Do families really get 36000 welfare?

[the truth]

a chap I know who never seems to have worked in his life, has 6 kids
he said he and his partner gets £3000 a month tax free
plus free house paid for ....various other freebees like glasses, prescriptions etc
neither him or his partner have worked in the 10 years ive known them

is this about the average?

that's £750 a week .....but with 6 kids I guess theres a lot of expenses

is this the correct information ive been given? is it morally right in your opinion?

do you agree with the £25,000 cap or should it remain as it is or be lower?

[CaudleHalbard]

The cap is ridiculously high.

It should be just below national minimum wage for a 40 hour week, which works out at about half the proposed cap.

[the truth]

im amazed the nasty party haven't come down on this with a sledgehammer.....yet they have come down on the disabled with a sledgehammer as theyre having every single benefit reassessed and over a million have lost their disability benefits (many have overturned decisions but that's got to be major stress....how do they even survive in the meantime) why have the tories gone after the disabled yet been relatively hands off with the rest of the masses on welfare? is this purely about votes? I don't really understand the moral arguments for £ 36000 or £25000 do they have moral arguments anymore?

[CaudleHalbard]

I know a chap who's been on incapacity benefit for about 12 years even though his temporary problem ended after about 2 years.

Oh and he works full time as well!

All for benefits being reviewed regularly . So should council house entitlement, although that is being brought in for new tenants only.

[DanaC]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2013/apr/06/welfare-britain-facts-myths

There's a lot of mythmaking around benefits in this country.

Everyone knows, anecdotally, someone who is gaming the system. But the reality is that fraud is statistically very low within our system.

The vast majority of people claiming benefits do so because they are in need. The vast majority of those who do so are living in poverty. More disturbingly, the majority of those are claiming in-work benefits.

The notion that many people are living it up on the public purse is false. I find it disturbing that as a nation we show more anger towards those who claim benefits than we do towards those who have actually broken the country. I also find it sad that in order to make being in work a better option than being on benefits, our answer is to strip away that help instead of push up wages. The only reason some are better off on benefits than in work is because working wages have stagnated resulting in a real term drop. The lower wages go in relation to the cost of living, the more likely it is that staying on benefits will be better than being in work. The answer to this is to make work pay more not to make benefits pay less.

[AnnieK]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2013/apr/06/welfare-britain-facts-myths

There's a lot of mythmaking around benefits in this country.

Everyone knows, anecdotally, someone who is gaming the system. But the reality is that fraud is statistically very low within our system.

The vast majority of people claiming benefits do so because they are in need. The vast majority of those who do so are living in poverty. More disturbingly, the majority of those are claiming in-work benefits.

The notion that many people are living it up on the public purse is false. I find it disturbing that as a nation we show more anger towards those who claim benefits than we do towards those who have actually broken the country. I also find it sad that in order to make being in work a better option than being on benefits, our answer is to strip away that help instead of push up wages. The only reason some are better off on benefits than in work is because working wages have stagnated resulting in a real term drop. The lower wages go in relation to the cost of living, the more likely it is that staying on benefits will be better than being in work. The answer to this is to make work pay more not to make benefits pay less.

Great post!!

[CaudleHalbard]

Great post!!

It would be a great post but is slightly undermined by the fact we have about one million Eastern Europeans working in the UK and 2.5 million able bodied people on benefits.

The cap on benefits is not the major problem. The easy availability is the issue. We are a soft touch.

The worst aspect is that we do not spend enough on those genuinely in need because benefits are handed to all and sundry. That is so infuriating! There needs to be a reallocation.

[Vicky.]

a chap I know who never seems to have worked in his life, has 6 kids
he said he and his partner gets £3000 a month tax free
plus free house paid for ....various other freebees like glasses, prescriptions etc
neither him or his partner have worked in the 10 years ive known them

is this about the average?

that's £750 a week .....but with 6 kids I guess theres a lot of expenses

is this the correct information ive been given? is it morally right in your opinion?

do you agree with the £25,000 cap or should it remain as it is or be lower?
http://www.turn2us.org.uk/benefits_search.aspx

Check for yourself.

To me at first glance, that looks to be about 200 quid per week over what they should get. Unless they are disabled or the kids are disabled.


