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

StixUK

JSA (Single person over 25) = £73.10


Rent - £0
Council Tax - £4
Water - £5
Gas - £10
Electric - £10
Food - £37
Clothes etc - £7


Basic Outgoings = £73


As you can see - not really much in it is there?


Look at these figures from the guardian website from 2008 and take out the housing costs as you will be rent free and it suggests that you really need around £100 - £110 per week to lead a "minimum income" lifestyle whilst you are claiming.


So if you are out of work for 2 months, you have already left any form of socialisation that involves a fee behind - not even one cinema film or cheap DVD rental to relieve boredom when you can't job search. You will have a poor diet, you many not keep warm especially during colder months and are more likely to contract an illness, surely?


Lest we not forget that the first 7 days of the claim you receive nothing at all, so you are already £73 behind on week one.


So when someone preaches to me about the cost of living increase is met by an increase in benefits, the level of benefits is too low from the start so the gap actually widens, albeit slowly, the gap still widens, which is exacerbated by £1 actually making a huge difference when you only actually receive £73.10.


Guardian Link for Ref - http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2008/jul/02/welfare

bloolagoon

zagfles wrote: »

I posted this in another thread.

http://www.oecd.org/els/soc/OECD2014-Social-Expenditure-Update-Nov2014-8pages.pdf

What stands out if you bother to analyse the graphs (rather than just look for whatever suits your political agenda), is that in the UK:

• Overall welfare spending is around average (p.1)
• We spend much less on pensioners and more on working age benefits than the OECD average (p.4)
• Our benefits are much more targetted at the lower paid (p.5 & p.6)

I don't really have a political agenda other than we let employers off too easily. Be that low wages, low contributions or whatever causes it. It means pensions are lower as not based on earnings and it means cont based are low as not earnings related. Employers will find any loophole to avoid tax, some counties seem to tax them per employee instead which IMO means you get more out of them. Maybe there should be allowances for start ups or small businesses but for many they can afford to pay not only better wages but more importantly better work benefits like 12 months sick pay, health costs, pension costs etc. I'm lucky I work in the public sector so have those but many large companies offer nothing much other than low wages propped up by tax payers.

bloolagoon

StixUK wrote: »

Just to add another point here.


The people who claim tax credits are hard working in most cases and they are going to see a total income cut.



The people who for whatever reason who are out of the tax credits system are going to see an overall pay rise.

we got hit last budgets with CB removal and lowering of the 40%

This really hits the crux when people earn around the £43k plus mark.


Do you think that people who cannot earn a greater wage should be penalised first? Surely the people who work hard and can earn more should be hit as well in greater taxes?

have you worked out your true income? You should pay more as you earn over 43k when you account for benefits and tax differentials
I only make this point because the people who can earn lots of money aren't necessarily the hardest workers or the cleverest of people, they aren't better than me but maybe have been given better opportunities in life.


Yet as a result of my upbringing and limited opportunities I am being told that it serves me right.


But on the flip side, all those people who were given all the opportunities and are now doctors, within the law sector, etc etc are being praised for being so hard working and working our country out of this economic mess.

many are regular people just often working lots of hours.

If you think this, I believe you are short sighted and ignorant. To make the top team in an organisation wealthy, there generally needs to be a shed load more workers below them. They owe their wealth to the people that keep the system running.


One man on his own cannot earn a lot of money in 99.9% of cases, they need people to run the business, do the books, make the products, sell the products, deal with customers, deal with complaints, adhere to their vision, deliver the return on the investment.


We are being told as workers near the bottom of the scale to work harder because we can work our way into a better situation and ultimately earn more money. What happens if you have reached your plateau and that is £6.50 on a checkout in a One Stop? What happens if your own mental issues stop you achieving? What happens if you single through no fault of your own?

strange concept but when we talked about how many children we could afford - it was the fact that if Single or loss of a wage prevented having more. Ie if Single or 1 waged we could manage

A very archaic attitude is returning to Britain and the desecration of the lower paid in society is an abomination.

as is your desire to tax those with perhaps less or similar income than you

Isn't it funny how the people who run the banks and were paid millions and still benefitting from this income are now becoming forgotten. They made the decisions to push sub-prime people into situations they were told they could ill afford.


