UK benefits cap starts today.

[Nessie]

From today the benefits cap is being rolled out over the country

http://www.dwp.gov.uk/adviser/updates/benefit-cap/

"From April 2013 a cap will be introduced on the total amount of benefit that working age people can receive. This will mean that workless households should no longer receive more in benefits than the average earnings of working households."

It works by adding up the total amount received in some but not all benefits per household. Once that amount reaches £500 per week for a couple (with or without children and lone parents) and £350 a week for single adults then no more is given to them. It applies to households where no one works enough hours to qualify for Working Tax Credit.

http://www.dwp.gov.uk/docs/benefit-cap-faqs.pdf

People are moaning, but £500 per week (£26k a year) is a good income and for many households it will be more as they get benefits not used to calculate the cap. So I don't see what the moaners have to moan about, especially since many work and support families for less.

 

[Professor Yaffle]

I thought it was just being introduced in parts of London today, as a trial before nationwide implementation:

Imposing a nationwide cap on benefits will "encourage people into work", the government has said, as the plan is rolled out in four London boroughs.

Couples and lone parents in Haringey, Enfield, Croydon and Bromley will not receive more than £500 a week while a £350 limit applies to single people.

But critics said the cap failed to tackle underlying issues, like the cost of housing and regional differences.

The cap will be imposed across England, Scotland and Wales from July.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-22148764

ETA Your link agrees:

The benefit cap will be implemented from April 2013, starting in four local authorities in London – Bromley, Croydon, Enfield and Haringey. These were chosen as London has the highest percentage of potential benefit cap claimants and a diverse cross section of residents. This will be a phased roll-out with the remaining local authorities implementing the cap from the 15 July 2013, with all appropriate households capped by the end September 2013.

 

[Nessie]

Yes, it being rolled out starting today.

I liked this from the FAQ

"Q - 28. How does DWP expect people to live on less money?

A - Finding work and qualifying for Working Tax Credit would mean the benefit cap would not apply to them. Therefore, they may be able to stay in their current home and improve their standard of living. The Money Advice Service may be able to help people with money, budgeting and debt advice. Please visit http://www.moneyadviceservice.org.uk/"

That is code for find a job and stop smoking!

 

[Professor Yaffle]

Its amazing* how much emphasis gets placed on giving people a greater incentive to work in times when jobs are scarcer and people really trying hard to get a job are struggling to find one.



*ie completely predictable

 

[Professor Yaffle]

In related news:

Iain Duncan Smith has been attacked over claims that his cap on benefits was driving people to find work.

A former chief economist at the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), which is now headed by the Tory minister, accused the former Conservative Party leader of misrepresenting government statistics

Jonathan Portes, now the director of National Institute of Economic and Social Research, suggested there was “no evidence at all” to show the imminent £26,000-a-year cap had affected people’s behaviour.

Yesterday, the DWP released figures showing the number of people expected to be hit by the cap had fallen from 56,000 to 40,000, with 8,000 claimants finding work through JobCentre Plus.

Mr Duncan Smith suggested the cap had helped people reverse their dependency on the welfare state, telling the Daily Mail: “Already we've seen 8,000 people who would have been affected by the cap move into jobs. This clearly demonstrates that the cap is having the desired impact.”

But Mr Portes told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme said he had noticed a “consistent pattern” of ministers trying to manipulate statistics to their own political ends.

“The actual analysis published by the Department for Work and Pensions makes it quite clear that they do not attempt to analyse any impact of behavioural change and that there is as yet no evidence one way or the other that there is behavioural change,” he said.

“It may be that the benefit cap has indeed had the effect that Iain Duncan Smith would like it to have. That is perfectly possible but without doing the analysis - and it has not been done - you simply cannot say that and you shouldn't say it.”

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/u...t-cap-is-driving-jobless-to-work-8571894.html

 

[Nessie]

Its amazing* how much emphasis gets placed on giving people a greater incentive to work in times when jobs are scarcer and people really trying hard to get a job are struggling to find one.



*ie completely predictable

I think it comes at a time when all have to make cut backs and I see no reason why those on benefits and who could but do not work should not have to make cuts as well. There are loads of low paid unskilled jobs out there which would lead to the person getting Working Tax Credit and so coming off the Cap. So get some work and the Cap does not apply to you.

I see an aim of this plan to make all people do at least some work and make life harder for those who see benefits as a lifestyle choice.

 

[brodski]

I'm not sure if people outside London realise just how expensive it is to live there especially with a large family- and not just in nice accommodation in affluent neighbourhoods, rent levels for slums in really dodgy neighbourhoods are still sky high . The answer could be to force those on benefits to move to cheaper parts of the country, but all this does is further concentrate jobless families in places where there are fewer jobs, with the whole host of social problems that brings, and to remove families on benefits from their friends, extended family, community and support networks- with the personal and social cost that brings.

We could increase the provision of social housing, in particular in London, to bring down the cost of housing benefit- but instead we are selling off existing stock at rock bottom prices and replacing it with stock which is much more expensive to rent.

