Opposition grows to benefit cap

[RYH64E]

crankedup said:

If the workers cannot afford the rents charged in big cities they should either move out to less expensive areas or the employers of the workers need to increase the wages. If they cannot afford the higher wage bill perhaps they can be seen as exploiting the low paid and relying on taxpayers to subsidise their businesses.

Wow, I agree with Crankedup! Never thought I would see the day.

As far as non-workers are concerned, if housing benefit isn't enough for a house in Islington then move them somewhere cheaper, Wales maybe?

[GavinPearson]

This whole debate shows the ridiculousness of it all. Take an Investment Banker for instance. The whole reason they live in the suburbs and commute in is not because they want to waste 3 hours on the train and tube every day, but more that living in a good sized house in Chelsea is a little on the expensive side.

Then you have pensioners who have done honest jobs their whole lives - they get a certain amount of money from the government that happens to be pitifully low. They have to adjust their lifestyles to suit the fact that their income is very limited.

So I see no reason that the unemployed should be paid a penny more than a state pensioner. Based on this a family wouldn't be on 26K, they be on an amount far lower. It would motivate them to get a job and limit their family size to an affordable level. Come to think of it, I'd abolish housing benefit too, and let the market fix the problem.

That may sound a little harsh but it seems that many people move all over the country to get a job paying less and giving a worse standard of living than that of these people milking the system, and it is time the balance is in favour of people who at least try to do the right thing.

[sjn2004]

freecar said:

I predict this thread will not be full of grown up debate and conversation.

Instead it will devolve into a "benefit claimants are all scroungers who tell lies and get free flat screen tvs from our hard paid taxes and are expected to live on £26,000 a year tax free." thread.

Edited for accuracy.

[AJS-]

The blanket nature of of a cap per household seems a bit odd to me.

Let's hypothesise extremes a moment, Wayne and Wayentta Slob can still claim bad backs, cider addiction and whatever else and get a healthy £26,000 a year in their bank account for nothing, and they will do because they're really good at working the system.

At the other end of the scale the unfortunate family whose father is killed in a car crash while the mother and three children are left paralysed, needing all kinds of special equipment and care will be capped at £26,000 regardless, and are likely to be less adept at getting all the benefits they are entitled to.

[Silver Smudger]

I am middle-management working in (and commuting to) London. My salary is nearly 40k, well above the average income quoted. My take-home after tax and NI etc is a little over 2k per month, or 24k per year. I am married with 3 children, 2 cars and a 4-bed semi-detached house in Kent, and consider myself reasonably successful - It has taken many working years to get to this level.

Apparently, I could be made redundant tomorrow and, if I can fill the correct benefit forms, not have to travel to work any more and not even come close to this cap and so make no changes to my lifestyle? Can this be right - What am I missing? - I will have to look into this benefit scrounging

[rover 623gsi]

well, if you're a homeowner you won't get housing benefit (although there is other help potentially avaialble). Nor will you get HB if your redundancy payment leaves you with more then £16k in the bank. And as HB makes up the bulk of benefit payments you and your family wont be getting anywhere near £26k a year.

[roachcoach]

Silver Smudger said:

I am middle-management working in (and commuting to) London. My salary is nearly 40k, well above the average income quoted. My take-home after tax and NI etc is a little over 2k per month, or 24k per year. I am married with 3 children, 2 cars and a 4-bed semi-detached house in Kent, and consider myself reasonably successful - It has taken many working years to get to this level.

Apparently, I could be made redundant tomorrow and, if I can fill the correct benefit forms, not have to travel to work any more and not even come close to this cap and so make no changes to my lifestyle? Can this be right - What am I missing? - I will have to look into this benefit scrounging

You'd probably need a few more sprogs fired out.

[Deva Link]

GavinPearson said:

So I see no reason that the unemployed should be paid a penny more than a state pensioner.

