren't interested will just be distracting lessons. I think your old enough to decide what path to go down at 16.

tightrs

life_in_termoil wrote: »

Its all well and good saying they should get a job, but where exactly ARE the jobs? When we were 16 jobs were easier to come by and if you couldnt get a job you got Supplimentary Benefit, the under 18s cant get any benefits what so ever and with unemployment so high theres more competition for the jobs and usually the people with experience will get them.

My son goes to college and gets his EMA, he cant get a job because we live out in the sticks with a limited bus service, there are a couple of shops here but nothing else, there are just no jobs in the immediate area. He could work in the local town but the last bus home leaves at 6.10. Theres limited bus service on a Saturday and no buses at all on a sunday. Im not making excuses for him and he earns money off others by babysitting but obviously its not a regular income. His EMA pays for his weekly bus ticket (£15) and the rest goes towards the materials he needs for college and his mobile phone.

Can I just point out that he doesnt smoke or drink so he "doesnt spend it all on booze!"

he could use a bicycle or moped !
have you not got the use of a car to take him to work /pick him up from work if he gets a job in the local town
he is going to have to travel for a job most people do, both my daughters work and are at college they do not qualify for ema and myself or my wife will drop them off /pick them up when its late or buses aren't running

Kirri

Someone on the news tonight was complaining their kids needed it to buy food while at college, but I used to do a PT job whilst going to college and take my lunch with me to college - I still do take my lunch with me now even to work, what is so hard...

But then now I see most kids with takeaways at lunchtimes, even schoolkids, bit shocking really.

moromir

life_in_termoil wrote: »

My son goes to college and gets his EMA, he cant get a job because we live out in the sticks with a limited bus service, there are a couple of shops here but nothing else, there are just no jobs in the immediate area. He could work in the local town but the last bus home leaves at 6.10. Theres limited bus service on a Saturday and no buses at all on a sunday. Im not making excuses for him and he earns money off others by babysitting but obviously its not a regular income. His EMA pays for his weekly bus ticket (£15) and the rest goes towards the materials he needs for college and his mobile phone.

Can I just point out that he doesnt smoke or drink so he "doesnt spend it all on booze!"

Although I appreciate this was a few years ago now, (but I'm not THAT old) I lived (and still do) "out in the sticks" and we have NO bus service any day of the week.

I still got myself into town for my job (four miles away) by begging, borrowing and stealing lifts from parents, neighbours and friends (I either paid them petrol money out of my wages or did chores), and if push came to shove, I had to walk the miles to the nearest bus stop.

If I played it really smart, I worked my shifts around my studies so that I could get the bus directly from college into town which took care of the journey at least one way.

I hear a lot of people talk about needing 'materials' for college, but lets be honest, for the majority of courses there is very little needed except a paper pad and a pen. I had a classmate who was extremely bright but unfortunately had complete oiks of parents that couldn't give a crap about whether their son went to college or not, we had wonderful teachers though that clubbed together and found him a labcoat and a calculator from lost property and would turn a blind eye if he helped himself to an excercise book from lower school to write his notes in.

I think what I'm getting at is that I'm a firm believer of "when theres a will theres a way" and really feel that it will be a very small minority of people whose lack of EMA will truely prevent them from attending college so that small minority and the fact that its fairly likely a lot of the benefit is misused, needs to be weighed against what the money could achieve elsewhere in the economy.

life_in_termoil

tightrs wrote: »

he could use a bicycle nearest town is 15 miles away up and down hills or moped Who is going to fund it?!
have you not got the use of a car to take him to work /pick him up from work if he gets a job in the local town -I work from 3 till 11
he is going to have to travel for a job most people do I agree but any job he gets would have to be between 8 and 6 therefor not enabling him to go to college, both my daughters work and are at college they do not qualify for ema and myself or my wife will drop them off /pick them up when its late or buses aren't running Your lucky their are 2 of you to do the running about after them

My responses are in red

But if he didnt get EMA i would have to fund him myself (which of course doesnt bother me in the slightest) but if its there going then im sorry but why should he not take it

silvercar

I used to think EMA was useful. Accepting that less well off families needed money to fund their offspring to encourage them to stay on at school. Then my son became a 6th former and reported that those on EMA had far more disposable funds than everyone else. Given that the EMA is given to the teenager, they spend it on themselves as they see fit. No-one not funded by the allowance is given as much as £30 a week by their parents.

Loughton_Monkey

I was 'lucky'. Full grant for 4 years at University, but always ended the year with an overdraft. Always able, though, to get a job. Driving a soft drinks lorry, night watchman, barman, bakery, post office, local authority office, tile factory, bicycle factory, building site, and laboratory literally analysing pigs_hit all day for moisture and protein.

Why not give any student who wants it jobs mending potholes, cutting park hedges, shifting litter, etc. All the jobs that they can't employ anyone to do since they spend too much on £250K CE salaries, £45K 'Ethics and Spirituality co-ordinators', and £40K 'Twitterer'?

PasturesNew

Between 15 and 18 I did various things, not limited to:
- babysitting a lot
- Saturday jobs in shops
- glass washing at a local pub
- holiday jobs through temp agencies doing filing/clerk jobs

I did 2 years full-time secretarial college, which was 9-5, Mon-Fri. I had to buy all my own clothes and my course materials (special pencils/books) and a monthly magazine that was a requirement of the classes. I also paid for a lot of my own exams. I did this by working any/all jobs I could get my hands on.

My shoes were held together with glue/sellotape, my coat had some staples holding it together and I made my own bag (which I had to line with plastic bags as I was useless at sewing and it was unreliable). I froze in winter, I often was starving at lunchtime as I had dinner money for 4 days, but there were 5 days in a week so I had to stretch it by asking for only half a bowl of soup and a cheese roll each day.

But I got through it.

I didn't go out, I didn't have things/stuff. I just worked what jobs I could find to scrape together the money needed. And I didn't feel hard done by because that's the way things were.

PasturesNew

I know somebody who gets EMA, she spends it on all kinds of fun stuff, like gigs/concerts, weekends away, presents for people/her boyfriend and clothes, lots of clothes/make-up/music. And she had a part-time job too. She was rolling in it.