Serious question, benefit cuts.

specialboy

I keep hearing people shouting about how the benefit cuts are ruining lives and putting people into debt but apart from the spare room subsidy being cut and the benefits cap of £350 and £500 per week I can't see any other changes, low or nil rises but that's the same in employment too so can someone tell me please what benefits have been cut. This is a serious question and I'm not benefit bashing, I just don't know we're the cuts are.

Indie_Kid

DLA is being scrapped for people aged 16 to 64 and is being replaced by PIP. The Government are hoping to save 20% by doing this.

ESA contributions based work related activity group (WRAG) has been time limited for a year. Not a new thing though.

Housing_Benefit_Officer

Localisation of Council Tax where the Council Tax Benefit scheme was scrapped and replaced by local schemes where in about 70% of local authorities benefit claimants now pay up to 30% of their Council Tax liability where before they got 100% benefit - with the Bedroom Tax some claimants are in real poverty - do you pay your Council Tax and Bedroom Tax or buy food and electricity?

LocoLoco

specialboy wrote: »

I keep hearing people shouting about how the benefit cuts are ruining lives and putting people into debt but apart from the spare room subsidy being cut and the benefits cap of £350 and £500 per week I can't see any other changes, low or nil rises but that's the same in employment too so can someone tell me please what benefits have been cut. This is a serious question and I'm not benefit bashing, I just don't know we're the cuts are.

There have been huge problems with people who are too ill/disabled to work now being told they're fit enough and losing sickness related benefits to be moved to JSA. There have been numerous instances of people being sanctioned for all sorts of reasons which means they get no money at all for varying lengths of time. At the same time, funding for support services for ill and disabled people have also been cut, leaving people without the help they need or having to pay more for it, at a time when their income may have been reduced by the benefit cuts they've experienced.


I know you're not benefit bashing so this isn't meant as a pop at you but the situation is horrific; it's predominantly ill and disabled people being affected by these cuts, as well as their carers. People are being told they have to move but there's nowhere for them to move to; some people in homes that have been adapted at a cost of thousands of pounds have had to move to new homes that now also need to be adapted despite the fact they've just left one that already had the work done. A lot of people with health problems and disabilities rely on friends and neighbours to help them out and some are having to move away from those support systems because they can't afford to pay the rent any more.


People with learning difficulties and mental health problems seem to have suffered an awful lot and it's likely to get worse as they change DLA to PIP; the criteria for qualifying are stricter and there's less room for conditions that fluctuate (things like ME or MS, for example, can leave people bed-ridden for weeks but equally can have good spells where people enjoy a reasonable level of health). The same is true of mental health problems; people can have weeks when they manage pretty well and then relapse terribly and be virtually incapable of doing anything for themselves.


As BlondeBubbles says, many families have also seen their child benefit and tax credits cut and as you say, employed people aren't necessarily enjoying pay rises so may have been relying on those benefits for essential items. The cost of living has kept on rising, housing is just ridiculously expensive and I think an awful lot of people are really struggling and I suspect a great many more will be in the coming years.


I think we've had years now of housing prices rising and wages falling in real terms; the minimum wage is ridiculously low and isn't enough for most people to live on (because housing is so expensive). I don't think there are many people who haven't had to pull their belts in over the last few years, I think it's more a case of whether you had a bit of leeway to pull yourself through it or if you were already struggling and this has made it a whole lot worse.

p00hsticks

Also (from April last year) the doing away of the Social Fund on a national level, and devolving the responsibilty to Local Government, which has seen cash payments no longer being available in many places, replaced by various voucher schemes etc .

atlantis187

No cuts here:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2595815/I-know-s-easy-benefits-England-Gipsies-Britain-reveal-claim-thousands-pounds-month-bundle-benefits-not-workxxx.html

Robbie64

Increases in the majority of benefits have been pegged to 1% per year for three years which is a cut in monetary terms.

zagfles

For some people benefits have gone down, for others they've gone up. As BB says the tax credits/child ben cuts mainly affects those on higher incomes, for many on lower incomes (eg single parent on IS) tax credits have gone up.

The so called "bedroom tax" was first introduced for private tenants in around 2008 by the previous govt, LHA pays according to how many bedrooms you "need".

The changes to disability benefits are really a reversal of the policy of the previous Tory govt of the 80/90's, where they wanted to reduce the unemployment figures by moving people off JSA onto disability benefits.

There's a lot of political bulls**t on all sides in this. You get stories in the Daily Mail about benefit claimants living in mansions, and stories in the Mirror about someone in a coma being told they're fit for work. The trouble is not that these sort of stories are lies, because they probably aren't, but that they're designed to take extreme examples and portray them as the norm, in order to create an impression of either a profligate benefits system where claimants are living in luxury, or an totally uncaring and vindictive system which doesn't care if people starve to death. Both are complete tripe.

The trouble is with such a vast and overcomplicated system and with such a vast amount of individual circumstances, you will always get people falling through the net and not getting what they need, and equally you'll get people getting away with fraud eg by lying about their disability, partners etc. Then you get the political bull about whose side you're on, like you can't possibly want to eliminate both fraud and excess, and plug the holes which some people fall through.

rogerblack

The utter incompetence with the introduction of PIP means that the government have effectively borrowed free, several hundred million pounds from the disabled.
This is money that they will be entitled to, but just aren't being given yet due to the delays exceeding 9 months in most claims.

The changes in the appeals process for most benefits is designed to be confusing, and to intentionally reduce numbers continuing through the appeals process - without actually improving outcomes.
The pegging to 1% of most benefits affects even those in the ESA support group who have been found to have no realistic prospect of working - though admittedly they get a rise of 1.2%, not 1%.

dippy3103

atlantis187 wrote: »

No cuts here:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2595815/I-know-s-easy-benefits-England-Gipsies-Britain-reveal-claim-thousands-pounds-month-bundle-benefits-not-workxxx.html

But that's the extreme. I do agree its a shocking abuse of our system. Basically the greedy lazy ones (which are a low percentage but exist) take money from those in real need.

specialboy

Reading all the replies so far it looks like benefits haven't really been cut unless you are a high earner so why is there such a big outcry each and every day against the cuts? JSA is still the same, tax credits are still generous, DLA hasn't been reduced, ESA is still there etched etc so what's the problem?