Some are and good on 'em. Despite their flaws the extra money on them allowed my wage to feed the family, pay the bills and get us both out of the house one night a week and a few other luxuries. When your 18 with a baby that is pretty great. We were lucky that we were living in a house owned by one of her relatives who was mining abroad which kept the rent down so probably not a typical experience but a lot better than the job I had alone. For a few months over the summer my part time job was full time due to illness/holiday plus seasonal work which with travel (and the fact I couldn't afford to go home between jobs) kept me out of the house from 7am to midnight weekdays and most of the day weekends. When we finally got our claim through the seasonal work was over but we still had almost as much money coming in with me on only 20 hours and her working Saturdays. We would of struggled to get by on that for any length of time. Some weeks I had been working 70 hours + upto 3 hours travel and standing at bus stops a day and we had seemed little better off than 20, her Saturdays + tax credits.
The Attack On Working Tax Credits: Implentation & Propaganda.
- Thread starter taffboy gwyrdd
- Start date
Smokeandsteam
Working Class First
But this is the problem. Benefit Street promoted the concept of a certain lifestyle that comes with being unemployed/never employed.
You simply can't attempt the to pull the same narrative with those in work. Peoples own experience of those in that boat won't allow it.
Doctor Carrot
Marxist Henchman
It's not too hard to paint them as feckless. It's already being done, albeit subtly but it's there. Look at the language in this article. To incentivise them for more work (because really they're lazy bastards who could work harder instead of sponging off you. Nevermind there's no extra jobs to go to we just won't mention that bit). I know it's child tax credits but the attack and language is the same.
I think you underestimate some peoples distain for anyone they think is getting a better deal than them. Why should they get x just because they have kids,a disability etc etc. They're always getting their hair or nails done. I can't afford that. They've just bought a house, have a new car etc but why should that other person have something they don't. The real politics of envy.
DexterTCN
Troy and Abed in the morning
The implication being that she's getting it because she's foreign.
The attack on tax credits started years ago and is getting stronger.
Self-employed people will be next in line (in relation to tax credits). Staff are demoralized and there's nowhere near enough of them. Aggressive pursuit of overpayments is the priority now. Many staff left to go to the DWP with promises of higher pay but loads of them came back saying "jesus fucking christ...it's WORSE over there."
It'll just get worse.
MochaSoul
It's being enslaved of your own free will
It was 2005/6 when I first got the impression that the discourse around immigrants and benefits/benefit fraud and tax credit/tax credit abuse in the media was typical "first they came for..." talk especially taking into account the big fish dodge the system out of billions. I've been vocal about this (as much as I can being one in 60 million). It's come.
http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/b...snight-humilated-single-mother-shanene-thorpe
Ah, Allegra Stratton, she has form, remember Sherene Thorp on Newsnight?
yes, and there appears to be a whole army of misanthropes, social darwinists, UKIP types to reinforce that message, help create moral panic
and no, I don't think they are orchestrated, just a lot of them.
MochaSoul
It's being enslaved of your own free will
I don't think they needed orchestration after years of priming people to it. Thatcher did it first with "There's no such thing as a society.". It's been downhill ever since.
Smokeandsteam
Working Class First
Agree, but to an extent.
The narrative before has been 'working families getting up early for work and walking past their feckless unemployed neighbour still in bed' 'we want to make work pay' etc.
Not only is this narrative impossible here but - crucially - a bigger constituency than you one describe will recognise those on the receiving end and see the narrative for what it is.
Attacking people who are working and grafting is a game changer for the austerity spinners.
toggle
wobbly
then you get the 'wasn't like that in my day' brigade, who see people having an easier time than they did 30 years ago in similar circumstances and get all shitty that people might no longer have to struggle as much as they did. it did them good - no it fucking didn't, cause it's turned them into a heartless cunt.
but also a lot of myth about what benefits are actualy available. I got told a lot of stuff i could claim for when i first claimed benefits. because why should they (the underserving multitude) get it and not me, cause they thought that somehow i was magically fundamentally different from all other claimants.
