Osbourne Caps Total Amount Of Benefits

[Minos]

Need more detail on this: is he talking about the net average wage per person?

Anyway, clearly he's not saying that those on benefits should have LESS than the average working family. Still unfair.

Net per family.

Edited October 4, 2010 by Minos

[davidhpc]

How do I get this £500/week?

Sounds good to me.

[Pick It Down]

You'd be amazed at how many people are disabled nowadays.

You can get disability for being an alcoholic nowadays.

Best crack a tinny (ideally 3 hours ago) so that you can qualify.

[Fudge]

What does the average family earn?

I heard someone on the radio this morning say 60% of working people are classed as living in poverty.

Instead of cutting welfare to the poor why don't they make it policy to raise wages for the working poor?

Oh no no no, cant possibly do that.

[Gone baby gone]

You'd be amazed at how many people are disabled nowadays.

What I find odd is how many empty disabled bays every car park seems to have now. All I can imagine is that they base the number of bays required on the number of people claiming disability benefits / allowances!

[Minos]

That's £26,000 a year, still too much.

Of course the few feckless breeders who have produced 12 children are really going to feel the pinch. (Better start maiming them now to get the disability benefit. )

This is where it all descends in to total borrocks.

[Dorkins]

I'm awaiting a strong soundbite on single mothers, the blighters

But, but but, we can't cap bankers bonuses innit.

Seriously, that's the best you've got? £26k pa net is not exactly hardship of the Highland Clearances variety, is it?

[Gone baby gone]

What does the average family earn?

I heard someone on the radio this morning say 60% of working people are classed as living in poverty.

Instead of cutting welfare to the poor why don't they make it policy to raise wages for the working poor?

Oh no no no, cant possibly do that.

Or more, logically, since they have no control over wages (and shouldn't have) - cutting taxes for the poor and increasing them on the rich.

Until capital gains are taxed more heavily than income from work, this country will never function correctly.

[Beggar Thy Children]

When's this 'cap' going to come in anyway?

Sometime around 2015 when it becomes the next electoral hot potato and ripe for calling off in exchange for votes?

[Nationalist]

Remember, no one can prove you HAVEN'T got a bad back.

Stress is also good, plus the tranqs have a street value.

[bomberbrown]

That's £26,000 a year, still too much.

Of course the few feckless breeders who have produced 12 children are really going to feel the pinch. (Better start maiming them now to get the disability benefit. )

More like £35,000 a year in order to take home £500 a week net.

[leicestersq]

If there is going to be a limit, then that limit has to be set at the minimum wage level, nothing else makes any sense.

If, as has been suggested here, it is set at about the median wage level, then all this policy does is show half the workers in the country, that they could be doing better off on benefits, what is the point of that?

We need to make some cuts here George. We need to make sure that the system rewards work. We need to ensure that those working, even on the lowest wage levels, are better off working.

And that includes the huge subisidy you get from council housing. Better still, sell off all council houses now, to the highest bidder.

If you are going to do something like this, dont mess around pandering to the lovvie lefties, do it properly.

Benefits should be worth less than the minimum wage after all things are considered.

[righttoleech]

Mind you £500/week is still more than I earn!

.....and whilst you pay tax and national insurance on yours I suspect the benefit people will trouser the lot. Nevertheless it is the best news I have heard for a long while. Let's just hope that it hits the BTL landlords who we subsidise first with tax breaks, then buy paying rents which noone would pay with their own money.

[SarahBell]

Being reported on politicshome that it does include LHA, so if a family gets the max 400 per week LHA they then get 93 quid a week max in addition.

Get the bunting out.

[Self Employed Youth]

You can get disability for being an alcoholic nowadays.

Best crack a tinny (ideally 3 hours ago) so that you can qualify.

I really should be claiming, I've drank practically everyday since been 13. I've even been arrested under the mental health act a few times. I thin I'm perfectly sane though, most of the time that is.

[SarahBell]

Benefits should be worth less than the minimum wage after all things are considered.

They should.

But for a start the £500 a week max sounds very generous....

Presumably smaller households will get less ... and b igger households will have to get a job or live in a smaller house and be cramped up like the poor sods who work for it.

An end perhaps to the 5+ bedroom houses on benefits... which will be a good thing.

However how will it sit with the "human rights aspect of every child having it's own bedroom else it's overcrowding"...

[erranta]

That's £26,000 a year, still too much.

Of course the few feckless breeders who have produced 12 children are really going to feel the pinch. (Better start maiming them now to get the disability benefit. )

The Romanian gangsters disable/disfigure 'beggar' kids on purpose to gain pity!

You only see last-gasp grannies or kids sent out begging on European streets with the gangmasters hidden out of sight.

Rome City terminus was awful

[spongeh]

More like £35,000 a year in order to take home £500 a week net.

Correct

Too earn £500 a week net you need either:

£34892.50 as a single person

or

2 x £16052 each for a couple

[Fudge]

Or more, logically, since they have no control over wages (and shouldn't have) - cutting taxes for the poor and increasing them on the rich.

Until capital gains are taxed more heavily than income from work, this country will never function correctly.

Governments do have absolute control over wages when they follow neo liberal policies that drive down wages and conditions.

Its not the welfare benefits are generous they are the minimum amount that a family can sustain a reasonable standard of living on.

Its average wages that falling so much that you cant maintain a decent standard of living on.

How can a working family live on £26000 a year?

Pushing the unemployed into the labour market will drive wages down even further and where are all the jobs?

Laying hundreds of thousands of public sector workers off onto the labour market will push wages down even further.

While employers are still offshoring jobs and moving companies abroad.

[yellerkat]

...

An end perhaps to the 5+ bedroom houses on benefits... which will be a good thing.

...

Continuing the Faisal Islam tweets:

As a result of housing benefit and benefit cap,

thousands of families will have to move home

. Undoubted. This is the point of the policy.

[tricksters]

A lot of people will be well pi$$ed off that benefits will still amount to 500 quid a week. Or even 400. Or even 300 for Pete's sake. How many people take home a thousand a month or less after a full time slog? Quite a few I would imagine. And they will be justified in being peeved that the figures bandied around in such cavalier fashion are better than many, many working people's wages. Walk round Nottingham any day - hordes of people just sat around with nothing in particular to do by the looks of it. You can hazard a fairly accurate guess that they are just loafing around. Multiply that by a few million. Feck me, the waste in this country is beginning to chafe.

[Minos]

Continuing the Faisal Islam tweets:

As a result of housing benefit and benefit cap,

thousands of families will have to move home

. Undoubted. This is the point of the policy.

A kind of ethnic cleansing, but based on social status?

[tomandlu]

Just breaking.

Lets hope this includes LHA, but it seems to be that the max any family can claim is 500 quid a week total for all benefits.

Good move if true.

I'll tell you one thing, this will screw up the Daily Express's business model...

[tomandlu]

Better start maiming them now to get the disability benefit.

Yay! The express is saved!

[Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz]

Seriously, that's the best you've got? £26k pa net is not exactly hardship of the Highland Clearances variety, is it?

I suppose I was just suggesting it was headline grabbing nonsense which would please the City dunces and the Tory heartlands.

Tbh, I think the whole system needs a complete shakeup rather than simply a cap.

Not entirely sure why we're obsessing about benefits either, when you consider how many billions are spent on war, no, sorry, meant Defence. Biggest waste of money ever. What do we get from it? A big arms industry and dead / mutilated soldiers. No ta!

Edited October 4, 2010 by gruffydd