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Old 02-14-2013, 05:41 AM   #1
DanaC
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Austerity or Class War?

Amongst the many austerity measures brought in by the current government are a raft of changes designed to completely overhaul the benefits system.

Some of the most controversial changes are to housing benefit. These changes are about to bite as the new financial year begins in April.

On face value the changes sound like they are an attempt to make the system fairer. certainly the word fairness gets used an awul lot in the discussions. It is unfair, say ministers, that a family in receipt of benefits should be able to live in a house and area which ordinary working families could not hope to afford. So, a hard cap on total payments for housing benefits has been introduced. Rather than than housing allowances being tagged wholly to the value of rents in the are, theynow take account of that local value but are hardcapped.

In the South, and particularly in London, this effectively prices housing benefit claimants out of the private rental market entirely and there is a woefully low number of social houses available.

At the same time, a second limit has been placed on housing benefit, in what has bene termed in the press a 'bedroom tax'. If a house is under occupied housing benefit will be reduced for every unoccupied bedroom.

The trouble is that a) families change their composition as people grow up, move out, move in, die, separate, divorce etc and this effectively forces a house change with any family change resulting in a spare bedroom. This might include cases of family breakdown, where a father has a room for their child to stay in at weekends, but whose residence is counted as elsewhere and therefore...the 'bedroom tax' applies. In the event of bereavement (either a partner, or a parent of adult child) there's a year's grace before it kicks in.

And b) there aren't enough different sized houses available in the social sector for those people to move into. Thus pushing them onto the private sector where the prices soar and the state of the housing is barely regulated in practice.

Alongside these changes are changes to Council tax benefits which will see many families currently exempt become liable for a portion of that tax. As well as changes to the levels of other benefits. And currnetly they're bringing in a cap on the rate at which benefits rise (1%) because, we are told , it is unfair that benefits are rising at a higher rate than wages.


Quote:
A Department of Work and Pensions spokesperson said: "It's not right that benefit claimants can receive higher incomes than families who are in work. That's why we're introducing a cap on benefits – to restore fairness back into our welfare system while ensuring that support goes to those who need it. Local authorities must consider the individual circumstances of the household and they must absolutely not apply a blanket policy of moving homeless families to different districts."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2013/fe...n-benefits-cap


Fair, it's all about what's fair. Except that it isn't really.

Firstly a lot of the people claiming those benefits are actually not unemployed, they're on low wages. So not only have their wages all but frozen, now their benefits are also being capped, and their homes rendered untenable.

Secondly, the cost to the tax payer of maintaining those families in their current homes is often cited as a large part of the benefits bill which needs to be trimmed; except that the costs of dealing with this are much greater if the current projections are to be believed.

Quote:
A council is planning the largest single displacement of poor people from London in the wake of the coalition government's controversial welfare reforms, singling out more than 700 families to be moved up to 200 miles away.

Camden council said that it would shortly be contacting 761 households, comprising 2,816 adults and children, because the coalition's benefit cap – which limits total welfare payments to £500 a week for families – will mean that they will be unable to afford their current accommodation or any other home in the south-east.

The Labour-controlled council warns that the majority of these families have three children and, once the cap is imposed this summer, will need to find on average an additional £90 a week for rent to remain in their homes – which means "sadly the only long-term solution for some households will be to move".

The local authority says it has been forced to look as far afield as Bradford, Birmingham and Leicester and warns that 900 schoolchildren – more than one child for each class as an average across the borough's schools – face having their education disrupted by the move.
Quote:
Last month Westminster, a Conservative-run borough, estimated 2,327 households would be affected. In Haringey, one of the four councils chosen to test the changes in April, "temporary accommodation" teams are beginning to collect information about the "income, employment status, personal circumstances and household composition" of 1,000 families who may, according to papers seen by the Guardian, have to move to "lower-cost areas outside of London".

