The Benefit of Work?

To be honest, I am sick to the back teeth of hearing Cameron bleating on about the Benefit Cap and how it is that people on benefit are earning more than people in work and I am more infuriated that people believe his rhetoric. With this article, I aim to shed some light on to the subject.

The official line is, the average household earnings are around £35,000 per year before tax, which equates to approx £26,000 after deductions. This is true.

However, what this does not tell you is that same family will still receive Child Benefit AND Child Tax Credit (CTC), plus any Disability Living Allowance (DLA) entitlement, industrial injuries and a slew of other benefits available in varying circumstances.

Also, to earn a pre tax wage of £35k, you need to be earning approximately 3 times the national minimum wage of £6.08 an hour! Or put another way, a shop assistant in Asda will have to work for 3 years to earn what a teacher gets in one! However, the teacher will be able to buy a house and the Asda worker won't.

The quality of life however, need not be as far apart as one may think. The table below shows the varying wages of four identical families in different circumstances, along with benefit entitlement, and yes, Tax Credit ARE state benefits, like it or not. (Apologies for the formatting, I couldn't find a way to make an Excel speadsheet convert well to a jpg)

	The Work Benefit Analysis
		Family 1		Family 2		Family 3		Family 4
	Gross Earnings	35,000.00		£12,014.00		£5,058.56		£5,509.40
	Less Tax and NI	8,712.00		£1,477.00		£0.00		£0.00
	Net Earnings	26,288.00		£10,537.00		£5,058.56		£5,509.40
	Child Benefit	3,164.00		£3,164.00		£3,164.00		£3,164.00
	Child Tax Credit	3,289.00		£10,735.00		£10,735.40		£10,735.40
	Working Tax Credit	0.00		£2,364.48		£6,502.08		£0.00
	Housing Benefit	0.00		£7,800.00		£7,800.00		£7,800.00
	DLA	0.00		£0.00		£2,672.80		£0.00
	Total Net Income	32,741.00		£34,600.48		£35,932.84		£27,208.80
	All families based on 4 children and 2 adults, renting a 4 bed house at £150/week
	Family 1 is earning the average wage of £35,000 before tax
	Family 2 earning National Minimum Wage of £6.08 / hour, 38 hours a week
	Family 3 with 1 disabled adult working 16 hours a week @ NMW
	Family 4 - Not working and on JSA
	Housing Benefit assumes entitlement to 4 bed rate based on figures from benefit calcualtor at http://derby.gov.uk/apps/benefitscalculator/
	Tax Credit and Child Benefit figures based on the benefit calculator at http://www.familynest.co.uk/Tools/Tax-credits-benefits-calculator/
	JSA rates found at http://www.direct.gov.uk/prod_consum_dg/groups/dg_digitalassets/@dg/@en/documents/digitalasset/dg_200090.html
	DLA rates found at http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/disabledpeople/financialsupport/dg_10011925
	DLA rate here assumes 1 adult with High Rate Mobility Componant Only, families with disabled children or adults with care needs get more
	Income Tax and NI payable worked out here http://www.incometaxcalculator.org.uk/index.php

What Does This Table Tell Us?

Family 1 have the best paid job overall but pay the highest tax and get the least Tax Credits and no help with their rent.

Family 2 work an unskilled job on minimum wage but work the same number of hours as family 1. NMW is so pitiful that they could not afford to live if it wasn't for the boost from Tax Credits AND Housing Benefit. However, this then means the overall income of family 2 is higher IF they have 4 children, the less children they have, the further behind family 1 they fall.

Family 3 has the main earner with a disability which entitles them to work just 16 hours a week to get Working Tax Credit and the rate of WTC is much higher. Coupled with the DLA, this brings the overall income of this family above both of the first two.

Family 4 has 2 unemployed adults so all of their income comes from State sources.

Remember the Cap?

Based on this outline, both family 3 and 4 have TOTAL benefit payments of over £26,000 and would therefore be hit by the new proposals.

The family with a disability would stand to lose £6,000, more than wiping out their entire disability support and child benefit! Family 4 would lose nearly £100 month. This makes the people who are already the most vulnerable, even more so!

The other 2 families lose nothing and I'm not saying they should. However, as Child Benefit is universal it should not be counted in the cap. If you can get it no matter what you're income, it is only fair to exclude it from any benefit cap. This would make family 4 safe, they wouldn't have to move home or make a choice between eating or paying the gas bill.

Family 3 however, would still be stuffed! Remember, despite having a disability, they are still trying to work and raise 4 kids. These are the families the government should be encouraging and really do need the support. DLA is also a universal benefit, you get it as a pauper or a millionaire. It is essential for most disabled people's mobility and / or care needs.

What is the point of have benefit supporting disability if you just take that off Housing Benefit or some other essential form of support? With both CB and DLA protected, family 3 would also be safe.


