REPLY FROM DAVID CAMERON

[Lazydaisy]

You have put it just right Myrtle. All I want is not to have a sinking feeling every morning when I wake up,"How am I going to get this paid today?"I feel awful, knowing that my husband and I cannot help our daughter out, if her car is written off. She is not able to get fulltime work, unless she gives up the place she is at now, and she is really happy there.

All any of us really want, is to get up in the morning, and know that we have enough funds to get through from one day to the next,instead of debt hanging over our heads, and pulling us down ever further. My husband hasn't had a new pair of shoes for at least eight years now, and we are getting to the stage where he will have to have a couple of pairs soon.But because of the diabetes, he has to have good quality, and that costs.

We are very fortunate that we do not have the costs of incontinence to bear, but there are many here that do;you need a lot of income just to get through each 24 hour period for washers/driers, and clothing and bedding, plus creams etc.This is without the normal costs of living.When you break it all down, it is a wonder that Carers and their carees manage to carry on at all.

[Sarniajoy]

Are you a politician Sarniajoy? 'cause you seem to answer like one. Yea I know most of us just sound off 'cause were angry, disillusioned and just plain fed up of our lot. But you seem to always be of the opposite opinion to the majority. Maybe your just the eternal optomist
Its ok, I'm not having a go

Pete

I am a carer, with two carees! Of course I would like more money, since my husband's illness we have had to cut back quite a lot. However, we are fortunate to live in this country where the State helps out to a certain extent. If one lived in the US, for instance, there is no financial help at all for people in our situation, I believe.

[MaryB]

Two wrongs don't make a right though, this Country and others can well afford to pay genuine cases a living allowance.
Many carers are living hand to mouth, and have been long before the current financial crisis, when the Country was booming carers by and large did not do well as others did.
I have more than one disabled child and I am not in crisis but there but for the grace of God, a social concience means being aware of others situation and why?
The media is full of government strategies to bail out banks, small business, mortgage payers with financial help and rightly so imo, but why are carers always offered strategies that rarely involve more money in their pockets?
Vicky

[pixie]

Well said Vicky

[g.herschel]

RE cost of living inflation will reward us with a 5.3 % "pay rise " next year BUT what about the next rise as inflation may even be negative that is minus 1/2/3 % so will we have to have our benefits reduced in line with negative inflation????????

[Scally]

Our situations are very variable, and that explains why we all have different perceptions of need.

• Some carers work, some dont.
  Some have partners who work, some dont.
  Some carers have good occupational pensions, some dont.
  Some live in castles and own yachts, most dont.
  Some carees have a large income (Compensation payments, Veterans benefits, Industrial Injuries etc etc,) some dont
  
  But we are all carers.

I don't want to see any carers live in poverty, but the tricky part of the debate is working out how to support carers financially in a fair way without encouraging millions of people to drop work and become f/t carers. After all, thats what happened when they got the Invalidity scheme wrong - millions dropped out of work permanently on sick and now we are all paying the price.

I think we need to encourage many more carers of working age to get back to work (or more realistically, stay in work in the first place) by removing the earnings threshold and providing much better affordable or free respite such as after school care for disabled children and extended hours for day care for senior citizens. Any advances on that?

[marie66]

after school care for disabled children and extended hours for day care for senior citizens

Neither of these would improve my situation either

When you care for an adult under 60 it's very difficult to 'fit' into a box and access any help.

Tax credits which help Carers with disabled children but do not allow a tax credit payment for any disabled adult over 18 are so unfair!

A change in this system could help many Carers as things stand, there is both tax credits and help during the day from education but the minute the disabled person is over 18 there's very little left to help either them or their Carer.

marie x

[MaryB]

Why would anyone want to drop out of work for £50 per week?
Those without yachts wouldn't need much financial incentive to go back to work on this money, and those with yachts have no need to go back to work!
Caring is not and never can be a lifestyle choice as it will never be on par with minimum wage for the hours, what would an increase in all likelihood be? Enough to give up a well paid job?
On the flip side what incentive could take a full time carer of a severely disabled relative back to work? It's not a case of needing an incentive to work for most carers.
My youngest is profoundly autistic and we have tried respite on a couple of occasions, never again I would rather eat soup for the rest of my life. I dont need encouraging back to work, between my two sons I have a full time job, and a very worthwhile one at that, stacking shelves in ASDA will not make me feel like Mrs work ethic or anything, and to be honest I dont really give a hoot if anyone thinks I am having a free ride here, let them come and do my job for a week, oh, and for £50 p.w.
Vicky

[charles47]

I don't want to see any carers live in poverty, but the tricky part of the debate is working out how to support carers financially in a fair way without encouraging millions of people to drop work and become f/t carers. After all, thats what happened when they got the Invalidity scheme wrong - millions dropped out of work permanently on sick and now we are all paying the price.

I think we need to encourage many more carers of working age to get back to work (or more realistically, stay in work in the first place) by removing the earnings threshold and providing much better affordable or free respite such as after school care for disabled children and extended hours for day care for senior citizens. Any advances on that?

The Invalidity/Incapacity issue is a government spin on what happened. What actually happened was that there were millions out of work and a huge proportion were not fit to work. So the government of the day (under Mrs T) decided to push them off the dole and onto the sick. This solved unemployment in that the numbers stopped rising. Unfortunately, not everyone was permanently unfit for work but they were kept on Invalidity Benefits because it kept the unemployment figures down. And then it came back to bite the government of the day (initially John Major's) on the a*se. I was an employment adviser in a Jobcentre at the time, and seeing upwards of 20 people a day for "in-depth" interviews.

But I do agree that carers who CAN work and who WANT to work should be helped in the ways you suggest: the earnings threshold is ridiculously low and the lack of affordable (let alone free) respite is iniquitous.

[cheryl]

Excalibur wrote
After all, thats what happened when they got the Invalidity scheme wrong - millions dropped out of work permanently on sick and now we are all paying the price.

I know the government have implied that if they raise CA more people will leave work to become a carer. I greatly resent that implication, in fact I think its extremely insulting.
They don't say it about foster parents and they are paid hundreds per week, they don't say about MP's who can claim £250 per week expences without providing a single receipt as proof that they have even spent it, never mind what they've spent it on.

There are bound to be some people claiming benefit that are well enough to go to work, but studies etc have shown that it is a small percentage of claiments.
Also carers can't just drop out of work to claim CA, there has to be someone to care for. It is just another excuse to stall paying carers a decent amount to live on.
.