Topic: Is £26,000 per household per year enough to live?

[cp40]

Come to England.... Free Cars, Free houses, loads of free money, watch tv all day......

[Mowen]

where's GM when he's needed. i'm fairly certain it's not as straight forward as the state coughing up whatever figure landlords want to come out with.

as regards DLA (above), yes there are those abusing the benefits system but don't fall into the daily mail trap in believing it's anywhere near as many as they say (my father was denied DLA till he was house bound, despite having emphysema, plastic hips, restricted lung capacity as a result of a punctured lung when at work and a life long history of severe bronchial trouble).

what really galls is watching cameron say it's for fairness, at a time when vodafone have been found to have raped the tax system of even more money it's time he came clean with fairness and admitted it's easierto get money back off the prolls than his chums in the city.

Yeah I don't know the ins and outs to be fair. There are a few that slip through the net and get a fair old whack to live in private accommodation and it would be worth having a cap to try and stop those, obviously it's a much smaller minority than you would think from reading the mental papers though. I'm more concerned about forcing people out as mentioned than the few who get a 'cushty' deal though.

[Cajun]

I definitely agree with a card/voucher sort of scheme in some situations.

There is a woman who lived near me who has had numerous kids taken away, lived in a 3 bedroom house on her own, can be seen up the town every day drinking coffee and smoking outside a cafe and has never worked a day since I have known her (doubt she has worked a day in her life). There was always a taxi waiting outside hers to take her to town and back too (a 20 minute walk each way, she isn't disabled).

The system shouldn't allow someone to live like that imo.

[QBG]

The problem with the benefits system in this country is largely the fact that it's too complicated.

I have the current displeasure of working in a Housing Benefits office, and the whole procedure is a mess. One of Blair's proposed welfare policies while he was in power was the 'tell us once' system. Meaning that if someone's circumstances changed, if they had another child or something like that, all they would have to do is tell one Government authority e.g. HMRC, and they would in turn inform the Local Authority in charge of Council Tax, Benefits etc.

This proposed system was never put in place and instead a benefit claimant has to go round the houses and tell DWP, Housing Benefit and HMRC separately if they've had a change in circumstances.

In addition, a local authority will ask for all sorts of information from a new Housing/Council Tax benefit applicant including documentary evidence of Child Benefit and Tax Credits. The problem is that a large amount of applicants will be applying for CB and Tax Credits at the same time as they are doing so for Housing Benefit.

Documentary evidence from HMRC, for no apparent reason, can take up to 13 weeks to come through. By that time the Housing Benefit application has been severely delayed, and a backlog is created by all the new claims that come through as they are pushed to the top.

The immigration situation in the UK complicates this further, I work in Bradford, which as well as having a high population of Pakistani and Polish people, also has a high number of Slovakian immigrants living in the city. Its the Slovaks that are the problem, most Pakistani and Polish citizens can speak relatively good English, but the vast majority of Slovaks have little command of the language and show no desire to learn, as a result when the letter from Revenues and Benefits drops through their letter box, they cannot understand it and end up providing the wrong evidence or none whatsoever, adding to the backlog of claims.

Most Slovaks with successful claims are on the fiddle as they have lied or provided misinformation, which has somehow been accepted by the assessment team, to push the claim through. The number of Slovakian immigrants me and my colleagues have discovered to be claiming fraudulently in recent weeks is quite frankly ridiculous.

I've rambled on a bit, but just wanted to get some of my work frustrations out and this seemed like the best place to do so. I hope to be leaving this particular line of work soon anyway so its all good.

I agree with the £26,000 cap, but keep Child Benefit separate, I've got nothing against everyone getting that. However, the rest all needs to come under one benefit, payed weekly. Child Tax Credit should be scrapped, its like an incentive for people to have kids and the amount some people receive is extortionate. Working Tax Credit needs reforming, it should be part and parcel of the Universal benefit yes, but even in its current form it needs changing. As it stands you have to work a certain amount of hours to receive WTC, that's bollocks, if the government really want to help get people into work then it should be available to anyone who finds work, regardless of the number of hours.

I don't think I've articulated myself well there and I've rambled but I hope I got my points across Bit of a semi-rant that tbh.

