Considering most unemployed people work for their JSA on work schemes how can it be a something for nothing culture ?
Most?
Claimant count unemployment 1,113,400
Number on government work or training programs 120,000
Note those on these schemes do not get counted on the claimant count.
The largest portion of any benefit payments that get anywhere near any cap are housing benefits of one form or another.
Creating a housing bubble and then moaning about the cost of it seems pretty silly to me. £22 Billion and rising housing benefit bill, including many in work, where it is rising the quickest, is the cost of being able to say your three bed semi is worth a quarter of a million.
People want the latter, they have to accept the former. They dont want a big housing benefit bill? Stop pushing up house prices with inane 'help to get further in debt' schemes that are little more than indirect subsidy of banking risks.
Nowhere does IDS say he is going to restrict child benefit to two children - the number mentioned is four.
I think child benefit should be heavily graduated and fully means tested. It should be a significant amount for child 1 and then a much lower amount for child 2 and nothing further for the third child. It should not be going to middle income families at all.
But then wages should be sufficient for a family to survive on without needing additional benefits - and that's simply not the case any longer.
I would hardly describe a household getting £500 a week in benefits as poor. They are better off than a lot of people in work.
Take that up with your boss who hasn't given you a wage increase for years, or maybe the government supplying companies free labour (from Work Programmes/Workfare schemes) which just brings the wages down and down even further.
If your life is crap, its not because someone further down the road happens to have been made unemployed, who are probably on pay as you go electric/gas meters, relying on foodbanks, and probably ending up being unfairly being sanctioned.
Keep on believing...the bankers, politicians using the media..just keep on smiling
I would hardly describe a household getting £500 a week in benefits as poor. They are better off than a lot of people in work.
That's because you don't understand how the system works.
Imagine you are single and therefore your benefits are capped at £350 per week. That means all your benefits including rent and council tax.
So if your rent is around £100 per week and your council tax is about twenty pounds per month you have already lost £105 of that money. Brings you to £245.
But in reality most people get nowhere near those amounts. Take a look at the benefit rates to see how you would fare.
If I as a single person over 35 was on unemployment then I would be getting about £75 per week. I live alone so would need to contribute 14% of my rent because of bedroom tax as I live in a two bedroom house, so that would leave me with £10.55 to pay. So my real income after housing costs would be £64.45. I then have utilities and tv licence etc to fund, so at best I'm looking at perhaps another £20 per week to cover those costs. Gets me down to £44.45 per week..
Now I assume that I might want to eat during the week, so that's going to cost me at least £20 per week to cover every meal. Down to £25.45 per week.
I'm living a bus ride from the signing on office and the minimum fare is £1.40 single. I guess that I will need to use the bus to go shopping as well so that takes about £5.20 per week, leaving me with £20.25 per week.
I need clothes so allow £5 per week for replacing clothes and having haircuts every three months or so, and that gets me down to £15.25 per week.
So out of my £15 per week I have to maintain my home, keep it clean, replace any items that need replacing and have a social life.
The largest portion of any benefit payments that get anywhere near any cap are housing benefits of one form or another.
Creating a housing bubble and then moaning about the cost of it seems pretty silly to me. £22 Billion and rising housing benefit bill, including many in work, where it is rising the quickest, is the cost of being able to say your three bed semi is worth a quarter of a million.
People want the latter, they have to accept the former. They dont want a big housing benefit bill? Stop pushing up house prices with inane 'help to get further in debt' schemes that are little more than indirect subsidy of banking risks.
And scrap the government policy that aims to match social housing housing tents with private rents. That's the real reason housing benefit has risen. My social rent has doubled over the past three years because of that policy. If I claimed housing benefit it would also have doubled and wouldn't have created a single extra home.
If the government had left rents to rise in line with inflation they could have used the money that is currently lining landlords pockets to build new homes instead.
But that was never going to happen as it would have a knock on effect on house prices which need to be shored up so that owners continue to have the feel good factor of knowing they have an ever increasing asset. So they can blithely go off buying new stuff, cars and holidays and thus keep the economy afloat. But all at the expense of the poorest in the country. They must feel really proud.