As for the cap I am honestly torn. As generally, the majority of peoples benefits is housing benefit (especially if they live near london) so I think a better way to do it would be to introduce rent caps. Would stop buy to let landlords ripping people off so much. And would also benefit those working too.

[Verbal]

It would be a great post but is slightly undermined by the fact we have about one million Eastern Europeans working in the UK and 2.5 million able bodied people on benefits.

The cap on benefits is not the major problem. The easy availability is the issue. We are a soft touch.

The worst aspect is that we do not spend enough on those genuinely in need because benefits are handed to all and sundry. That is so infuriating! There needs to be a reallocation.

Easy availability? Have you ever seen a DLA application form? Its like a phonebook (Or was before they got rid of DLA)

The problem with reallocation is that everyone, whether they've got a limp from falling off a ladder or were born with one leg, has to go through reassessment, the people who quite clearly need it then run the very real risk of losing their only source of income, which thousands already have. They go through months and months of worry and stress, waiting for the assessment, going through it, waiting for the result, receiving the WRONG result, and then months and months of appealing to get their money that shoiuldnt have been taken off them in the first place, back.

It is a very cack handed way that the Government are dealing with it. They are punishing everyone for what in reality is about 1% of claimants who are taking the piss.

[CaudleHalbard]

Who is talking about DLA? Not me! And if my tax money is being handed out, I want thorough and proper scrutiny.

I specifically mentioned able-bodied people.... 2.5 million of them, sitting around drawing benefit while we import a million workers from E. Europe to do the jobs our home-grown benefits claimants don't feel like doing.

[Verbal]

Who is talking about DLA? Not me! And if my tax money is being handed out, I want thorough and proper scrutiny.

I specifically mentioned able-bodied people.... 2.5 million of them, sitting around drawing benefit while we import a million workers from E. Europe to do the jobs our home-grown benefits claimants don't feel like doing.

Skimming through the thread I clearly got the wrong end of the stick. My apologies.

My points are still valid though.

[DanaC]

Who is talking about DLA? Not me! And if my tax money is being handed out, I want thorough and proper scrutiny.

I specifically mentioned able-bodied people.... 2.5 million of them, sitting around drawing benefit while we import a million workers from E. Europe to do the jobs our home-grown benefits claimants don't feel like doing.

Where do yo get the figure of 2.5 million?

The most recent figures I have managed to find are around about 1.5 million claimants of JSA.

Of which those claiming for more than 10 years is around 1000.

The vast majority of JSA claims are temporary. Which, I think most would agree, is what JSA is for: a temporary support for people not in work until they can find work.

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/222997/2013-1248.pdf

Number of JSA claimants and of which those with current continuous
claim of over 10 years: August 2012
Number of claimants 1,471,070 Of which those with current
claim of over 10 years 1,070

Source: DWP Information, Governance and Security, Work and Pensions
Longitudinal Study
1. Figures are rounded to the nearest 10.
2. Coverage: All cases in payment in Great Britain. This excludes cases
in Northern Ireland.
3. Data is at August 2012 which is the latest data available.



I would encourage people to read some of the excellent research that's available online, which shows how these myths arise, and how they are used in the political sphere.

This one's an interesting piece: worth checking out the studies in the bibliography at the end.

http://socialwelfare.bl.uk/subject-areas/government-issues/welfare-state/centreforlabourandsocialstudies/1464312013_Exposing_the_myths_of_welfare.pdf

As is this, though a lot of it draws on the same research as the above:

http://www.redpepper.org.uk/mythbuster-welfare-reform/

[CaudleHalbard]

Where do yo get the figure of 2.5 million?



http://wwe.bbc.co.uk/news/business-23340165

Not all the unemployed get JSA. Some are on other benefits.

The 2.5 million figure does not include those on disability benefits.

[CaudleHalbard]

However, my point is that we should not have to import a million, mainly unskilled, workers from the EU to do jobs that should be done by UK benefits claimants.

[DanaC]

Funnily enough not all those on JSA are actually unemployed. If you have a part-time job of 16 hours or less and continue to claim JSA and Housing benefit, then you still count as technically unemployed and are still expected to seek full-time work.

[CaudleHalbard]

And funnily enough some benefits claimants do cash in hand work! ;)

[DanaC]

However, my point is that we should not have to import a million, mainly unskilled, workers from the EU to do jobs that should be done by UK benefits claimants.

