MSE News: Benefit cap has 'couple penalty'

Sixer

Bogof_Babe wrote: »

Your understanding of economics greatly exceeds mine, so I'll concede your point, and wait with some trepidation to see whether your prophesy comes to pass!

Not sure why mortgagees should be exempt from any resulting pain though. They would ultimately end up in a better position than those who struggled with mortgages and have now completed paying them.

Well, ha! My actual opinion of economics is that it's largely voodoo masquerading as hard science. And the leading theorists talk bol-locks!

I say mortgagees, for example, because SOMEONE in this has to lose and it should be as few ordinary people as possible. Better we bail out a proportion of negative equity for real people doing real jobs living real lives and bringing up real children than we bail out the nebulous balance sheet of a failed bank that doesn't pass the credit on.

We've been spending funny money for years and now it has to stop. We have to start spending real money that actually corresponds to the production of real goods and services and not fake money magicked out of nowhere by people in finance whose activities, encouraged by government, have pushed the cost of real housing lived in by real people to unaffordable levels. And we don't have that much real money. So why waste it on artificially high house prices and rents?

And by waste it, I don't only mean what people pay in mortgage and rent - I also mean what the state pays out in housing benefits to the unemployed and low paid. It's just a waste of real money.

Bogof_Babe

We've gone way off topic haven't we?

However, to continue our private chat lol, I can't quite grasp the notional difference in "value" between rent and mortgage payments. Both enable people to live in their homes, and both monies go back into the economy. The only difference is who ultimately owns the property being lived in.

Excessive rents that are paid by housing benefit are immoral, and that's where the government should be cracking down, without the need to mess around with home buyers/owner occupiers.

Ideally yes, all money should generate tangible value, not paper or dotcom wealth, but sadly our manufacturing industry has all but vanished so we have to do the best we can with what we have left.

Given the normal term of a mortgage is 25 years, and people generally live well into their 80's these days, assuming they take their first mortgage out at 30, it's pretty much break-even as to the relative number of people owning outright to those still paying it off. Don't think people who have worked for 40 years and now have no means of increasing their income would take such a scheme lying down.

jellyhead

hamsterfan1 wrote: »

in case any of you thought benefits were too much
single person £67.50
couples (both over 18) £105.95
plus housing costs
how many children would someone have to have to be capped?

The article suggests 4, or people with fewer children who are living in an area with high rent.

There was a newspaper article discussed on here recently where a couple who had 6 or 7 children (I think the 7th lived elsewhere) would be getting around £90 per week less if they are capped. They had a council house though, so their rent was only £76 per week.

flexrider

Surley If they want this "Alice in wonderland" Ideologoly of No one on Benefits or claiming then we got to get Jobs for people So far over the 3 months or even longer period they talked about Benefits and Invited there press friends to report the C*ap newsline to soften us up on this Cap and Benefits.

All this country good for is Customer services jobs which have clearly failed. Look at david Milliband suggesting the same as me in terms of training,Its always the same year on year off about young employment yet we are not a young society there are more older people out of work now then ever, no politican take this into account.

To have a strong workforce you need to invest, Not by companies that get ritch by the problems (A4E and that lot)

It is going to cost the Goverment more money moving people into new housing and accomadations then what it does stopping people claiming benefit auch as Housing Benefit.I can no see the incentive at all to this method and i beleive that the IFs is the same.

rickbonar

Oldernotwiser wrote: »

Rather unfortunate that they don't do what's best for the children, particularly when they get so much money for having them!

Thanks for the reply in post #22

Unfortunate it may or may not be but it is a fact.

And as I pointed out before the lions share of the money they receive often goes straight into the pocket of Landlord whose work amounts to little more than collecting and banking the rent.

I could go on about relative rents in continental countries and that the rent rate here is overpriced because the house prices are overpriced and previous governments lax regard to housing benefits have helped create this.

