ANNUAL BENEFIT INCREASE?

RetroRemix

But everything was cheaper back then wasn't it? Despite the inflation? (I wasn't around back then, my knowledge of the time is second hand, so please bear with me.)

Also the local councils had more resources to help people back then on low incomes and with health conditions, and the amount of benefits and wages people received were more than enough to cover the bills and cost of essentials such as food. 

Not to mention, there was more of a community spirit back then of neighbours helping each other out, which would have further helped to reduce the need to ask the government for help.

So, there would not have been much of a reason to increase them with inflation back in 88/89... but today, when even full time professional workers have to go to food banks and pensioners having to go back to work, there really is a need.

leeCal

I had my house repossessed in 1989 as did hundreds of thousands of others! I remember it well. Communities didn’t really help each other out in the main. The government were very harsh and didn’t care. It was an awful time of devil take the hindmost. No rosy pictures please.

my wages were £120 a week and my mortgage shot up to around £750. Work dried up completely. My father lent me £5000 to pay my mortgage and when that ran out he offered more but I declined it, there really was no hope. He went to his grave with me still owing him that £5000 and I could never pay it back. it took me twenty years to recover. Such are the human stories behind recession and inflation, some people committed suicide. politicians should bear those stories in mind at every step. 

RIshi has said he intends to govern with compassion for the weakest, let’s hope so.

RetroRemix

LeeCaI: I don't have any rosy pictures because I wasn't even born then, just history lessons.

I see that it wasn't a better time, and I wasn't saying it was in all aspects, but there also wasn't obsessive shrinkflation back then either.

And you cannot deny that at least the local councils had more resources back then too and that it was easier to get on the housing ladder at least. I remember them being a lot more helpful when I was a kid in the 90s, when we lived in a council house.

So, let's have no rosy pictures for today either please... not when we have full working families, with the parents working 2 jobs each, having to rely on foodbanks. And disabled people and people with health conditions being treated like criminals, with having to go through a painful PIP appeal in court every time.

It wasn't easy for you no, but it certainly isn't for the generations of today either.

I'm sorry for you not being able to pay your father back fully, but at least your family had enough money to lend to you, many people today don't even have that.

Yes, I hope Rishi and his government will be compassionate too, the country could use a good dose of it... but I have learnt recently not to trust any word any politician says anywhere in the world, but to trust their actions instead, so I'm not holding my breath. 🤷‍♂️

racyguy

leeCal said:

I had my house repossessed in 1989 as did hundreds of thousands of others! I remember it well. Communities didn’t really help each other out in the main. The government were very harsh and didn’t care. It was an awful time of devil take the hindmost. No rosy pictures please.

my wages were £120 a week and my mortgage shot up to around £750. Work dried up completely. My father lent me £5000 to pay my mortgage and when that ran out he offered more but I declined it, there really was no hope. He went to his grave with me still owing him that £5000 and I could never pay it back. it took me twenty years to recover. Such are the human stories behind recession and inflation, some people committed suicide. politicians should bear those stories in mind at every step. 

RIshi has said he intends to govern with compassion for the weakest, let’s hope so.

You are absolutely right; those times were hard.
I had a £100,000 mortgage which was costing in excess of £1000 a month. Everything was going up day by day. My telephone bill every month (ordinary use) was £360, gas & electric was costing just over £300 a month. The only way we got through it was for me to take on another job of 10 hours a night. I was working 17 hours five days a week and 10 on a Saturday and Sunday. We even had to ask Social Services for financial help just to buy a pair of school shoes for both children.
At the weekend I did jobs around the house, painting etc. I remember my mum and dad coming by train to stay for a few weeks. Mum brought us a fresh chicken in her shopping bag and dad had to buy me a tin of white paint. Such were the times.
We sold our home in 1998 for exactly the same price we bought it for eleven years earlier.

leeCal

You did well to keep it all together under such strain @racyguy.

RetroRemix

Oh, I'm sorry for assuming that the 80s was a better time. I would have thought that it would have been due to more resources being available.

If you don't mind me asking, in what ways were the government cold and uncaring back then in the 80s? Was it like today with massive waiting lists or were they much more strict and just said "no" to everyone who asked for any help? I read that they didn't help out with costs during the inflation... but I thought the disability and other benefits had existed for a long time already though?

I'm not trying to sound disrespectful, I am just curious, because my favourite music is from the 80s... so I'm more interested in other parts of that era of recent history.

Yes, my brain is strange, as I have been told, and I don't always understand cues as others do to shut up or say something because it may be wrong... but it is what it is and I am improving.

ShirleyW

racyguy said

You are absolutely right; those times were hard.
I had a £100,000 mortgage which was costing in excess of £1000 a month. Everything was going up day by day. My telephone bill every month (ordinary use) was £360, gas & electric was costing just over £300 a month. The only way we got through it was for me to take on another job of 10 hours a night. I was working 17 hours five days a week and 10 on a Saturday and Sunday. We even had to ask Social Services for financial help just to buy a pair of school shoes for both children.
At the weekend I did jobs around the house, painting etc. I remember my mum and dad coming by train to stay for a few weeks. Mum brought us a fresh chicken in her shopping bag and dad had to buy me a tin of white paint. Such were the times.
We sold our home in 1998 for exactly the same price we bought it for eleven years earlier.

and yet you said in another thread that you didn't claim Child Benefit for your children because your wife said it wasn't needed?

poppy123456

ShirleyW said:

racyguy said

You are absolutely right; those times were hard.
I had a £100,000 mortgage which was costing in excess of £1000 a month. Everything was going up day by day. My telephone bill every month (ordinary use) was £360, gas & electric was costing just over £300 a month. The only way we got through it was for me to take on another job of 10 hours a night. I was working 17 hours five days a week and 10 on a Saturday and Sunday. We even had to ask Social Services for financial help just to buy a pair of school shoes for both children.
At the weekend I did jobs around the house, painting etc. I remember my mum and dad coming by train to stay for a few weeks. Mum brought us a fresh chicken in her shopping bag and dad had to buy me a tin of white paint. Such were the times.
We sold our home in 1998 for exactly the same price we bought it for eleven years earlier.

and yet you said in another thread that you didn't claim Child Benefit for your children because your wife said it wasn't needed?

