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Jobless Couple With 12 Children Are Given £500,00 House

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Comments

  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    I agree. There needs to be a system which reduces the amount of benefits you get, but not by a straight swap (eg for every extra £1 you earn you loose £1 in benefit doesn't work - you need something like for every extra £2 you earn you loose £1 in benefits).

    I'm not an expert, but I think that what tax Credits try to do, trouble is it doesn't work as well as it should...

    Thats exactly what tax credits and housing benefit do. With tax credits, once you hit a certain threshold (which I don't know off the top of my head) benefit reduces by 55p for every £1 earned until the entitlement is nil. Similar figures apply to housing benefit as far as I know.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Man of Kent,

    You said you think "it would be remiss of us to say "fuck you, your problem". What kind of society is that?"

    Do you think that anyone who does say that should be allowed to say it, and, if true to their word, be inactive ?

    Anyone should be able to say it, that's the joy of free speech. I'm not sure what you mean be "be inactive" though. We all pay tax and we can only affect how that is spent through the ballot box
    NO-ONE would be starving to death.

    No one should be. We, the human race that is, can produce more than enough food to feed everyone, we have the capabilty to ensure that everyone has clean drinking water and we could educate every child on the planet. Unfortunately for us all we don't actually do that.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Thats exactly what tax credits and housing benefit do. With tax credits, once you hit a certain threshold (which I don't know off the top of my head) benefit reduces by 55p for every £1 earned until the entitlement is nil. Similar figures apply to housing benefit as far as I know.

    I think that this example proves that such a system doesn't work in some cases.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Another problem is that the housing/cpuncil tax benefit dipshits take a fucking age to work out your housing/council tax benefit, pay it you a million weeks late, by which time you've amassed a few wonderful hundred pounds worth of illegal 'fines' (that the bank takes regardless of it's legality, and the fact that you can claim it back later doesn't mean shit when you need it in your pocket). If you then have the choice of buying petrol to get to work, or quitting work to pay your rent while you wait for your HB+CTB to be worked out, you end up back where you started only a few hundred quid down due to bank fines and a tad more despondant. Repeat this a few times and you feel beaten. Reapeat a few more and it's a bit like the gym RTF theory, you fail and sit on your ass exhausted with the whole fucking thing.

    /rant

    There are a few hypocritical people in this thread. Those saying "don't have children until you can afford them" and then mascerading an example of a family with children who can't afford them... Like mr. my mum worked every hour under the sun, which in my book means she couldn't afford the kids- couldn't afford to look after them, raise them, nurture them, educate them herself. Or Ms. can't buy a suitable house for them, keep them all together under one roof in the country of preferance for the child's education. Both of these are examples of different situations where the parent(s) can't afford to raise the kids and yet they are being paraded as better examples of parenting than the family in the article- looks the same to me. One, two, or twelve children, the onnly difference is the poster's prejudice of what a family unit ought to look like.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Kat...no point trying to explain to them. Our household brings in less than 15k a year, yet we still have the net and have food on our table. That's all that matters to me tbh.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Yerascrote wrote: »
    Kat...no point trying to explain to them. Our household brings in less than 15k a year, yet we still have the net and have food on our table. That's all that matters to me tbh.

    There's every point in trying to explain. That's the point of P&D, it helps people develop more rounded opinions.

    I've certainly looked at this story in a new light since reading this thread and talking with people on here. I may not happen to agree with what posters are saying, but i respect their opinion.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    katralla wrote: »
    Those saying "don't have children until you can afford them" and then mascerading an example of a family with children who can't afford them... Like mr. my mum worked every hour under the sun, which in my book means she couldn't afford the kids- couldn't afford to look after them, raise them, nurture them, educate them herself. Or Ms. can't buy a suitable house for them, keep them all together under one roof in the country of preferance for the child's education. Both of these are examples of different situations where the parent(s) can't afford to raise the kids and yet they are being paraded as better examples of parenting than the family in the article- looks the same to me. One, two, or twelve children, the onnly difference is the poster's prejudice of what a family unit ought to look like.

    I think thats a really good point.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    The problem is that tax credits are assessed as income for housing benefit/council tax benefit, and the award of tax credits is often not high enough to pay for the rent and council tax that would otherwise be covered by benefit. You also lose the other benefits, like free prescriptions and free school meals, and it all adds up. Factor in the cost of childcare (which the childcare element of child tax credits often doesn't fully cover), and the cost of actually getting to work in the first place (a week's bus pass is typically £15), and suddenly you're going to work for 40 hours a week to earn the same, or slightly less, than you would be staying at home.

    If you are a lone parent you will nearly always be better off on income support than you will be on tax credits, unless your job pays more than about £6.75 per hour. And there are very few entry-level jobs for people with no qualifications that pay more than NMW.

    And just to go back to the point about house prices that was raised before, we can afford to comfortably own our house, which is in a nice area of the city we live in. Our combined income is only around £34,000. So if someone is earning £50,000 or £100,000, then if they can't "afford" to buy it simply means that they are being too choosy.
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