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That and the fact that housing benefit will now be paid to the claimant rather than to the landlord/housing association and you have a recipe for an almighty clusterfuck!

It used to be like this many years ago.

I would assume the reason for it now is that in many cases the HB element will not cover rent but it will so much less transparent than underpaying the landlord and asking them to get the difference from the benefit recipient.

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Cheers Jupe. To be honest I've referred him onto our money advice team, my head was busted with it! I'll keep that number on speed dial though.

No worries man.

The Scottish Welfare Fund will be a shout also. He can apply for a Crisis Grant, though use it wisely as you can only get one in a 28 day period, and three in a one year period. If so, get it in asap, they'll be fucking deluged in UC areas.

Quite frankly, it's going to be a total clusterfuck. It doesn't come to Angus until April 2016 and luckily i'm moving into another area of welfare rights so I will probably avoid the worst. Still, f**k IDS.

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you need to calm down a bit and simply answer the question or back out.

if this person has dependents then there will be child tax credits and child benefit as well. possibly working tax credits too.

in your rush to score points you have completely forgotten about those.

Back of a fag packet calculation time.

Assuming a household comprising of 1 working father on minimum wage, and a mother looking after two dependent children. I'm sure you'd agree this is a relatively common scenario.

Income

Father: £1016.00 per month Wages

Father: £195.00 per month WTC

Mother: £655.00 per month in CTC/CHB

Total: £1866.00 per month

Outgoings

Rent: Based on 3 bed private let in Dundee area (say £600p/month) Would get LHA of about £200 p/month towards it = £400p/month

Council Tax (Assuming Band A): £99.00p/month

Leccy/Gas: Even on a modern efficient 2 bed flat, you'll still be over £100.00 p/month

Food: £400 p/month easily

Running a car: at least £200 p/month

We're already at £1200 out, and we've not even got into the majority of expenses involving kids, clothing, communication, insurances.

This of course all assumes that:

- No expensive car repairs

- Not having to replace a fucked kitchen appliance

- Dad doesn't have any sick leave

- HMRC don't massively delay Tax Creds and CHB after July renewals (which in many cases they have)

- There is no debt

Unless you are indeed trolling Oaksoft, it should be fairly obvious that it doesn't take much for the average low income family to be in the shit through no real fault of their own.

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Back of a fag packet calculation time.

Assuming a household comprising of 1 working father on minimum wage, and a mother looking after two dependent children. I'm sure you'd agree this is a relatively common scenario.

Income

Father: £1016.00 per month Wages

Father: £195.00 per month WTC

Mother: £655.00 per month in CTC/CHB

Total: £1866.00 per month

Outgoings

Rent: Based on 3 bed private let in Dundee area (say £600p/month) Would get LHA of about £200 p/month towards it = £400p/month

Council Tax (Assuming Band A): £99.00p/month

Leccy/Gas: Even on a modern efficient 2 bed flat, you'll still be over £100.00 p/month

Food: £400 p/month easily

Running a car: at least £200 p/month

We're already at £1200 out, and we've not even got into the majority of expenses involving kids, clothing, communication, insurances.

This of course all assumes that:

- No expensive car repairs

- Not having to replace a fucked kitchen appliance

- Dad doesn't have any sick leave

- HMRC don't massively delay Tax Creds and CHB after July renewals (which in many cases they have)

- There is no debt

Unless you are indeed trolling Oaksoft, it should be fairly obvious that it doesn't take much for the average low income family to be in the shit through no real fault of their own.

2 dads and 1 mum? Under the same roof?

What kind of hell hole are we living in here?

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Back of a fag packet calculation time.

Assuming a household comprising of 1 working father on minimum wage, and a mother looking after two dependent children. I'm sure you'd agree this is a relatively common scenario.

Income

Father: £1016.00 per month Wages

Father: £195.00 per month WTC

Mother: £655.00 per month in CTC/CHB

Total: £1866.00 per month

Outgoings

Rent: Based on 3 bed private let in Dundee area (say £600p/month) Would get LHA of about £200 p/month towards it = £400p/month

Council Tax (Assuming Band A): £99.00p/month

Leccy/Gas: Even on a modern efficient 2 bed flat, you'll still be over £100.00 p/month

Food: £400 p/month easily

Running a car: at least £200 p/month

We're already at £1200 out, and we've not even got into the majority of expenses involving kids, clothing, communication, insurances.

This of course all assumes that:

- No expensive car repairs

- Not having to replace a fucked kitchen appliance

- Dad doesn't have any sick leave

- HMRC don't massively delay Tax Creds and CHB after July renewals (which in many cases they have)

- There is no debt

Unless you are indeed trolling Oaksoft, it should be fairly obvious that it doesn't take much for the average low income family to be in the shit through no real fault of their own.

