Working for a benefit funded lifestyle.

[lottiecass]

Here's a couple of scenarios about benefits. A single person, male or female, loses their job in their late fifties or early sixties and can't find another. If they are in reasonable health they get around £70 a week to live on. Most of their rent and council tax will be paid, if they've got a mortgage they may be in a difficult situation. Hopefully they may have a few quid in the bank for emergencies, but life up to state pension age isn't looking great even though they may have worked and paid NI for forty years.

 

A young person who has a child, never worked or contributed will get more than twice that amount in income after housing costs. There won't be any pressure put on them to look for work, and if they have another child their income increases substantially.

 

As a housing worker I witnessed how living on benefits can be soul destroying for some, yet provide a better living than working for others. Just saying.

Of course you are correct, and there's many doing just that.

[*_ash_*]

Here's a couple of scenarios about benefits. A single person, male or female, loses their job in their late fifties or early sixties and can't find another. If they are in reasonable health they get around £70 a week to live on. Most of their rent and council tax will be paid, if they've got a mortgage they may be in a difficult situation. Hopefully they may have a few quid in the bank for emergencies, but life up to state pension age isn't looking great even though they may have worked and paid NI for forty years.

 

A young person who has a child, never worked or contributed will get more than twice that amount in income after housing costs. There won't be any pressure put on them to look for work, and if they have another child their income increases substantially.

 

As a housing worker I witnessed how living on benefits can be soul destroying for some, yet provide a better living than working for others. Just saying.

 

An excellent post.

[danot]

Here's a couple of scenarios about benefits. A single person, male or female, loses their job in their late fifties or early sixties and can't find another. If they are in reasonable health they get around £70 a week to live on. Most of their rent and council tax will be paid, if they've got a mortgage they may be in a difficult situation. Hopefully they may have a few quid in the bank for emergencies, but life up to state pension age isn't looking great even though they may have worked and paid NI for forty years.

 

A young person who has a child, never worked or contributed will get more than twice that amount in income after housing costs. There won't be any pressure put on them to look for work, and if they have another child their income increases substantially.

 

As a housing worker I witnessed how living on benefits can be soul destroying for some, yet provide a better living than working for others. Just saying.

Good post.

Despite what some are trying to suggest, I'm not bashing those on benefits, I'm simply addressing the issue of whether it's worth trading a benefit lifestyle for a working lifestyle when a low paid job provides only a marginally better quality of living.

 

I think this link sums up the general situation.

 

Take a look.http://Theworkingparent.com/childcare-articles/arr-you-better-off-working-than-on-benifits/#Vu5n0IGnzqA

 

---------- Post added 20-03-2016 at 09:37 ----------

 

This one.

 

http://Theworkingparent.com/childcare-articles/arr-you-better-off-working-than-on-benifits/#.Vu5u0oGnzqZ

[I1L2T3]

If

Here's a couple of scenarios about benefits. A single person, male or female, loses their job in their late fifties or early sixties and can't find another. If they are in reasonable health they get around £70 a week to live on. Most of their rent and council tax will be paid, if they've got a mortgage they may be in a difficult situation. Hopefully they may have a few quid in the bank for emergencies, but life up to state pension age isn't looking great even though they may have worked and paid NI for forty years.

 

A young person who has a child, never worked or contributed will get more than twice that amount in income after housing costs. There won't be any pressure put on them to look for work, and if they have another child their income increases substantially.

 

As a housing worker I witnessed how living on benefits can be soul destroying for some, yet provide a better living than working for others. Just saying.

 

That's interesting about the older claimants with mortgages. A terrible trap to end up in and I wonder whether that is something well see more in the future as jobs become more scarce, and people are paying mortgages later into life because they are getting onto the housing ladder later and taking out longer term loans. People often think they are indestructible in their 30s and 40s when they have their health and solid earning power but how things can change. It had to be said though that somebody facing that situation now in their 60s is from a generation that has had more opportunities than any other. If they have wasted their chances should we feel sorry for them?