I'm living a bus ride from the signing on office and the minimum fare is £1.40 single. I guess that I will need to use the bus to go shopping as well so that takes about £5.20 per week
£5.20 a week on bus fares!
Why four singles instead of two returns, why not do the shopping on signing on day, and is signing on every week now rather than every two weeks?
And how far do get for £1.20 on a bus is it too far or unsafe to walk.
I need clothes so allow £5 per week for replacing clothes and having haircuts every three months or so,
£5 a week on clothes!
Your on benefits buy clothes when your existing clothes wear out, and from the likes of primark or a charity shop. If you need new clothes and shoes for job interviews those nice people at the Jobcentre can give you money or vouchers especially for that.
So out of my £15 per week I have to maintain my home, keep it clean, replace any items that need replacing and have a social life,
£15 a week!
You rent how much do you expect to be paying on home maintance? JSA is intended as a short-term benefit, and budgeting loans are avaialable for the DWP should you need to replace something esential like a cooker.
£15 a week seems excessive for cleaning materials unless you are paying a cleaner to come round once a week.
£15 a week for a social life, JSA is suppose to be to enable to survive while you look for work, not enjoy life on the dole.
Don't forget this is a bloke who thought the taxpayer should pay for his £39 quid a day breakfast, underpants and whose family gets 1.5 million + euros from the EU (farming subsidy).
Before puffing & blowing just look at the charts & figures for the EU & USA,and pray he don't look to closely at Greece:o, then you would really have something to moan about
Which part of 'the hight cost of UK housing leads to high benefit claims' do some people not understand?
Then we have the revelation that a family of eight need more money to meet their needs than a single person or a couple.
If you actually add the two phenomenons together, you end with high benefit bills, whether in work or not.
Unless the government plans on putting benefit claimants in tent cities, then benefit bills will continue to rise. As this government's whole basis for 'growth' has been to fuel the housing market with cheap debt, then who is really to blame?
Which part of 'the hight cost of UK housing leads to high benefit claims' do some people not understand?
Ohh the government for one fully understands that. The effects of their policies on social rents and benefits for social and private renters, and even mortgage payers on benefits, will force people to relocate. It is gerrymandering on an industrial scale.
Then we have the revelation that a family of eight need more money to meet their needs than a single person or a couple.
Large familes on benefits are public enemy number one.
When the government is going to the trouble of changing how child poverty is defined and measured, people with lots of children should worry.
Unless the government plans on putting benefit claimants in tent cities, then benefit bills will continue to rise.
The Conservatives have proposed removing housing benefit from all those under 25 and having benefits tapper over time so the longer you claim the less you get.
While Labour has proposed making benefits conditional on having contributed and having a two tier benefits system one short-term contributions based and a lower less generous means tested benefits sytsem after that.
The future is bleak at least for the able unemployed people and the unlucky souls on ESA work related activity group assessed as currently incapable of any form of paid employment but treated akin to those on JSA.
Already for large families we have private rental capped at four bed property regardless of household size. While for single people under 35 it is already a room in a shared house. How long before these measures are applied to those in social housing.
The government is fully aware that the welfare state and benefit claimants have lost much of the public support they used to enjoy and labour is aware of this too. And whoever wins in 2015 needs to make massive cuts in public spending in the pursuit of eliminating the structural deficit. I think we will see far more cuts before public opinion and political will shifts.
The only thing IDS cares about is the bottom line - ie how much it's costing. He'd be happy with scroungers claiming benefits as long as it's below whatever plucked out of the air figure his hallucinations told him to use.
Ohh the government for one fully understands that. The effects of their policies on social rents and benefits for social and private rents, and even mortgage payers on benefits will force people relocate. It is gerrymandering on an industrial scale.
Large familes on benefits are public enemy number one.
The Conservatives have proposed removing housing benefit from all those under 25 and having benefits tapper over time so the longer you claim the less you get.
While Labour has proposed making benefits conditional on having contributed and having a two tier benefits system one short-term contributions based and a lower less generous means tested benefits sytsem after that.
The future is bleak at least for the able unemployed people.