Not forgetting the comment made where they didn't also claim the old family allowance because their wife said "it wasn't needed" https://forum.scope.org.uk/discussion/comment/573329#Comment_573329

racyguy

ShirleyW said:

racyguy said

You are absolutely right; those times were hard.
I had a £100,000 mortgage which was costing in excess of £1000 a month. Everything was going up day by day. My telephone bill every month (ordinary use) was £360, gas & electric was costing just over £300 a month. The only way we got through it was for me to take on another job of 10 hours a night. I was working 17 hours five days a week and 10 on a Saturday and Sunday. We even had to ask Social Services for financial help just to buy a pair of school shoes for both children.
At the weekend I did jobs around the house, painting etc. I remember my mum and dad coming by train to stay for a few weeks. Mum brought us a fresh chicken in her shopping bag and dad had to buy me a tin of white paint. Such were the times.
We sold our home in 1998 for exactly the same price we bought it for eleven years earlier.

and yet you said in another thread that you didn't claim Child Benefit for your children because your wife said it wasn't needed?

And where have I said that I did claim it? We didn't because up until 1989 we managed without it. The one and only time that we ever asked anything of the State was because of how we had to cope in the late 80's from Social Services.

racyguy

poppy123456 said:

ShirleyW said:

racyguy said

You are absolutely right; those times were hard.
I had a £100,000 mortgage which was costing in excess of £1000 a month. Everything was going up day by day. My telephone bill every month (ordinary use) was £360, gas & electric was costing just over £300 a month. The only way we got through it was for me to take on another job of 10 hours a night. I was working 17 hours five days a week and 10 on a Saturday and Sunday. We even had to ask Social Services for financial help just to buy a pair of school shoes for both children.
At the weekend I did jobs around the house, painting etc. I remember my mum and dad coming by train to stay for a few weeks. Mum brought us a fresh chicken in her shopping bag and dad had to buy me a tin of white paint. Such were the times.
We sold our home in 1998 for exactly the same price we bought it for eleven years earlier.

and yet you said in another thread that you didn't claim Child Benefit for your children because your wife said it wasn't needed?

Not forgetting the comment made where they didn't also claim the old family allowance because their wife said "it wasn't needed" https://forum.scope.org.uk/discussion/comment/573329#Comment_573329

I have answered that above. Child Benefit/Family Allowance are one and the same to me.
In fact, up until the late 90's we never claimed any welfare payment - you worked for what you needed - funding my family was my responsibility not that of the State.

calcotti

For those who are interested I just came across this
https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/CBP-9498/CBP-9498.pdf

calcotti

Also this
https://www.resolutionfoundation.org/app/uploads/2022/10/The-Long-Squeeze.pdf

racyguy

calcotti said:

For those who are interested I just came across this
https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/CBP-9498/CBP-9498.pdf

Brilliant!!  I see that the £10 Christmas Bonus paid in 1972 should now be £167 by reference to the inflation effect on the £.
I can't see us getting that amount ever. The way it is going it is probably costing more than £10 to pay the £10.

calcotti

racyguy said:

calcotti said:

For those who are interested I just came across this
https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/CBP-9498/CBP-9498.pdf

Brilliant!!  I see that the £10 Christmas Bonus paid in 1972 should now be £167 by reference to the inflation effect on the £.
I can't see us getting that amount ever. The way it is going it is probably costing more than £10 to pay the £10.

It should have been abolished in my opinion but no government wants the headlines.

racyguy

woodbine said:

Anyone not claiming benefits to which they are entitled do themselves and others no good whatsoever.

You cannot and should not criticise the millions of people in this country that do not go out of their way to maximise their entitlement to benefits. Everybody has a choice they claim or don't claim. Thankfully the money saved, - what is it now £13bn, by the Exchequer every year is not lost, it is recycled into other things like HS2, MP's pay rises etc.

And as for your comment about those not maximising their benefit entitlements doing no good to everybody else is rubbish, that is unless you can demonstrate how they are being affected?

 

calcotti

racyguy said:?.the money saved, - ..is recycled into other things like HS2, MP's pay rises etc. 

for once you made me chuckle!

RetroRemix

Thank you Woodbine, yes the way they were talking on here had me thinking that benefits and other government help had only and suddenly started existing in the last 20 years or so lol.

Thanks for pointing out that there was help back then too in the 80s.

calcotti

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberal_welfare_reforms

racyguy

woodbine said:

racyguy said:

woodbine said:

Anyone not claiming benefits to which they are entitled do themselves and others no good whatsoever.

You cannot and should not criticise the millions of people in this country that do not go out of their way to maximise their entitlement to benefits. Everybody has a choice they claim or don't claim. Thankfully the money saved, - what is it now £13bn, by the Exchequer every year is not lost, it is recycled into other things like HS2, MP's pay rises etc.

And as for your comment about those not maximising their benefit entitlements doing no good to everybody else is rubbish, that is unless you can demonstrate how they are being affected?

 

MP's pay rises equal £6.5 million a drop in the ocean, considering they are some of the worst paid politicians in the developed world.
I would also ask you politely to refrain from calling my OPINIONS rubbish, far better to say nowt if you can't be polite !

But you have missed commenting on why it affects others if people decide not to claim a benefit.