All i had to do is ask and I'd get extra money for the kid's clothes, money to run a car, money off the bills. With no understanding that although there were schemes that could make these available, they all rely on very specific circumstances (eg motability schemes) and wern't just handed out as more cash to anyone for the asking. and no amount of explaining did anything other than get an unduly aggressive response because i wouldn't try to claim stuff that didn't exist in the way they thought it did. I got everything I could, because the JC advisor gave me all the necessary paperwork, in between muttering abut my ex being a bastard, but i still got shit off these nuggets.
Doctor Carrot
Marxist Henchman
Jesus! I didn't pay attention to who wrote it but thanks for pointing it out. She certainly does have form doesn't she? The sneering on her part and the humiliation felt by Thorp was tangible. That was just nasty.
She's nothing compared to Alley Einstein.
LeonC1963
New Member
ESA(C) is only payable for 1 year anyway after that you have to apply for ESA Income Related and thus is means tested and had to get, I did not get it as my wifes part time earnings take her just over threshold but my disabilities due to SAH/Stroke remain.
I was assessed by the then ATOS and given a 2 year award but only got ESA for a year.
yep, thats her.
she wrote that vile piece in the mirror about the couple on benefits getting married.
she wrote that vile piece in the mirror about the couple on benefits getting married.
Jackobi
swallows anything
That is the case for ESA claimants in the Work Related Activity Group but for those in the Support Group, there is currently no time limit for contribution-based payments.
Casually Red
tomorrow belongs to me
Why don't they just cut the shit and say straight out " the poor are bastards and we hate them " . Honestly , I doubt they'd lose a single vote over it at this stage .
weepiper
I fix the machines that fight climate change
I recently had a 20p an hour payrise. I work 21.5 hours a week and went up from £6.70 to £6.90 an hour. I didn't tell Housing Benefit about it until I had two payslips showing the new rate because past experience has told me that if I told them about it straightaway they would suspend my HB payments until I had those two payslips to send them to prove it. So they didn't suspend my HB, but my 20p an hour payrise has resulted in a £145 overpayment which they're taking back off my HB payments at £11 per week. There's your benefit trap, right there. My payrise is pointless and actually causing me more trouble than it's worth.
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taffboy gwyrdd
Embrace the confusion!
Ah, right...When Universal Clusterfuck was first meant to be trialled it was to be across a number of Greater Manchester boroughs, but it was so shit in the getting together that they reduced it to just the job centre in Ashton Under Lyme (and only certain claimant types there)
This blogger (and green party candidate) has been protesting and monitoring ever since.
This entry gives some idea as to what awaits others....
https://thepoorsideoflife.wordpress...ey-amongst-other-happenings-at-the-jobcentre/
This blogger (and green party candidate) has been protesting and monitoring ever since.
This entry gives some idea as to what awaits others....
https://thepoorsideoflife.wordpress...ey-amongst-other-happenings-at-the-jobcentre/
I'm in favour of abolishing working tax credit or whatever the fuck it's called. Employers should pay enough that it isn't needed.
existentialist
Tired and unemotional
But I think we need to get the employer bit sorted out before we get rid of the tax credits
Although it would be typical of the logic this lot employs that they'd cook up some idea whereby removing tax credits from people would allow, by some unspecified mechanism, employers to start paying a living wage...
superfly101
Well-Known Member
You might want to read this as HMRC has effectively contracted out most Tax Credit functions to Concentrix
http://www.rightsnet.org.uk/forums/viewthread/8309/
Links in that thread to new CPAG fact sheets the Contract and other interesting things.
Oh all the telephone numbers will be changed on the 30th https://www.gov.uk/government/news/changes-to-hmrc-telephone-numbers
http://www.rightsnet.org.uk/forums/viewthread/8309/
Links in that thread to new CPAG fact sheets the Contract and other interesting things.
Oh all the telephone numbers will be changed on the 30th https://www.gov.uk/government/news/changes-to-hmrc-telephone-numbers
Smokeandsteam
Working Class First
I think what this refers to is the collection of Tax Credit over payments which has been outsourced. As far as I know the system is still administered by HMRC.
Idris2002
canadian girlfriend
All in good time.
Doctor Carrot
Marxist Henchman
I think I just threw up in my mouth reading that.
taffboy gwyrdd
Embrace the confusion!
The disinfo/hate campaign in media which underpins much of this stuff is very carefully orchestrated. After that, the orchestration may be less required. It's "wind them up and watch them go".
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