Already for large families we have private rental capped at four bed property regardless of household size. While for single people under 35 it is already a room in a shared house. How long before these measures are applied to those in social housing.
The government is fully aware that the welfare state and benefit claimants have lost much of the public support they used to enjoy and labour is aware of this too. And whoever wins in 2015 needs to make massive cuts in public spending in the pursuit of eliminating the structural deficit. I think we will see far more cuts before public opinion and political will shifts.
Which simply won't solve the real problem for all, claiming benefit or not, and that is the cost of housing. It's the elephant in the room of every problem, the more taken out of the economy in housing costs, the less disposable income available to support business and services.
High housing means benefit claims increase, both in number and in value. It includes pensioners as well. It renders wages insufficient, it traps people in poorer areas, it prevents people remaining in their 'better' area with family and friends. It severs contacts and support systems when people are forced out. It causes friction and unrest, it creates instability and stress.
In spite of all of that, the government and media are hell bent on blaming the victims. A very American attitude, instigated by tptb over there many years ago. Social security becomes welfare, money becomes food stamps (food banks). It's a pernicious and persistent attempt to privatise social care. Not because it costs less, but because the corporates can then make money from it. The direction of travel is wrong, and has been for some time, but no-one seems to want to stop it.
The only thing IDS cares about is the bottom line - ie how much it's costing. He'd be happy with scroungers claiming benefits as long as it's below whatever plucked out of the air figure his hallucinations told him to use.
I honestly don't think it is just about money with IDS.
He is a nasty person who I suspect wants every unemployed person working for free for their housing and benefits, or end up homeless and hungry.
He is another one of those people who do not understand the concept that 500,000 jobs are not enough for the 1.5 million who are not working (and that doesn't included the disabled who I'm sure he would force to work as well).
Old people have plenty of money, most of them doing very nicely from housing they bought for peanuts which has increased enormously in value, wealth which they have not earned nor pay tax on.
Instead of expecting the younger generation who have not had the benefit of cheap housing, free university, very good pension, good healthcare etc to fund it all, how about making the older generation contribute something from the huge part of their wealth that they have not earned?
I see you have been reading the socialist's handbook comrade.
Most old people have worked hard all their lives, paid taxes and lived modest lifestyles. And now because the house they bought has risen in value, they have to sell it to pay for when they go into care.
I honestly don't think it is just about money with IDS.
He is a nasty person who I suspect wants every unemployed person working for free for their housing and benefits, or end up homeless and hungry.
He is another one of those people who do not understand the concept that 500,000 jobs are not enough for the 1.5 million who are not working (and that doesn't included the disabled who I'm sure he would force to work as well).
The only thing IDS cares about is the bottom line - ie how much it's costing. He'd be happy with scroungers claiming benefits as long as it's below whatever plucked out of the air figure his hallucinations told him to use.
IDS only cares about the bottom line of big companies who can have their labour costs subsidised by the taxpayer through workfare, and that's as far as IDS's cuts will go, to ensure workfare survives even if he cuts or axes everything else. Welfare reform isn't even about saving money, its IDS's and the Tories ideology to reduce the cost of hiring workers through subsidies, reducing wages, creating social cleansing and divide the nation against welfare recipients.
I imagine this type of stuff appeals to someone... Probably the retired, having long forgotten what the state handed out to them.
Maybe believing they did it all themselves...
Actually many of todays pensioners had very little handed to them by the state compared to WTC and CTC that working people get nowadays
As for believing they did it all themselves, thats rubbish most of them know that they were not paying for their own pensions, take my Husband who retired this year, he started work 45 years ago, look at your family and work out how many of them got their pensions within those 45 years, maybe your parents, grandparents and even great grandparents who helped to pay for them,? people like my Husband and also myself who has already worked for 44 years and will have worked for 51 years before I get my own pension.
It comes as Whitehall sources say benefits policies will form a key part of the party’s Election manifesto, including the idea of lowering the £26,000 cap on benefits to bring it closer into line with the average take-home pay of about £18,000, and a plan to limit to two the number of children for whom benefits can be claimed.
Excellent. It's right, and both measures will have popular appeal. A double victory.
