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Is benefits cap fair or misguided?
Britain’s welfare state, the brainchild of economist William Beveridge, was first introduced in 1948 but as a nation we have been supporting those who are out of work since the Poor Laws of the late 1500s.
Today there are more than 50,000 people in Northamptonshire claiming benefits ranging from Jobseeker’s Allowance to support for single parents. This equates to 12.2 per cent of the county’s population.
But those who are on benefits are often given a bad press.
Former Prime Minster Tony Blair once said that the welfare state is “associated with fraud, abuse, laziness, a dependency culture, social irresponsibility encouraged by welfare dependency”.
The Government is currently trying to introduce welfare reforms that would cap benefits at £26,000 a year, which it says is the equivalent of a £35,000 salary before tax.
The cap was last week defeated by a vote in the House of Lords but with the Bill due to be disussed again by MPs this week the Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith says the Government will continue to push them through.
A Department for Work and Pensions spokesman said: “There has to be a limit on the amount of money benefit claimants can receive.
“We think that limit is set at a fair rate of £26,000 – the equivalent to someone earning £35,000 before tax, a salary that many working families would be happy to receive.
“We are determined our reforms will be implemented in full.”
If passed, the benefit cap proposals would come into effect in April, 2013, and would ensure households on out-of-work benefits will not receive more than the average household weekly wage.
It applied to combined income from the main out-of-work benefits including Jobseeker’s Allowance, Income Support, Housing Benefit, Child Benefit and Child Tax Credit.
The plans are expected to save the Government £290m in 2013/14 and £330m in 2014/15.
But what do members of the public think of the proposed reforms? We asked people who are in work and those claiming benefits for their views.
THOSE WHO WORK...
Father-of-two Frank Finlay works up to 90 hours a week to support his wife and two children.
His wife stays at home with their youngest child, who is 18 months old, because the couple cannot afford childcare.
Mr Finlay, 26, of Kettering, says benefits should be capped at a lot less than £26,000 for those who do not work. He said: “I was raised on a run-down council estate and the majority of people I grew up with in my teens openly bragged about having another kid to get a bigger council house and more benefits.
“I’ve worked for everything I own, I’ve just finished my 12th 14-and-a-half-hour shift in a row and finally get two days off before I’m back on it. But at least I can sleep easy knowing that I make a contribution to society.
“I have no issues with my tax dollars helping people with genuine disabilities and child benefit for low-income families with a genuine reason for not being able to support themselves. I do take issue with providing a comfortable lifestyle for the lazy and immoral scroungers in the country.”
Nixi Perrin and her partner both work full-time and after saving hard for three years have just managed to get a mortgage for a house.
They would love to have children but have decided this is something they cannot afford at the moment.
The 24-year-old, of Rothwell, said: “It does make me sick when I see people my age and younger who have children and are out every weekend, always have the newest phone, computer, 3D TV, brand new clothes and holidays, having never done a day’s work in their life with a house paid for by taxpayers’ money. There is too much of an incentive to not work and have children to get a free house and benefits. People who work hard should be rewarded, not the other way round.
“More needs to be done to support lower income families who work but whose jobs don’t pay enough to meet the ever-rising bills. If we saved the money from these needless benefits we could give it to our elderly, truly disabled and vulnerable people in society who often get overlooked.”
Catherine Roberts, of Kettering, says she continued to work even while having radiotherapy for cancer.
She took some time off after surgery to recover but found there was little financial support for someone in her situation.
She said: “It really does make my blood boil that I am working though cancer treatment to pay for the benefits of the workshy.
“We need to put the system back to what it was designed for – a safety net for the hard-working, not a featherbed for the bone-idle.”
THOSE ON BENEFITS...
There may be a perception that young mothers are happy to claim benefits and stay at home with their child, but some would love the chance to go back to work.
Liz Line, of Rushden, who is currently claiming benefits, says the extortionate cost of childcare was the only reason she was unable to get a job.
Liz, who receives £10,000 a year in benefits, said: “I struggled for three years to get a job because childcare for two young kids is pretty much impossible. I can only do the job I have just got because it is evening work so the kids will go to their dad’s house overnight.
“The Jobcentre worked out I would be £70 better off working, but with two young children in childcare I would have been paying out more than £70 a week.
“Some people really are better off on benefits and it’s those reasons that should be addressed if we want more people to work.”
Single mum Rayne Browne, of Higham Ferrers, agrees.
She said: “The biggest problem for people in my situation is it costs much more to get out and work than for me to stay at home. We need a regular income for rent, taxes, food, gas, electric and so on.
“If I went out to work now I’d have to find a job that could afford all of that plus the extra £200 per week that childcare would cost. It is not worth my time right now, and certainly not in this economic climate.
“The attitude that all single mothers have luxuries is narrow-minded and inconsiderate. I would rather have gas in the meter and food in the fridge than have the latest of everything. I have a pay-as-you-go phone that gets £5 credit a month and I have a basic Virgin Media package because there is no Freeview signal where I live.”
Jane Griffiths claimed benefits while her children were growing up as she was divorced and she says it was incredibly hard to get by financially.
Jane, of Wellingborough, said: “I never found the finances easy – I had to clean the most disgusting factories to get some extra money for Christmas and I did not have a holiday for years.
“So no, don’t cap benefits. Leave the unemployed alone, most want to work.”
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Sunday 27 May 2012
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Comments
There are 10 comments to this article
Page 1 of 1
enemde
Sunday, February 5, 2012 at 07:00 PMits about time that we closed our borders for the sake of our kids and thier future.only allow people into the country if they are higly skilled and are sponsored or definatley have a job to go to.make them work for at least three years before being able to claim benefits and dont allow them to bring in every tom ,dick or harry that they say is related to them.
