£26000 benefit cap

[unome]

What do you guys think about the £26000 benefit cap?

I think it is fair. However I think it should be £13000 per person not per house hold.

If it is done on a house hold basis disincentives two parent family's

[rotax81]

it all depends.    is everything included in that?    council tax, mortgage etc and is it area dependant?   someone living in london might be struggling compared to a northener bla bla bla.
i have not heard much about it, just heard something today.

[Biff]

I agree with Tony, I am moving to South London in the next couple of months, and rent alone for a 2-bed flat is a grand a month

[Alan@asperformance]

i struggle to understand how i could sit at home on my ar%e and be better off.......................

no incentive at all to graft these days 

[M3NTALIST]

i defo think it should be capped and area specific as said above due to cost of living in different areas, but its all to easy for me to say because i have no kids and me and the wife both in full time employment so have never actually been on the other side of the fence.

andy

[RichieRotten]

Hard for me to have an opinion at the moment
BUT
£35,000 before Tax for sitting on ya arse seems like a good deal!
I would like that job any vacancies anyone know?

One the other hand I do no know what position other families live in and what their expenditure is up and down the country, but I know of plenty of households on less than £26,000 take home and they work!
I worry mostly about the kids involved the problem is hard for this reason

Benefits seem to help those out of work but what about the low paid, if the government has set the minimum wage at a value of £12,500 {based on a 40 Hour Week} how on earth can we have a benefit system that sets no limits. That gives an household with two wages a minimum of £25,000 before tax!
I do not want to see anyone suffer but to me the maths do not add up on one hand the state says we need a minimum income of £35,000 and on the other hand if you work they say that the minimum is £25,000 it is providing a situration that means it just does not pay to work! Those that suffer the most are those that work but do not earn a decent income, they are the ones that need more support in my opinion. 

But I do not want to place all those without a job in the same boat and some people do need help that is also true.

Conclusion
I am confussed over this one

What do you guys think about the £26000 benefit cap?

I think it is fair. However I think it should be £13000 per person not per house hold.

If it is done on a house hold basis disincentives two parent family's

You mean £13,000 per parent that is a thought.

[Gaz]

In addition, one thing I heard on the news is that child benefit will not be counted towards the cap, so those couples popping out 8, 10, 15 kids will still get full benefit for them all.

[Kermittheflyingbog]

Unfair to treat all peeps on benefits the same, some peeps are on benefits for genuine reasons and circumstances beyond there control, say someone who has had a good income say £35k and their partner working part time earning say £10k the y have a couple/three kids then both loose their jobs, no savings (well less than £5k) but still all the same bills, do you think £26k a year is going to help them?
then person b earns £45k a year as a director and gets diagnosed with a rare congenital and incurable disease thats debilitates him so much he needs 24hr care, does his partner go out to work to try replace some of that income and home help (that we pay for) gets assigned 4 hours a day, do you not think it would be better to pay benefits that help the family continue life with some self respect?
I'm all for getting rid of the spongers but not at the expense of decent people not getting what they should be entitled to 

[RichieRotten]

I'm all for getting rid of the spongers but not at the expense of decent people not getting what they should be entitled to 

I totally agree Kerm 100% I do not want to live in a state that does not care for those that need help and support, that is the easy part, but how do we get rid of the spongers? that is the hard part.
I hope we all agree on that one? that those who need help receive help without question.

But Kerm some of the figures you quote in your scenario above would be a fortune to some folk and those folk work are they not also entitled to a decent life? to some folk £35,000 is a dream wage and a wage they will never have even if it is a combined income.
If a company director or if some one on a good wage looses their job then should the state support their life style? is that your argument? {If some one is ill then that is a different issue}
Maybe child benefit will not be counted against the cap {vote in the Lords today} that amounts to:
£20.30 a week for your eldest child and £13.40 a week for each other child. So that would be an extra £1000 plus per year for the first child and an extra £700 there after. So now if you have 2 kids the figure goes up to
£27,700 take home per year.
Again I say to some that is a lot of money.

[unome]

Unfair to treat all peeps on benefits the same, some peeps are on benefits for genuine reasons and circumstances beyond there control, say someone who has had a good income say £35k and their partner working part time earning say £10k the y have a couple/three kids then both loose their jobs, no savings (well less than £5k) but still all the same bills, do you think £26k a year is going to help them?

