345 couples with children in part-time work in Thurrock could lose around £4,000 a year from this April, following a change to tax credit rules being introduced by the government.
Polly Billington, Labour’s Parliamentary candidate for Thurrock, is urging the Conservative-led government to reconsider a little-noticed change to tax credit rules which means thousands of families will lose all of their working tax credits unless they can significantly increase their working hours.
The change means that couples with children earning less than around £17,700 will need to increase the number of hours they work from a minimum of 16 to 24 hours per week or they will lose all their working tax credit of £3,870 per year.
Government figures revealed in parliamentary answers to Labour’s shadow Treasury minister Cathy Jamieson MP show 345 households in Thurrock and 212,000 households across the country households could lose out.
A recent survey by the Chartered Institute for Personnel and Development found that one in five organisations have cut back on the number of hours that people work as a result of the economic downturn, with just 6 per cent increasing them.
Polly Billington, Labour’s Parliamentary Candidate for Thurrock, said:
“Losing £75 a week could be a big deal for these families. They are working parents, trying to do the right thing to make ends meet. It shows the government is out of touch with parents feeling the squeeze and struggling to juggle work and family life.
“It’s not as thought it’s going to be easy for parents to increase the amount they work by up to 50 per cent at the moment when many employers are cutting people’s hours. This situation is a direct result of the government’s decision to raise taxes and cut spending too far and too fast, unemployment is rising and the economy is going into reverse. And for a couple with children losing around £4,000 a year, or £75 a week, from this change could mean going out to work makes no sense.
“It tells you everything you need to know about David Cameron and George Osborne that while the banks are getting a tax cut this year they are making life harder for working parents in the squeezed middle who are working and trying to do the right thing.
“This tax credits bombshell is now just a few weeks away. For many families here in Thurrock it means going out to work won’t pay and they’ll be better off on benefits. That makes no economic sense at all. The government urgently needs to think again.”
Hear we go again!
Its all Labours fault for giving all the money away in the first place, isn’t it?
Actually, £4k p.a. Cut is a bit of a shock to the budgets of low income families. Well done Ms billington for date stamping this particular cut. A saving in Thurrock of £1.4m p.a. from the least well off Such a loss of income will make it more difficult to make ends meet and prove even more of a boom for doorstep lenders and payday loan merchants in the area. Guess ‘we are all in this together’ is not a strap line we will see on a conservative party leaflet anytime soon.
This is terrible news for the families that will be affected and our MP’s should be standing up for there electorate and and oppose such a thing.. However there does need to be reform in the benefits system because far too many people are work-shy in Thurrock and across the country – and it’s not that at the moment with the present climate its been for decades. However this is working tax credit and i feel the idea to be paid by government to work is the wrong way to think why don’t they scrap the 20% tax for the lowest paid in society and bring back to 10% basic rate after people earn £7475 and make that people pay tax at 20% when they earn over £26,000 because thats what a family get on benefits is going to be capped to if the Labour party tell there lords £26k is a fair deal – (I won’t hold my breath)
Hmm, I would like to see the evidence for this first. Are we really to believe that the Government is going to take £4K per annum from certain families? Sounds highly dubious to me.
It’s not insignificant that the 16 hours per week limit on hours coincides with the same limit that allows these people to claim a number of other benefits which is probably what the government is targeting, the fact that people are entitled to double sets of benefits. It’s not gone unnoticed that the welfare Bill under Labour increased by around 120% or £57 billion a year over the last 10 years of their time in government. Perhaps they’d like to explain how that happened.
If a person can earn £21 per hour in a job I’d suggest that there probably is a job out there that would allow them to work an additional 8 hours per week to replace any tax credits lost. If they did work the extra 8 hours they would be £93 per week better off assuming that other benefits weren’t affected. As a country we cannot afford a welfare state at these levels which is partly the reason we are having to borrow hundreds of billions of pounds each year.
I think that sister Billington and all the rest moaning about this should also consider the thousands of pounds of benefits families in this situation do actually receive.
The whole of the social security system in this country needs to be looked at, we seem to give hand outs to any and every person that steps foot on our soil, along with paying so much that there is really no incentive to go out and work.
UInfortunatley people will find it a struggle whilst sweeping changes are made to any system, the tax credit system was a joke to be honest, even a couple earning almost £50k was entitled to claim the benefit, how is that fair and just? Grays88 has hit the nail on the head, we need better taxation laws rather than added benefits this would be a better system, we need a complete overhaul of the social reforms in this country and stop being a charity case to all those who stick their hands out.
Glad to see Labour sticking by that line “too far and too fast”. According to the credit agency Moodys if we do not cut our deficit ‘far and fast’ then we will lose our triple A credit rating which will mean that people will be worse off. So while I do not champion any cuts which will make families worse off in the short to medium term, I do not want the UK to sink under our economic debt thanks to Pollys party. Furthermore I somehow doubt that Miss Billington and her Liberal London chums are really concerned about ‘the working family’ in Thurrock but more interested in retaking the seat for Labour at the next GE. Labour would promise us all helicoptors if they thought that would make people vote for them and to pay for it all they would take out a loan.
As for the 1st comment. The answer, quite simply, is YES
May I suggest anyone who is living on Tax Credits and pay a mortgage seek finance / debt help now. The cuts figures shown are relatively accurate and the hardest hit will be those with property and just balancing a budget. A downgrade in Moodys / S&P is likely if the UK Economic activity does not rise. I spent 13 years in the City and 13 years in Third Sector Debt advice. The economic problems in the UK have been building for three decades. Living within our means is good but the cuts at the moment go too far and are squeezing medium / long term growth. But everyone will cry we are only interested in short term growth – thus our decline will continue. The Time Bomb of the Interest Only Mortgage is just a decade away. Screw up the Moody’s /S&P rating borrowing costs rise interest rates increase – property meltdown? Sadly we are all in this together – economic decline affects us all!