Working families £18k worse off than benefits claimants after budget

I know. It’s laughable but people need to revert to name calling as there’s no educated sensible response. Sad really.

Rubbish. People are voicing their opinion. They don’t have to be Reformed supporters

So. Many. Reform bots. It's not having the desired effect pal. 🤣

No one is better off on benefits. Even if you have 73 profoundly disabled children, get housing benefit for Buckingham Palace and get eleventy squillion pounds a day in disability and housing benefits, you are still better off working because most disability benefits are not means-tested.

I will say though it has been the case for years that in certain circumstances you are better off on bennies. My mom was told and knew for years she would be better off financially as a low paid single mom if she was on benefits. But she had a strong moral code and refused to do it.

While it is madness the blame is pointed at the wrong place.

The issue is corporate welfare and the fact the taxpayer is subsidising businesses to pay pitiful wages while chucking returns at senior management and shareholders.

And how many peoole are on waiting lists for decades for these properties?

I agree, but given that benefits (excluding disability benefits) are set at the minimum level the government and its advising bodies believe is needed to cover very basic needs like food and shelter, we cannot do this by lowering benefits, not unless we want people starving to death or living on the streets.

We need to raise the minimum wage, which would also help spread the tax burden. Raising the NMW will also push up middle incomes because who's going to spend years training to be a nurse or teacher and gaining student debt when they can work in a shop for more money? This means those at the bottom and middle will be paying more tax and taking less from the system.

And I know businesses will fold, billionaires will have tantrums and move to Dubai, a tin of beans will cost £999, etc, except none of this happens in other countries with higher wages and standards of living, so what are they doing that is different and why can we not copy that?

I have two dns. One married, both of couple working, two dcs. The other single, not working, two dcs. And which one has the 3-bed house? Not the working couple, who are renting a small flat.

20% of London housing stock is social housing - about 700k properties from what I could see on the latest figures.

It is getting to the stage where there isn't much of a gap between working a minimum wage job and being on benefits. Can't afford a home or a holiday - well you can live like that by working or by being on benefits. No brainer really. There should be a huge gap - at least double.

I personally think they'd get more people working more hours if it wasnt 55p deducted out of net pay. To me you earn £1 and keep 20p of it after income tax, ni and the deduction. Its not the most motivating amount of money if you are a single parent who is struggling to access childcare during the hours work is available to you. Its factually more money but a lot of effort to get it.

I dont really have a string opinion on the hours peoolr should work I just think that the current set up could be more motivating by a lower taper.

Im fairly consistent on this in that i think the tax cliff at 100k is bonkers too. People do all sorts to keep under 100k so they can keep their free childcare.

The point really is that people do not want to work the extra hours, they would rather benefits cover that off and to me that’s unacceptable.

@NiftyBird and others: do you really believe all these necessary increases in population will translate into future taxpayers?

If people aren’t paying into the system now, why will the next generation?

There are families who have many children where the women do not work because it is culturally inappropriate to do so. They must have children. So 8 kids, 4 girls… that’s 50% at least of the family who will not be contributing. As well as the “feckless” we always hear about who are generationally welfare-dependent.

I wasn't really talking about morals. Just quite a people say they people on universal credit have a higher income by working fewer hours, but I dont think the total income is more (more of a smaller income is made up of benefit though). The total income is less.

I am very sure about that thank you. People who only work part time and claim benefits for staying at homes are the ones who should be working full time. And from what you have described about it really doesn’t make them look any better.

Are you sure they arent keeping thier hours low because they feel the deductions made for the bit of thidr income over their work allowance amount make it not worth working more hours in terms of stress and logistically rather than they physically get more money for working fewer hours? I think the deductions are 55p from net pay.

That just proves the piss take. If the minimum is 18 and the average is 20, assuming a hand full of people actually do a proper weeks work, the vast majority do the absolute minimum to get the benefits.

The need to move 18 to 30.

I'm a single parent who has worked her way out of the benefit system and in to a job where I pay high rate tax - I have never not worked. I absolutely do have more money than I did when I was being topped up with tax credits. Even today I looked in my bank account, all bills paid including my Mortgage, all Christmas presents etc and there is still a good chunk of money left over for the rest of the month that I could only dream of at one point.
Half the stuff I read on here about benefits is total batshit, I don't credit the system for helping me improve my situation but I do credit my parents for supporting me by doing random needed bits of shopping for me, helping with childcare, helping with expensive activities so the kids didn't miss out, looking after the kids for a week while I went away with work etc....
It gets completely missed on here that working your way out of the system that constantly feels like its going against you is HARD and also being at the mercy of whichever government is in power. I can't imagine how hard it would be to on benefits and unsecured housing. In my town there is very little housing that you can get that accepts benefits even if you are entitled to them so it's not like people are living it up.

With the rapid development in AI we fewer but more highly skilled people in the country. Lots of entry level jobs are going. There will be a two classes as a result - those who do manual/unautomatable jobs and those in skilled work.

This is why many people are moving to vote for Reform - they see the bigger picture. We need tightly controlled bordered and we need unskilled Brits to do the unskilled work. No one should be allowed to sit at home on their Xbox when there are veg to be picked.

These days many Labour voter vote "labour" to be ironic. They don't know what a days labour actually is.

Well I know some as well as do many people

‘Save us’ that’s not the question. It’s will you have jobs for the people entering the workforce in twenty odd years time or a large number unemployed?

If the latter how will they be supported?

I'd prefer not to hang my hat on "the robots will find a way to save us".

Working token 16 hours to claim maximum benefits is not work. It’s gaming the system.

There is no other way to spin this. We have 19 million working age on benefits, 5 million of whom don’t work at all and those that do, many are only working token hours.

The ‘we need more people’ argument is basically just saying ‘we need more people so these people can stay on benefits’.

So, no we don’t need more people. We need these people to work full time and not be on benefits. Even if you exclude the genuinely unable to work, which is far smaller than the number who claim to not be able to work.