The Void Blog
Gideon Osborne
Posted on October 9, 2012 by johnny void | 17 Comments
Hidden beneath the benefit bashing which has dominated the obsessed Tory Party Conference, George Osborne’s speech yesterday was not just the attack on out of work claimants it appeared to be.
One big lie has dominated the Tory debate on welfare and the chancellor was only too happy to repeat it yesterday.
Twice in his speech he claimed that both young people or families are
“better off on benefits than they would be in work.”
This crude attempt at divide and rule has become a Tory mantra ever since this Government weren’t elected.
And it’s not true.
A person under 25 working for the minimum wage for 37 hours a week receives a net salary of £204.36. Jobseekers Allowance for those under 25 is £56.25.
The maximum available Housing Benefit for someone under 25 in Birmingham (for example) is £55.
This means that a young person in work, in almost all areas of the UK, is almost twice as well off as someone on unemployment benefits.
Even in expensive Kensington & Chelsea the maximum Housing Benefit payment to those under 25 without children is £123.50.
This is an exception due to the staggering cost of properties in a London borough which also has it’s share of children growing up in poverty.
However a young person working in this borough (on minimum wage) is entitled to £30.49 a week in Housing Benefit.
Or at least they were.
George Osborne plans to change this.
The situation for working families with children is equally clear.
Sadly even some workers at the lower end of the pay scale have bought into the relentless bullshit and bemoaned how they would be better off on benefits.
They wouldn’t.
No-one is.
This is another lie and it’s time to nail it once and for all.
A single parent with two children living in Birmingham and renting in the private sector would receive maximum possible benefits of £348.14 (over a third of this would be in Housing Benefit payments which go to landlords).
A single parent working on minimum wage for 37 hours a week, in otherwise the exact same circumstances, would receive a total of £445.86 in net wages and in work benefits.*
It’s important to note both these calculations are based on the minimum wage.
As wages rise Housing Benefit is reduced at a tapered rate, meaning the difference between a better off earner and someone on benefits becomes even greater.
In-work benefits are now under attack like never before …….. PLEASE CONTINUE READING JOHNNY’S EXCELLENT ARTICLE EXPOSING THE BLATANT LIES THAT UNDERPINNED GIDEON’S OSBORNE’S SPEECH AT HIS WEBSITE HERE
4 Responses
When Osbourne says that he wants to make sure that no-one would be ““better off on benefits than they would be in work.” What he means is that he wants people to be moaning so much about the mythical cheats, the vulnerable below them, that they don’t notice the manouvres above them to lower the living wage (the only way corporations can reap profits in a recession). Mugs
What Osborne and his cronies are doing is ensuring that work is better paid than benefits by dismantling the benefits system. The Tories no more care about the plight of the poor than employees of the poor sick. All thye are interested in is putting more money into the pockects of the rich.
correct they want their mates to award themselves big bonuses like emma who can and will do it allagain torys look after them selves and mates when will the people of britain raise up and get rid of them they who take money off those who cant afford it just so that their mates can drink champayne jeff3
Only Gormless People get Taken In by Con Dem Regime Propaganda
The Scroungers are the Rich Politicians in Westminster and the ” Royal ” Family
We Need Redistribution of Wealth from Rich to Poor