Is receiving £30k pa on benefits “living in poverty”?!

They used to back in the early 80s.

You could get money towards the interest element of your mortgage included in supplementary benefit, the forerunner to income support. Iirc, they calculated it at a standard rate, and you got your actual interest or what it would be at the standard rate, whichever was lower.

Once a child turns 18 the benefits drop dramatically. The parents with disabled children who will never be able to work will still have to care for them. Perhaps even more as they will no longer be at school. They will however have considerably less money. Their Carers Allowance will be deducted from their benefits and the Carers Premium in UC does not cover that deduction.

A single parent would receive roughly £400 per month plus their rent which will probably not all be covered depending on the Local Housing Allowance so the shortfall will also be deducted from their UC. They will be getting nowhere near £30, 000.

I am so tired of these threads. So many people have no idea what life is actually like on benefits and believe all the rage bait headlines they read in the tabloids.

People on UC with their own mortgage do not get long term help and it is a loan for the interest only. It is literally keeping the wolves away from their door. Like I said, plenty of people lose their homes when they go on UC.

No one on UC is getting the capital on their house paid off.... apart from private landlords with benefit claimants as tenants.

How on earth have you inferred that?

And you would prefer housing benefit to be available to all home owners with a mortgage? WOW, that’s one way to increase the benefits bill 😆

It really depends on how many people there is in the household and their level of health, plus where in the country.
But... does anyone really get £30000 per year on benefits? And how?

No it's not but I'll question who on benefits gets that ..on one I know... unless you live on benefits you no idea how hard it is...food or heating is literally the decision....

Yes of course it’s a lot.

If I lost my job and had to rely solely on benefits then I’d receive less than half of that as a single parent.

Unless a lot of this is childcare or disability payments then I never understand how people claim they receive so much.
I don’t know anyone in RL that receives this much benefit.

But the government is still providing money that pays someone’s mortgage.

It makes no sense for the government to be happy to pay money towards a landlord’s mortgage but not towards someone who lives in their own mortgaged home.

This is privileging landlords over owner-residents.

@XenoBitch yes we need more social housing. I still don’t think we should pay housing benefits for someone living in their own house with a mortgage.

@ComtesseDeSpair I don’t think you can compare us to other countries tbh. We have a very unequal housing market & benefits aren’t linked to what you have paid in.

Is most of it going on rent for a property they have no say to live in? If they leave that property will they be called intentionally homeless? Some temporary accommodation rents are £350+ a week and you can’t refuse. You will be seen as making yourself homeless and your children could be out in care.

For men and women?

Yep. If I was looking to rent a one bedroom place where I live, and was getting UC towards rent... the amount I would get would still be £150-£200 short each month.

The landlord is providing a service which is being paid for by the tenant. How that tenant comes by the money has nothing to do with the landlord

So you prefer the government to subsidise people using property for investment rather than a home.

Wow,

Was she unemployed i.e. claiming benefit? Or just a mum at home looking after her children. We don't know when she had the children or when her husband became unable to work due to his disability.

This is the trouble with having barely any facts.

OP has dropped rage bait and fucked off.

And often the amount included in a UC assessment for rent is a lot less than the actual, or average, rent.

That means that some of the standard allowance has to go on rent, leaving less for bills and food.

@AlcoholicAntibiotic so two wrongs make a right? Unfortunately there isn’t enough social housing so private landlords are needed.

All six children and the husband have disabilities.

State pension is for one person.
How many people was the 30k between?

But we are paying for private landlord's mortgages. That is how the system is. And I never said I agreed with it.

But it is how it is because of the huge lack of social housing.

What’s the relevance? A pensioner is unlikely to be living in similar financial circumstances to a family on 30k of benefits.

If’s politically interesting, because of course many people come down on the side of “the state shouldn’t pay for anyone to have an asset for free”: which is at surface level a reasonable stance. A number of countries have welfare states which do provide welfare for mortgage payments: the US, for all the outside belief that their welfare system is parsimonious, is one of them, alongside several European countries, and when you look at the actual data there are clear social benefits to it in terms of people who are in secure, stable, long-term housing being better placed to make good decisions about the rest of their lives. Somebody’s asset is being paid off regardless of whether welfare is provided for mortgage or rent: in the latter case, it’s a landlord who is building assets from taxpayers, without the same positives which arise out of welfare directly to homeowners.

@XenoBitch well you said they get shafted. we shouldn’t pay for someone else’s assets.

But it is ok for benefits to pay the mortgages of private landlords via housing benefit?

I don’t think it’s ok, why would you think that?

Yikes, I can imagine the work coach at the Job Centre bringing that one up. Is this just for women?

Keep that in your head, eh? Along with the dog hating.

I wondered if this included housing costs. If it does, it’s not a lot for a family of eight.