And scrap the government policy that aims to match social housing housing tents with private rents. That's the real reason housing benefit has risen. My social rent has doubled over the past three years because of that policy. If I claimed housing benefit it would also have doubled and wouldn't have created a single extra home.
If the government had left rents to rise in line with inflation they could have used the money that is currently lining landlords pockets to build new homes instead.
But that was never going to happen as it would have a knock on effect on house prices which need to be shored up so that owners continue to have the feel good factor of knowing they have an ever increasing asset. So they can blithely go off buying new stuff, cars and holidays and thus keep the economy afloat. But all at the expense of the poorest in the country. They must feel really proud.
They got it arse about face, it should have been lower private rents to match social housing, and if landlords didn't like it tough, let them sell to local authorities to use as social housing. Then we would see the knock --on effect of lower housing benefits, and house prices coming down as less buy-to-letters snapping up properties.
IDS only cares about the bottom line of big companies who can have their labour costs subsidised by the taxpayer through workfare, and that's as far as IDS's cuts will go, to ensure workfare survives even if he cuts or axes everything else. Welfare reform isn't even about saving money, its IDS's and the Tories ideology to reduce the cost of hiring workers through subsidies, reducing wages, creating social cleansing and divide the nation against welfare recipients.
Too true, and as there is a minority of 1.5 million unemployed (compared to workers and non workers who don't claim benefits) then there is going to be little protest.
I'm not even convinced that the benefit cap produces real savings.
If a family whose benefits are capped decide that one of the adults needs to work, they will get working and child tax credits and housing benefit. For a large family, the cost of all that can exceed the welfare benefits they would be entitled to without the cap. The cap doesn't apply to any family where one of the parents works 24 hours a week, or 16 hours for a single parent.
The issue of high housing costs isn't going to go away any time soon, not while governments are propping up house prices with low interest rates and help to buy, failing to build social housing, making social housing rents match market rents and failing to bring in rent controls. Subsidising housing costs with welfare may be unpalatable, but the alternative is widespread homelessness and children taken into care (very costly in itself).
Forcing people to move to cheaper areas is counterproductive, as they tend to be areas of higher unemployment, so there is less likelihood of working age people finding work.
Limiting benefits for children is ok in theory, and may prevent people having large families in future, but what about the children that are already here? Is it fair for them to suffer for something that is not of their making?
It's a cruel and impractical idea, with unintended consequences.
The cap certainly shouldn't apply to carers, who save the public purse fortunes by keeping the elderly and disabled out of residential care.
Why did you use the word 'handout' instead of the word(s) 'benefit' or 'welfare payment' ?
Because dole payments are state handouts for nothing in return. It's not like being on the dole is a job - though I'm guessing a fair few see it as such.
Comments
Claimant count unemployment 1,113,400
Number on government work or training programs 120,000
Note those on these schemes do not get counted on the claimant count.
Labour market stats
A01 Summary of Labour Market Stats, Table 3, Table 10
http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/publications/re-reference-tables.html?edition=tcm%3A77-311468
Creating a housing bubble and then moaning about the cost of it seems pretty silly to me. £22 Billion and rising housing benefit bill, including many in work, where it is rising the quickest, is the cost of being able to say your three bed semi is worth a quarter of a million.
People want the latter, they have to accept the former. They dont want a big housing benefit bill? Stop pushing up house prices with inane 'help to get further in debt' schemes that are little more than indirect subsidy of banking risks.
I think child benefit should be heavily graduated and fully means tested. It should be a significant amount for child 1 and then a much lower amount for child 2 and nothing further for the third child. It should not be going to middle income families at all.
But then wages should be sufficient for a family to survive on without needing additional benefits - and that's simply not the case any longer.
Take that up with your boss who hasn't given you a wage increase for years, or maybe the government supplying companies free labour (from Work Programmes/Workfare schemes) which just brings the wages down and down even further.
If your life is crap, its not because someone further down the road happens to have been made unemployed, who are probably on pay as you go electric/gas meters, relying on foodbanks, and probably ending up being unfairly being sanctioned.
