Government Benifit Cap

[robgmun]

Congratulations, you were better off than some then

Did you have rent to pay, Electric bills e.t.c?

What if you didn't find a job?

Coupled with the fact i had savings and a good redundancy package i was good for another 6-9 months, which i didn't even had to touch! To be frank i wasn't even trying that hard as i was a bit stressed out and wanted some time off. If i was trying i would have picked up work within 2-3 weeks. Or there's contracting.

So there was no question of not finding a job because i'm well qualified and i'm ambitious

They were far too generous in the jobcentre, heck they even threw in money for my first months travel costs and drycleaning. Which was over 200 extra! I could have got more (and i would be entitled to because i've been paying my taxes for the last 13 years) but i was starting to feel guilty!

 

[jumpy]

I was jobless for 2 months, started a new role this week. So i didn't lay about and sponge off the state like some do. I wouldn't complain about vouchers because that's what i was spending my money on anyway. In fact i joined the work force this week with 500 in the bank, which goes to show it was getting more then i needed!

Either you already had 500 quid in the bank and didn't tell the dole (I know the threshold for 'savings' is 8k or 16k for a couple) or you were doing something shady as you somehow managed to save money on the dole.

The way you say it, it comes across that you 'made money off the dole' which in my experience is not possible unless you are committing fraud or you are living with someone who is paying your bills for you.

500 quid in two months? Were you the recipient of a benefit overpayment or something?

Sorry to sound accusatory, but what you are saying is quite obviously missing some crucial bit of information that actually shows you didn't make money on the dole.

 

[GAC]

They were far too generous in the jobcentre, heck they even threw in money for my first months travel costs and drycleaning. Which was an extra 200! I could have got more (and i would be entitled to because i've been paying my taxes for the last 13 years) but i was starting to feel guilty!

i must have one of the worst jobcentres in the uk. never been offered any travel money or anything after iv found myself work. always had to struggle on for a month or two.

 

[Hagar]

So because the're capping benefits, you want to,

cap rents - Labour tried that eons ago and it did not work.

cap power bills - Just renationalise, Labour tried that too.

To avoid your benefits being capped get one member of the household into work.

 

[Neil79]

i must have one of the worst jobcentres in the uk. never been offered any travel money or anything after iv found myself work. always had to struggle on for a month or two.

Agreed, When I was on JSA it was a real struggle and I've not known anyone personally who felt the jobcenter was rather so rosy

Something aint right with robgmun's story hmmmm

 

[robgmun]

Absolutete rubbish, i told them how much i had (and it was under the 16k threshold) and it didn't effect my claims at all.

Everything was told to them upfront. What fraud could i have been doing? Not using every penny is not fruad *faceplam!!!*

i must have one of the worst jobcentres in the uk. never been offered any travel money or anything after iv found myself work. always had to struggle on for a month or two.

Did you ask? Because if you didn't then they won't offer! But you are entitled to it

Nothing shady, just telling you as it is.

 

[Ilikeitblackplease]

Most of the 200BN is the state pension (80BN) - work benefits like JSA amount to around 5BN. Not a lot, really.

When they cut child benefit there was a major uproar from the well off about it. JSA is 2% ( .7% of the JSA budget went to private firms)of the total welfare bill.
Wind farm subsidies 6 bn a year, Nuclear power and other energy subsidies into the billions per year, were we not told that privatisation would pay for future plant builds etc...

Queen's Windsor estate gets £624k annual farming subsidy.
The Queen's Sandringham Farms were paid £408,970 in subsidies. Half of the land is let to tenants and the rest is turned over to two studs for her racehorses, forestry and fruit farms which produce apples and juice for the Windsor farm shop.

The data from England, Northern Ireland, Wales and Scotland shows that 889 landowners received more than £250,000. Of those, 133 were given more than £500,000 and 47 of those were given more than £1m in subsidy.

The Duke of Buccleuch £549,000, the Duke of Westminster £532,144, Lord Carrington £149,000, to MP’s, for example Richard Drax MP got £417,846 in financial year 2010-11, to dukes, earls… to Prince Charles £581,000
Tate and Lyle received 829,975,239 in payments between 1999 and 2011

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/u...y-fund-to-heat-buckingham-palace-2088179.html

The list is endless, infact one report suggested that government subsidies were 2 time welfare bill and the only reason why the rich want the UK to stay in the EU is the subsidies.
Oh and Iain Duncan Smith family receives millions in subsidies from heat to land, free housing etc... which seems a bet dishonest of him wanting to cut benefits.Hypocrisy

 

[GAC]

Absolutete rubbish, i told them how much i had (and it was under the 16k threshold) and it didn't effect my claims at all.

