Housing benefit cap to drive people out of central london - so what?

[bednobs]

read today that some charities think the housing benefit cap will mean that people will be limited to a 2 bedroomed flat if they are living in central london, and it will force them to move. I don't get why this should be such a bad thing - if you rely on the state to house you, surely you should live in places that are cheaper to live in - the whole country is having to make sacrifices and cutbacks in this economic climate so why not these people. it's not like you need to be there for a job (because i am assuming if you get housing benefit it's because you are not working)
It's not even like central london is a particularly nice place to live in!

[cazzz1975]

privilege

[fredpuli47]

No jobs in East Anglia ? That's my area. It's an area of high employment generally, having the fastest growing economy in Britain in normal times, and it hasn't suffered and isn't suffering from unemployment to the extent other regions are.

Of course, they could always take all the jobs which the local, indigenous people, refuse because they prefer the government to pay them to stay at home. We have to hire labour from elsewhere in Europe to do those jobs and there are a lot of those jobs here.

[rojash]

Those of you who live in London might be in for a tough time if all the low-paid were forced to move out. No more McDonalds, Starbucks, Pizza Hut; no car park attendants, no one to operate the supermarket checkouts, etc., etc.

[rov1200]

They should be moved to cheaper areas of London and travel in if they work in the centre. Its no different from any other worker struggling to pay their rent or mortgage. If the well heeled cannot get staff they should up their rates to encourage the poor to take the jobs. Never heard of London weighting?

[ummmm]

Wasn't Milton Keynes built for the London over spill?

[rojash]

"If the well heeled cannot get staff they should up their rates to encourage the poor to take the jobs."
Exactly, the common perception is that housing benefits subsidise the poor, but really they subsidise the employers of the poor.

[New Judge]

Partly true, rojash, but partly misleading.

The number of unemployed people in receipt of HB is about three times the number in employment. So only in one in four cases of HB payments do employers see any “benefit”. However, by your logic (with which I do not entirely disagree) it is true that all benefits paid to employed people (and I’m thinking particularly of Child Benefit, Child Tax Credit and Working Tax Credit) in some way subsidise their employers, their customers and their shareholders. And it skews the economy, needs sorting, and the Coalition is making a start on sorting it.

Oh, and this topic has been aired extensively already:

http://www.theanswerb...s/Question952118.html