Keep on believing...the bankers, politicians using the media..just keep on smiling
Depends what the outgoing for that household are including: rent, council tax, utilities and food.
That's because you don't understand how the system works.
Imagine you are single and therefore your benefits are capped at £350 per week. That means all your benefits including rent and council tax.
So if your rent is around £100 per week and your council tax is about twenty pounds per month you have already lost £105 of that money. Brings you to £245.
But in reality most people get nowhere near those amounts. Take a look at the benefit rates to see how you would fare.
If I as a single person over 35 was on unemployment then I would be getting about £75 per week. I live alone so would need to contribute 14% of my rent because of bedroom tax as I live in a two bedroom house, so that would leave me with £10.55 to pay. So my real income after housing costs would be £64.45. I then have utilities and tv licence etc to fund, so at best I'm looking at perhaps another £20 per week to cover those costs. Gets me down to £44.45 per week..
Now I assume that I might want to eat during the week, so that's going to cost me at least £20 per week to cover every meal. Down to £25.45 per week.
I'm living a bus ride from the signing on office and the minimum fare is £1.40 single. I guess that I will need to use the bus to go shopping as well so that takes about £5.20 per week, leaving me with £20.25 per week.
I need clothes so allow £5 per week for replacing clothes and having haircuts every three months or so, and that gets me down to £15.25 per week.
So out of my £15 per week I have to maintain my home, keep it clean, replace any items that need replacing and have a social life.
Yup, it certainly is an easy life on the dole!
And scrap the government policy that aims to match social housing housing tents with private rents. That's the real reason housing benefit has risen. My social rent has doubled over the past three years because of that policy. If I claimed housing benefit it would also have doubled and wouldn't have created a single extra home.
If the government had left rents to rise in line with inflation they could have used the money that is currently lining landlords pockets to build new homes instead.
But that was never going to happen as it would have a knock on effect on house prices which need to be shored up so that owners continue to have the feel good factor of knowing they have an ever increasing asset. So they can blithely go off buying new stuff, cars and holidays and thus keep the economy afloat. But all at the expense of the poorest in the country. They must feel really proud.
£5.20 a week on bus fares!
Why four singles instead of two returns, why not do the shopping on signing on day, and is signing on every week now rather than every two weeks?
And how far do get for £1.20 on a bus is it too far or unsafe to walk.
£5 a week on clothes!
Your on benefits buy clothes when your existing clothes wear out, and from the likes of primark or a charity shop. If you need new clothes and shoes for job interviews those nice people at the Jobcentre can give you money or vouchers especially for that.
£15 a week!
You rent how much do you expect to be paying on home maintance? JSA is intended as a short-term benefit, and budgeting loans are avaialable for the DWP should you need to replace something esential like a cooker.
£15 a week seems excessive for cleaning materials unless you are paying a cleaner to come round once a week.
£15 a week for a social life, JSA is suppose to be to enable to survive while you look for work, not enjoy life on the dole.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-17877732
Don't forget this is a bloke who thought the taxpayer should pay for his £39 quid a day breakfast, underpants and whose family gets 1.5 million + euros from the EU (farming subsidy).
http://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/73510/1/Document.pdf
Then we have the revelation that a family of eight need more money to meet their needs than a single person or a couple.
If you actually add the two phenomenons together, you end with high benefit bills, whether in work or not.
Unless the government plans on putting benefit claimants in tent cities, then benefit bills will continue to rise. As this government's whole basis for 'growth' has been to fuel the housing market with cheap debt, then who is really to blame?
Large familes on benefits are public enemy number one.
When the government is going to the trouble of changing how child poverty is defined and measured, people with lots of children should worry. The Conservatives have proposed removing housing benefit from all those under 25 and having benefits tapper over time so the longer you claim the less you get.
While Labour has proposed making benefits conditional on having contributed and having a two tier benefits system one short-term contributions based and a lower less generous means tested benefits sytsem after that.
The future is bleak at least for the able unemployed people and the unlucky souls on ESA work related activity group assessed as currently incapable of any form of paid employment but treated akin to those on JSA.
Already for large families we have private rental capped at four bed property regardless of household size. While for single people under 35 it is already a room in a shared house. How long before these measures are applied to those in social housing.