 

As for the young person I'm wondering what you think should be done with them? Throw them in the street, or maybe take the kids off them and force them into work? The point is that however the kids were brought into the world they didn't choose to be in that situation and it is only right that society supports the kids and the person raising them. If you'd outlined the scenario a decade ago when the furore about teen pregnancy was at its height then you might have had more of a point but the fact is teenage pregnancies have halved in the last decade.

[Cyclone]

According to cyclones posting style unless you can produce three independant links proving their are exactly 453,428 people in that situation then your premise can be dismissed and none exist at all. If you do provide three independant links then he'll just stop replying to the thread and move on to his next tedious demand the bleeding obvious be proved to his satisfaction.

 

Not at all, but some evidence beyond your own statement is traditional if you expect people to listen to what you say.

[ricgem2002]

Here's a couple of scenarios about benefits. A single person, male or female, loses their job in their late fifties or early sixties and can't find another. If they are in reasonable health they get around £70 a week to live on. Most of their rent and council tax will be paid, if they've got a mortgage they may be in a difficult situation. Hopefully they may have a few quid in the bank for emergencies, but life up to state pension age isn't looking great even though they may have worked and paid NI for forty years.

 

A young person who has a child, never worked or contributed will get more than twice that amount in income after housing costs. There won't be any pressure put on them to look for work, and if they have another child their income increases substantially.

 

As a housing worker I witnessed how living on benefits can be soul destroying for some, yet provide a better living than working for others. Just saying.

yes another good post id just like to add here that yes the older person with a mortgage shouldn't be in that position in losing their home. the gov should help in covering part of the mortgage and the homeowner making up the rest. the young person on the other hand needs care to support her child which wasn't asked to be born. this and previous governments have a divide and conquer policy and it works when the people turn against each other. just as in this scenario

[danot]

Not at all, but some evidence beyond your own statement is traditional if you expect people to listen to what you say.

 

Really? Does the same principle apply to things you post, such as "the situation I describe not existing"?

[Cyclone]

Yes, if I start a thread and make some assertions you can be sure that there'll be some evidence to back them up.

 

I haven't done that though, I'm questioning your assertions and you're refusing to provide any evidence.

[danot]

Yes, if I start a thread and make some assertions you can be sure that there'll be some evidence to back them up.

 

I haven't done that though, I'm questioning your assertions and you're refusing to provide any evidence.

 

You know as well as I do that any "evidence" I provide will show working households bring in an higher income than benefit households.

What it won't show is the narrow marginal difference in their disposable income once things such as- paying full wack for rent, council tax, water rates, eye tests, prescriptions, school dinners, school uniform etc are taken into account.Then theirs the cost of travelling to work, packed lunches/lunch..

Yes, working households have more money coming in, but are they left with more money in their pocket once they've paid their dues? Is their quality of lifestyle better than benefit households? definitely not. Is this worth the effort? That's debatable.

[sutty27]

You know as well as I do that any "evidence" I provide will show working households bring in an higher income than benefit households.

What it won't show is the narrow marginal difference in their disposable income once things such as- paying full wack for rent, council tax, water rates, eye tests, prescriptions, school dinners, school uniform etc are taken into account.Then theirs the cost of travelling to work, packed lunches/lunch..

Yes, working households have more money coming in, but are they left with more money in their pocket once they've paid their dues? Is their quality of lifestyle better than benefit households? definitely not. Is this worth the effort? That's debatable.

 

This might help your case.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-25287068

More working households were living in poverty in the UK last year than non-working ones - for the first time, a charity has reported.

Just over half of the 13 million people in poverty - surviving on less than 60% of the national median (middle) income - were from working families, it said.

 

I don't know how much this situation as changed since 2011-12 period.

 

Does look like things have changed much.

 

July 2015

Majority of poor children live in working families, IFS study finds

 

Research says tax and benefits policies will directly increase inequality, undermining government’s ‘work your way out of poverty’ mantra.

Nearly two-thirds of British children in poverty live in working families, the Institute for Fiscal Studies has revealed in its annual poverty and inequality report, undermining government assertions that a job was an automatic route out of poverty.

 

http://www.theguardian.com/society/2015/jul/16/ifs-majority-poor-children-working-families-study

Edited March 20, 2016 by sutty27