Some authorities have also looked at buying properties outside the south-east. In nearby Brent, where 1,100 households will lose £100 a week after the household cap is introduced, the council has "assessed the costs of procurement in different areas of the country such as the Midlands — including Coventry and Birmingham. We have procured properties so far in Luton, Slough, High Wycombe and Hertfordshire."
Quote:
One single mother in Camden with four children, all under the age of 10, told the Guardian: "I want to stay where I am for my children's education. What it seems like is the government just want London for the rich. They want to move people on benefits to poor areas." Her rent is £340 for a two-bedroom flat in Camden. When the cap comes into effect, the government will reduce her housing subsidy to £204. This leaves a shortfall of £136. The council has offered to rehouse her in Liverpool.
Is that really what we want for our nation? Whole regions and the capital city set aside for one economic class? And the service workers...how far will theyhave to commute to serve those who can afford to live there?

It isn't just the South. The caps and cuts are forcing high numbers of individuals and families out of their current housing and onto an already overburdened and hard to regulate private sector, with many projected to become effectively homeless (living in shelters, low rent hotels, sleeping on family's couches).
Some estimates coming from the local authorities in the North suggest there may be a cost half a billion to their region.

There aren't enough houses of the right size to accomodate all the different family variations perfectly. Not even taking social and private housing together. It is going to cost the country millions to disrupt and distress individuals and families (single people under the age of 30 will no longer be helped to the tune of a one room house or flat, now they'll only be given enough for a room in a shared house) who are already on the edge.

The numbers of people resorting to foodbanks is at a staggering all time high in this country. Many of these people are employed.

Again and again we hear about fairness, setting us against them. Them being anybody poorer than Us. We hear about the 'scroungers' versus the 'strivers'. We hear about unemployed layabouts twitching the curtains of their super lovely large houses as good decent ordinary people struggle out in the winter weather to work and not be able to afford that nice house themselves.

Except, that we're all pretty much the same. The vast majority of people claiming out of work benefits are back in work within weeks or months of being unemployed. It's a small minority who are long term unemployed, yet they have been set up to characterise the entirety.

Of that small minority, a large percentage are people with serious and genuine barriers to employment. People who'd have trouble getting and holding a job in a time of plenty and confidence. In a climate of high unemployment, insecure jobs and low wages, they don't stand a bloody chance and hammering them for continuing not to have a job is pointless cruelty.

Most of the people claiming benefits are either in work, temporarily claiming out of work benefits, or have genuine need to be permanently supported (for example in the caseof disability).

But the fairness debate is so frustrating. Again and again people show that they are in favour of cuts. damn right! To other people's benefits. Everyone has someone to point at and say, yes, but that's not fair. And all of us struggle more because of it. It is a false divide that we are being offered, betwen the deserving and undeserving poor, between the shiftless and respectable, between the worthy and the unworthy of support.

And it's a false economy. It costs us more to engage in this rampant cruelty, than it does to offer genuine and well-funded support. Clever though. As the costs mount the paymasters can say....look, the benefits system is breaking....it is costing too much we must cut. And cut. And reshape. Until it becomes a creaking and broken thing...and they can say again, look it is broken, it costs too much it is inefficient, we must reshape and cut. Rinse and repeat.
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Last edited by DanaC; 02-14-2013 at 05:53 AM.
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Old 02-14-2013, 06:01 AM   #2
DanaC
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I'm still churned up about this. It just makes no sense.

We are intentionally creating a stream of virtual refugees from one part of the country to another. 1000s of families being moved from this borough in the South to that borough in the North, and what about the families currently being displaced in the boroughs they are being shunted to? The housing in those areas is about to be put under terrible strain by the cuts they themselves are facing, they also have waiting lists and inadequate housing stock and now they're to absorb 1000's of families on top of that.

Families that have managed to get through breakdowns and divorces and settle in some way that allows their children to have both parents now face further disruption as dad can no longer keep a bed for them. Children currently settled in schools will face disruption to their education as theymove and settle into a new area and new school.

Local services will be expected topick up the tab but they do so in the middle of having their budgets cut by 20 and 30 %.

