MSE News: Summer Budget 2015: Millions to face benefit cuts

linda2410

I am rather annoyed that if you make more than £30k and you live in social housing your rent will be charged at market price. I live in david camerons local constituency (witney) and between me and my partner we make just over £30k (and I mean just) so we will have to pay more for our rent.
With this increase we will have to pay £900 pcm rent and so instead of paying all our rent ourselves we shall be on housing benefit which according to the council website would be around £125 a week so really defeats the point in putting up rent.
The average 2 bed house to buy round here is £180k so we would never get a mortgage. we also have a boy and a girl who is coming up to 10 so would actually need a 3 bed house which we have been told we wont get because we aren't on benefits.
now I understand that in some areas 30k would be classes as higher earnings but not here and surely David should know this as it is his constituency!

missbiggles1

GirlFromMars wrote: »

I'm not saying your father didn't work exceptionally hard. But unless his employer made some drastic changes to his work environment I don't see how anyone working 40 hours a week as a postie could be compared to someone on ESA or in receipt of PIP going by today's descriptors of disabled.

You're right in a way, he wasn't as disabled as many people but more so than some who get those sort of benefits these days. He was certainly disabled enough to be discharged from the army on health ground at the start of the last war.

(No adjustments to the work environment in those days - there's your sack of post, there's your bike, off you go!)

missbiggles1

A_Flock_Of_Sheep wrote: »

Did he deliver the mail by pushing himself round in his wheelchair then?

I'd think that you at least would know that disabled people aren't all in wheelchairs, despite the little blue disabled logo.

missbiggles1

xXMessedUpXx wrote: »

And years and years ago, a lot of people with my health condition would have spent their miserable existence in an asylum.

So i think being able to work, albeit part time is at least a step forward no?

Sometimes i've actually wished i had a physical disability. A missing limb maybe? At least then people can see why you might have difficulties. (i've actually gone to the lengths of trying to break bones just so the pain would be visible) And it would be accepted. But being mentally ill there is no visible disability. Despite the fact i have effectively got a faulty brain. And the brain happens to be kind of important to functioning. People with MH issues have always existed, long before benefits were ever introduced. The difference is back then they were shut away. Now we speak, and ask for it to be taken seriously. Which this government sure as hell aren't doing.

Of course it's a good thing, which is why I wholeheartedly support people like you, FOS and my dad, who don't spend all their lives just living on benefits.

Not everybody with MI was shut away in asylums, by the way, most struggled on supporting themselves and their families and doing the best they could.

seven-day-weekend

My dad also had a disability and worked full-time, much of it on permanent nights, working a capstan machine. These days he would have qualified for DLA mobility as he could not walk far. He went to his job on his bike (he could cycle OK and did so right up until the end of his life at 89).

missbiggles1

A_Flock_Of_Sheep wrote: »

You'd have out and out uproar if they scrapped free pensioner bus passes, TV licences the winter payment and aligned the state pension with Job Seekers Allowance.

They would never do that as their core voters fall into that bracket. You know the dead and nearly dead. The remainder being the super rich and not forgetting the seriously deluded. The latter who listened to the whole "workshy britain" old chestnut. Hopefully they will be plunged into poverty and can say thanks to themselves.

Most pensioners on here support the withdrawal of those, or at least the means testing of them.

Given it won't be too long until you're a pensioner yourself, I don't understand your anger towards people who've worked all their lives and are now retired. It isn't our fault that you're disabled and, from your own information, you have far more money behind you than many of us could even dream of.

Miroslav

I don't yet qualify as being officially disabled, just someone with a disability and ongoinjg illness (and hopefully it stays that way at worst) so i'd imagine i'm going to be targeted for my disability element.

If I lose a huge chunk then I may have to work more hours, if available, and risk my health even more.

I agree with some of the cuts, but targeting not just people like me, but families, is a poor show.

haras_nosirrah

A_Flock_Of_Sheep wrote: »

I think I am screwed anyway as I have more than 16k in savings and I think under UC I am entitled to no tax credits for being careful and saving a bit of dosh.

just an idea but rather than bleating about how hard you have it and will now have to steal water from the local cemetary why don't you use some of the money that you have managed to accumulate to pay your bills?

If you have managed to save in excess of 16k while being on benefits then I am afraid they have clearly been too generous in the past - either that or you are incredibly frugal which means that you should manage ok now but just not be able to continue to add to your pile of gold.

Now is the new reality - you will just have to get on and muddle through.

rogerblack

linda2410 wrote: »

I am rather annoyed that if you make more than £30k and you live in social housing your rent will be charged at market price. I live in david camerons local constituency (witney) and between me and my partner we make just over £30k (and I mean just) so we will have to pay more for our rent.

It is likely - though not certain - that increasing pension contributions a little so to take you under 30K would remove the rise in your case.

cifpower

Becles wrote: »

Single parent working full time. I'm only required to work 16 hours a week. However I chose to work full time since my youngest was 5 and started full time school, despite having Crohns disease (a life long auto immune condition), as I thought that was the right thing to do.

By working more hours than required, I've "saved" the country by not claiming maximum working tax credits, I don't get any council tax benefit, I don't claim housing benefit as I'm paying a mortgage, never had free school meals or free school transport and so on.

And my reward for struggling on and trying to do as much as I can to provide for my family? According to the calculators, I'm going to be £1700 worse off by the changes to child tax credits.

I've played with the calculators. If I wasn't working at all, there would be no changes to the child tax credits. If I earned £40,000 I'd be £80 a year better off.

I fail to see how it was supposed to be a budget to encourage people into working, when they are penalising people who already working so heavily. After putting so much effort in to help myself, I feel properly kicked in the teeth by this

Government is there to support people. Not to subsidise them.

You have done the things you were meant to. Why would you expect the taxpayer to chuck you a couple of grand extra a year just because?