But hey the removal of £1,000 per annum from me will make up for all that. Go tax that rich person earning more than £40,000 a couple of percent more that will fill the gap and they will be able to accommodate the decrease in income as it will be removing a luxury not a necessity.

again your net is more than that. A point you seem to not realise. See tax credits reduction as your tax you've wanted.

Britain should be aiming for a fairer society and I couldn't care less about the OECD figures, we are meant to be a flagship economy. We have gone through all the relevant growth cycles and now we are a matured economy, we should be appreciating each other much more.


I have no issue with rich people per se, but their foul attitude towards me and my family makes me lose respect for them. I cannot earn £40,000 plus for reasons unknown to me, maybe I am not clever enough or hard working enough. They are lucky and fortunate that they have been given the brains, the attitude or the headstart on life to achieve this income but I tell you what I am one of their minions, working hard for them on my £15,000 per annum to help them achieve their results.

you do earn around that you just don't see it
They don't work harder than me at all, my manager sits at home on a Friday dealing with e-mails. I am out on the road, putting physical graft in to allow him to go back to his manager to show pictures of the job to prove that his team are working well. Yet he gets between £25,000 and £30,000 for his role.

you earn more unless he has 4 children too
Maybe our esteemed government could become a first adopter of a new way of thinking, introducing a truly fairer society for all.


I don't know why anyone needs to earn more than £100,000 in todays world apart from pure greed. Tax them a lot, they can do their bit to contribute to the self sustainability of their economy, the one they are making their money from.

See posts above. Have you ever worked out your true wage including all benefits? Depending on your HB you could be "earning" a lot more than those you want to tax tax tax

missbiggles1

StixUK wrote: »

JSA (Single person over 25) = £73.10


Rent - £0
Council Tax - £4
Water - £5
Gas - £10
Electric - £10
Food - £37
Clothes etc - £7


Basic Outgoings = £73


As you can see - not really much in it is there?


Look at these figures from the guardian website from 2008 and take out the housing costs as you will be rent free and it suggests that you really need around £100 - £110 per week to lead a "minimum income" lifestyle whilst you are claiming.


So if you are out of work for 2 months, you have already left any form of socialisation that involves a fee behind - not even one cinema film or cheap DVD rental to relieve boredom when you can't job search. You will have a poor diet, you many not keep warm especially during colder months and are more likely to contract an illness, surely?


Lest we not forget that the first 7 days of the claim you receive nothing at all, so you are already £73 behind on week one.


So when someone preaches to me about the cost of living increase is met by an increase in benefits, the level of benefits is too low from the start so the gap actually widens, albeit slowly, the gap still widens, which is exacerbated by £1 actually making a huge difference when you only actually receive £73.10.


Guardian Link for Ref - http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2008/jul/02/welfare

Why on earth would a single unemployed person spend £7 a week on clothes, much less £37 on food?

missbiggles1

zagfles wrote: »

I posted this in another thread.

http://www.oecd.org/els/soc/OECD2014-Social-Expenditure-Update-Nov2014-8pages.pdf

What stands out if you bother to analyse the graphs (rather than just look for whatever suits your political agenda), is that in the UK:

• Overall welfare spending is around average (p.1)
• We spend much less on pensioners and more on working age benefits than the OECD average (p.4)
• Our benefits are much more targetted at the lower paid (p.5 & p.6)

Whilst not disagreeing with you in general, in many countries pensioners have to fund housing costs out of their pension whereas, in the UK, HB and LHA are separate and additional benefits.

Mersey_2

zagfles - the point Rogerblack was making (though he's more than capable himself), was that most benefits have fallen in real terms since 2012.


Just because the Govt kept changing the uprating formula ie increasing by RPI changed to CPI then went for 1% increases and now 0% from April, it didn't stop prices increasing and no Govt can.


That's what in 'real terms' means - adjusted for inflation - as you'll be aware and it isn't controversial, ie not just CPAG refer to it, the IFS do too.