Meanwhile back to work programmes force unemployed youngsters to work for their benefits in private companies, who frankly should be fucking employing people to do that work. The theoretical 'training' doesn't materialise and Poundstretchers gets 150 hours of free worker at the tax payer's expense.

In work benefits, out of work benefits, wages stagnating, cuts to the left of us, cuts to the right of us, but the wealthy get tax breaks.
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Old 02-22-2013, 03:04 PM   #3
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It's sort of nice to know that we, over here, are in the same boat.

I've been hearing all kinds of horrible things that are going to happen. My mom's Rx went from about 55$ (In Dec. 2012) to 135.00$ because, you know, it's the new year and benes change every year. She said, "well, when I run out I just won't re-new the prescription," and believe me, it's not b/c they can't afford it; it's because my dad would give her shit over it and I think she secretly wants to die anyway. God, that's hard to admit, but I think she does.
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Old 02-28-2013, 07:52 PM   #4
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It sounds like the bad guys on both sides of the pond have been exchanging tips. Just a few observations from the American side:


Quote:
Originally Posted by DanaC View Post
Amongst the many austerity measures brought in by the current government are a raft of changes designed to completely overhaul the benefits system.

Some of the most controversial changes are to housing benefit. These changes are about to bite as the new financial year begins in April.
At least you guys in the UK aren't being presented with potential changes/overhauls every couple of weeks the way the US has lately. The state of low income housing in the US is a national disgrace. Obama had already made cuts to various "entitlement” programs during his first term in office. Housing has been especially hard hit. As it now stands, housing vouchers are scarcer than hens’ teeth and more precious than rubies. Wait lists wind down the halls of time for two, three, five years and more. And that’s before any effects of the sequester, the coming government shut-down, etc., etc.

I’ve read estimates that range from 100,000 to 350,000 households being put out on the streets over the next 10 years or less thanks to cuts in federal housing programs. These household members include the elderly, the disabled, children from low income families, and disabled veterans, etc. The sequester will hit the Department of Housing and Urban Authority (HUD) very hard.

Today I called the local Housing Authority just to find out where we all stand. Looks like we’re OK for March, but come the cruelest month, all bets are off. Well, at least April should be slightly warmer. Maybe.


Quote:
On face value the changes sound like they are an attempt to make the system fairer. certainly the word fairness gets used an awul lot in the discussions. It is unfair, say ministers, that a family in receipt of benefits should be able to live in a house and area which ordinary working families could not hope to afford. So, a hard cap on total payments for housing benefits has been introduced. Rather than than housing allowances being tagged wholly to the value of rents in the are, theynow take account of that local value but are hardcapped.
One thing about Public Housing in the US, very few people think that those who live there are getting some kind of ace deal. Most Americans do not harbor a desire to move into the so-called projects in our urban areas and a single family voucher is not much envied, either. The system is distinctly unfair to the poor who are forced to make use of it, so no one here is too concerned with fairness. Our poor deserve what they get - very little.

Although the system here uses something called the "fair market value" for setting allowed rental prices, don't let that blatent misnomer mislead you. Fair market value equals a monthly rental payment that will allow you to lease a run down trailer next to a meth lab.


Quote:
In the South, and particularly in London, this effectively prices housing benefit claimants out of the private rental market entirely and there is a woefully low number of social houses available.
The same thing is true here, and not only in big cities, but in almost any area where jobs are available. For example, the local housing authority will cover the rent for a ramshackle apartment in a town where the unemployment is near 20%, but woe to anyone wishing to move 50 miles down the road to a town where a person just might find a job. THERE the 'fair market" is $650/month against an average real world cost of $1500 or so for a modest two bedroom home. $650 in THAT town might get you a storage shed - if you're lucky.

Quote:
At the same time, a second limit has been placed on housing benefit, in what has bene termed in the press a 'bedroom tax'. If a house is under occupied housing benefit will be reduced for every unoccupied bedroom...
Nice. Here they go that even one better. If a person moves out of a Section 8 rental, the entire family ends up being displaced. Non family members are not allowed to live together, so you can't just put an ad in the paper to fill your vacancy.