I'm not sure we're actually 'importing' them :p

[CaudleHalbard]

I'm not sure we're actually 'importing' them :p

There should be virtually no jobs for EU workers to come here for.

[DanaC]

I hear what you're saying. But this sort of thing is rarely as simple as it appears at first glance.

For example: a lot of those unskilled jobs are done by people from eastern Europe because they are not eligible to claim benefits. Now, you could say that this is an argument for removing benefits from Uk citizens in order to force them to take these jobs on. But...the wages paid for a lot of these jobs are so terribly low that the only reason anybody would take them is out of sheer desperation. The reason employers are able to pay such low wages is because there is a pool of very desperate people.

To me it seems wrong to force people into work that is deeply exploitative. Nobody in this country in this century should have to work for wages that wouldn't be out of place in the third world.

I am currently looking for a part time job to help get through the final year of my phd. Some of the jobs I have seen advertised are terribly badly paid. In particular the wages that young people are expected to work for are appalling. 'Apprentice telesales' at £2 an hour.

The problem isn't that we are a nation of workshy layabouts, it's that we have very little protection for workers. The weight of power is entirely towards the employers. They have no need to offer better wages, because there is always somebody desperate enough that they will work for peanuts. All we do by reducing benefits and making it harder to claim is increase that pool of desperate people and increase the number of employers offering appalling wages. There is no incentive for employers to increase the amount they pay.

Eventhe 'minimum wage' is ridiculously insufficient. Which is why large numbers of people who are in work also have to claim benefits. It's a ridiculous situation that leads to the state effectively subsidising the cost of employing workers.

[the truth]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2013/apr/06/welfare-britain-facts-myths

There's a lot of mythmaking around benefits in this country.

Everyone knows, anecdotally, someone who is gaming the system. But the reality is that fraud is statistically very low within our system.

The vast majority of people claiming benefits do so because they are in need. The vast majority of those who do so are living in poverty. More disturbingly, the majority of those are claiming in-work benefits.

The notion that many people are living it up on the public purse is false. I find it disturbing that as a nation we show more anger towards those who claim benefits than we do towards those who have actually broken the country. I also find it sad that in order to make being in work a better option than being on benefits, our answer is to strip away that help instead of push up wages. The only reason some are better off on benefits than in work is because working wages have stagnated resulting in a real term drop. The lower wages go in relation to the cost of living, the more likely it is that staying on benefits will be better than being in work. The answer to this is to make work pay more not to make benefits pay less.

ive heard that argument word for word on the mainstream and matthew wright and so on almost every day........but im looking at specifics please
what do they earn? this chap tells me its £750 a week....is that the right amount in your opinion?

[the truth]

http://www.turn2us.org.uk/benefits_search.aspx

Check for yourself.

To me at first glance, that looks to be about 200 quid per week over what they should get. Unless they are disabled or the kids are disabled.


As for the cap I am honestly torn. As generally, the majority of peoples benefits is housing benefit (especially if they live near london) so I think a better way to do it would be to introduce rent caps. Would stop buy to let landlords ripping people off so much. And would also benefit those working too.

landlords get ripped off too all the time
what happens to properties ruined by bad tenants? they never ever get dmaages as the tenants move their housing benefits elsewhere and claim they cant afford to pay damages

[Vicky.]

landlords get ripped off too all the time
what happens to properties ruined by bad tenants? they never ever get dmaages as the tenants move their housing benefits elsewhere and claim they cant afford to pay damages

Isnt that what bonds and such are for?

I am not just talking about those on benefits, but everyone gets ripped off for properties in certain parts of the country.

As for 'moving benefits elsewhere an claim they cant afford to pay damage'..you would be extremely hard pushed to find a landlord who will take claimants on benefits without a guarantor.

[the truth]

I hear what you're saying. But this sort of thing is rarely as simple as it appears at first glance.

For example: a lot of those unskilled jobs are done by people from eastern Europe because they are not eligible to claim benefits. Now, you could say that this is an argument for removing benefits from Uk citizens in order to force them to take these jobs on. But...the wages paid for a lot of these jobs are so terribly low that the only reason anybody would take them is out of sheer desperation. The reason employers are able to pay such low wages is because there is a pool of very desperate people.

To me it seems wrong to force people into work that is deeply exploitative. Nobody in this country in this century should have to work for wages that wouldn't be out of place in the third world.