Rikmeister
Wednesday, February 1, 2012 at 03:25 PM@DMT48.. You are correct. He is working at a community centre in Corby 3 days+ per week. Its experience yes, but whilst he is doing his 30 hours he isn't looking for a job properly. Because its community work there is no chance of him getting a job there after so he isn't any better off in that regard. The benefit system in general will be at breaking point in 2012 due to all the closers and warehouse moves out of the area... :(
GDB21
Wednesday, February 1, 2012 at 03:03 PMSurely the cap should be set at the same level as minimum wage for the "working part" of the benefit, therefore meaning that no one is any better or any worse off if working or not. This would encourage active job seeking as there is the potential to improve your situation. The additional benefits for genuine illness, child benefit etc should stand alone so that everyone gets the same additional entitlements if they are entitled whether they are in employment or not?
DMT48
Wednesday, February 1, 2012 at 10:02 AM@Redbill It's not about blaming foreigners, but it is true that there is unprecedented pressure on housing, and far fewer jobs available, on account of immigration, especially that from Eastern Europe. Has it occurred to anyone that the reason for the heavy-handed approach to welfare might be because the welfare and housing bill can only go up and up, now that all immigrants from the EU are entitled to the same thing as locals? It's not the immigrant's fault - I'm sure if there was a country in the world where unskilled Brits could earn up to ten times more than in their home countries, where they were actually allowed in to do those jobs, they too would become immigrants to that utopia - but there isn't. I blame the government for believing that people would rather sit and suffer in poverty, than move to a country with more money and opportunity. Either way, what happens now is that for every extra 100,000 jobs, we will see an extra 80,000 immigrants, so Britons had better get used to life on the dole, as it will become a permanent feature for many, especially the over-50's.
RedBill
Wednesday, February 1, 2012 at 09:48 AMAs the usual sweeping generilsations abound about benifit claimants being greedy workshy parasites can we please turn our attention to the vast majority of ill, jlobless and dospossed parents who need genuine help to live. Firstly,the main reason that such an 'outrageous' cap is needed is to house people in the vast swathe of once-public housing that is now controlled by foreign and domestic speculators, who often pay no tax on their ill-gotten gains, who, especially in London and the South East know that we, the sapped taxpayers will give them several hundred pounds a week to help the dispossed 'live' in often squalid conditions. Cameron's mission to compell most hard-working public workers - Police, health workers, teachers etc,. to be casualised andor replaced by minimum-wage agency staff with the adequate wages they used too enjoy being given to their party contributors who no doubt run these newly created agencies will further increase demand for benefits. Canerons agency pimp-friends are also the ones reaping the rewards of compulsory work placements where many of those on benifits who can just about walk are forced to work in their shops and factory's for nothing taking even what low-paid jobs are left away from those who need to and can work....while we fight and argue and blame everything on the fault of foreigners we should turn our attention to the real greed in society....cameron and his corporate masters are the real 'something for nothing' brigade.
Gubog
Wednesday, February 1, 2012 at 08:55 AMIn my brief period of unemployment I used to hear some conversations from the feckless, the main one being Income support meaning the single parent has to get a job once the child reaches 7 years old as the money is stopped. So what are these people doing, they are pumping out more kids & in most cases unwanted but its a cash income. I think it should have stayed at 16 years old for income support as just one child must be cheaper to the state than 20. Do have a bit of sympathy as I would not want my 7 year old walking to school on their own & childcare is way to expensive.
DMT48
Wednesday, February 1, 2012 at 08:31 AM@Rikmeister I hope that your son is not shelf-stacking for his thirty hours. Workfare should be to help the community, not to make money for a private business at the expense of paid employees.
DMT48
Wednesday, February 1, 2012 at 08:28 AMHow about a little sanity? The benefits cap should be lower than what is proposed, but the reforms that are forcing the genuinely workless and sick into work are wrong? It seems that if you support welfare reform, you have to support all of it or none of it.
Rikmeister
Tuesday, January 31, 2012 at 03:25 PMStop all daytime TV signals from 9am to 3pm and see how many try harder to find work..! I of course don't point this at all the unemployed. Just those that pick their kids up from school in their PJs. You can't tell me they want to work. They cannot be looking very hard. Also my son now needs to work 30 hours a week just to get his Jobseekers allowance. What do the people with kids do about that as its the same as working. They will still need to get childcare.? Do they get away with doing these 30 hours.?
John Downes
Tuesday, January 31, 2012 at 12:52 PMThe truth of the matter is that the welfare state is just a giant Ponzi scheme. It cannot go on. We no longer have enough youngsters to keep it going. The welfare state and the NHS will have to be dismantled, and the pension age moved until after one has died. In 1880 there were about 20,000 civil servants, and they ran the entire British Empire. Now there are about a million of them and they are running the country into the ground. We have to adopt the post WW2 slogan, "Export to Survive." The public sector workers have to be fired, and set to work in industry doing real jobs. Tarrifs should be fixed on imported goods. Rationing should be reintroduced. If the British workforce is untrained, then train them. Firms who freeload the workforce by only taking experienced workers, will be taxed more heavily than firms who train. No more getting in workers from abroad to plug vacancies. The only people from overseas who will be allowed in to work would be the Irish, because of their geographical location and special relationship, ex-Gurkhas for their military service, and Czechs, for having the pluck to stand up to the European Union. This country has been a soft touch for too long. It is not fair to our youngsters to expect them to pay vast amounts of tax just to keep people living at home at ease.
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