Wow £50 a week worse off from today

liam8282

catfish50 wrote: »

Tax credits ARE benefits. The OP is complaining because her benefits are being reduced.

You need to put my comment into context as it was replying to another post.

Somebody asked how does it pay for people not to work?

I explained it as, people do not work because they can live on benefits without having to do the work.

If they are only going to be £200 pm worse off, they are still going to be 35hours a week better off not working.

Then when you throw in all the costs of actually working, such as travel, food, clothing etc. They would also probably be financially better off too.

shaftola

liam8282 wrote: »

I have had discussions about this before, on other threads on this site.

People in this position do not view it as being say £50 a week or £200 pm better off working full time.

They see it as, having to work full time to only benefit to the tune of £200 pm.

That values there full time job at £200 pm.

When you think of it like that, it is easy to see why people choose benefits, rather than working full time.

Thank you for trying understand where I'm coming from:-)

eashby007

I've been on this website every week for months and never felt I needed to pass comment until now. This isnt a witch hunt it's a case of surely no matter what your situation a cut in take home income effects everyone.

5 years ago I went back to University to retrain to better mine and my husbands life. I completed my degree and got a place on a teacher training course. I then fell pregnant and had to postpone for a year. In that time I was not entititled to a penny support because I had been in full time education. I got my PGCE and now I am a newlyqualified teacher. This morning I found out I am losing £120 a week in tax credits and will barely be able to pay my childcare costs. To top it all the school I work at are making 20% of the staff redundant. I too would be financially better off if I worked part time.

My question is why is it when all you try to do is better yourself, be less of a burden on a very over streched system do you get penalised knocked down and made to struggle? BTW my husband is self employed in the construction industry and barely covering his costs.

shaftola

charlieismydarling wrote: »

Isn't everyone losing 10% of their childcare fees though taking the contribution from 80% to 70%.

Op your comments regarding single mums are offensive and disgusting. Why the need to attack those less fortunate?

You should be able to manage on 29k less 4.5k for childcare which comes to 24.5k. As your boys go to school the costs go down until they become much more manageable.

childcare cost 15k where do you get 4.5k from,

really sorry about that rant I've deleted it,

SingleSue

I returned to work after youngest even though we were actually worse off each month....for me, it was more important to keep my career going, have the social skills kept up to scratch and have an outlet from the home.

It paid off in time, we eventually earned enough not to get any tax credits at all and were much better off as a family financially with no annoying have we been overpaid tax credits worry each year because we did more overtime/took on extra shifts.

And I would do it again now as a single parent...if only some begger would have the blooming kids while I worked!*

*Disabled chilren and no child care facility want to have them due to middle son's violent and aggressive history and although 13 and 14, they do not have the mental capacity, nor would it be safe, for them to be home alone.

Blue22

shaftola wrote: »

If nursery was free for all children whos parents work people wouldnt need tax credits,
One of us is going to have to stop work now until both the children are in school because we're not going to be any better off with both of us working,
It's mad it pays not to work for us?

Hi shaftola

I'd also say it was mad of the government to ever encourage both parents into work when childcare costs are so high and wages so low. How does it make economical sense to have tax credits subsidize your childcare by £11k a year so that one of you can earn 13k a year! On that income you would be paying less than 2k back in tax and NI.

In your situation I too would be looking at one of you staying at home to care for the children. People on here will knock you for being a stay at home parent but as you said, you won't be worse off, the tax payer will save money by not subsidising your childcare and there will be one more job available for the 2.5 million unemployed. The only one losing will be the childcare provider.

Btw as tax credits are calculated on annual income, if one of you is going to give up work, you need to do it now rather than wait until the middle of the tax year.

Good luck with whatever you decide to do

catfish50

liam8282 wrote: »

You need to put my comment into context as it was replying to another post.

Somebody asked how does it pay for people not to work?

I explained it as, people do not work because they can live on benefits without having to do the work.

If they are only going to be £200 pm worse off, they are still going to be 35hours a week better off not working.

Then when you throw in all the costs of actually working, such as travel, food, clothing etc. They would also probably be financially better off too.

I guess it depends how you look at work. The partner who quit work would still be working, looking after the children who would no longer be in nursery. Plus that partner would lose all the other worthwhile things about going to work outside the home. Such as independence etc.

On the other hand, it sounds as if they would not be entitled to any benefits if one of them quit work, except for child benefit. Is that right? I could be mistaken.

If by quitting work they would not be entitled to any benefits except child benefits, maybe it would work out better for taxpayers if one of them did quit work.

charlieismydarling

The 4.5 is worked out by The cost of your childcare (280 a week) less tax credits (194) leaving the cost to you of 86 a week. That is 4.5k a year.

I do understand the difficulty of very high cost childcare when kids are young. I had a very good job, but my childcare and nursey fees took more than I earnt. I had to draw on my savings when my son was small. Now he is at school it is easier. Sometimes you just have to battle through it, especially if your job is one that would be difficult to reenter if you took a career break whilst children are small.

Not all single mums are !!!!less and living with men. I wish!!

TighterThanTwoCoatsOfPain

Got fed up after the first page....

Whilst its going to hurt losing that much income, why on earth was someone on that wage getting anything!? Somethings got to give, and benefits like this are a sensible place to start in my opinion. Wait a sec, we could just tax higher earners more so the middle earners can live to the same standard off the benefits right?

charlieismydarling

Ooh my post has been edited!