The economics of the madhouse ..... or the future of benefits?

[Rewulf]

3 minutes ago, Newbie to this said:

No money should change hands if you are on welfare. 

You should not be able to spend welfare money on luxuries like fags, booze, games consoles, TVs, Pay for TV like sky, etc the list is endless.

Welfare should not be a way of life, but mearly a stepping stone to getting work.

Unless of course you are genuinely unable to work.

Thats inhuman ! ?
What would they do all day long, look for work? ! The ECHR  will hear of this !

Bear in mind that the ECHR put down internet access as 'a basic human right' some years ago.

[JohnfromUK]

2 minutes ago, Newbie to this said:

No money should change hands if you are on welfare. 

You should not be able to spend welfare money on luxuries like fags, booze, games consoles, TVs, Pay for TV like sky, etc the list is endless.

Welfare should not be a way of life, but mearly a stepping stone to getting work.

Unless of course you are genuinely unable to work.

Generally agree with the sentiment, and the genuinely unable to work (such as genuinely disabled) should not be 'cash starved'.  Problem now is that many who claim disability are no more 'really' disabled than many who work, and keep working despite injuries, illness and infirmity.  Disability has sadly become a lifestyle choice for many - which is so insulting to those who have genuine severe disabilities.

[Lloyd90]

2 hours ago, Rewulf said:

The benefit cap?
Is that applied rigorously ?
How does someone in London, or indeed in other areas pay rent out of that ?
An average 3 bed house in London can be £1500- 2000 a month.
The flats in Grenfell were valued at nearly £1 million a piece, what were their rents ?
Not disputing your figures Lloyd , just genuinely interested how that works.

https://www.foxtons.co.uk/living-in/hackney/rentals/

I doubt anything the government do is rigorously applied ... 

and I can only imagine in London that many people “rent” a single room in a house, as you often see on a the tv bailiff shows. So one 3 bed semi with a dining room turned into a “bedroom” will get potentially 4 renters all paying their housing benefits etc. 

 

[Rewulf]

10 minutes ago, Lloyd90 said:

I doubt anything the government do is rigorously applied ... 

and I can only imagine in London that many people “rent” a single room in a house, as you often see on a the tv bailiff shows. So one 3 bed semi with a dining room turned into a “bedroom” will get potentially 4 renters all paying their housing benefits etc. 

 

I seem to remember a single family can easily snag a 2-3 bedroom house in London, with a benefit bill well in excess of £5000 a month, once the rent is taken into consideration.
Its hardly an isolated thing.
The example below happens to be a migrant, but that is not really relevant.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1366570/Afghan-asylum-seeker-lived-1-2million-house-faces-jail-30-000-benefit-fraud.html

[motty]

2 hours ago, Newbie to this said:

No money should change hands if you are on welfare. 

You should not be able to spend welfare money on luxuries like fags, booze, games consoles, TVs, Pay for TV like sky, etc the list is endless.

Welfare should not be a way of life, but mearly a stepping stone to getting work.

Unless of course you are genuinely unable to work.

Exactly! All those who feature on benefit programmes on the tv are never without sky tv, mobiles, alcohol, cigarettes and pets, yet seem to struggle to pay for food..

[oldypigeonpopper]

hello, theres a chap in Abingdon who is the Mr Expert on benifit claims, oh and not an employee of the DWP  

[Vince Green]

7 hours ago, Lord Geordie said:

I think it's a bargain actually, currently the majority get their benefit, housing benefit, council tax benefit so it all adds up. I think if this £10k was a SINGULAR payment, and they had to pay their housing costs themselves! It would make a saving

What you describe is Universal Credit except that's capped at about £26K

Edited August 2, 2018 by Vince Green

[Vince Green]

3 hours ago, Rewulf said:

I seem to remember a single family can easily snag a 2-3 bedroom house in London, with a benefit bill well in excess of £5000 a month, once the rent is taken into consideration.
Its hardly an isolated thing.
The example below happens to be a migrant, but that is not really relevant.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1366570/Afghan-asylum-seeker-lived-1-2million-house-faces-jail-30-000-benefit-fraud.html

That's being stopped by Universal Credit, which is capped at about £26k a year, it used to be very much true

[Vince Green]

3 hours ago, Lloyd90 said:

I doubt anything the government do is rigorously applied ... 

and I can only imagine in London that many people “rent” a single room in a house, as you often see on a the tv bailiff shows. So one 3 bed semi with a dining room turned into a “bedroom” will get potentially 4 renters all paying their housing benefits etc. 

 

Official Council rents in London are ridiculously low, I know a family member who has a 3 bed council semi in Surrey (London borough). Been there well over 30 years but her rent is only in the region of £260 pcm. That's why there is so much subletting going on. 

[Lloyd90]

45 minutes ago, Vince Green said:

Official Council rents in London are ridiculously low, I know a family member who has a 3 bed council semi in Surrey (London borough). Been there well over 30 years but her rent is only in the region of £260 pcm. That's why there is so much subletting going on. 

