Rent and Universal Credit capped at £26000

There are Tory spies out there, I know. That whole cabinet is going to say thanks Stigmum, now we know how to hurt you and hurt all those other families! Woo hooooooo!

Remember, before I give these figures, how hard I have fought for a council flat, how often I have bidded for some box on some estate you wouldn't choose if you were rich and been unsuccessful.

Subject: The £26,000 cap
Who: Two single mothers
Rent example: One in Private versus one in Council housing

Me:
Rent £350 per week =18,200 a year
£26000
- 18200
= 7800 a year to live on

My friend
Rent £140 per week = £7280 a year
£26000
-7280
=£18720

I worked out that I currently get £7449, excluding council tax
Doubt my friend gets £18700 with her three kids.

You might think £7749 is a lot
All this Tory shouting it's not fair people live in places you hard working people can't afford! Me and my friend live really close to one another, that's how we're friends.

Shockingly, including my rent and council tax, I get £13 more than the proposed £500 weekly cap. Yearly therefore I looked like I'm better off but weekly I'm worse off by £13. Above the proposed cap with £26689. I shall go back to the draw board with this

What's newly frightened me of course, is if I get a job that pays £35,000 a year which means I go home with £26000 after tax (what I read Dave tell Asda) is I only have £7800 to feed (at school too) and clothe and heat and I don't get to see my child at all because I've had to pay someone else to look after him. Who's going to pay me that anyway?

My friend on the other hand, on the same salary, might be able to afford a holiday, in a tent, in Devon (or somewhere). Then again, maybe not, price of rail travel these days.

WE NEED MORE EMPHASIS ON SOCIAL HOUSING
WE NEED MORE EMPHASIS ON AFFORDABLE HOUSING

Not on displacing children
Not removing them from good schools
Not watching their parents so stressed and frightened about an unclear future.

It's not 'workless' parents that ruin their future (if you read the Mail or any other right wing commentator), it's a government that fails to understand the meaning of secure affordable housing because they take their own for granted.

Welfare Reform has been proven to save very little money, an article yesterday in the Guardian saying "The £275m savings as a proportion of the £192bn spent on welfare payments in 2010 is tiny." (http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2012/jan/23/duncan-smith-benefit-cap-poverty?intcmp=239) but this ideologically driven government does not care.

Do you care Tory spy?

I'm off to be sick.