This begins to look less like a policy of reducing the cost of the welfare budget and more like an attempt to jerrymander a few more Tory seats/ councils in London.

 

[Nessie]

I know someone recently moved from London to Scotland who said the only thing noticeably cheaper is his car insurance.

 

[brodski]

Does that include housing costs? In which case they must have mived from one of the absolute cheapest parts of london to the most expensive in Scotland.

 

[Nessie]

Does that include housing costs? In which case they must have mived from one of the absolute cheapest parts of london to the most expensive in Scotland.

He moved from a mixed part of London (south east) where you could get a three bed semi on a reasonable wage to one of the better parts of Glasgow, but not a mansion by any means. He was expecting to save with living expenses, but apart from insurance everything else is pretty much the same.

What I do not get is there must be mullions living and working in London on below average wages. So how do they manage when some on benefits say they cannot, yet they could get an over the average wage on benefits?

 

[Professor Yaffle]

He moved from a mixed part of London (south east) where you could get a three bed semi on a reasonable wage to one of the better parts of Glasgow, but not a mansion by any means. He was expecting to save with living expenses, but apart from insurance everything else is pretty much the same.

What I do not get is there must be mullions living and working in London on below average wages. So how do they manage when some on benefits say they cannot, yet they could get an over the average wage on benefits?

Working people (on poor wages) can get housing benefit too.

http://www.insidehousing.co.uk/tena...ing-benefit-claimants-in-work/6521183.article

 

[brodski]

A three bedroom flat in even a cheap part of south east London will cost at least a grand a month, or about half the benefits cap.

How people in London survive on less than the average wage is via in work benefits. Most housing benefit, for instance, goes to people in work.

 

[Nessie]

A three bedroom flat in even a cheap part of south east London will cost at least a grand a month, or about half the benefits cap.

How people in London survive on less than the average wage is via in work benefits. Most housing benefit, for instance, goes to people in work.

Thanks for that. So they will not lose out.

 

[brodski]

Thanks for that. So they will not lose out.

Not unless they lose their jobs, or don't work enough hours to qualify for working tax credits. The numvet of hours needed to quality has recently been upped, meaning many more people will be caught by the cap.

 

[Seismosaurus]

Just did a little looking on Rightmove, a property listing website. I searched for three bedroom houses, no price restrictions, in Glasgow and then in London. I looked at the highest and lowest price each one returned, and then went to the middle of the results to look at a median price. Just for quick and dirty comparison.

Three bedroom house in Glasgow : cheapest on the site, £20,000. Most expensive on the site, £660,000. Median price, £140,000.

Three bedroom house in London : cheapest on the site, £105,000. Most expensive on the site, £14,970,000. Median price, £900,000.

Yeah, it's a just a bit more expensive living in London.

 

[Nessie]

Not unless they lose their jobs, or don't work enough hours to qualify for working tax credits. The numvet of hours needed to quality has recently been upped, meaning many more people will be caught by the cap.

I understand for some reality is biting. There is help for people back to work.

http://www.dwp.gov.uk/docs/benefit-cap-faqs.pdf

I think an issue for some will be they have to take any job, not just what they fancy doing.

 

[Nessie]

Just did a little looking on Rightmove, a property listing website. I searched for three bedroom houses, no price restrictions, in Glasgow and then in London. I looked at the highest and lowest price each one returned, and then went to the middle of the results to look at a median price. Just for quick and dirty comparison.

Three bedroom house in Glasgow : cheapest on the site, £20,000. Most expensive on the site, £660,000. Median price, £140,000.

Three bedroom house in London : cheapest on the site, £105,000. Most expensive on the site, £14,970,000. Median price, £900,000.

Yeah, it's a just a bit more expensive living in London.

I am not saying it is not. I am saying that selling a poky hole in a run down part of London does not get you a mansion in Glasgow. In any case Glasgow as a city is very small, as a place including all the outer parts there are places where you will struggle to get a house for £660,000

 

[brodski]

I am not saying it is not. I am saying that selling a poky hole in a run down part of London does not get you a mansion in Glasgow. In any case Glasgow as a city is very small, as a place including all the outer parts there are places where you will struggle to get a house for £660,000

It's the bottom end of the market you need to compare- and rental prices at that.

Every london borough has extremely deprived neighbourhoods, and even those areas have very high rent levels.

 

[Seismosaurus]

I am not saying it is not.

And I'm not saying that you are saying that! I just thought it might be fun to have some rough figures to throw around.

I am saying that selling a poky hole in a run down part of London does not get you a mansion in Glasgow. In any case Glasgow as a city is very small, as a place including all the outer parts there are places where you will struggle to get a house for £660,000

No, it's not a case of pokey hole to mansion. But it's not actually that far short of that - the cheapest 3 bed house I found in all of London would go three quarters of the way to buying you a middle of the range house in Glasgow.

Or put another way, you could move from a middle of the range London house to a middle of the range Glasgow house and have something like half a million pounds left over. That's really not shabby at all.

 

[Nessie]

There must be a huge amount of housing benefit paid out in London. It is not a cappable benefit.