What about Housing Benefit?

This is spoken of like it's some kind of luxury the sponging benefit scroungers are living the high life on, yet it avoids the truth. It get paid to people who can afford to own multiple houses, landlords!

Tenants do not get to have the money, it pays to have a roof over their head, but they do not see the cash! What would you propose we do? Kick all Housing Benefit claimants on the street?

Remember, a good proportion of HB claims are for people who ARE trying to work but get paid crap wages, or who have been made redundant or are either too disabled, sick or old to work! One of these situation could very easily befall you one day soon and you will be asking for support too.


The Abusers?

In every system, in every walk of life, you get those who want to take advantage of the generosity of others. There is no way to stop this and we need to accept that. We can threaten, punish, humiliate, beat and imprison these people but it will NOT stop if from happening. It will only serve to make it harder for these people to rejoin the workforce.

Yes, we do need to work together to minimise exploitation and encourage people to want to take part in society again. We need to rebuild communities and help people to help themselves. We need to re-empower people and give them a voice.


Conclusion

We are told the maximum possible savings from a benefit cap are £300m. That is less money than Vodafone has avoided in tax last year. It is a mere 20% of the money failed banks received to continue to pay their bosses £900k bonus packages. It way less than has been spent on unused aircraft carriers. Yet this one measure is going to affect hundred of thousands of children and vulnerable people.

Exclude DLA and Child Benefit from the equation and things balance out a bit, but it is rents that are most people's biggest outgoing and the one thing you can't cut back on. There isn't any surplus social housing for people to fall back on and private rents are increasing with demand.

A one-size-fits-all cap can not possibly work all over the country taking in to account the huge variations in housing prices and the cost of living. We need to accept the fact people in different parts of the country need different amounts to live on and we need to stop judging others for what they're getting, for one day it could you your turn!

What's more, if a family can get more on benefit than they can in work, it doesn't mean the benefit should be cut, it means the wages need increasing!

Musings from the Car Wash

Well, I see it's been over a year since I posted anything on this blog, partly through denial of enforced changes in plan and not having the enthusiasm / motivation to commit to words the many thoughts passing through my head.

Anyway, amongst other things today, I spent an hour at the Hand Car Wash (HCW) where I was getting my LPV (Large Passenger Vehicle) some TLC. This in itself was not without irony, having not long before, purchased a whole load of new car cleaning stuff from Asda, returning home and looking at the task in hand and thinking "OMG, NFW (No fucking way)".

So, the first point to make about the HCW, it's a place where people go who CBA go to give their own car some TLC.

I should point out, my LPV is really used as a family car. My own six kids, their friends, my friends and the fact the having a large vehicle quite obviously means you will be more than happy to take all your friends shite to the tip, randomly collect half a kitchen from Ikea and will more than happily accommodate other people's "essential" camping gear they can't fit in to their Smart Car! Yes, they were sensible enough to think ahead, the smart car is perfect for 1.5 adults and a 1 man pop-up tent but their kids have to travel with me, along with all the extra crap.

Standing there looking at 9 seats layered with crisp, biscuit and bread crumbs, ground together over a year, mixed with sand, soil and shit, the odd regurgitated carrot from the travel sick kid who always sits at the one place they can't get out of before projectile vomiting last night's Quorn korma all over the child in front and the floor, recently tidied but still with a healthy quota of used food wrappers, shoes, coats, numerous odd socks, Lego pieces and a plethora of random paraphernalia. It wasn't a hard choice to make and the deserved and VGC (Very Good Clean).

However, the HCW isn't just good for those of us who CBA to give a VGC to their VDV (Very Dirty Vehicle), oh no. It's so much more. Let me explain.

In front of the queue was a 2 year old white Audi, driven by an ageing Asian man (AAA man). Apparently he ordered a full valet and would wait while it was done. From looking at the couple and the car, I would postulate that this is probably their weekly drive out, probably via the Mosque and M & S. If my car had looked like their BEFORE it had been cleaned, I would have said it was spotless. AAA man repeatedly inspected the work by running his finger along a just-polished piece of glass and inspecting it for signs of dust.

Of course, this left a grease trail on the glass and the diligent valet man dutifully dabbed his chamois to remove it. This process was repeated on several occasions, who knows how long, my attention had shifted.

In front of me the line moved forward slowly. The car in front was not a VDV either, it was a NCV (Nearly Clean Vehicle), with lowered suspension, over-sized alloys and a fat-ass exhaust.

However, my excitement at inching forward was all too much. A young chap came up and I tentatively asked how much it would cost for a wash and vacuum. I had to say, I was a little scared at this point. He eyed the VDV / LPV up, thinking "shit guys, this one actually does need cleaning" and muttered £15. Fortunately, my fake, stick-on tinted windows, with little holes picked in them by children, prevented visual contact with the interior. I breathed a sigh of relief. It was waaay worth it!