Sounds about right, stupidly low council rents whilst others have to pay full market price. 

We paid £900 a month for a tiny 2 bed and a box in Bristol to rent private before we bought! 

I remmeber going into work and a woman there was complaining how the council had been to paint her  3 bed massive Victorian council house and they’d woken her up at 08:30am ... can you believe the check of waking her up when coming to paint her house for free?!! 

She told me she pays about £300 a month and since her kids moved out she has a lodger so lives there for free! 

Raised 2 lovely drug addict kids who have their own council funded flats in the city now as well... 

Really I was lucky she was in work, she’s regularly off sick for 6+ months but always manages to recover just the week before they cut her pay to 50% ... funny that! 

 

[stumfelter]

Can't believe even a council house in Surrey is only £260 a month?

[Rewulf]

5 hours ago, Vince Green said:

That's being stopped by Universal Credit, which is capped at about £26k a year, it used to be very much true

No disrespect, but what will happen to people on benefits in, for example, London, where rents can be in excess of £26000 per annum?

Will they move? Or landlords lower the rent? You know thats not happening.

What will actually happen?

[old man]

20 hours ago, JohnfromUK said:

I don't know the benefits system well at all, but I doubt that very many will get £26,000 in benefits.  Many people have assets/savings and cannot claim many of the benefits.  I know at the time I took redundancy, I did look into what I might be able to claim ...... and it was actually very little (because I received a redundancy package and have savings and assets) being only job seekers allowance.  I claimed nothing in the end and used the opportunity to take early retirement, but I'm of an age where that was possible, which obviously isn't the case for everyone.

The idea behind the current move to 'Universal Credit' was to ensure that people would always be supported for essential needs, but always be better off in work.  That is a sound idea, but it seems to have been (surprise, surprise) badly implemented.

Still trying to catch up here but John, lots of claimants will claim everything going just because they can.

I applaud your honesty, sadly honesty, is maybe now seen as not the best policy? Should have had your duck house and pond renovated while you had the chance?

[Vince Green]

8 hours ago, Rewulf said:

No disrespect, but what will happen to people on benefits in, for example, London, where rents can be in excess of £26000 per annum?

Will they move? Or landlords lower the rent? You know thats not happening.

What will actually happen?

People are being moved out to places in the country where the rents are lower. Often to the Midlands, its happening in large numbers.  

Edited August 3, 2018 by Vince Green

[JohnfromUK]

34 minutes ago, old man said:

Still trying to catch up here but John, lots of claimants will claim everything going just because they can.

I applaud your honesty, sadly honesty, is maybe now seen as not the best policy? Should have had your duck house and pond renovated while you had the chance?

Thank you.  In fact my redundancy and savings will be easily visible to the DWP who should be checking up on these things.  It would have been very risky even if I had felt tempted to make false claims.  I was brought up to both save and be prepared for a 'rainy day', but regrettably the system penalises the 'prudent' and the honest ........ and rewards the feckless, spendthrifts and dishonest.  This is one of the big problems with the whole system, just look at all of the false claims coming to like over Grenfell.  In my view we should be MUCH tougher on fraudulent claims.

I do think that the level of fraud and false claims is probably very high (many people on these forums have quoted examples), but the civil service/government must get to grips with this.

[RockySpears]

9 hours ago, Rewulf said:

what will happen to people on benefits in, for example, London, where rents can be in excess of £26000 per annum?

Will they move? Or landlords lower the rent? You know thats not happening.

What will actually happen?

  This has always astounded me.  How can a cleaner, on min wage or even Living wage, afford to work in London?  In fact, how does a teacher, on a starting wage of around £24,000 start in London?  IT CANNOT be that bad there, because otherwise NONE of these people could afford to live there, the numbers, in my mind, simply do not add up.

  At £24,000 pa, you take home around £1500 a month, if rents really are £1000 a month you are left with £115 per week to live on: 

Food?  Council tax?  Travel?  Clothes?  I just do not see how this works.  And remember, the cleaner is not even close to that.

Cities never made sense to me.

 

RS

 

[Newbie to this]

2 hours ago, Vince Green said:

People are being moved out to places in the country where the rents are lower. Often to the Midlands, its happening in large numbers.  

The people who are being moved out to the country/seaside aren't people who are already housed, it's people who need housing or are being evicted by their private landlord (for whatever reason) but are on housing benefit, so are the council's responsibility.

[Rewulf]

1 hour ago, RockySpears said:

  This has always astounded me.  How can a cleaner, on min wage or even Living wage, afford to work in London?  In fact, how does a teacher, on a starting wage of around £24,000 start in London?  IT CANNOT be that bad there, because otherwise NONE of these people could afford to live there, the numbers, in my mind, simply do not add up.