Everything was told to them upfront. What fraud could i have been doing? Not using every penny is not fruad *faceplam!!!*



Did you ask? Because if you didn't then they won't offer! But you are entitled to it

Nothing shady, just telling you as it is.

iv asked enough times and always got the same gormless look off of them, from posts made on these forums by a couple of jc staff it really does depend on your jobcentre and adviser on what you actually get.

iv asked about careers advice and training multiple times, while pointing at the posters around the place that say "retrain" and they say they dont offer such services.

 

[Neil79]

iv asked enough times and always got the same gormless look off of them, from posts made on these forums by a couple of jc staff it really does depend on your jobcentre and adviser on what you actually get.

iv asked about careers advice and training multiple times, while pointing at the posters around the place that say "retrain" and they say they dont offer such services.

For all those that LOVE the services!

When I was under Labour work force, they provided centers specific for disabilities. People were happy and some where going back to work with trained skills, the environment was nice too. Conservative came into power and stopped the scheme and all those people in work courses were stopped and forced to WAIT up to a year for the new scheme to start. People on ESA are now going through as what can only be described as a gestapo regime in cold dank empty buildings.

I remember going into the Jobcenter looking for work and they actually turned me away and said " awwww sorry to hear you have autism, we can't help you right now "

The benefit cap is a good idea to a point, but again, this attack needs to be directed at rip off Landlords for properties that are no way near the price bracket.

 

[Amp34]

That was just one random example to drive the point, there is more, the UK's military budget it's up there at the top is outrageous, yet people say oh can't afford X and Y

Yet saving 200m on a benefit cut is going to change things drastically is it? (Not even 200m because poor people pay VAT etc. back into the economy anyway)

LORD ITS A MIRACLE A FEW PALTRY BENEFIT CUTS ARE GOING TO SAVE US!!! sun shines out of my ass along with 50 pound notes.

people need to get real. (people in this thread acting as if its going to make such a huge deal)

You do know military spending has been massacred over the last 20 years (and more) right?

The saving on benefits is just one of many departments having cuts (the military has had a 10% cut this year already).

 

[dowie]

The benefit cap is a good idea to a point, but again, this attack needs to be directed at rip off Landlords for properties that are no way near the price bracket.

it is in a way... if they're charging a rip off rate then the cap means people will have to look at cheaper properties.

 

[estebanrey]

Labour, last year - "We don't support any cap on benefits"

....polling gets done, turns out to be a wildly popular policy with the public

Labour, this week - "We support a cap, we just reckon it should be done regionally instead"

 

[CREATIVE!11]

I'm not in favour of unemployed/unemployable people receiving large amounts of money, because I can spot the correlation between social support and the ridiculous amounts of tax the rest of us pay.

Keep telling yourself that, you really think if benefits were abolished overnight the tax payer would see any of those cuts?

Come on dude.... you for real? they'd just spend more elsewhere and feed u more crapp...

 

[regulus]

Radical solution to this in London... scrap all council housing in zones 1 and 2... (I can see a need to subsidise housing for key workers centrally and that's about it)sell off all council owned accommodation in those areas, build even more council owned accommodation in less expensive areas further out... Start means testing.

More inner London property becomes available for people who are economically active and have more of a need to be there + rents would be less likely to become inflated as the supply of available accommodation increases. People without a need for social housing can be removed from it. Newer housing can be built to better fit the demand... correct proportion of 1 and 2 bedroom accommodation etc... the building projects in themselves would stimulate growth - do it steadily simply using the proceeds of selling off inner London local authority owned property. Sell off a council block in Westminster and you could acquire land and build at least triple the number of homes on some brown field site further out. Waiting lists come down and property is better targeted towards demand.

Islington, for example, is 50% social housing.... the vast majority of social housing residents are not economically active - there is no real reason for them to have to be sustained in prime central London accommodation when those rather valuable assets could be put to better use by others and the proceeds from selling them used to build more and cut waiting lists. I'm not buying any argument that they can't move a few miles because they grew up in that particular grid square either... Someone not claiming benefits has to move to where they can afford to live or to where they can find work - I don't think its reasonable to subsidise expensive rents in central London nor do I think there is any point in local authorities holding onto expensive assets to house people who are mostly economically inactive.

Most of our staff are from Islington. Every last one of them, and I mean ALL of them are in council housing. These are people earning 40-50-60 thousand a year. Do not ask me how they managed to scam these places.

 

[jumpy]

Coupled with the fact i had savings and a good redundancy package i was good for another 6-9 months, which i didn't even had to touch!

Sorry, slow posting (am at work).

aah, now we have it: the money you had 'saved' was nothing to do with the dole whatsoever, but previous savings.
So your previous statement about 'rejoining the workforce with 500 quid in the bank after being on the dole' was entirely misleading - the inference being that your financial fortune was in some way due to the dole, but in actual fact was because of previous savings and severance packages.

How you can then justify your position of financial strength as representative of the many people who have no financial backing from savings and redundancy packages as reason why the dole is too much is laughable - you are making it from a position that is in no way typical of the benefits 'experience'.