I was thrilled to be beaconed forward by another of the crew. By this time there were 4 other VSV's (Very shiny vehicles) in varying stages of post-wash buffing and hoovering, another couple NCV's pulled up behind me.

I sat in the warmth as the team surrounded my VDV and began spraying, wiping, cleaning and waxing. The comfort I gained from knowing my VDV would soon be a VSV was immense and it wasn't going to take me three hours graft and the onset of hypothermia to complete. The winds were blowing the water from my car on to the others behind. I wondered if this was by design, to make the job a little quicker and to recycle the water or just to ensure the car behind really did need a wash by the time their turn came.

However, the true amusement didn't begin until after I parked up in the dry cleaning area and got out. I had left my phone at home so couldn't send pointless texts, browse facebook or check my emails or ebays for the 14th time that hour! Whatever would I do? I paced hurriedly over to the kettle then away again, unsure if I could use it. I repeated this little dance three times, trying to decide what to do before plonking myself on a sofa that was so soft it almost swallowed me whole. My legs firmly back on the ground, I peered around hoping no-one else saw me. They didn't, I think.

Opposite was sat a late 20s chap, clean shaven, well-pressed, buried in his iPhone rip-off phone, pretending to do important stuff. He had an almost new GiT (this is what I'm sure the makers meant to write instead of GTi, were it not for the dyslexic signwriter). You know GiT's when you see them, although you usually hear them first. The GiT is the one who drives right up your arse in town, with the stereo, sub, amp 1 trillion watt mega blaster turned on full, shaking your bones to Dr Dre and waiting for that moment you leave more than 18 inches in front of you so he can roar past. The only difference between a GiT driver and a seventeen year old, is the age of the car. GiT drivers probably still don't have kids, they have have learnt what make a good ride.

The next car after me was driven by an almost middle-aged, bald and quite well-spread fellow. The car was a Mondeo Ghia, lowered suspension, 18" alloys, sports skirts, NOS and something else from Fast and Furious I can't remember. I figured by the time you get to this age ( my age incidentally) you're too large to fit in to a GiT car like a Golf, so you have to move up a notch. I also decided that he probably doesn't get that much good sex, didn't have kids and wasn't married, using my Sherlock-esque powers of deduction. This man cam and sat next to my on MY sofa. Shit, did this mean I had to talk or could I just do what we Brits do so well and just pretend he wasn't there. I opted for the latter, fearing the inevitable discussion about horsepower and penis size would otherwise ensue. I decided this car was an FFV (Fat and Forties Vehicle), driven by someone who still has that 17 year old zest for powerful cars but was way too much spare time and cash.

This option allowed me to continue my observations. Next up was a Very Clean Vehicle that didn't need washing, it was also an SUV (stuck up vehicle). The SUV, which annoyingly I couldn't identify my make and model within 15 seconds, or indeed at all (infuriatingly), for those that don't know, is like a family car that's overdone the body building meds. The Stuck Up Vehicle sits just that little bit higher than all the pleb cars on the road, the bodywork is that bit more overstated, giving the driver that feeling of supremacy on the road. These are usually driven by people in the late 40s or early 50s with a good deal of money behind them, often couple of kids or so. These would easily accommodate a couple of larger than average people and their over-indulged children and the manicured poodle in a personally crafted poodle pouch.

However, the Stuck Up Vehicle was to be outdone, overshadowed and left feeling more than a little inadequate by the following ACV (Almost Clean Vehicle). Yes, here was the STV 4x4. The Stuck-Up Twats Vehicle was a Range Rover, clearly never driven on a country lane let alone a field or somewhere with actual dirt. 4.5 litres of disgustingly wasteful engine fronted by gregarious and illegal bullbars with enough inner space and outer ruggedness to house Jeremy Clarkson's ego at a squeeze. Almost new STVs are owned by those who really do think they are God's gift yet would have a coronary at the thought of breaking a finger nail or getting a spot of mud on the wheel. The ST's that drive the V's know that you can't damage their car but if they so much as touch your car, it's a write-off and drive accordingly.

Oh and by the way, Mondeo Man did start a conversation that confirmed by suspicions about horsepower and penis size, he had a lot of horsepower....

... which concluded my trip to the HCW. My LPV was now a VCV. I can see my reflection in the dashboard, I do actually have carpet on the floor and the windows do actually work now. I truly believed I had faulty glass before. My lovely VCV won't remain so for long I'm sure, but I remain happy that although I can't do 0-60 in 1.1 seconds or drive at 270 mph (Mondeo Man can allegedly), my horsepower is small and.... (hmmm I won't go there).