Should there be a maximum limit on benefits?

[rov1100]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-15808922

It is proposed that the present limit is curtailed to a maximum of £500 per week or equivalent to £35,000 a year gross.

[paddywak]

I'd worked all my life up to 2001 when I had a stroke, since then I've been on disability and I'd love to know how people get this sort of money. I get disability living allowance motability and that's it. Not only that but every time my pension from the Coal Board goes up my benefits get reduced. It really pisses me off that people who have never paid into the system can reputedly get all these benefits and people like myself who worked all there life and paid in can get flump all when they need it.

[ummmm]

Are you not entitled to housing or council tax benefit Paddy?

[DrFilth]

kids paddywak notice how any of these that get large amounts have kids, i would love some of the people on here to have to try and claim some benefits i think once they have been out of work for a while they will get a shock

[welshlibranr]

paddywak, I totally agree!...it's just so very unfair!............

[anneasquith]

lots of people are in a similar position as you paddy :(

[ludwig]

Of course there should be a cap on benefits. Does anyone actually disagree with this ?

[NOX]

Yes I do actually. The problem with massive benefit payouts occurs not generally because people are playing the system although some are without a doubt, it is because of the way the housing market has changed since the inception of the idea of helping people with their rent. As someone else said on here it's usually about 50% cheaper to buy a house than to rent one. Couple that with a lack of decent social housing and you get a sceanario where rents are sky hight and the majority of large payments go on paying that via housing benefit/ council tax benefit. You can't simply demand that poor and / or disadvanataged families up and leave nice areas or you create ghettos and we've been 200 years escaping that sort of social inequality. What's the answer to this? Build more affordable social housing, tell anyone claiming benefit that if they work on Govt proposed schemes they will be granted a mortgage to buy their own home, and see how many people stay on benefits then. It's true there is little incentive to work as people are not much better off, so don't show them a stick, resettle them in some benefit claiming claiming ghetto they, and more importantly their children will never get out of, instead give them a carrot to make working really worthwhile for them and their children.

[DrFilth]

>> give them a carrot to make working really worthwhile <<

some would have to be given the same wage and perks as a mp for them to give up a life on benefits

[boxtops]

..plus, drF, it would mean that they have to get up in the morning and actually do some work.

[NOX]

Okay cap their benefits, move em all into concrete jungles where only the other disadvantaged live and enjoy a crime rate as high as kite, a growing prison population and police no go areas- much better idea.

[emmie]

Nox, any number of areas in the capital are exactly like that.

[DrFilth]

sat behind some very young girls on the bus, one says you preggies again , yeah
so soon
want another so i will move up the list, i want a little house with a little garden sick of that flat
if i have two i have a bigger chance

don't think she will ever want to work do you

[NOX]

I was born in Belfast and lived in London for 20 years Em, I know precisely the problems of inner city areas, hence my point of view. As soon as you normalise bad things they do indeed become normal. Will she ever work Drfilth- dunno the hypothetical young lady concerend, but your post does prove that she aspires to something- so let her get it with her own hard work, achieve some self respect and slide her off benefits that way. If you cap things, make people lives even harder than they are you will have a nightmare on your hands.

[DrFilth]

>> but your post does prove that she aspires to something- so let her get it with her own hard work <<

lying on her back with her legs open :)

[paddywak]

The trouble is ummmm is that if you're like myself and a lot of people of my age who are in this position is that the very fact you worked all your life tends to be against you. It's a case of "oh you own your own house you can't claim that, Oh , you've got more then £xxxxxx savings you can't claim that etc etc" The fact that you now have no income at all other then your pension and your savings are gradually been eaten away just to keep my lady and I in a reasonable lifestyle doesn't matter. It makes you wander if it was worth it

[emmie]

Paddywak, you couldn't say truer words, and finding myself in a similar situation, you have to navigate around this truly awful system, and not come out the other end any wiser or better off. As i was told once, by a staff member at the Social security, you would be better off not working.

[ummmm]

Right, okay, I get you. I agree, it's an awful system for the hardworking folk.

[emmie]

umm, most of us i am sure either are or were hard working, until they couldn't any longer, through retirement age, illness. so those who have contributed all their working lives, and mine had been a long one, feel no need now to take brickbats off anyone about not working.

[paddywak]

em I'm sorry to say that the majority of S.S. staf I've had dealings with would drop straight into Adolfs gang.If it hadn't been for the very helpful people at the local C.A.B, especially the young lady they fetched in to fill all the forms in for me, I probably wouldn't be getting the pittance I am getting.

[ummmm]

What's brickbats mean?

I'm not questioning the facts that you, and probably most of the posters here, are, or were, hard working.

But it appears that it's easier to claim if you're a career benefits claimant.