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

I here you, benefits is not enough to support 6 kids in adulthood. It doesn't matter how many kids you have after they are 3 get a job.

For DD1 we lost £26 for the difference between her child element and her single person element, £72.60 for the difference between LCWRA and the severely disabled child element, and £113 per month child benefit. So £220 per month. That's before you take into account the fact that the money she does get is in her name, so I have to justify using some of it for household expenses. It's also before the fact that she has to contribute £88 per week to her social care.

I know a couple of people on PIP for ADHD who use their PIP to fund their ADHD medications as the NHS won’t.

No PIP - no ADHD medication - person unable to work and pay taxes, therefore costing the taxpayer more.

No doubt the poster who was against people with ADHD getting PIP will have some reason why they should just get on with it…

Why pit disabled people against each other?
The lady on Panorama... you got a tiny snapshot. She will have had to provide evidence and have assessments to get the benefits she does.
There are comments on here about how if someone can go to the pub or meet a friend for coffee, that they are claiming benefits fraudulently. Disabled people have to read and put up with shit all the time.
Why encourage it more?

PIP is meant for extras due to disability but benefits like ESA are supposed to be an income for general living expenses. If you can earn enough to cover your costs you are not living with the same level of disability that most people who get these benefits are living with, as determined by what you are and aren't actually able to do.

The media are ridiculous 99.9 % of people on benefits get no where near 30k a year but let's focus on the 0.1% to piss everyone off

You earn enough so don’t need to claim. So you’re an I’m alright Jack then. I get it now.

Disability is neither a lifestyle choice nor sadly a "temporary hardship" in most cases and many disabled people do not receive anywhere near minimum wage in benefits despite often having contributed to the system for many decades in earlier life. They should be able to spend the small amount they receive however they want and according to their own needs, just like people whose income comes from work or other sources. It would be a sad indictment of the UK if disabled people had to retreat from life completely because they'd become unable to work and disability benefits were in fact designed to prevent this from happening, even if these days they don't always do so.

That said, I know plenty of people in minimum wage jobs who manage to eat out occasionally just fine (they aren't paying anyone's benefits incidentally, they themselves are also subsidised by higher earners). Those who can't, have usually made lifestyle choices that prevent this - choices like having children, which are also usually subsidised by higher earners and that aren't open to many disabled by poor health - another reason why we should have the means to maintain other relationships in our lives.

As soon as the money is taxed from you it isn't your money. It is the government's to do as they want. Makes me laugh when people post that on here.

Yes it has happened. It is called arfid and is part of the autism spectrum. Luckily my autistic son will eat most things.

I’m sorry , are you actually Nigel Farage ?!

You've never had experience of ARFID have you?

I do t think they’ll starve. Do you seriously think a child will starve themselves to death because you didn’t buy them the cereal they wanted? They’d just die if there was a war and rationing was introduced would they?

Listen to yourself. You’re being ridiculous!

Second actually. I earn enough and don’t need to claim. People currently see it as a means to get cash to cover general living expenses and that’s not what it’s meant for. It’s meant to be for paying for extras that are incurred due to disability. There was a panorama recently where someone with ‘adhd too bad to work’ was signed off on permanent disability benefit. She seemed fine. Was renouned for her insta videos apparently. But yes totally incapable for working forever. These people need a kick up the backside as we as a nation simply cannot afford to fund them. Why more truly disabled people aren’t enraged by these people I don’t know!

This sums it up beautifully, thank you.

I also can't see those pushing for vouchers for disability benefits rushing to accept their child benefit or state pension in vouchers either. Why people think it's acceptable to hurt people whose lives are already difficult is beyond me.

Also what if the child is disabled and won't eat all the lovely fruit and veg? Should they starve because they aren't allowed the chocolate cereal?

Don't mind me if am sceptical about that.

If you’re annoyed about a family on benefits having some chocolate cereal in the cupboard then I’m sorry but you’re the one with the problem.

@JessieLongleg I think there's a huge difference between supporting people who are disabled, and handing out pots of money to people who have chosen to have six children despite both parents being unable to work.

People suggesting that have been drinking the Farage kool aid. It’s the most economically illiterate and absurd suggestion. How would businesses be forced to accept them, and tradesmen, self-employed taxi driveres, cleaners, small retailers of mobility aids, independent shops providing school uniform etc? The administrative costs would be enormous, it would be hugely open to fraud and create another huge black market. How would the businesses redeem them? How long would HMRC/ DWP take to reimburse them with the money (the HMRC that shut down their phone lines entirely for many months because they didn’t have enough staff to even answer the telephone let alone process anything)? How much would it cost to set up the IT systems?

Absolute idiocy driven by economically illiterate and vindictive people who have no practical ideas about how to actually redirect spending to create growth and rising living standards and hate the idea that chronically ill/ disabled people/ poor people with children are given any financial support.

That support could be structured far better through redesign of the tax system, but “vouchers” are a laughably ridiculous suggestion designed purely to try to humiliate those in need of help.

Totally I worked out I need to earn 18k a year to get what I have in out of work benefits. That is living poverty in London. My pip is for disability and it's gone on physical therapy, cleaners, supplement, cleaners disability aids.

In interviewer might well ask what you did with those years or the title of your job or whatever?

You either don’t need disability benefits in which case lucky you.

Or you do need them but choosing not to claim them because you disagree with benefits. No medals for that.

Or you do need them but was rejected and now you think nobody else should have them.

My guess is you’re the first one.

They have not paid for it. Lifetime tax receipt in real-terms are on average £200k less per person than the real-term value of state pension welfare and other state services that they will receive.

And per my previous post my suggestion was to uprate it with earnings only, instead of the triple lock, and to means test it so it isn’t received by households with a separate after-tax net income, after housing costs, of £40k per year (to support just 1 or 2 adults, with no housing or childcare costs: far beyond the dreams of most working people).

Those two measures would save almost £150bn per year within 10 years. That would transform life in the UK.

It would hardly result in “destitute geriatrucs wandering the streets” for pensions to rise at the same level as wages and not to give unnecessary welfare to millionnaire households with far higher incomes than average working people supporting families. What hyperbole.

That generation needs a reality check and their demands for state welfare and services at a level they have neither paid for nor provided for their own parents and grandparents are strangling the economy and living standards for everyone else.

I'm not on benefits but I can't imagine a family being able to afford takeaways.