Interesting back of the fag packet calculations. The thing that gets me on this is that you are looking at someone earning £1016 but actually seeing an income of £2066 and this is before we look at the kids getting free meals, reduced or fully funded music, school trips etc. etc.. Without benefits this would require an income of £32,000 pre-tax to provide the same net.

Once again, honest employers paying proper wages are subsidising those that don't.

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The No debt assumption from Jupe is important. You see too many people getting sucked into the never-ending cycle of payday loans, and without an increase in income, these can be difficult to get out of.

Yep, pretty much. In my experience, if you're on a low income, as soon as you take one of these out, odds-on, you'll be financially rooked within a year.

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Certainly life on less than that amount can be difficult but poverty? Really? No chance. Absolutely no chance whatsoever.

We need a welfare state which keeps a roof over people's heads, keeps them warm and stops them starving.

Beyond that people have to take responsibility for their own lives and stop being dependent on others.

Anyone earning £20k and complaining they are not being given enough state handouts is quite frankly taking the fucking piss.

I'm inclined to agree (Whoa shock horror)

The Rowntree conditions are rather stringent. For example they class you as being in poverty if you can't afford a broadband internet connection or a week's self-catering holiday at a caravan park in the UK, the latter of those can be more expensive than a week's self-catering on the Costa Del Sol.

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Absolutely but it's reasonable to ask who forced them into that situation.

Is it reasonable that tax payers who are working hard and taking responsibility should repeatedly bail out those who simply can't take responsibility for their own lives?

yeah you can f**k right off after adopting that approach.

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Absolutely but it's reasonable to ask who forced them into that situation.

Is it reasonable that tax payers who are working hard and taking responsibility should repeatedly bail out those who simply can't take responsibility for their own lives?

Fucks sake I'm starting to sound like a bloody Tory - that's not good :lol: .

I will say this. I'm more than happy to help those in shit. Those who are not earning or who are earning almost nothing and genuinely struggle to feed themselves.

It angers me that these people are being targetted.

However, there's no way I'm going to argue that people on £2k per month need government help.

Neither am I going to defend people on £1k per month using foodbanks.

What possible bill could occur that would be more important than paying for food?

They're on £1K a month, with government help taking them up to £2K (my calculation was out and their total income inc benefits etc is actually just over £1840)

Foodbanks aren't "Government help". They are effectively a charity re-distributing donations of food. They have nothing to do with "hard working taxpayers"

How they got into a situation is irrelevant (unless they need money advice, or ongoing support). When we refer people for food parcels, we make a decision based on their circumstances at the time, vulnerability etc. If they've got into the shit because of debt or budgeting issues, we can refer them onto the appropriate agencies for help, as well as providing assistance ourselves.

Other areas may differ, but most of our referrals are benefit delay or sanction-related and are usually requested by people on JSA/ESA. Referrals for people in employ here tend to be from single people on min wage and/or zero hours contracts.

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How on earth did our society get to a point where we have people frothing at the mouth in rage over "only" getting £1k a month in benefits and that not being enough?

How on earth did society get to a point where we're more concerned with punishing the poor and taking benefits from people than we are with huge corporate tax evasion and avoidance?

It's like standing under a waterfall and complaining that it's raining.

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Yeah I didn't really phrase that right. That tax payers are funding the upgrade to £2k and that's absolutely way beyond the definition of the phrase "reasonable help".

Anyone getting that sort of help should be exceptionally grateful to all those taxpayers who have funded it instead of whining about how it still isn't enough.

The "upgrade" is funded by Tax Credits which exist because governments don't have the bottle to ensure employers pay decent/fair wages.

Who exactly is "whining"?

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If that last bit is true then that's ridiculous. How on earth can you expect to be taken seriously when you are including a bloody holiday in your poverty package.

This is the problem right here.

What they are describing isn't poverty at all.

It's unpleasant.

But it's not poverty and any attempt by the JRT to portray it as such risks seriously undermining the genuine public goodwill to help those who are struggling to eat.

How on earth did our society get to a point where we have people frothing at the mouth in rage over "only" getting £1k a month in benefits and that not being enough?

This is taking me back to Advanced Higher Modern Studies, which I was fortunate enough to receive one of the best marks in Scotland for.

The JRT is a large social policy research charity who's definition and statistics of poverty are regularly cited by politicians, particularly those of the lefty persuasion, and of course by 17 year olds writing Modern Studies essays

They calculate the "living wage" that a lot of politicians from Labour and the SNP talk about and their definition of the minimum amount of money needed to live off includes the cost of things like a broadband internet connection and one week self-catering holiday in the UK.

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Because those are two separate issues and you are trying to justify one by mixing it with the other. The issues are clearly linked

One thing at a time.

Nobody is PUNISHING anyone. Lolz try telling that to most people sanctioned or going through WCA's

Nobody has a right to benefits.

It's a gift from our society to help you when you are struggling. Pish

Let's get that point nailed right from the start. Let's not, you horrendous old bigot.

To be frank, I couldn't face the rest of your benefits street daily mail pish.

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