There is also an assumption that someone receiving housing benefits or LHA is always unemployed .... which is not true.

rickbonar

BigAunty wrote: »

I know the cap includes HB but I never understand all the wailing that 'it goes to the landlord', it's not like the tenant gets it, it's not in their pocket, etc.

They get accommodation some in areas and of the size and type that working households cannot afford. They receive a tangible service for this money, even if it goes straight through their hands to a third party.

Their tax credits, child benefit, income support etc gets spent in supermarkets, clothes shops and so on but you never hear people say 'the problem with CB is that it gets spent on clothes...the problem with tax credits is that goes straight to British Gas, Asda and the corner shop'. etc

thanks for the reply in post #23

They get accommodation (oooh the !!!!!!!s) but again as I said in my previous post what makes everyone assume these households getting HB or LHA aren't working?

The high rents some are in regions where the people are working and their take home wages are dwarfed by the rents and they have to claim benefit to pay this.


Now being a landlord on the other hand often needs no more skills or qualifications than being fortunate to own a property to rent out or have enough capital to buy a property to rent out and sit back and let the rent income mount up.


Comparing rents and CB for clothes tax credits for gas etc is a red herring as the clothes aren't disproportionately expensive. Whereas the rents are.

And property has become a cash cow which if you are in this position of owning rental property you can't really lose...... especially if the government guarantees rent payments.

Now don't get me wrong - I agree with the government about capping rents.

It will hopefully knock down the absurd rates that were being paid.

However I do want to point again that the benefit claimant themselves are not to blame they have little choice.

It is the landlords that are making the millions out of benefits. Now if they can find people that are willing to pay £600 per week plus out of their own wages then fair do's.

Mind you I do blow my top too when I see "asylum" cases like Abu Qatada milking the system.

krisskross

rotoguys wrote: »

When I was working full time and earning a damn good salary, the last thing on my mind was to belittle those on benefits. I didn't really give the subject a thought. I lived my life without regard to what others were or wern't getting courtesy of the state.

Appears to me, if you are to be believed which I doubt, that when you were working and earning this damn good salary that providing yourself with funds for your retirement were actually the thing furthest from your mind.

Instead you are now 'forced' to claim huge sums from the taxpayer. Shame on you.

I would be so ashamed if people with very little were having to support me when I had had the opportunity to provide for myself but had chosen not to do so.

outofsync8

As a single parent studying to be a social worker teh benefits cap is not as simple as it seems.
I have more than 2.4 children and am claiming benefits through no fault of my own, adn have taken tthe initiative to retrain to have a good career and to become a social worker as these are needed by our society.
I also have autistic children, so just upping sticks to another part of the country is not necessarily possible.
My rent here is £400 a week, I am on the council housign list but have no hope as adequately housed in private rented.

If the benefit cap comes in I will have to live on about £500 a month to pay all my bills, feed and clothe myself and my children, travel etc

IMPOSSIBLE

I could however get a 24 hour a week job on minimum wage for the rest of my life and claim working tax credits and housing benefit and council tax benefit without being capped

WHich do you think is a fairer option????

I will study for 4 years, then wil be earning and workign hard in a good profession

outofsync8

hermante wrote: »

That's exactly the problem. "Pensioners" are holding the rest of the country to ransom. But we can't do anything about it, short of denying older people the vote!

Of course rents are set by the government. If the government reduced housing benefit, then the landlords would have to set their rents cheaper. If working people could afford those rents, then the landlords would already be renting to them rather than someone on benefits! (Also, councils need to stop paying landlords directly.)

Every so often there is a post about the rising rail fares for "commuters". If your season ticket is unaffordable, why don't you move closer to where you work? If London is "unaffordable" for a working family, then they move somewhere cheaper, but somehow benefit claimants can be paid more to stay where they are?

If you are on benefits it is IMPOSSIBLE to rent privately as all the rental agents demand you are earning¬!!!! SO reducign Housign Benefit does not reduce rents, it just makes families homeless