Benefits Street

RAS

kronenbourg wrote: »

goes to show the worse off you are the bigger telly you own

i am a white single working taxpaying male ( a minority thesedays ) and i can only afford a 32inch LCD telly ( unbranded )

I probably now earn more than either of you and refuse to buy square things.

springdreams

Glen_Clark wrote: »

So nobody has come up with a solution to the problem of people having kids to get benefits. Perhaps this forum s full of BTL landlords who are happy with that situation.
But if you were in charge of the benefits what would you do?
Is is no longer acceptable to put women and children out on the street.
All this talk of cutting benefits is just cutting benefits for single adults, who then turn to crime or farm babies like Mick Philpot.
Its raising the benefit bill and making matters worse.
Fact: Britain spent far less on benefits when it was easier for a single person to claim unemployment benefit. If we went back to that they wouldn't need to do things which are costing us a lot more.

My suggestion, which I know will be unpopular, is to limit the number of children benefits are paid for. So a claimaint would get x amount for the 1st child, half that for the second child, a quarter of that for a third child and nothing for any further children.

Initially, yes there will be children living in poverty, but over time the number of people having childen just to claim benefits will have been reduced.

Also, benefits should be reduced again when the children start school so that their parents are forced to go out and find work at that time.

People who are able to work should not be allowed to claim benefits again for a period of 3 years from the last time that they claimed.

There are loads of countries that do not have a welfare system, and the unemployed are supported by family until such as time as they become employed again. I think the system here should be adjusted so that the unemployed can only claim full benefits for 3 months, then this should be reduced in the same way as maternity pay is, so eventually after say 9 months a claimant receives nothing. This should motivate people to find work, and be less fussy about the sort of work that they are prepared to do.

The other big drain on resources is pensioners. Everyone should be made to contribute to a pension plan, so that they are mostly self funding in their retirement. It will take a long while for the self funding to kick in, but we need to start saving now, so that those that retire in 30 or more years will benefit from a self funded system.

Glen_Clark

FR_262 wrote: »

I'm a buy to let landlord. I find it more than acceptable to put women and children out on the street ......

That doesn't surprise me.
But let me tell you the majority of people in the civilised world don't find it acceptable.

Glen_Clark

springdreams wrote: »

My suggestion, which I know will be unpopular, is to limit the number of children benefits are paid for. So a claimaint would get x amount for the 1st child, half that for the second child, a quarter of that for a third child and nothing for any further children.

Initially, yes there will be children living in poverty, but over time the number of people having childen just to claim benefits will have been reduced.

Also, benefits should be reduced again when the children start school so that their parents are forced to go out and find work at that time.

People who are able to work should not be allowed to claim benefits again for a period of 3 years from the last time that they claimed.

There are loads of countries that do not have a welfare system, and the unemployed are supported by family until such as time as they become employed again. I think the system here should be adjusted so that the unemployed can only claim full benefits for 3 months, then this should be reduced in the same way as maternity pay is, so eventually after say 9 months a claimant receives nothing. This should motivate people to find work, and be less fussy about the sort of work that they are prepared to do.

The other big drain on resources is pensioners. Everyone should be made to contribute to a pension plan, so that they are mostly self funding in their retirement. It will take a long while for the self funding to kick in, but we need to start saving now, so that those that retire in 30 or more years will benefit from a self funded system.

Well at least you tried to answer this difficult question.
But if you take away their benefits so they can't pay their rent that still amounts to putting innocent children out on the street.

As for forcing people to contribute to their own pension that can only be done by a proper state scheme. But Thatcher preferred to push people out of SERPS and in to commission hungry private pension salesmen/spivs, so now most people only trust savings accounts. But with rates far below the real rate of inflation (including housing costs) there is no incentive to save in them long term for a pension.
Our National Insurance contributions to the state scheme have been frittered away on illegal wars / the olympics / the silver jubilee / whatever, so there is nothing in the kitty for pensions. Justy a massive pile of debts.

Glen_Clark

SnooksNJ wrote: »

I never collected benefits but I believe everything is direct debit so I would have something like the US EBT card that can only be used on food and rent subsidies are paid directly to the landlord.

The problem is that on the one hand Osborne is driving up housing costs with Help to Bubble, whilst on the other trying to reduce benefits, so that benefits no longer cover the rent.
What can you do - throw innocent kids out on the street?
We are back to square one.

springdreams

Glen_Clark wrote: »

The problem is that on the one hand Osborne is driving up housing costs with Help to Bubble, whilst on the other trying to reduce benefits, so that benefits no longer cover the rent.
What can you do - throw innocent kids out on the street?
We are back to square one.

We have to start reducing benefits somewhere. There is always going to be someone who will suffer from changes. The longer the current system continues, the worse it will get. People need to get out of the habit of relying on benefits. There needs to be short term pain for long term gain.

BigAunty

springdreams wrote: »

We have to start reducing benefits somewhere..

Plenty of progress made to date in reducing benefits - have you missed the news?

- Tax credits have been reduced
- EMA has been reduced
- child benefit scrapped for certain earners
- the way LHA is calculated has reduced the rates downwards
- a HB cap has been applied
- the £15 sum that private tenants used to get if their rent was cheaper than their LHA entitlement has been scrapped
- those in social housing with spare bedrooms have reduced HB
- benefit claimants in England who used to get full council tax discount now have to pay towards

plus there is a cap to benefits for non-working households

springdreams

BigAunty wrote: »

Plenty of progress made to date in reducing benefits - have you missed the news?

- Tax credits have been reduced
- EMA has been reduced
- child benefit scrapped for certain earners
- the way LHA is calculated has reduced the rates downwards
- a HB cap has been applied
- the £15 sum that private tenants used to get if their rent was cheaper than their LHA entitlement has been scrapped
- those in social housing with spare bedrooms have reduced HB
- benefit claimants in England who used to get full council tax discount now have to pay towards

plus there is a cap to benefits for non-working households

I do read the news, and have also been personally affected by some of these - for example I lost my child tax credits.

However, my response was in response to the post about children being thrown out on the street. And my point is that there will of necessity be casualties for the benefits cuts. We can't keep delaying them because of these casualties. If benefits are not cut, soon there will be no money left for any benefits - including for those who are deserving or most in need of them, such as pensioners and the long term disabled.

Good of you to just quote the bit that suits you, instead of taking the whole post, including the part I quoted, in context.

samtoby

Although the government has made changes to benefits there are alternatives such as discretionary housing payments to cover the underoccupancy penalty (or as labour calls it - bedroom tax) - its taking from one budget and giving to another.

Whilst the benefit cap has been brought in it is exempt if anyone in the household receives any form of DLA disability living allowance and in a huge percentage of cases the cap hasn't applied because at least one child has got DLA or a parent.

Glen_Clark

We need an alternative to benefits, like REAL jobs that pay enough to cover Englands very high housing costs. Not the zero hours commission only trying to solicit charity donations jobs shown on Benefits Street.
A lot of people claiming benefits are working, but the wages don't cover the rent.
The car factory where I live doesn't like employing guys over 25 and won't hire anyone over 30 to work on the production line because they can't run fast enough. With plenty of young Polish immigrants to chose from they can afford to turn away anyone over 30. People over 30 are not the car factory's problem But they are the taxpayer's problem when there are no other jobs for them.