On £26k with out tax it would be easy to justify not going back to work. Especially when you take child care, travel costs into account

then person b earns £45k a year as a director and gets diagnosed with a rare congenital and incurable disease thats debilitates him so much he needs 24hr care, does his partner go out to work to try replace some of that income and home help (that we pay for) gets assigned 4 hours a day, do you not think it would be better to pay benefits that help the family continue life with some self respect?
I'm all for getting rid of the spongers but not at the expense of decent people not getting what they should be entitled to 

I'm not sure this is that relevent. Its my understanding that the benefit cap will not affect people on disability benefits.

[rotax81]

the biggest concern to me is the set figures. there should be no cap imo but EVERYONE should be assessed.  there are thousands of benefit frauds going on and the system is crap.
way back in 1991 i was claiming unemployment benefit as a single bloke with no overheads. they paid me this while i was messing about in my mums garage doing a car up..  friends popped in to see me on bikes, in cars etc. the next time i went to sign on they called me in the office, reeled off a load of number plates and i actually named who they belonged to apart from a couple i didnt know. the thick twats stopped my payments and said i was working  i only got about 4 weeks money  so i then had to live off my parents until i got work.

  em and their system.  way too many frauds going on, way too many suffering.

[Kermittheflyingbog]

I'm not sure this is that relevent. Its my understanding that the benefit cap will not affect people on disability benefits.

Might need to re-check then  but I thought it meant all benefits in to a household
what benefits do you think it applies to?

[shooey]

Personally I feel the whole system needs a serious re think and everyone should be re-assessed as to their need.

I'm all for social support, but there has to be something wrong when you are better off staying at home, than working.

I believe that a fairer system would be that this money would be better used to support a person in work as a method to qualify.

As for DLA I see to many people using this money to support drug habits and the likes. Again I see many people on the higher rate for conditions like ADHD et al, and they have no actual care needs, said money is to support the household.

I also feel that people should only get unemployment benefit, if they have paid in.

Those on long term benefits who have no desire to work/change their habits, need social housing and food stamps. Bring back the old institutions and rehabilitation 

[Legzr1]

Thorny topic that will divide this forum just as much as it's dividing parliment methinks.

The likes of the Daily Mail have been advocating this for years - some would suggest it's another name for ethnic cleansing and a great way to get scum out of lovely (read expensive) leafy villages and the centre of modern,well-to-do cities.

I wouldn't dare suggest that...

The thing that really pisses me off is the fact that lots of families are going to get hammered because of this legislation through no fault of their own.
At a time when public sector workers are being made redundant en-masse we have the same government proposing to cut any help/benefit that these families will need (and i'd argue are entitled to after paying into the system for years).

The problem is that some will use the same old argument that "I know a family that haven't worked for 300 generations,have a Bentley/Spa/36ft TV/etc etc and their 27 kids are like wild dogs".

Different situation ain't it 


A cap on benefits is a 'good thing'.

However,there has to be a sense of fairness here.

Sweeping generalisations will help no one.


Why can't we have a fair system where everyone is means tested and shirkers are 'outed'?
Those that need it,get it.
Those that don't,don't.

As Shooey points out,the massive amout of money saved can then be used to assist in workplaces.




“The mark of a noble society is found not in how it protects the most powerful but how it defends the most vulnerable.”

[RichieRotten]

As Shooey points out,the massive amount of money saved can then be used to assist in workplaces.

“The mark of a noble society is found not in how it protects the most powerful but how it defends the most vulnerable.”

This true or "A civilisation can be marked by how well it cares for those in need".
On this point we are all in agreement.
But we differ in how we think the "system" could be made fair, which it is not.
Going onto shooey points

I'm all for social support, but there has to be something wrong when you are better off staying at home, than working.
I believe that a fairer system would be that this money would be better used to support a person in work as a method to qualify.

I agree shooey as I said above

Benefits seem to help those out of work but what about the low paid, if the government has set the minimum wage at a value of £12,500 {based on a 40 Hour Week} how on earth can we have a benefit system that sets no limits.

It seems as though the poorer members of society that still work get forgotten and those people need support as well. I personally can not understand how we can have a benefit system without a cap?
But how do we do the following?

1 Fair to all?
2 Support the genuine cases and those that need help? and allow them to have a decent life?
3 Help those that find it hard to find work but want to work for example in those parts of the country that have an high unemployment rate?
4 Set a sensable level concerning caps?
5 Find those that are just taking the pìss?

Means testing with a local cap possibly seems like a sensable approach with those that find low paid work supported so work does pay.
But that still does not answer the question of sorting and finding those that are taking the pìss {as I like to put it}.