I am currently looking for a part time job to help get through the final year of my phd. Some of the jobs I have seen advertised are terribly badly paid. In particular the wages that young people are expected to work for are appalling. 'Apprentice telesales' at £2 an hour.

The problem isn't that we are a nation of workshy layabouts, it's that we have very little protection for workers. The weight of power is entirely towards the employers. They have no need to offer better wages, because there is always somebody desperate enough that they will work for peanuts. All we do by reducing benefits and making it harder to claim is increase that pool of desperate people and increase the number of employers offering appalling wages. There is no incentive for employers to increase the amount they pay.

Eventhe 'minimum wage' is ridiculously insufficient. Which is why large numbers of people who are in work also have to claim benefits. It's a ridiculous situation that leads to the state effectively subsidising the cost of employing workers.


complete and utter nonsense. how on earth do you figure the weight of power is all with the employer? theres 1000s of laws protecting workers, employers take all of the risks, financially, spirtitually, in terms of their lives and their health and their families when they invest in a business and create jobs...without these risk takking entrepreneurs we would have no real jobs, no opportunities and no wealth....there is virtually no support for small business at all in the UK....they have to ride by the seat of their pants for the first 5 years of any company they start and there is zero fincancial support from banks at all now....small busineses even with awesome credit ratings get no financial loans at all....why ? 2 reasons....the banks went bust because 1) deregulation on wall street/city of London/property/banking 2) the greed and irresponsibility of those individuals who overspent on credit for years without a thought of how to pay for it

who suffers? the working people and the risk taking small business owners

there is no risk at all for people who have children and don't work.....clearly they get everything free and get an income that can run to £36,000 tax free+

[Vicky.]

ive heard that argument word for word on the mainstream and matthew wright and so on almost every day........but im looking at specifics please
what do they earn? this chap tells me its £750 a week....is that the right amount in your opinion?

Unless someone in the family is disabled, they do not get 750 per week.

Also, even if they were working (assuming minimum wage job) they would still be able to claim around 450ish in child benefits (child tax credit + child benefit)..but they would get working tax credit too..so would probably be claiming more than they are now.

[the truth]

Isnt that what bonds and such are for?

I am not just talking about those on benefits, but everyone gets ripped off for properties in certain parts of the country.

As for 'moving benefits elsewhere an claim they cant afford to pay damage'..you would be extremely hard pushed to find a landlord who will take claimants on benefits without a guarantor.

where are all these people going to find guarantors

[Vicky.]

where are all these people going to find guarantors

I dont know, but they do. They have to in order to move in.

Generally the requirements are for the guarantor to be working fulltime (or retired on a generous pension) AND own their homes.

[the truth]

I dont know, but they do. They have to in order to move in.

Generally the requirements are for the guarantor to be working fulltime (or retired on a generous pension) AND own their homes.

thers no way the majority get guarantors....even for those who do its simply passing their bills and responsibility onto more financially responsible people which is frankly a disgusting practice.....they've even started paying housing benefits direct to tenants in some cases? how on earth is that justifiable on any level?

[Vicky.]

thers no way the majority get guarantors....even for those who do its simply passing their bills and responsibility onto more financially responsible people which is frankly a disgusting practice.....they've even started paying housing benefits direct to tenants in some cases? how on earth is that justifiable on any level?

They have always done that for private housing. Its stupid really..

And yes, the majority (if not all) of HB claimants living in private housing have guarantors. Without them they could not move in. Landlords will not allow it. Or not many will.

I will give you my experience from a few years back of trying to get somewhere to live while (temporarily) on benefits. The council said the wait list was around 3 years long. I was losing my job AND my house at the same time (owner sold the bar I had worked in for around 4 years and the new owner had their own staff and wanted to live in the flat above..where I was living at the time). Obviously with being unemployed I was going to have to claim HB..basically after calling around 20 affordable places, I managed to find one landlord who would accept housing benefit. I was told I could not move in without a guarantor..which luckily my dad said he would do for me. The landlord asked to see his previous bank statements, and proof that he owned his home to make sure we werent scamming him. After this I had to pay a grand bond (incase of damages) and 500 rent upfront (Incase I missed a rent payment, so he didnt lose out). Again, had to lend this from my dad.

