At what age should you be able to claim Housing Benefit

I'd raise the personal allowance to the equivalent of a 40 hours a week at (adult) minimum wage. And fix it at this level, so it increases whenever the NMW does. Tax credits are utter nonsense, taking money away and giving them some back, expecting them to be grateful.

And who said people in receipt of tax credits should be grateful? Oh, you did.

There's a very strong rumour going around that one of the planned welfare changes is to stop people under 25 from claiming HOusing Benefit (with some exemptions).

 

This seems such an arbitrary figure to me and very unfair on those that leave home whilst working and then who lose their jobs.

 

On a positive side it would free up a lot of Social Housing and on the negative side it could create serious tension in a lot of households.

 

On balance I'd leave it as it is.

Where is your source for this? It's already been stated the under 21s.

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/apr/14/conservative-manifesto-pledges-what-the-experts-say

Unless of course, there is provision in the legislation allowing for those with difficult circumstances to be exempt from the rules in which case your argument is nullified.. On the contrary, if provision was removed from the whole of those currently allowed to claim, then more money would be available to those in desperate need.

Hopefully there will be. I'm not holding my breath but hoping to be proved wrong.

---------- Post added 10-05-2015 at 16:05 ----------

40 hrs a week at the nmw from october the 1st is a salary of around £14,000

 

the current tax allowance is £10,600 a difference of £3,336. The basic rate of tax is 20% so currently someone at the nmw would pay around £667 in tax.

 

You plan would give them around £13 a week extra. Not really enough to pay a private lanlord rent, or mortgage, of £400-£500 a month.

 

I don't particularly disagree with you about tax credits, but how else are people on low incomes going to get enough money to live on?

Tax credits won't go. They're holding up the whole edifice and there will be a lot of families in receipt of tax credits who voted Tory. Besides, the tax credits supplement wages which prop up business so probably something the Tories quite like.

Tax credits won't go. They're holding up the whole edifice and there will be a lot of families in receipt of tax credits who voted Tory. Besides, the tax credits supplement wages which prop up business so probably something the Tories quite like.

You are probably right. In many ways these were Gordon Brown's worst mistake. Had he not gone down this route but instead taken steps to deal with high rents and low wages then things would have been a lot different.

Tax credits are utter nonsense, taking money away and giving them some back, expecting them to be grateful.

But that keeps civil servants in work.

There's a very strong rumour going around that one of the planned welfare changes is to stop people under 25 from claiming HOusing Benefit (with some exemptions).

 

This seems such an arbitrary figure to me and very unfair on those that leave home whilst working and then who lose their jobs.

 

On a positive side it would free up a lot of Social Housing and on the negative side it could create serious tension in a lot of households.

 

On balance I'd leave it as it is.

It won't free up any social housing?

It isn't going to be stopped for people currently claiming, and even if it were, hardly any social housing is headed by people under 25.

I actually dont think the current government give a toss...its pointless debating it really.

I think that there is a small problem, but just going back to not helping the young is not the right way forward. We shouldnt just give young people a semi-detached house, but we should make sure that they are safe and have a roof over their heads.

is there actually any proper, peer reviewed, evidence that anyone actually did this and if they did was there a significant number or was it just the odd one or two?

As I say, in my mind I seem to link the lowering of the age limit for social housing to the raise in young pregnancies and the availability of that housing to those young people.

is there actually any proper, peer reviewed, evidence that anyone actually did this and if they did was there a significant number or was it just the odd one or two?

The amount of births to young mothers has been consistently falling for decades.

Birth rates falling have been the long term trend, with small blips here and there - like the recent small rise in births, the long term trend is still a fall in births.

Far from there being a baby boom, we are in the midst of a 44 year long baby bust.

Teenage pregnancies and completions continue to fall.

When somebody is 18 they are legally an adult and it's wrong to bake a woolly concept of continued parental responsibilities into legislation, say making the assumption that everybody has a family there to guide and care for them up to age 25. Many people who reach 18 are entering adulthood after suffering terribly during their upbringing. Not supporting those people is cruel IMO and the biggest kick in the teeth is people who don't understand life and who have never suffered telling them their families should still be there until they're 25, and they can't get any help because of that

 

I speak from experience having left home in the 1980s at 2 weeks past my 18th birthday to escape the person had viciously bullied me for 18 years - my dad. Went to London and made my own way in the world, not without help, but not everybody has the gumption to make a decisive move like I did.