We’d like to remind Forumites to please avoid political debate on the Forum.
This is to keep it a safe and useful space for MoneySaving discussions. Threads that are – or become – political in nature may be removed in line with the Forum’s rules. Thank you for your understanding.
📨 Have you signed up to the Forum's new Email Digest yet? Get a selection of trending threads sent straight to your inbox daily, weekly or monthly!
Living on £53 a week?
Comments
-
kafkathecat wrote: »Catkins, there are always people who cheat the system and always will be. The stricter you make things the more innocent people get caught by the rules meant for others. There are only a tiny number of families in this country with more than 10 children and the difficulty with hitting them financially is it will always be the children that you hurt. I once met a woman with 14 children but half of them were adopted so she was saving the state money in effect. Would you cut their benefits? I don't know what the answers are I just know that this government has moved from the disabled to the unemployed to the low paid (inc. the Philpotts). Who do you think will be next?
Why mention families with more than 10 children? What about families on benefit with 4 children, 5 children 6 children etc? Why have a large family if you are on benefits and then they moan they do not have a large enough house.
If the government said in a years time we are going to stop child benefit at 2 children for all new claimants it would be interesting to see how many people would choose to have more than 2The world is over 4 billion years old and yet you somehow managed to exist at the same time as David Bowie0 -
Why mention families with more than 10 children? What about families on benefit with 4 children, 5 children 6 children etc? Why have a large family if you are on benefits and then they moan they do not have a large enough house.
If the government said in a years time we are going to stop child benefit at 2 children for all new claimants it would be interesting to see how many people would choose to have more than 2
IDS already tried to have benefits limited to the first two children - apparently his colleagues refused to support his wish.
IIRC Pigpen has previously detailed the medical problems she has with contraception and the barriers to obtaining a termination - I remember feeling incredibly grateful while reading it that I am able to prevent future pregnancies without resorting to celibacy!Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants - Michael Pollan
48 down, 22 to go
Low carb, low oxalate Primal + dairy
From size 24 to 16 and now stuck...0 -
Why mention families with more than 10 children? What about families on benefit with 4 children, 5 children 6 children etc? Why have a large family if you are on benefits and then they moan they do not have a large enough house.
If the government said in a years time we are going to stop child benefit at 2 children for all new claimants it would be interesting to see how many people would choose to have more than 2
The number of families who have never worked is very, very small. Anyone can have a job where they can easily support their children and then fall on hard times especially when there aren't enough jobs to go around. I would hazard a guess that in the situation you describe many people would continue to have as many children as they wanted and just cope as best they could with some inevitably being taken into care. There really are no easy answers.0 -
kafkathecat wrote: »The number of families who have never worked is very, very small. Anyone can have a job where they can easily support their children and then fall on hard times especially when there aren't enough jobs to go around. I would hazard a guess that in the situation you describe many people would continue to have as many children as they wanted and just cope as best they could with some inevitably being taken into care. There really are no easy answers.
But at least this govt are trying to come up with some answers (I've said at least twice that I'm not convinced that this so-called bedroom tax is the right answer) instead of previous govt's (of both persuasions) who didn't even think there were any questions.0 -
Rottensocks wrote: »Yeah, but that would be very much area dependent, I'd imagine.
Well yes, the cost of their flat is area dependent. Their living expenses are not.(AKA HRH_MUngo)
Member #10 of £2 savers club
Imagine someone holding forth on biology whose only knowledge of the subject is the Book of British Birds, and you have a rough idea of what it feels like to read Richard Dawkins on theology: Terry Eagleton0 -
Pollycat most of this governments policies were started by Labour: workfare, disability tests. Their policies are much more similar than the media would have you believe. This government trying means impoverishing people who are already poor and they are already talking about freezing or reducing the minimum wage and harassing working people who claim tax credits to work more hours when the work just isn't there. Lower housing costs, however brough about would massively reduce the benefits bill and help people in work. We are the 7th richest country in the world, why are we forcing more and more children into poverty?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2013/apr/10/children-bleaker-future-coalition-unicef0 -
But at least this govt are trying to come up with some answers (I've said at least twice that I'm not convinced that this so-called bedroom tax is the right answer) instead of previous govt's (of both persuasions) who didn't even think there were any questions.
Nonsense. The answer is to invest in our infrastructure, housing, businesses, Health Service, Education etc etc. This government is doing none of that. It is turning a blind eye to tax evasion, which costs the taxpayer far more than the Welfare state ever will, and focuses all it's energy on making the poor, poorer.
This week we had the death of the person largely responsible for the sections of society who are long term unemployed. When Maggie closed down the mines, shut down manufacturing and turned us into a finance and service driven economy set up to provide for the rich and middle classes and deprive the poor, what did you expect? We threw a generation of working class people onto the scrapheap. In fact what Thatcher did was put loads of them onto disability allowance to massage the unemployment figures. So what you're seeing today are the results of her policies.
Cameron and Osborne are merely making matters worse but lying to everybody and using the right wing media to convince everyone that the country's economy is just like someone running a home budget (Thatcher did the same). It's not and economists have shown that. So whilst they are busy telling everyone how broke the British economy is, and pretending that all they can do is cut, and that really they musn't harm the "wealth generators" in other words the rich, all they are really doing is exactly what Thatcher did. Make the rich, richer and the poor, even poorer, whilst blaming the poor for all the wrongs in the country.
We need to listen to the majority of economists and start growing our economy again with investment in critical areas. The public need to see through this sham of a government and grow a brain big enough to not believe a load of guff that Cameron and co. throw at them via the media. And most importantly we need to start making the top end of the economy pay it's way, so that the money does indeed filter down, rather than pretending that Amazon or Starbucks making huge profits and evading tax, whilst barely touching the sides of our employment problem is in any way a good thing.0 -
kafkathecat wrote: »Pollycat most of this governments policies were started by Labour: workfare, disability tests. Their policies are much more similar than the media would have you believe. This government trying means impoverishing people who are already poor and they are already talking about freezing or reducing the minimum wage and harassing working people who claim tax credits to work more hours when the work just isn't there. Lower housing costs, however brough about would massively reduce the benefits bill and help people in work. We are the 7th richest country in the world, why are we forcing more and more children into poverty?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2013/apr/10/children-bleaker-future-coalition-unicef
According to the article, some of the blame lies at those children's door:Continuing high rates of teenage pregnancy, relatively low levels of young people in education, employment or training and problems of alcohol abuse in young teens push the UK down the international league table0
This discussion has been closed.
Confirm your email address to Create Threads and Reply
Categories
- All Categories
- 352K Banking & Borrowing
- 253.5K Reduce Debt & Boost Income
- 454.2K Spending & Discounts
- 245.1K Work, Benefits & Business
- 600.7K Mortgages, Homes & Bills
- 177.4K Life & Family
- 258.8K Travel & Transport
- 1.5M Hobbies & Leisure
- 16.2K Discuss & Feedback
- 37.6K Read-Only Boards