Pensioners don't do too badly - we looked after one and it was a struggle to get rid of her money fast enough to stop her hitting savings ceilings. And she owned her own home, if she was in rented accommodation then that would have been paid for too.

Of course people without kids DO get paid less than pensioners. The snag is that once they've got kids we (the UK) don't want to be seen to have lots of kids living in relative poverty.

GavinPearson said:

Based on this a family wouldn't be on 26K, they be on an amount far lower. It would motivate them to get a job and limit their family size to an affordable level.

You'd think so, but people who know these families (some have commented in these threads) say they don't breed for the money.

GavinPearson said:

Come to think of it, I'd abolish housing benefit too, and let the market fix the problem.

Then we'd end up with families living in sheds (like immigrants do in Slough).

[DonkeyApple]

freecar said:

I predict this thread will not be full of grown up debate and conversation.

Instead it will devolve into a "benefit claimants are all scroungers who tell lies and get free flat screen tvs from our hard paid taxes" thread.

Or preferably, one where we discuss just how much damage scabby landlords are doing by ripping off council tennents, the failures of council employees to self regulate the costs of housing. These two issues are far more costly to the working man than a small handful of decietful punters ripping the system off.

This is one subject where I don't feel the claimants have any relevent blame and that the finger firmly points to councils who over pay rents and landlords who over charge rents.

I have two colleagues who run larger resi portfolios in London and they play the system so amazingly well that they make a fortune letting to council versus private. The stories are quite shocking as to just how much they can charge for a stty flat.

[turbobloke]

Just taking a step back, this is turbulent priests bothering again, right? Interfering in politics rather than attending to their frocks and flocks. Given the parlous state of organised religion and the moral turpitude all around their magnificent highly ornate and bejewelled buildings, these proselytising communists in drag need to sort their own glass houses first.

[Halb]

Deva Link said:

You'd think so, but people who know these families (some have commented in these threads) say they don't breed for the money.

GavinPearson said:

Come to think of it, I'd abolish housing benefit too, and let the market fix the problem.

Then we'd end up with families living in sheds (like immigrants do in Slough).

I think a sizeable number do breed for money. Some of the people that used to turn up at my exes business (an estate agency) were just straight out of a DM story.

I am just watching Saints and Scroungers. Most amusing show.

[DonkeyApple]

RYH64E said:

Wow, I agree with Crankedup! Never thought I would see the day.

As far as non-workers are concerned, if housing benefit isn't enough for a house in Islington then move them somewhere cheaper, Wales maybe?

Why not drop rents so that workers can live near where they work?

Rents are only high because property values are high and because of miss management by Local Authorities and the manipulation of the system by landlords.

We could halve property values overnight by calling in all the defaulting debt and by also restricting property purchases to UK residents only.



I don't agree with ghettoising sections of society by moving them out of affluent areas and cramming them all into poverty areas. Societies work better by blending different groups not segregating them.

One sensible option is to make the council the tennent supplier of last resort, not having landlords whose entire model is structured around the excessive premiums of LA lets.

Certainly in London it has been the councils defining all new rent highs for the last decade, so instead of 'being' the market and defining the prices they should be pressing prices on the downside. There will always be landlords who need a tennent and it has been insane that LA's have been legally allowed to pay over market for accomodation. Remove that ability and a very large chunk of this problem goes away.

As soon as you remove the price pressure from a group it will not only seek the highest price but then define new highs and that is exactly what has happened here. A lack of control has led to Local Authorities over bidding the resi market every year for a decade and now they have reached the point where the free money has stopped growing year on year and as such they can no longer keep raising their payments as a swift solution to housing people.

Another solution is dormitories for single men. There is absolutely no need for a single man to have anything more than a roof over his head and the ability to keep warm and to cook for himself. The ruse of feigning separations so as to obtain a second property for subletting would be brought to an abrupt end if this were the case.