The government is fully aware that the welfare state and benefit claimants have lost much of the public support they used to enjoy and labour is aware of this too. And whoever wins in 2015 needs to make massive cuts in public spending in the pursuit of eliminating the structural deficit. I think we will see far more cuts before public opinion and political will shifts.
Which simply won't solve the real problem for all, claiming benefit or not, and that is the cost of housing. It's the elephant in the room of every problem, the more taken out of the economy in housing costs, the less disposable income available to support business and services.
High housing means benefit claims increase, both in number and in value. It includes pensioners as well. It renders wages insufficient, it traps people in poorer areas, it prevents people remaining in their 'better' area with family and friends. It severs contacts and support systems when people are forced out. It causes friction and unrest, it creates instability and stress.
In spite of all of that, the government and media are hell bent on blaming the victims. A very American attitude, instigated by tptb over there many years ago. Social security becomes welfare, money becomes food stamps (food banks). It's a pernicious and persistent attempt to privatise social care. Not because it costs less, but because the corporates can then make money from it. The direction of travel is wrong, and has been for some time, but no-one seems to want to stop it.
I honestly don't think it is just about money with IDS.
He is a nasty person who I suspect wants every unemployed person working for free for their housing and benefits, or end up homeless and hungry.
He is another one of those people who do not understand the concept that 500,000 jobs are not enough for the 1.5 million who are not working (and that doesn't included the disabled who I'm sure he would force to work as well).
I see you have been reading the socialist's handbook comrade.
Most old people have worked hard all their lives, paid taxes and lived modest lifestyles. And now because the house they bought has risen in value, they have to sell it to pay for when they go into care.
I'd imagine that 500,000 Jobs figure is either a few years out of date or it's actually 1.3m Jobs available because there's 800k UK Jobs on the EU Jobs website. http://metro.co.uk/2013/07/27/800000-british-jobs-advertised-to-foreign-workers-in-the-eu-3900683/
Actually many of todays pensioners had very little handed to them by the state compared to WTC and CTC that working people get nowadays
As for believing they did it all themselves, thats rubbish most of them know that they were not paying for their own pensions, take my Husband who retired this year, he started work 45 years ago, look at your family and work out how many of them got their pensions within those 45 years, maybe your parents, grandparents and even great grandparents who helped to pay for them,? people like my Husband and also myself who has already worked for 44 years and will have worked for 51 years before I get my own pension.
Excellent. It's right, and both measures will have popular appeal. A double victory.
Then watch Cameron veto it.
They got it arse about face, it should have been lower private rents to match social housing, and if landlords didn't like it tough, let them sell to local authorities to use as social housing. Then we would see the knock --on effect of lower housing benefits, and house prices coming down as less buy-to-letters snapping up properties.
Too true, and as there is a minority of 1.5 million unemployed (compared to workers and non workers who don't claim benefits) then there is going to be little protest.
If a family whose benefits are capped decide that one of the adults needs to work, they will get working and child tax credits and housing benefit. For a large family, the cost of all that can exceed the welfare benefits they would be entitled to without the cap. The cap doesn't apply to any family where one of the parents works 24 hours a week, or 16 hours for a single parent.
The issue of high housing costs isn't going to go away any time soon, not while governments are propping up house prices with low interest rates and help to buy, failing to build social housing, making social housing rents match market rents and failing to bring in rent controls. Subsidising housing costs with welfare may be unpalatable, but the alternative is widespread homelessness and children taken into care (very costly in itself).
Forcing people to move to cheaper areas is counterproductive, as they tend to be areas of higher unemployment, so there is less likelihood of working age people finding work.
Limiting benefits for children is ok in theory, and may prevent people having large families in future, but what about the children that are already here? Is it fair for them to suffer for something that is not of their making?
It's a cruel and impractical idea, with unintended consequences.
The cap certainly shouldn't apply to carers, who save the public purse fortunes by keeping the elderly and disabled out of residential care.
Because dole payments are state handouts for nothing in return. It's not like being on the dole is a job - though I'm guessing a fair few see it as such.
IDS is living on one.