Quote:
And it's a false economy. It costs us more to engage in this rampant cruelty, than it does to offer genuine and well-funded support. Clever though. As the costs mount the paymasters can say....look, the benefits system is breaking....it is costing too much we must cut. And cut. And reshape. Until it becomes a creaking and broken thing...and they can say again, look it is broken, it costs too much it is inefficient, we must reshape and cut. Rinse and repeat.
Yep, exactly. I don't see how any rational observer in EITHER of our countries view these sorts of policies and attitudes as anything BUT class warfare.

And in the US, there's a big racial component, as well. Here everyone who is on housing assistance or foodstamps is an African American welfare queen who uses her foodstamps for lobster dinners or else to buy meth. If you gave her and her family decent housing, they'd just turn it into yet one more crack house. Oh, and let's not even get started on all those illegals who get on the US gov't tit before the water from the Rio Grande is even dried from their backs. Why should we sacrifice our poor, hard-working millionaires to support people like THAT? Oh, grrr!

I'm with you all the way, girlfriend!
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Old 02-28-2013, 08:30 PM   #5
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Irony (aka payback is a bitch) by the other side...

If you wish to see austerity (aka poverty) in the US,
visit your nearest government supported Indian/Native American Reservation.

If you wish to see class warfare, visit the nearest (tribal) casino.
The tribes are winning this war in a big way.
The $ proceeds from gambling are pulling large sums over to the tribes,
and tribal health clinics are providing free health care to their members.

If you wish to see more irony... watch for the TV commercials
about "paycheck loans" being directed to "white" audiences.
It's sort of a reverse "down at the pawn shop".
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Old 03-01-2013, 02:41 PM   #6
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'Rents are both voting UKIP next election.
OMG.
Makes me want to spit.
But I live in their house.
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Old 03-01-2013, 02:48 PM   #7
DanaC
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I takeit your Mum's feeling somewhat betrayed by the lib Dems then?
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Old 03-01-2013, 04:13 PM   #8
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We're all in this together they tell us from on high. Workers have had to cut their cloth, so why not the 'shirkers' too? Never mind that the unemployed are struggling more than ever to keep a roof over their heads and food in their bellies. never mind, even, that workers/shirkers divide is a false one, with the majority of benefits claimants supplementing low paid work.

We're all in this together. The pain must be shared. All must bear the taste the medicine.

Unless of course one is a banker.

Quote:
We are all in it together. This is the message the government wants to give about austerity. Everyone has to shoulder a part of the load. Each of us must do our bit. We are the "big society", knitted together by a common project of national togetherness in the face of adversity.

This has become the familiar rhetorical window-dressing of a massive and unprecedented assault upon the most vulnerable people in our society. The big society is a lie. From later on this year, the sum total of a family's benefit entitlement will be capped at £500 a week.
When you consider that I pay £375 a month for a tiny 1 bedroom house in the North where prices are considerably lower than in the South, a cap of £2000 a month across all the different strands of benefit (Housing benefit, council tax benefit, unemployment benefit etc) is cripplingly low for a family of four, say, in the south whose rent might head up past £1000 p/month for a two bed house with the kids sharing a bedroom.




Quote:
For those who have larger families and are living in places like London, where rents are ridiculously high and rising steeply, this is not nearly enough to get by. Even without the cap on benefits, ordinary people are being forced out of central London by escalating costs. In Westminster, housing benefit claims have gone down 20% since March 2010, while in places like Barnet and Newham, they went up over 40%, demonstrating clearly how the poor are being squeezed out. Soon London will look like Paris, with rich people living in the centre and poor, often immigrant, communities hidden out of sight beyond the Périphérique.