[Murph7355]

Deva Link said:

[.... The snag is that once they've got kids we (the UK) doesn't want to be seen to have lots of kids living in relative poverty.
...

The problem with relative poverty is what it is relative to.

When people complain about a cap that is the average salary in the UK we are getting into a situation that is frankly ludicrous.

If we're to persist with cash handouts, personally I think using the average is extremely generous. By definition large swathes of the country earn much less.

At best the adults in these circumstances should be no better off than those on the minimum wage. And if we want to encourage people into work, it probably ought to be less.

As for the kids...how many in this country starve? Or have no access to education and health care?

[Halb]

Murph7355 said:

At best the adults in these circumstances should be no better off than those on the minimum wage. And if we want to encourage people into work, it probably ought to be less.

As for the kids...how many in this country starve? Or have no access to education and health care?

Quite, it's not like anyone can walk into a 26k pa wage. The benefit ceiling should be a lot lower.

Watching the politics show, the cap is equal to a £35k pa salary.
The Labour peer is annoying. Hope it gets through.

Edited by Halb on Monday 23 January 12:13

[roachcoach]

Halb said:

Quite, it's not like anyone can walk into a 26k pa wage. The benefit ceiling should be a lot lower.

Try 35k, by the time tax & NI is removed.

[Deva Link]

Murph7355 said:

Deva Link said:

[.... The snag is that once they've got kids we (the UK) doesn't want to be seen to have lots of kids living in relative poverty.
...

The problem with relative poverty is what it is relative to.

When people complain about a cap that is the average salary in the UK we are getting into a situation that is frankly ludicrous.

If we're to persist with cash handouts, personally I think using the average is extremely generous. By definition large swathes of the country earn much less.

At best the adults in these circumstances should be no better off than those on the minimum wage. And if we want to encourage people into work, it probably ought to be less.

As for the kids...how many in this country starve? Or have no access to education and health care?

Adults aren't better off than people on minimum wage because people on minimum wage get benefits too.

The problem is some people get their piss boiled by the stories and pictures in the Daily Mail and, to be fair, some families seem to do very nicely indeed out of a life on benefits. But, let's just say that they didn't buy their 42" TV's from a regular retail outlet. My daughter works with familes where every kid is a slightly different colour and some have got money coming in on the QT from all over the place. The ones that don't are in real difficulty.

We saw more typical families on a recent TV programme about the housing crises. Multiple generations and relations living in one council house. Whole families in one room in private rented accommodation in conditions that were appalling.

[Deva Link]

Halb said:

Quite, it's not like anyone can walk into a 26k pa wage. The benefit ceiling should be a lot lower.

Or pay should be higher?

[Johnnytheboy]

Deva Link said:

But, let's just say that they didn't buy their 42" TV's from a regular retail outlet.

OK, "They didn't buy their 42" TV's from a regular retail outlet."



Sorry, couldn't resist.

Back on topic, I'm not abundantly clear why people in receipt of benefits should be in a better position than people who fund them, in that the money available to them isn't subject to some kind of ceiling.

If I have a fixed wage to live on, I tailor my outgoings accordingly. It's not rocket science.

I also don't see why people need to live in a high property value area if they are out of work. However I can see that it prejudices their chances of finding work if they are shipped out to the sticks.

Would a fair compromise be to introduce this cap to people after a fixed period of joblessness? e.g. they have a year to find work, then it's off to North Wales?

[Deva Link]

Johnnytheboy said:

Back on topic, I'm not abundantly clear why people in receipt of benefits should be in a better position than people who fund them...

They're not - if you compare like for like. But people on here seem to want to compare the benefits received by family of 10 living in central London with the salary of a single guy working in Hull.

[loafer123]

Deva Link said:

Halb said:

Quite, it's not like anyone can walk into a 26k pa wage. The benefit ceiling should be a lot lower.

Or pay should be higher?

Good idea. Then we can *really* fk up our competitiveness.

FFS.