[MKSC]

Trying to stop people buying ciggies, booze or drugs etc won't work. Some unscrupulous corner shop owner will find a way to circumvent the system. The local shop on our estate always took milk vouchers (what you used to get to buy baby milk when you were on benefits) as payment for anything, normally 20 B & H and a small bottle of vodka.

[Weezertron]

The times I've sat at work and wished I was a lass so I could have pushed out a few bairns as a teenager.

[Greg]

The fact you could get an unlimited amount in rent so you could live practically anywhere is extremely unfair as well.  If your on benefits, then you should not be allowed to live in wealthy areas where people who work could only dream of affording to live there.

I know what you mean - it's frustrating to know that however much I work as, say, a nurse in the City, I won't be able to live anywhere near my work. However, if you talk about not allowing poor people to live in wealthy areas you're talking about ghettoizing cities. That's not a way to heal society.

We're already seeing an exodus of the poor in London to an extent, a good case in point is Elephant and Castle. The huge blocks where families have lived and been brought up are being ripped down to be replaced with newer, nicer, fancier buildings. Which will be so expensive that those they're kicking out won't be able to live there anymore.

Whilst E&C is a bit of a dump and probably needs something doing this sort of behaviour (or 'regeneration') sits very uneasily with me; they're kicking out people who've made their lives there essentially to let tossers (a bit like me) who have no connection to the area but do have more cash and like the location in.

There is something to be said for limiting the amount of money available specifically for renting places to an extent but chopping them down and forcing people to leave areas they've always lived in is just not right.

Sometimes gentrification is the only way.

[neesy111]

The fact you could get an unlimited amount in rent so you could live practically anywhere is extremely unfair as well.  If your on benefits, then you should not be allowed to live in wealthy areas where people who work could only dream of affording to live there.

I know what you mean - it's frustrating to know that however much I work as, say, a nurse in the City, I won't be able to live anywhere near my work. However, if you talk about not allowing poor people to live in wealthy areas you're talking about ghettoizing cities. That's not a way to heal society.

We're already seeing an exodus of the poor in London to an extent, a good case in point is Elephant and Castle. The huge blocks where families have lived and been brought up are being ripped down to be replaced with newer, nicer, fancier buildings. Which will be so expensive that those they're kicking out won't be able to live there anymore.

Whilst E&C is a bit of a dump and probably needs something doing this sort of behaviour (or 'regeneration') sits very uneasily with me; they're kicking out people who've made their lives there essentially to let tossers (a bit like me) who have no connection to the area but do have more cash and like the location in.

There is something to be said for limiting the amount of money available specifically for renting places to an extent but chopping them down and forcing people to leave areas they've always lived in is just not right.

Sometimes gentrification is the only way.

It would increase the wealth of the area which produces more benefits.

Isn't this what you did at Uni greg? 

[Bossman]

I was a snivel servant for tax credits up until recently and the whole thing boils me up.  The systems been f***ed since day one, they've tried to improve it a few times but its all still too easy to take advantage of.  They're supposed to be bringing the new universal credit in which gets rid of all the individual benefits but you can guarantee that the IT won't get the investment required and it'll go tits up as well.

£500 quid a week.......  Net.....   Still too much.

What needs to happen(but never will), is for people on benefits to be made poor.  Give them food vouchers, make them live in cheaper areas.  We had holes in our shoes when we were kids and both my parents worked.  These lazy fuckers have never had it so good, stigmatize them, make them ashamed of being lazy, might get them off their arses. 

Course the PC brigade will never allow it. 

[madras]

atta boy cameron, divide and conquer. while the oiks are busy squabbling amongst themselves you can help hartnett  and pals fleece the exchequer of more.

[Dave]

Interesting to note that the experiences of people actually directly involved in this area don't seem a million miles away from the kind of stuff that makes the newspapers...

[neesy111]

Interesting to note that the experiences of people actually directly involved in this area don't seem a million miles away from the stuff in the newspapers...

Aye.  Well I know some people who have openly admit how they've cheated the system.

[Ian W]

I was a snivel servant for tax credits up until recently and the whole thing boils me up.  The systems been f***ed since day one, they've tried to improve it a few times but its all still too easy to take advantage of.  They're supposed to be bringing the new universal credit in which gets rid of all the individual benefits but you can guarantee that the IT won't get the investment required and it'll go tits up as well.

£500 quid a week.......  Net.....   Still too much.