The consequence of this mass deportation will be that outer London boroughs will not be able to cope and will cook up ways of shunting the vulnerable further afield, cutting people off from their traditional communities and forms of informal support. Inevitably, homelessness, both in the form of rough sleeping and sofa-surfing, is massively on the rise again. According to the government, this benefit cap is absolutely necessary. So too is the cap of 1% on any increases in benefit until 2017-18, which means that benefits will rise well below the rate of inflation. But when it comes to capping bankers' bonuses, the Tories and their Lib Dem sidekicks have been screaming blue murder.
Quote:
This week, the EU proposed that bonuses ought to be no more than 100% of bankers' annual salaries, or 200% if sanctioned by shareholders. Someone earning £1m could thus get an extra £2m if their work is deemed of sufficient value to the firm. But apparently, this is not nearly enough. This cap is unfair, they say. Bonuses should be unlimited. And if these pin-striped übermensch don't get what they want, they will have a tantrum and stomp off to Singapore. Well, let them go.
Quote:
How can the government keep on talking about us all being in it together with a straight face? The bankers were substantially responsible for creating this financial mess, yet whenever there is talk of limiting the bonus culture that incentivised all the absurd risk-taking that got us into this trouble, the government steps in to side with the wealthy. No, the opposite of the big society is now the case. London is becoming the tale of two cities – the poor are capped, the rich are protected. From my parish at the Elephant and Castle, we can see the City; but it might as well be a million miles away. These are different worlds where different rules apply. And when a society gets so out of kilter with itself, social disorder is not far round the corner. Remember the riots? I suspect we haven't seen the last of them.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisf...h-all-together
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Old 03-01-2013, 09:55 PM   #9
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It all goes to show that the upper 1% globally are continuing to entrench themselves in a system with two sets of rules - one for themselves and another for everyone else. The uber wealthy have no loyalty to any nation - including any nation that they are nominally citizens of. At most, their allegiance is to the soil upon which their off shore banks are built.

For those in the loftiest income brackets, ethics or a sense of moral values is a handicap - a character defect to be overcome, rather than a sense of integrity to be admired. It's all a game played by the laws of the jungle in a quest for ever more money and power. And there can never be enough of either if you are one of the top players.

The rest of the populance seems to have sunk into a deep apathy, rather than to make any attempt to change or even recognize the downward trajectory that the greed of a few has placed us upon. The people need to wake up before it's too late - if it's not already.
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Old 03-02-2013, 12:56 AM   #10
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Quote:
Originally Posted by DanaC View Post
We're all in this together they tell us from on high. Workers have had to cut their cloth, so why not the 'shirkers' too?
But they are.
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Old 03-02-2013, 03:02 AM   #11
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Abigail has just got herself a two bedroom flat.
I need to squeeze out some twins too.
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Old 03-02-2013, 05:01 AM   #12
DanaC
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That's one of the big problems. Not enough one bed places for singletons or couples without childer.

I should bloody well hope she's been given a 2 bed place with twin babbas to cope with.
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Old 03-02-2013, 05:03 AM   #13
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Ha! nice find Bruceybabes.
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Old 03-02-2013, 06:28 AM   #14
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Yeah - I don't resent it - six people in a three bedroom house is overcrowding.

I just have a flip-flop reaction to it. I've been applying for four years now. But we're three people (and two cats) in a three-bed. I just don't qualify on any count.

Mum wants me out of the house.
In fact she wants me in the local mental hospital to sort out my drinking.
And I know it. So it's tough.

At present I'm being a great daughter. Every day I ask what I can do, and when and how.
Shoulda been doing that all along, but I lost my way when I was diagnised with liver damage.
And as of tomorrow, despite what Sexobon thinks, I'm long term sober. So it should all sort itself out. You never know with Mum though - she doesn't necessarily need a reason to kick off. Just her own anger and frustration. And Dad is a whole other story... he's become quite angry with the Alzheimers. He made me cry the other day. Not something I do very oftren.
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Old 03-02-2013, 06:34 AM   #15
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Sundae, my uncle has dementia and alzheimers. He's quite violent now and in full time care because my aunt can't care for him.

It's a very difficult journey for any family. Frustrating, frightening and just plain old scary. I feel really sorry for you and your Mum having to deal with it every day. Must be hard. and very painful to watch.

Don't worry about sexo. He's just being his usual self. What else can you expect of anyone?
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