When the Govt abolishes the ability of the under 17s and under 21s to claim JSA and Housing Benefit respectively, it doesn't abolish unemployment. It merely removes their ability to be added to the claimant counts.


I was hoping with the demise of JSA and DLA/ESA and the move to UC, Governments of either Party would at least be honest about the numbers unemployed.


As it is we have 4 measures of inflation and 3 measures of unemployment.

zagfles

missbiggles1 wrote: »

Whilst not disagreeing with you in general, in many countries pensioners have to fund housing costs out of their pension whereas, in the UK, HB and LHA are separate and additional benefits.

Yes, this fits with the third point. Our (non means-tested) state pension, even when you add stuff like free bus passes, TV licence, winter fuel etc, is lower than most countries, but our means tested elements (pension credit, HB, SMI etc) are higher.

The non-means tested part is more significant (as far more people are eligible for the basic state pension based on contributory record than are eligible for the means tested elements) so overall we spend less on pensioners.

FBaby

I don't think it is anymore a mistake than anyone making a rational decision at a certain point in time and then it becoming a wrong decision in hindsight.

But your decision wasn't rational. You can't base any long term decision based on the now and then, and it doesn't take a genuis to work that out. If it was the case, very few people would bother to invest in private pensions because now and then, pensioners live very well with just the state pension.

Fiscal policies meant that it wasn't necessarily attractive to have more children but it was achievable if you managed your money in a controlled manner.

Same as above, managing your money means ensuring you can continue to do so in the future. Each time you add a child to your family, you are adding the risk of struggling to support your family, mainly because you become reliant on one income only for much longer.

This tax credits income change is a little too quick in my opinion as you are generally taking a great deal of income away from families that have had it engrained as part as their lifestyle since the late 90s

A little too quick? It's been on the horizon for a few years now, it's just that most people chose not to hear and hope that it wouldn't happen.

People have lifestyles based on the money that tax credits have given them, with the reduction in allowance and the taper rate drastically increasing, don't you think it is going to cause people who genuinely have tried into financial difficulty

Depends what you mean by difficulty. Yes, I think many people will have to revisit their budget and give up some things they got accustomed to, but no I don't think it will mean hardship on these people.

But I am not the only one that took advantage of a system that was in place to benefit my family. I do not feel guilty for it as I did not create the system and at the time my decisions were based on sound planning

Absolutely, I am not expecting anyone in your situation to feel guilt, but I feel no guilt either in thinking that the new legislation is coming not too soon.

With this drastic cut in tax credits you are taking away from people who will have to make tough decisions

Most family with 2 children or more than I know who claim tax credits have sky TV, mobile phones contracts for both parents and older children and go on some sort of holiday, all things that they can do without. I will grant you, of course it is not nice when you are used to these things, but not that different to rich people who also have to make changes to the lifestyle they got used to.

FBaby

The people who claim tax credits are hard working in most cases and they are going to see a total income cut.

Not when you only work 24 hours and certainly not as hard when one is a stay at home parent and can get on with all or most of the chores compared to two full-time working parents.

But on the flip side, all those people who were given all the opportunities and are now doctors, within the law sector, etc etc are being praised for being so hard working and working our country out of this economic mess.

You seem oblivious to the point that these are the people who have paid into the system so you have been able to claim benefits to support your 4 children. You know tax credits doesn't come from thin air?

Your problem is that by having 4 children, you are limiting your wife's ability to go to work too and provide for the family. If you'd had one, maybe even two, maybe she could now take a full-time job too, and then you would find that you are not that hard done by.

beecher2

StixUK wrote: »

They don't work harder than me at all, my manager sits at home on a Friday dealing with e-mails. I am out on the road, putting physical graft in to allow him to go back to his manager to show pictures of the job to prove that his team are working well. Yet he gets between £25,000 and £30,000 for his role.
.

Your manager has to make sure his team hits targets - I think you underestimate the role somewhat and I find it strange that you're jealous of his pay when it sounds like you may well take home more money than he does!