What needs to happen(but never will), is for people on benefits to be made poor.  Give them food vouchers, make them live in cheaper areas.  We had holes in our shoes when we were kids and both my parents worked.  These lazy fuckers have never had it so good, stigmatize them, make them ashamed of being lazy, might get them off their arses. 

Course the PC brigade will never allow it. 

Not worried about ghetto cities with only poor, disenfranchised people with no stake in society?

[Bossman]

atta boy cameron, divide and conquer. while the oiks are busy squabbling amongst themselves you can help hartnett  and pals fleece the exchequer of more.

Not about Cameron/Tories/Vodafone not paying their taxes that's above my understanding and doesnt mean that the oiks should be allowed to take the p*ss.

Real terms, for me anyway, is the lazy chav family coming to footy and their kid having the latest £100 boots on and gloating, taking the mick out of my nippers 6 month old boots.

Petty?  Probably but f***s me right off :-)

[Chrissy Bee]

I was a snivel servant for tax credits up until recently and the whole thing boils me up.  The systems been f***ed since day one, they've tried to improve it a few times but its all still too easy to take advantage of.  They're supposed to be bringing the new universal credit in which gets rid of all the individual benefits but you can guarantee that the IT won't get the investment required and it'll go tits up as well.

£500 quid a week.......  Net.....   Still too much.

What needs to happen(but never will), is for people on benefits to be made poor.  Give them food vouchers, make them live in cheaper areas.  We had holes in our shoes when we were kids and both my parents worked.  These lazy fuckers have never had it so good, stigmatize them, make them ashamed of being lazy, might get them off their arses. 

Course the PC brigade will never allow it. 

Not worried about ghetto cities with only poor, disenfranchised people with no stake in society?

Is it really better to pay them to keep them from causing trouble?

[GM]

where's GM when he's needed. i'm fairly certain it's not as straight forward as the state coughing up whatever figure landlords want to come out with.

as regards DLA (above), yes there are those abusing the benefits system but don't fall into the daily mail trap in believing it's anywhere near as many as they say (my father was denied DLA till he was house bound, despite having emphysema, plastic hips, restricted lung capacity as a result of a punctured lung when at work and a life long history of severe bronchial trouble).

what really galls is watching cameron say it's for fairness, at a time when vodafone have been found to have raped the tax system of even more money it's time he came clean with fairness and admitted it's easierto get money back off the prolls than his chums in the city.

Cheers mate. I wasn't able to take part in this thread earlier as I was busy talking to Opposition Lords at the time. Been a very busy day at work! You're right it is a good deal more complicated than most of the mainstream media have managed to explain it so far. I'm up to my eyes in all this stuff at the moment and really would prefer not to have to talk about it when I come home, but I can see there's a load of folk in here keen to debate this one, so I thought I would maybe force myself to chip in.

First thing to say is I have no objection to the idea of welfare reform. The welfare system does need a radical overhaul, because it is far too complex for both the claimant and the State. The welfare budget does need to be reduced: the Housing Benefit bill in particular. I also think that there's nothing wrong with giving certain people a financial kick in the pants to make them get off their backsides to get out there and find work. A life on benefits simply shouldn't be an option...for the minority who are taking liberties.

But then again, I think the size of the problem is all too frequently overstated. The government had been playing some very cynical, slick media tricks with the assistance of the tabloid press over many, many years to cultivate a public misconception that everyone on benefits is some sort of scrounger and that they're on the make. It's classic "divide and rule" politics at its worst.

This £26,000 cap would include Housing Benefit. I know that sounds a lot of money, but what people need to understand is how Universal Credit (the new all in one benefit for people of working age) will work. Claimants who live in social housing and receive housing benefit to help them with their rent have traditionally been able to have their HB paid direct to their landlord. That means that they know, whatever else happens, the roof over their heads is taken care of. That sounds to me like a far better way of doing things than the way this government want to do things, which is effectively to hand over a large monthly lump sum payment (Universal Credit) to claimants, which would include their housing benefit, and then expect them to budget and pay their landlords, the utility companies, food bills etc. What the government fails to recognise is that many social housing tenants will find budgeting beyond them, and will quickly find themselves in rent arrears and out on the street.

Take a read of this http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/tim-leunig/calculating-how-the-benefit-cap-cuts_b_1222390.html or read the same author writing in the Guardian/Observer yesterday.

