Benefits

Tories in tangle over tax credits

Chancellor George Osborne looks set to go ahead with cuts to tax credits which will see the income of low-paid workers drop by an average of £1,300 next April, despite opposition from Tory backbenchers and voters such as the woman who confronted a Government minister over the issue on BBC TV's Question Time. The changes to tax credits would save around £4.4 billion, or just over a third of the £12 billion the Treasury is seeking to cut from the welfare budget. Tory backbench opposition to the cuts stems from electoral calculations by MP's in marginal seats (it is significant that the measure...

Oppose tax credit cuts!

George Osborne has announced a new wave of cuts to tax credits, to be implemented in April 2016. The income threshold for Working Tax Credits, currently £6,420, will be cut to £3,850 per year. Those earning over £3,850 will see their payments considerably reduced. The income threshold for those claiming Child Tax Credits will go down from £16,105 to £12,125. Tax credits will also taper at a much faster rate. For every £1 over the income threshold individuals earn, they will lose 48p of their tax credits, up from 41p. In addition, Child Tax Credits will be limited to two children; tax credits...

Docking benefits won't keep children in school

Parents of children who are absent from school will have child benefit docked by £120 if they do not pay a fine within 28 days. Local authorities can already take parents to court if their children are “truanting”; courts can fine parents £60, rising to £120 if the fine is not paid within 21 days. Larger fines, community or jail sentences are also handed down to “persistent offenders”. These punishments already disproportionately affect poorer families. In April the National Union of Teachers’ conference passed policy against parental fines, including the demand that poorer families should not...

Fit for work?

More than ninety people a month are dying shortly after being declared fit to work by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP). Statistics released by the DWP, after a freedom of information request, showed that between December 2011 and February 2014 2,380 people who had their employment and support allowance (ESA) was stopped when a work capability assessment found they were “fit for work”, died shortly after. Still the DWP is defending these figures, claiming they “prove no causal effect between benefits and mortality”. Earlier in the same week the DWP was heavily criticised for a leaflet...

Fence Sitter

Fence Sitter They’re cutting help to those in need — What case to vote against? This is a tricky one indeed I’m staying on the fence Scrap targets for child poverty? My mind is wracked with doubt Perhaps, no — maybe, probably — I’m sitting this one out What’s wrong with capping benefits? Could someone please explain? There’s good things, bad things — call it quits I think I’ll just abstain Yes, voting No to welfare cuts Would lead to Labour losing! So we must show no heart or guts — My, this is so confusing! It’s been explained to me at last The logic’s mighty fine To be against, we let it...

Balls to the Budget!

Disabled People Against Cuts held a budget day demonstration in Westminster. The theme of “Balls to the Budget” saw people throwing a wide variety of balls at the gates of Downing Street as Osborne was due to leave to deliver the budget speech to parliament. Several hundred strong, the lively demonstration went on to march to Westminster Bridge and block the road. Tourists looked on bemused as a large banner reading “Balls to the budget” was hung over the wall on the south side of the river opposite the Palace of Westminster. Hopefully some of the MPs inside got the message that the public are...

Counting child poverty

The Conservative Minister for Work and Pensions, Iain Duncan Smith, recently declared that the latest figures on poverty in the UK (the DWP’s Households Below Average Income report for 2013/14) show the government is succeeding in tackling poverty and that inequality is falling. Both claims are based on a wilful misinterpretation of that report. There are several measures of poverty used in the report, the most useful being one of relative poverty (set at 60 per cent of median net household income including benefits). After housing costs, this is currently £232 a week. Using this measure, the...

What happens when benefits are cut

The Tories plan to stop 18-21 year olds claiming Housing Benefit. Sally Hendrick knows what this will mean. It’s hard to know where to start with my story of being a “homeless youth”. Partly because it feels so long ago now that it’s difficult to write as if I was still experiencing it; partly because some of my memories about the chronological order of things are jumbled; partly because I still block a lot of the memories out, it’s difficult to conjure them up to be able to write about them coherently. I am sure there will be many pieces about this cut, from the different perspectives of...

Making the poor pay

George Osborne’s Budget was a cynical attempt to restyle the Tories as the party of the workers. He announced the introduction of a national Living Wage; starting at £7.20, the hourly rate would rise to £9 by 2020. There are three immediate problems here. First the £9 an hour is the same rate that the, now superseded, national minimum wage would have risen to by 2020! Also, the national Living Wage will not, as Osborne, implied compensate for the Budget’s cuts in tax credits. Tax credits may be just an excuse for employers to pay poverty wages, as David Cameron said in justification, but a cut...

Tories rob poorest families

The government is threatening to cut child tax credits, a move which the Institute for Fiscal Studies says would take £1,400 per year from 3.7 million of the poorest families. The Resolution Foundation point out that this is a piece of regressive taxation. It would mostly affect the poorest 30% of households and leave the richest 40% almost entirely untouched. But the Conservatives are selling this move — surreally — as a means of raising wages. In a speech on Monday 22 June Cameron green lighted the move, saying he promised to end “complacency in how we approach the issue of low pay”. Like a...

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