Welfare Reform by Hackney Unison...

Hackney Unison (trade union) has produced an analysis of welfare reform that should concern us all in Hackney....

Reforms to the Welfare State will start to take effect from April 2013 and will affect millions of people throughout Britain. We examine the changes to see how they will impact on people living and working in Hackney.

Ever since the formation of the modern day welfare state politicians have fallen over themselves to seek to reform the system, to draw the boundary between the deserving and undeserving poor. This government is no different, embarking on a crusade to change the benefit system which will see the biggest raft of reforms in our modern history.

But behind the rhetoric of the lazy benefit scrounger the changes for many will mean the difference between being able to make ends meet and in the worst cases destitution.

The Tories are besotted with the benefit system and more importantly reducing the cost of it to tax payers. Ever since Norman Tebbit’s ‘on your bike speech’ in 1981 the attacks on welfare have grown more steady and more malicious, focussing on the small minority of those who choose to play the system rather than the millions of people, in work, who need benefits to top up their otherwise low pay.

The changes which will begin to be phased in this coming April and by 2017 anyone who receives benefits of any kind will receive a Universal Credit each month.

One of the biggest changes will be the benefit cap. This stands at £500 per week for those with a family and £350 for single people. It means that no ones total weekly benefits will exceed this cap.
The benefits included in the cap are many and varied but include elements such as Carers Allowance and Child Tax Credit.

In Hackney 1067 households will be adversely affected by the cap losing between £1 and £221.79 per week....Read on, and comment here: http://hackneyunison.wordpress.com/author/hackneyunison/