Housing benefit cap: can you live on 62p a day?
The housing benefit cap will mainly hit stable families on low incomes. Surely this can't be what George Osborne wanted
 
Tim Leunig
guardian.co.uk, Sunday 22 January 2012 16.40 GMT

Imagine two sets of people, both renting from private landlords. One is an Islington couple who have never worked. The other is an Oldham family with four children, where the working parent has just lost his or her job. The Islington couple currently receive £250 a week in housing benefit, while the Oldham family gets only £150.

Times are tough, and the government wants to save money. Which family should have its housing benefit cut? George Osborne has chosen the Oldham family. He is cutting its housing benefit to £96 a week, while allowing the Islington couple to continue to claim £250 a week for as long as they like.

It may sound like odd logic, but that is the reality of the £26,000 benefit cap. It takes no account of your employment history or family size. So a central London couple who have never worked are unaffected, because they currently receive less than £26,000 in benefits. But a large family – even in a cheap house – will be hit. That is not sensible.

The worst hit, of course, are large families in the south-east, where rents are higher. Even in Tolworth, described by the Evening Standard as the "scrag end of Kingston borough", a four bedroom house will give you little change from £400 a week. Cutting housing benefit to £100 a week – which is broadly what the cap means if you have four children – makes life impossible. After rent, council tax and utilities, a family with four children would have 62p per person per day to live on. That is physically impossible.

It is easy to say that people shouldn't have large families if they can't afford them. But most affected families could afford their children when they conceived them, and continued to be able to afford them – until they lost their jobs in what has proven to be the worst recession for more than a century. Should they now follow Greece and give up their children for adoption?

It is the effect on children in large families that has led Christian, Jewish and Muslim leaders to take a stand against the government over the weekend, speaking up for the poor in a way entirely consistent with their faiths.

The cap doesn't even hit the families the Daily Mail so dislikes – single parents with many children and many fathers who have never worked. Those families, by and large, are sufficiently dysfunctional to be in social housing, and so will not be hit – at least not much – by the reforms. Instead the people hit hardest are stable families previously in work on low to middle incomes – the really squeezed middle, if you like. They were not rich enough to buy a house, and not poor enough to qualify for social housing. As a result they pay a fortune to rent privately and are vulnerable to the cap.

Civil servants tell me they don't expect rents to fall – quite the reverse, as the market is buoyant. Nor do they expect families to migrate from the south-east to low-cost housing areas such as Merthyr Tydfil or Barrow. These are, in the main, people who want to work and will choose to stay in an area with good job prospects. Instead, they expect families to downsize. Children will end up sharing a room with multiple siblings, and parents will sleep on a sofa bed in the lounge. Clearly people can live like that, but frankly I thought that overcrowded tenements were something that Britain had left behind.

Britain is not poor. In only five years of our history have we ever been richer than we are today. The savings from the cap are very small – £270m. Yet we spend £53bn on welfare payments to people in the top half of the income distribution. Cutting their payments by one half of one per cent would be a much better way to save £270m.

Even better would be to allow more houses to be built in the south-east, over the objections of organisations such as the CPRE and the National Trust. Standard supply and demand tells us that more houses mean lower prices and lower rents. Lower rents mean lower housing benefit bills without making a single poor family suffer. If you crunch the numbers, you find that increasing the number of houses by 1.3% would cut the housing benefit bill by £270m. It would also get people back into work. Surely that is a better option.

[GM]

I was a snivel servant for tax credits up until recently and the whole thing boils me up.  The systems been f***ed since day one, they've tried to improve it a few times but its all still too easy to take advantage of.  They're supposed to be bringing the new universal credit in which gets rid of all the individual benefits but you can guarantee that the IT won't get the investment required and it'll go tits up as well.

£500 quid a week.......  Net.....   Still too much.

What needs to happen(but never will), is for people on benefits to be made poor.  Give them food vouchers, make them live in cheaper areas.  We had holes in our shoes when we were kids and both my parents worked.  These lazy fuckers have never had it so good, stigmatize them, make them ashamed of being lazy, might get them off their arses. 

Course the PC brigade will never allow it. 

I understand the anger which underpins your posting. I also understand that by making these cuts to benefits, we could well be unleashing a whole raft of unintended consequences for other areas of public spending - such as Health, Housing, Social Care, Justice budgets - at precisely the time the Government is looking to cut public spending.

