The Summer Budget

Is saving for a rainy day not something that older people tend to do more than youngsters? I'm always on about trying to save even a tiny bit each week to youngsters in the family and at work but they just laugh at me!

£6000, funeral or holiday in China?

Hardly the point, durj.

It's all about perception of the future Jane10 and you are right, once you are on a fixed income your view of how you would manage if things went even a little wrong are less positive or, perhaps, more realistic. The costs of being poor are very high though so something going wrong which may seem solvable with a little more income just hang over those in this position. Obviously there are exceptions but I would guess that this does affect whether you see the future in a positive or negative way.

Yes, saving for a rainy day has always been my motto, however little we have had in life, and no debts.

Gracesgran what a good post.

Very much the point. Many people who do not have much money save as much as they can towards their funeral, because they do not want to be a burden on their families, as Jane10 and Gracesgran say. No reason why someone on benefits cannot save towards his/her funeral.

Or just blow it all on a holiday to China...

www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/jul/03/inheritance-tax-giveaway-welfare-cuts-budget-conservatives-george-osborne

The summer budget. How to start a class war. To them that have shall be given. To them that have not shall be taken away.

We've been round this one before, DJ

Under the current rules, inheritance tax is charged on estates worth more than £325,000. so if someone's total legacies are over that, ie if they leave more than a house worth £250K and savings, furniture, jewellery and other possessions worth £75K, then the government takes 40% of the extra.

In this climate of ever-rising house prices, you don't need to be filthy rich millionaire to leave that amount - if you haven't spent it all on care homes.

It is up to a total of £1m. Above that , you are a millionaire.

Almost a million for some 3 bed semis in London.

Looking at the prices in London on Rightmove is an eye opener, and we are not talking Mayfair here but what used to be very ordinary places, Acton, Clapham, Bethnal Green.

But it's really happening this time. You seem to be ignoring the fact that he is cutting £12 billion from benefits, yet giving money back to those who have money.
Surely you cannot think that is right.

Last Wednesday figures came out about the numbers of children in poverty, an extra million between now and 2020. However, that is not going to be true because on Thursday Iain Duncan Smith changed the definition of poverty so there will be no reference to family income at all.
How clever. The Tories will get rid of child poverty!

The previous measures were only introduced, by Labour, in 2010 Jen so IDS is not overturning a very long history. I do see the point that increases in other people's income can push children into this category, or take them out, from one day to the next.

The new measure includes educational achievement and living in workless households. There certainly are other sorts of poverty than income. I always thought that suitable housing and equal educational opportunities where what children needed. Obviously they need enough to eat, etc., but having said that you cannot always ensure this, even in an above the poverty line household, if parents choose not to or are not aware of what a good and appropriate diet is.

I keep saying this; I really don't trust the Conservatives but that doesn't make everything they are suggesting wrong, certainly not in the first instance. I think the thing that the opposition parties can do is hold their feet to the fire when it comes to housing, etc. No child should, for instance be placed in the B & B type housing and there is far to much of this temporary placement. We know that poor schooling for, say, six months can affect the outcomes for a child for the whole of their school life and I think poor housing may well do the same.

I have just heard about a woman who is the focus of an interview in one of the Sunday papers. She has just given birth to her 12th child and has apparently said "I will have as many as I want. The Government has created this benefit system for me, so why shouldn't I take advantage?" This attitude is all too common and something must be done. The two child cap seems good to me.

I read that too Ceesnan. The trouble is that as well as helping people in genuine need, you also facilitate others who are so obviously milking the system and putting two fingers up at the rest of us. It's a complete conundrum and doing what is right and fair almost impossible.

I hate to say this, but I agree with IDS that there is more to child poverty than a simple measure of income. It was ever thus. My Mother grew up in a family of 8, Father a miner, very hard up but the same income as all the neighbours. All 8 gained professional qualifications. Contrast to some neighbours who had Fathers who drank half the wage packet. I do not like IDS but it is not all wrong to say that there is more to child poverty/lack of social mobility than just the money that comes into the house every month. Some people manage very well, feed their children healthy meals and take them to free activities to broaden their minds; some do not. I feel for the children whose parents do not manage (used to be called feckless), but I do not think that just money is the answer; education is the way out as it was for my parents in their childhood.

I agree totally with that, Gill57

For my parents it was the Grammar School for both of them that was the gateway to a better life, particularly my father. His parents were not particularly interested in education, (my mother's were) and his scholarship was invaluable to him. Unfortunately he didn't survive the Hitler war, so who knows where life might have taken us. Good education is a very important factor in a childs life, in fact it is the key. I don't like or dislike IDS, as I don't personally know him, but I certainly do think that he has a very difficult job which isn't just a question of black and white.

Okay then, income doesn't matter. Is that okay?

Anyone else been collecting food for foodbanks this weekend? That's all we need isn't it, lots of food banks to make people feel good!

www.cpag.org.uk/blog

CPAG do not agree that IDS is right.

"Children are much more likely to be in poverty because they have a parent who is a security guard or a cleaner than one who is an alcohol or drug addict. Nearly two thirds of poor children live in working families. All this is pretty inconvenient for a Government reportedly eyeing up tax credits for more cuts.

As it stands it looks like these children will no longer figure in government measures. At a stroke, the Government is about to abolish the concept, if not the reality, of child and working poverty. Lacking money or being in work will mean you no longer count as poor.

This is public policy going through the looking glass. Nothing will be quite what it seems."

An important quote from the CPAG blog. The rest of it is worth reading, too.

www.cpag.org.uk/content/london-our-child-poverty-capital

37% of London's children live in poverty. No wonder they want to change the way statistics are collected.

If food banks are there, people will use them. Although the number of users bandied about is £1m it's actually around half that, as figures gathered take the number of people in the family into account.

This isn't a problem unique to the UK, many other countries are providing food banks for the poorest among their citizens.

As for the CPAG blog, what is their definition of a child being 'in poverty'?

This is a question no one seems to be able to answer satisfactorily.