I went to the council to sort out my LHA (housing benefit is called that for private rentals). I asked them to pay it directly to the landlord and they refused. They told me you have to be 3 months in arrears (or have previous rent arrears from properties), or previously bankrupt in order for them to do that. They would not tell me why this was the case. Then it took them 2 months to actually open the claim, during which time I had to lend my rent from my father...or I would have been kicked out pretty much immediately

Luckily for me, I found work around 2 months after I moved in (oddly enough a week before the housing benefit claim actually got sorted/backdated :laugh: ) so all of the rubbish ended. And everything was fine...until I moved out and the landlord refused to give me my thousand quid back, even though there was not one thing wrong with the property besides the 'damp' that was there when I moved in (and that I pointed out to him when I moved in and he said h would get sorted)

It is not as easy as some people think it is being on benefits. Getting a house is seriously hard too, unless you can get one with the council. Though I understand why landlords require guarantors and rent in advance, and bonds, I really do.

[DanaC]

I've had HB during periods of unemployment. It's not too bad if you are already in a rented house when you lose your job. Particularly if you already have a good relationship with your landlord. But, private landlords that accept HB tenants from the start are very few and far between (except of course for the larger scale rented property companies, many of whom are the modern day 'slum landlords'). I cannot tell you how many properties near me go up for rent with 'No smokers, no pets, no DSS'* at the bottom of the notice.

Trying to find a house for rent when you are on benefits is difficult and thoroughly demeaning. There is an automatic assumption that you are a profound risk. And everybody and his dog feels qualified to judge you harshly on a personal level based on nothing but the source of your daily bread.

I don't know much about people who manage to garner incomes thirty or forty thousand a year from the benefits system. The only way that could happen, as far as I can see is if they were living in a fairly expensive rented house with a high council tax band. bear in mind of course, that doesn't mean they live in a very nice house. A modest family home anywhere south of the Watford Gap (and plenty of places North of it too) is not a cheap rent. People who are renting pay (or have paid on their behalf) a far bigger percentage of their income on accommodation than do people who own their homes and pay a mortgage.

What I do know, from personal experience, is that living on benefits is a scrimping, scraping, insecure, depressing and occasionally downright frightening experience. I've had that experience for limited periods. Interspersed with times of financial plenty and optimism. To have to try and cope with that for a long time must be soul destroying. There's a reason people describe poverty as 'grinding'.


* realised when i read it back I'd put 'no dogs' instead of 'no pets. Probably because those signs always remind me of the 'no blacks, no dogs, no Irish' signs that used to get hung up in Guest house windows back in't'olden days.

[billy123]

a chap I know who never seems to have worked in his life, has 6 kids
he said he and his partner gets £3000 a month tax free
plus free house paid for ....various other freebees like glasses, prescriptions etc
neither him or his partner have worked in the 10 years ive known them

is this about the average?

that's £750 a week .....but with 6 kids I guess theres a lot of expenses

is this the correct information ive been given? is it morally right in your opinion?

do you agree with the £25,000 cap or should it remain as it is or be lower?Yes totally you should try it.
last time i was out of work i couldnt move for cash i was so rich i had to get a job just to get poor again.

[DanaC]

Yes totally you should try it.
last time i was out of work i couldnt move for cash i was so rich i had to get a job just to get poor again.

You just totally won this thread :p

[the truth]

Yes totally you should try it.
last time i was out of work i couldnt move for cash i was so rich i had to get a job just to get poor again.

lets face it, this is utter insanity

£750 cash in hand tax free every week without lifting a finger (plus endless freebees (glasses, prescriptions, vet bills as loads of these people seem to have dogs galore and breed them for cash etc) also I presume they don't have to pay council tax too? and free rent and upgrading to bigger houses for free. how much is your average 4 or 5 bedroom detached which is what some families with 6 or 7 kids get?)

the kids learn what? just sit around all day smoking and doing bugger all and that's how you get on in life and earn a fortune

a working man/woman would have to earn how much to be able to afford to live in a 4 or 5 bedroom house and have £750 a week spending money?

well lets guesstimate youd need £150 for rent plus youd pay 30% tax on such an income , so youd need about £1350 a week (30% tax is £405 less £150 rent less £40 council tax) leaves £755 a week and still youd have to pay for the freebees.


that means youd need to earn £67500 a year to earn almost as much disposable income as someone who sits at home and does nothing all week

how many years would you need to study and work to earn such a guaranteed income?

just extraordinary