  At £24,000 pa, you take home around £1500 a month, if rents really are £1000 a month you are left with £115 per week to live on: 

Food?  Council tax?  Travel?  Clothes?  I just do not see how this works.  And remember, the cleaner is not even close to that.

Cities never made sense to me.

 

RS

 

The simple fact is, without a very good job/income you cant afford to live in London, unless you house share, or have an earning partner.
£1000 a month , MIGHT get you a 1 bed flat, but  usually, this is the exception.
I have quite a few relatives in N.London, Harrow and Watford, even Watfords house prices are around 2-3 times dearer than where I live, and rents accordingly.

Google ,Can I afford to live in London?

https://londonist.com/london/housing/high-rents-mean-40-of-londoners-can-t-afford-a-decent-standard-of-living

2 hours ago, Vince Green said:

People are being moved out to places in the country where the rents are lower. Often to the Midlands, its happening in large numbers.  

I must say Vince ,Ive not heard of this, people being forcibly relocated since the 'cap' ?
You have to get 50 miles away from London before you see significant rent decreases, and I cant see people just going quietly away from their friends and family or job.
I rather believe the cap is either being ignored or circumvented, I know for a fact that in Nottingham, there are single parent families receiving  a lot more money than the alleged cap.

 

2 minutes ago, Newbie to this said:

The people who are being moved out to the country/seaside aren't people who are already housed, it's people who need housing or are being evicted by their private landlord (for whatever reason) but are on housing benefit, so are the council's responsibility.

Thats sounds more plausible.

[Gordon R]

Quote

That's being stopped by Universal Credit, which is capped at about £26k a year, it used to be very much true

Have they managed to cap the number of claims that one person can make? I suspect not. If they cap anything, the sharper ones just stick in another claim and another and another. Perhaps someone might have a stab at just how many one person can make.

Answers which naively say it is just one - don't count, as that would be a whopper.

[JohnfromUK]

There is more on this in today's papers http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6021389/Labours-universal-basic-income-plan-leaves-poor-WORSE-report-claims.html

[Vince Green]

8 hours ago, Gordon R said:

Have they managed to cap the number of claims that one person can make? I suspect not. If they cap anything, the sharper ones just stick in another claim and another and another. Perhaps someone might have a stab at just how many one person can make.

Answers which naively say it is just one - don't count, as that would be a whopper.

Universal Credit is one consolidated central payment per person,  it comprises all the various benefits rolled up and made as a single payment. That's how it works rather than a collection of separate claims. It doesn't however take into account multiple identities which is still going on in bigger numbers than they would like to admit. Until they start DNA and fingerprinting claimants.

Edited August 3, 2018 by Vince Green

[RockySpears]

5 hours ago, Rewulf said:

Can I afford to live in London?

https://londonist.com/london/housing/high-rents-mean-40-of-londoners-can-t-afford-a-decent-standard-of-living

  I think there is a difference between "cannot afford to " and the article claiming "decent standard of living".

  The truth is that London DOES have cleaners and other Min/Living wage earners as well as low paid, bottom rung, professionals, so I cannot see it being as bad as we keep being told.

  Obviously I am wrong, but it still makes no sense to me,

 

RS

[Gordon R]

Universal Credit is a bit like Housing Benefit and Tax Credits, insofar as it was intended that one person would only make the one claim. Organised fraudsters drove a coach and horses through that concept years ago, on a massive scale.

[old man]

11 hours ago, JohnfromUK said:

Thank you.  In fact my redundancy and savings will be easily visible to the DWP who should be checking up on these things.  It would have been very risky even if I had felt tempted to make false claims.  I was brought up to both save and be prepared for a 'rainy day', but regrettably the system penalises the 'prudent' and the honest ........ and rewards the feckless, spendthrifts and dishonest.  This is one of the big problems with the whole system, just look at all of the false claims coming to like over Grenfell.  In my view we should be MUCH tougher on fraudulent claims.

I do think that the level of fraud and false claims is probably very high (many people on these forums have quoted examples), but the civil service/government must get to grips with this.

The fraud investigations should start at parliamentary level maybe as their seeming proclivity for greed  can only fuel the same in society at large?

[Vince Green]

4 hours ago, RockySpears said:

  I think there is a difference between "cannot afford to " and the article claiming "decent standard of living".

  The truth is that London DOES have cleaners and other Min/Living wage earners as well as low paid, bottom rung, professionals, so I cannot see it being as bad as we keep being told.

  Obviously I am wrong, but it still makes no sense to me,

 

RS

Yes but virtually all of the cleaners and minicab drivers, waiters, builders etc are claiming full benefits AND working cash in hand on the side. Its fraud on an industrial scale, but they have no choice, as you imply they couldn't do it if they were legit  

Over 5000 families have been shipped out of London in the past three years. I cant post a link but google something like London Boroughs moving families out of London and you should find it

 

Edited August 3, 2018 by Vince Green