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

wiltsguy_2

haras_nosirrah wrote: »

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 -

If this is true then this is proof that the cuts were well an truly needed! I don't know many people that work their butt's off all week that can save that amount of cash...

rogerblack

Icequeen99 wrote: »

They have said there will be transitional protection when people are moved from tax credits to UC and they have capital.

Assuming of course they don't remove the need for transitional protection with further cuts.
Transitional protection just got a _lot_ less useful than it was a couple of days ago.

tgroom57

I'd really prefer to have a second thread to discuss the SMI situation, this thread reads mainly as discussing income matters.

Support for mortgage interest now treated as a loan (details to follow)

This really needs rethinking. A more sensible option would be to restrict SMI to the current (council & social housing) rent -or the actual SMI if less. And #2, SMI needs to be a grant for the same reason that paying people's rent is a grant not a loan.

Besides, if someone buys a property to let it out, the tenant claims rent as part of their benefit package - isn't the government thereby paying the landlord's mortgage interest?

bloolagoon

wiltsguy wrote: »

If this is true then this is proof that the cuts were well an truly needed! I don't know many people that work their butt's off all week that can save that amount of cash...

People can become disabled after working and saving.

dodger1

henlans wrote: »

the thing is.. people that don't work now.. wont be really effected.. the people that work will be.

Agreed, my daughter and son-in-law and two year old son are delighted with the budget as they both work full time but on low wages so the budget has been really good for them.

poppy10_2

Murphybear wrote: »

I'm afraid there is a lot of ignorance about pensioners. I've seen dozens of posts who think we don't pay any tax, ALL get free TV licences, get enough heating allowance to keep our central heating on all day in the winter, cavort around the country on our free bus passes when some of us hardly have any buses to mention, some bus services eg Park & Ride don't accept the passes anyway, plus a lot of people think we all bounce around in large houses having all the rent paid, just not true.:D. Yes we do get free prescriptions but so do lots of non pensioners

Why should any OAPs get free TV licenses? Why are they any more deserving of a free license than say a young couple who have lost their jobs, or a family looking after disabled children?
I know plenty of OAPs who do cavort around the country on their free bus passes, including several who just spend all day riding on various buses just for a trip out.
OAPs tend to live in larger houses as they were built before the modern trend of shoebox style apartments. Many of them do indeed rattle around in three and four bedroom houses that are far too big for them.

Oldies benefited from cheap house prices (supported by a massive government programme of housebuilding in the postwar years), free university education with no fees or loans to pay back, and a more generous welfare state than we have now. They also often had final salary pension schemes that have been withdrawn for us younger folk.

This is from MoneyWeek:

The average 65-70 year old used to have a lower living standard than 75% of UK families. Not any more. Today they’re in the top 40% of family incomes.

This change has a variety of reasons. There is the huge rise in house prices over the last few decades. There is the end of the final salary pension system and of the kind of lifetime employment possibilities that it ran alongside – not many of the young get to take jobs and then look forward to automatic promotion and wage rises any more.
There is the fact that falling real wages since the financial crisis have hit the young much harder than the old.


And finally there is the fact that universal benefits for pensioners are persistently preserved. Since the financial crisis, £7bn has been cut from working-age benefits, but roughly the same amount has been added to pensioner benefits.

ess0two

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.

16k and you've done the most whinging on this thread.


It aint a never ending pot,somethings gotta give sooner or later.

marie-20

IceQueen - it's contribution based and also with the Support Group element.

Icequeen99

marie-20 wrote: »

Sorry to be a pain but I thought that people on DLA and ESA (Support Group) were excluded from UC or has that changed now?

Trying to do the calcs but none seem to work for me.

We have 4 children and pay £45 a week childcare.

I earn £5700 + £3500 Carers (approx figures)
Hubby gets ESA inc Support Group (approx £216 per fortnight) & High rate care & mobility DLA.

Any ideas how the cuts are going to affect us?

So that makes your income (excluded DLA) for tax credits about 14816.

I make the loss about 1860 from April 2016. (I am assuming you work 16 hours or more)

IQ

zagfles

rogerblack wrote: »

Assuming of course they don't remove the need for transitional protection with further cuts.
Transitional protection just got a _lot_ less useful than it was a couple of days ago.

This is mainly because UC becomes more generous than tax credits now, with the taper rate in tax credits going up to 48% of gross, making the MDR 80% for basic rate taxpayers, but the UC taper being unchanged at 65% making the MDR 76% in UC.

Maybe one of the reasons they did it!