I suppose in some cases you need to help remove those on benefits who can work by still subsidising their wages, if a minimum wage job is less than benefits, the government should bump it up go the level you would get when you were claiming benefit. Surely paying half of the benefit rather than the full benefit is better for the government and helps fill out a job space? I know there are not enough jobs per people but at the very least we should aim to fill the jobs that are.

Thats what the Working Tax Credits are for.

If only anyone knew how it is they worked.

Why's it not working then?

Because its an incredibly complicated method of refunding money back into working people/parents pockets, and anyone who claims it lives with the spectre of over-claiming and having to repay what you claimed in the next tax year.

Bear in mind that part of the application process is based on what you earned last year (lets say it was zero because you were unemployed) and also on what you are earning now - what are you earning now if you've just found a job with an agency on minimum wage, how many hours are you going to be offered next week or for the whole of the current year ?

So you estimate, and they estimate, and they credit you a payment every month, and then next April they decide that they granted you too much and now they want it back, which means that next year you are actually worse off.

It doesn't take too many bad experiences for word to get round that actually the whole thing is a crock of shoite administered by people who only know as much as the recipients (which in the main isn't much).

In my youth I remember it as supplementary benefit (a catch all). I had to claim it when I left Uni because it also covered those of us who had not paid enough NI contributions.

Friends of mine had to get their local MP involved in their tax credit overpayment. The DWP had estimated they had overpaid them by around £3,000 and wanted payment within something silly like 60 days.
When the MP got involved, it turned out they had only been overpaid by pounds not thousands of pounds. Caused them quite a lot of grief and stress until it was sorted. IMO it its a silly system cos my friend did various amounts of overtime - no two weeks were the same hours due to the nature of the job. Headaches all round trying to fill out the forms.

Thats exactly where I am right now.

Well, regardless of whether it was or wasn't ... it won't work any better now that Osborne has frozen them.
Maybe someone should tell that Briscoe woman that Cod'ead mentioned a few posts ago.

Labour got in because the electorate were sick of not being able to switch their lights on, working a three day week etc, Heath was also despised as a leader - if Thatcher had been the leader in 72 Wilson/Callaghan would never have got in power. In 79 the electorate showed what they thought of unions who had got too big for their boots.

Unions have never had quite the swagger since Thatcher crushed Arthur.

And in the intervening years, wages have gone down in real terms, while the cost of living has risen by more than inflation – and those at the very top have just carried on getting richer and richer. And we have less job security too.

So everything worked out well ...

The party traditionally associated with the Unions got in ... because the electorate, despite being sick of three-day weeks, decided not to blame the Unions and sacked Heath.

So you don't have any evidence to back up your claims but you still keep making them:

And you keep ignoring reality - not least that wages have not increased in line with the increasing cost of housing.

And here, especially for you, some reality:

[url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/spl/hi/in_depth/uk_house_prices/html/houses.stmUsing this, we can see some prices today.[/url

2011 average prices

Lancaster – terrace £120,420. In 1986, a two up, two down was around £14,500 (I know, because that’s what I was buying on a wage of £105 gross per week – £5,460 per annum. I lost it when made redundant and took a job at £60 gross per week – £3,120).

Hackney – £304,638. There are one-bed flats down our road right now that, when built around four years ago, we put on the market for £250,000. Prices in our housing association block were £60K around 17 years ago. Selling now (if you've bought the rest) for around the price quoted in that survey – one sold for £365,000 around three years ago. These are 'two bed' – ie, one is a box room with just about room for a single bed, but nothing more. Being what used to be regarded as sensible, you need an annual income (let's allow for it to be a combined income) of over £105K.

The mean income in London is £29,947.

The mean income in the north west is £20,483. ([url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_in_the_United_KingdomData here[/url)



Smith Institute: “The affordability of owner-occupation has deteriorated over the long term. Average house price increases outstripped average earnings from 1970 to 2000 in all areas of the UK except Scotland. Since 1980 the incomes of higher earners have risen faster than those of others, leading to greater pressure on those at the margins of home ownership. There has been a long-term drop in the proportion and numbers of first-time buyers (FTBs) and a decline in the rates of owner-occupation among younger age groups since the late 1980s.” (p11)


Report [url=http://www.smith-institute.org.uk/file/The%20End%20of%20the%20Affair%20-%20implications%20of%20declining%20home%20ownership.pdfhere[/url (pdf)

[url=http://blogs.thisismoney.co.uk/2010/02/homebuyer-mortgage-amounts-vs-average-wages.htmlChart showing growth in house prices v growth in pay from 1998 to 2010[/url.

SBR?

Mintball, since 1971 the UK's share of global GDP has more than halved. Whilst the global economy has grown our relative share of wealth has declined. Not surprising therefore that there has been a real terms fall in wages. A trend that will sprred up over the coming years.

fx>"Snitch Mode" "On"< His homework's late, give him detention Ma'am! <fx "Snitch Mode" "Off">

Are you confusing yourself with Horatio Yed?

What's happened to UK GDP (in absolute, inflation adjusted terms) over that period?

There was rather amusing piece in the [iDaily Mail[/i earlier this year, bragging that one of Margaret Thatcher's greatest legacies was that, as a result of attacking the trades unions, we were now the one country in Europe working more hours than in the 1980s.

Setting aside the issue of why this is something to boast about, various sources then popped up to point out that, in the same period, GDP has fallen.

As opposed to sitting outside cafes, wearing designer sunglasses and then putting out the begging bowl to China, the UK, anyone but ouselves, to pay for our laziness?

An irrelevance. It's buying power relative to other countries that counts.

Ah. Another piece of classic Dally idiocy.

Just what the world needs.

Why is UK GDP irrelevant to a discussion about real term wage rates in the UK?

I'm sorry, was that previous reply supposed to answer to my question? The cost of houses may well be (if anyone had bothered to define it) part of the cost of living, although more relevant would be the percentage of people's income which they spend on housing (of course that would need to be a like for like comparison, if people are choosing to spend more to live in better quality accommodation that would be different).

Once again though you've gone off on a tangent instead of directly addressing the issue.