There is a balancing point somewhere in all of this which needs to be found. I don't pretend or believe it's going to be easy.

[The Prophet]

Interesting to note that the experiences of people actually directly involved in this area don't seem a million miles away from the stuff in the newspapers...

Aye.  Well I know some people who have openly admit how they've cheated the system.

There's undoubtedly, a few who 'cheat' the system but government rhetoric would have you believe just about every family/individual claiming benafits falls within that category, when they in fact don't.

Housing is so unaffordable these days 26,000 grand doesn't go a long way at all. I think I read 54% of those claiming the full amount live in the centre of London, an area where landlords take the p*ss.

[GM]

There's almost certainly going to be a need for me to spell out the situation regarding Housing Benefit in greater detail...but one thing to bear in mind is (as neesy said earlier) the shortage of social housing in the areas that are close to the areas of economic opportunity is absolutely key. The nightmare stories about families on housing benefit in Mayfair, London are only possible because of the long-term historic underinvestment in affordable rented housing across the country. The laughable thing is that the Tories are saying that people should simply move to areas where rents are cheaper, at the same time as saying they should move to where the work is. If you need me to spell out the inherent contradiction in this position, then quite frankly I pity you.

[Super Duper Branko Strupar]

atta boy cameron, divide and conquer. while the oiks are busy squabbling amongst themselves you can help hartnett  and pals fleece the exchequer of more.

Not about Cameron/Tories/Vodafone not paying their taxes that's above my understanding and doesnt mean that the oiks should be allowed to take the p*ss.

Real terms, for me anyway, is the lazy chav family coming to footy and their kid having the latest £100 boots on and gloating, taking the mick out of my nippers 6 month old boots.

Petty?  Probably but f***s me right off :-)

The root of that attitude isn't necessarily their will to work, but what they value - along with a lot of other people in the country.

A huge percent of these people will never be considered 'successful' by the masses, even if they are honest hard working people, so why bother? I'm not advocating it but it's not hard to understand. They have had to chose the lesser of two evils for a long time. Work for pittance and not be appreciated, or not work and be hated. It's as much a form of unintentional protest as laziness. The sheep then follow and it becomes the norm.

Choosing to make them suffer by making them poor is an incredibly cruel way to teach people. Something that would probably produce more casualties and cause more harm than it would help. And surely you have to question the implications of order by dictation rather than order by choice?

[cp40]

Given the range of variations in Rents round the country- surely a fair system would be to work out a living benefit - cap, seperate from housing benefit, and tackle this as a seperate issue?

[Dave]

This £26,000 cap would include Housing Benefit. I know that sounds a lot of money, but what people need to understand is how Universal Credit (the new all in one benefit for people of working age) will work. Claimants who live in social housing and receive housing benefit to help them with their rent have traditionally been able to have their HB paid direct to their landlord. That means that they know, whatever else happens, the roof over their heads is taken care of. That sounds to me like a far better way of doing things than the way this government want to do things, which is effectively to hand over a large monthly lump sum payment (Universal Credit) to claimants, which would include their housing benefit, and then expect them to budget and pay their landlords, the utility companies, food bills etc. What the government fails to recognise is that many social housing tenants will find budgeting beyond them, and will quickly find themselves in rent arrears and out on the street.

Whilst it probably does make more sense to pay that housing benefit straight to landlords, what's the problem with asking people to take a bit of responsibility for their own life?

Are there people out there so slow that they can't reconcile basic add and subtract sums? Everyone else has to do it.

[The Prophet]

Perhaps another way to go about it would be put a cap on the amount private landlords can charge to rent their property.

[GM]

Interesting to note that the experiences of people actually directly involved in this area don't seem a million miles away from the stuff in the newspapers...

Aye.  Well I know some people who have openly admit how they've cheated the system.

There's undoubtedly, a few who 'cheat' the system but government rhetoric would have you believe just about every family/individual claiming benafits falls within that category, when they in fact don't.

Housing is so unaffordable these days 26,000 grand doesn't go a long way at all. I think I read 54% of those claiming the full amount live in the centre of London, an area where landlords take the p*ss.

It's the private rented sector where landlords are taking the p*ss, and where rents have just spiralled in recent years.

[Ian W]

Perhaps another way to go about it would be put a cap on the amount private landlords can charge to rent their property.

Can't see the Tories messing with the free market like that.