Do you support social housing?

BigAunty

dktreesea wrote: »

Why are they so difficult to reverse? Look at the benefits for the self employed. Once UC comes in, they will be subject to a minimum income floor (and not before time) which has the potential, for the hundreds of thousands of self employed people who have marginal incomes and use the HB/WTC/CTC/CTB/CB as their main source of income, to cut their benefits from £20k+ per year to around £5k+ per year.

I came across statistics that showed that 675,000 self employed people claimed Working Tax Credits. I've not been able to verify it or find the original article again so I hope I'm not publishing false information. That's a shocking statistic if true and I'm not surprised that the white paper proposing the Unviersal Credit system was critical about the long-term benefit dependency of the self employed.

Certainly on the MSE benefits forum that I often browse, there has been the most absurd, laughable and pathetic business ideas proposed for those considering self employment, plus a number of cases where a SE WTC claimant has been investigated by the HMRC whose businesses are clearly just so poor in idea and execution.

It was a seriously daft policy for taxpayers to effectively subsidise terrible business ideas for what could have been the entire 'working' lives of these rubbish business owners, had the government not put paid to it. Which other countries would be happy to pay the accommodation, council tax and child expenses indefinately, topping up the income, of someone who only has to be 'busy' for x hours per week?

Spain, for example, expects its self employed to pay health insurance costs regardless of profit which I believe are over 100 euros a month. Okay, their economy is a basket case but it does show that in some places, the risk is back on the 'entrepreneur' to make their businesses succeed whereas in the UK, their drive is simply crippled by the benefits they enjoy with low profits - food on the table, roof over their heads, shoes for their children even if they earn 50p an hour or less....

BigAunty

Matt1977 wrote: »

Without wanting to sound Old Labour, I have always been of the opinion that Council Housing has always been there for the working classes and those on limited means. I earn below the average wage. OK, I'm a low priority, fair enough - those are the rules.

This is an argument I'm not going to win, isn't it? :laugh:

I support the principles behind social housing but let's face it, its not really for the working class anymore - its shortage, plus needs based allocation, pretty much means its for the very needy, and generally not for those that are in employment.

It only makes up around 12% of property tenure these days, far less the working class (who it was originally intended for) and probably far less than those in limited means or high priority for it.

Matt1977

I have now cancelled my application with my local authority for a council flat. So a different private rent or owner occupation it is in future.

dktreesea

BigAunty wrote: »

I came across statistics that showed that 675,000 self employed people claimed Working Tax Credits. I've not been able to verify it or find the original article again so I hope I'm not publishing false information. That's a shocking statistic if true and I'm not surprised that the white paper proposing the Unviersal Credit system was critical about the long-term benefit dependency of the self employed.

Certainly on the MSE benefits forum that I often browse, there has been the most absurd, laughable and pathetic business ideas proposed for those considering self employment, plus a number of cases where a SE WTC claimant has been investigated by the HMRC whose businesses are clearly just so poor in idea and execution.

It was a seriously daft policy for taxpayers to effectively subsidise terrible business ideas for what could have been the entire 'working' lives of these rubbish business owners, had the government not put paid to it. Which other countries would be happy to pay the accommodation, council tax and child expenses indefinately, topping up the income, of someone who only has to be 'busy' for x hours per week?

Spain, for example, expects its self employed to pay health insurance costs regardless of profit which I believe are over 100 euros a month. Okay, their economy is a basket case but it does show that in some places, the risk is back on the 'entrepreneur' to make their businesses succeed whereas in the UK, their drive is simply crippled by the benefits they enjoy with low profits - food on the table, roof over their heads, shoes for their children even if they earn 50p an hour or less....

Universal credit and the minimum income floor is coming, so the problem of self employed people being able to work for next to nothing and get the maximum benefits available will eventually disapppear.

Presumably those who can't make a go of their businesses to at least earn a profit equivalent to the ft nmw, will end up closing the business down and become jobseekers instead. It will be interesting to see if they are successful in their claims for income based jsa.