Without alluding to distinctions of class, I'd say you are clearly speaking from a position of financial privilege.

Either you were getting carried away with your point and failed to mention these significant details or you were engaging in hyperbole; neither of which is endearing me to your point of view as being an objective one.

 

[D.P.]

Vouchers for benefits is a really bad idea. What if you had a good job, got made redundant and struggled to find work. Would food/essential vouchers pay to live for someone that previously had a job?

Those that are on benefits now and the idea which some of you mention to stop them and only give vouchers for food/essentials is a VERY bad idea. This isn't world war 2, if you stop benefits and put them all on vouchers, you will have people forced onto the street, higher crime and an increasing risk of suicides.

I hope that all those that mention this idea end up jobless!

But back to the more sane idea, House/Flat rent needs to be lowered a lot as such so will the benefits being claimed. Some of the rental for properties are damn ridiculous, for example a tiny studio flat should not cost nearly £450. Most of the benefits go to Landlords and people don't get anywhere near it, but hey lets stick these people on vouchers and see what happens!

Of all the people in this thread Mr Jack has his head on his shoulders!

Bedroom Tax is a good idea dependent on the rooms you have, why should someone have a 5 bedroom house and there's only two people for example. But don't punish them if they are actively looking for a low rate house.

That is why it needs to be a system like is used is many European countries.

If you loose your job then for a certain amount of time 18-24months typically, you are paid around 60-80% of your previous salary up to a max figure (which is typically pretty high, would be like £80-100k). You have that time to find a new job, move,to a new city where the job is located etc. n this time you are also paid to go on training and educational courses. If you enter full time education th clock is stopped.


If after that time you have failed to find employment you basically are declared bankrupt. You might have to sell your house and possessions, community housing will be provided, often fully catered. Financial allowances are minimal because your main living requires (shelter, food, utilities) are paid for.
Again, any training and education will be paid for to enable you to get back it n the street.



In this way people who loose their job have the dignity to carry on living while they search for a job. With the clock ticking they don't hang about doing nothing but are extremely proactive. If they fail to get a job then society supports their basic rights and requires ith shelter, food, heating, medical services as well as support to gain them employment such as training, education.

 

[robgmun]

Sorry, slow posting (am at work).

aah, now we have it: the money you had 'saved' was nothing to do with the dole whatsoever, but previous savings.
So your previous statement about 'rejoining the workforce with 500 quid in the bank after being on the dole' was entirely misleading - the inference being that your financial fortune was in some way due to the dole, but in actual fact was because of previous savings and severance packages.

You go on to understand in the first part then lose it again on the second

Yes, including extra help for travel and drycleaning and other odds and ends i've ended up with 500 on my first day of work, seperate entirely from my savings and redundancy. It's worth saying through jsa on it's own is 71 per week in London. I didn't know it was lower outside.

How you can then justify your position of financial strength as representative of the many people who have no financial backing from savings and redundancy packages as reason why the dole is too much is laughable - you are making it from a position that is in no way typical of the benefits 'experience'.

Without alluding to distinctions of class, I'd say you are clearly speaking from a position of financial privilege..

Bad move bringing in class here, as you're post is about to fall apart. I come from a working class background. My dad was a waiter all his life, worked 6 days a week throughout the 80's and 90's and at 68 has completely paid off his house, i've followed his example and not waste money on crap.

Financial privilege is avaliable to anyone in the UK if they have the right attitude to work and life. How did i do it? No i wasn't born into a middle class family with a sliver spoon in my mouth. My first holiday outside the country wasn't until i was 22. I got amazing grades in a horrible school where you got bullied if you were bright. But i carried on and got to Uni and got a degree in Physics and a Masters in IT. And worked my ass off. Self made man from the very beginning. So you can stuff you class up your jackse

 

[elmarko]

Self made man from the very beginning.

No such thing.

The fact you were born in the UK is already a massive advantage, I'd also guess you weren't say raped as a child or grew up in a home surrounded by violence - from the sounds of it you had a good role model in a hard working parent if anything.

 

[robgmun]

No such thing.

The fact you were born in the UK is already a massive advantage

Level playing field with everyone else born in the UK as i see it

, I'd also guess you weren't say raped as a child or grew up in a home surrounded by violence - from the sounds of it you had a good role model in a hard working parent if anything.

I can't deny that, my parents were great role models. But doesn't that prove more then anything else is that it's people that are then makers of there own destiny and shouldn't blame governments for there own faults?

In fact thinking about it, my parents seemed to be doing the best around the recession of the early 90's (actually buying their house dirt cheap) and i did pretty well in comparason this time round!

 

[Its_Me]

Sooooooooooo

If I was single, and out of work, and after having my home provided for by the state - what would the £98 per week be needed to cover exactly ?

Food, clothing, heating? etc ?