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

If you look at all the data since the two-child policy for benefits was introduced, there’s been no meaningful reduction in children being born into homes which can’t support them. There’s a significant minority of people who simply don’t think in that way. They want baby, they have baby. Through vulnerability, stupidity, or thinking everything will just turn out okay. They aren’t doing the fore-thought around whether it’s a good idea or not, they don’t have that intellectual capability. If you’re astute enough and have the social capital to be engaging with this thread, you aren’t among the people who just don’t or can’t think through actions and their consequences

On SN children it’s an interesting debate. There were several recent threads around proposals to prohibit cousin marriage, focusing on the high propensity of children from cousin marriages to have disabilities, and the vast majority of posters thinking cousin marriage should be banned on that count. The logical extension ultimately is that people who have conditions we know to have genetic propensity - such as autism and ADHD - also shouldn’t be allowed to marry or have children. That’s a politically and socially complex stance to take.

I don't think single people with no kids get any help at all. They get told to just earn more.

I am free to be corrected on that.

No it’s not

Plenty is people who are working full time also receive Universal Credit.

"...low-level, low-skill , low-paid staff in your area are very often the local council."

Please don't equate low pay and low grade with low skill or unskilled. For my local council job, which pays the princely sum of just under £27k pa (less than £2k more than minimum wage) I need to have good Excel, Outlook and Word skills plus various specialised software, be responsible for handling 10s of thousands in expenditure every month including pushing back when rules have been broken or processes followed incorrectly by seniors, take calls from often distressed or abusive "clients", be able to work flat out to make up for the recruitment freeze meaning we are at not much more than 50% of required staff, be able to drop everything at a moment's notice & change to the 10th different task of the day, be able to respond at a moments notice on any query, know certain aspects of laws and council rules...

It can take months for someone to learn how to do our job properly; when we had a temp in recently we were still finding little things we had to correct months later as there are so many little nuances to the job that I'm still finding out after being there years. Plus the rules and systems seem to change constantly, with senior management not bothering to tell us properly or allowing for the time it takes for new systems to bed in etc etc etc. We've had 2 staff off for a number of weeks over the past year due to work stress related breakdowns; they definitely weren't taking the micky it's that hard and pressured.

As a single adult with a mortgage I am eligible for virtually no benefits at all, just 25% council tax deduction and in my case PIP, lower level as I can actually walk more than 30 metres.

So the following statement is incorrect, or does it depend on how people are interpreting the figures here?

UK welfare spending is experiencing a significant increase, with
projections indicating it will rise by over £73 billion over the next five years, reaching a total of £406.2 billion by 2029-30. This surge is driven by rising health-related and disability benefits, an aging population, and policy changes, with spending on disability benefits alone set to increase 49% between 2023-24 and 2028-29

Yep, carers actually save everyone a ton of money.

I just worked out i get 26k a year benefits. But it used to be a lot less as just child disability payment etc and a small uc top up. However my dh is currently unable to work and awaiting diagnosis for potential MS so I cant work now either so our benefits have went up.

If he is then classed as disabled itll go up again.

We have 2 children and up until Nov 2025 he was working every hour under the sun as he loves working and is increasing frustrated he cant work right now.

Yes, also the headlines bleating about the massive increase in UC claimants... that fails to mention it is because people on legacy benefits like ESA and tax credits are being migrated to UC.
Where are the headlines saying there has been a massive drop in ESA claimants? Hmm...

I know of a couple with SN. The husband works (at the local tip) but his wife does not. They keep having children and having them taken into care. It is sad, and they really are a lovely couple, but they think love alone can keep a kid alive and thriving. I doubt social services took their decisions lightly.
But there are deeper issues there.

But just being short of money should not be a reason to have children taken away.

No, it isn't. Welfare spending as a percentage of GDP has barely increased since the 1990s (apart from a spike during the pandemic). The raw figures are jaw-dropping because a) they always use the raw figures, rather than presenting the big picture, to scandalise the masses and b) they always include pensions, which are not a welfare benefit, in those raw figures.

Welfare recipients are the latest scapegoats, blamed for everything by mainstream media and right-wing morons. If you want to be a sheep, go for it, but don't post lies like "Welfare spending is out of control" because it simply isn't true.

I work full-time btw, but I just can't stand liars.

And how much would it cost the state for the carers they'd all have to have, if she wasn't doing the majority of the caring? Which is most probably the reason she's not in employment.

I tend to agree, it is appalling and I think some of it is learned behaviour and the kids would do better in a different environment and may not even have SN just rubbish parents

I heard this piece. Whilst all 6 children had SEN, that doesn’t mean they’d all qualify for benefits related to the SEN. The mum adored her children, they were her pride and joy and gave her purpose in life… I think that goes some way to explaining why she’d had six.

Of course you can stop people having multiple children they can’t afford to support. By making sure that benefits do not take into account any children after child 2. And anyone who can reproduce is made well aware of the policy. As controversial as it might be, maybe two parents with significant SEN should not be having children, and appropriate measures taken to prevent it happening. It’s child cruelty and neglect to allow people without the skills or capabilities to give birth to children who are not going to thrive in these circumstances.

@crayonmess I am separating the employees and the employer. Of course public sector employees pay tax, but the departments employing the low-level, low-skill , low-paid staff in your area are very often the local council. They can't justify paying any more for unskilled work to the people who pay council tax and get their bins emptied for £4k pa (my CT for 26-27). I don't have kids in school, and when I did, I paid fees privately. More often than not, I now pay for medical stuff rather than using the NHS. I understand that I am contributing to the costs of care for people who are living longer than any generation in history, whose children have not had to face the reality that we all die.

If a single parent has a severely disabled child their monthly UC payment would be made up as follows:-
Single person rate £400.14
Carers element £201.68
Child element £339.00
Severely disabled
child element £495.87

Total amount £1436.69

They would automatically lose £739.14 once their child is no longer on the claim. The child will get £534.24 in UC including the new LCWRA amount. Child benefit will also stop so a further £110 will be lost. If the child is not classified as severely mentally impaired they will also lose their single person Council Tax discount.

The child will already be in receipt of PIP so that makes no difference to the household's total income.

The household will be at least £300 per month worse off so I'm not sure how you work out that they won't be significantly worse off.

This rage-bait thread is by @ChumpWizard who makes no arguments, presents no evidence, and has fucked off.

Don't engage.

They could probably live more economically and cut their cloth accordingly. I do wonder if some of the SN is socio economic in the first place especially if they are living in a c..p environment and are influenced by their parents and siblings

If they don't get the benefits though, then the kids will be the ones to suffer.

A single unemployed person on UC is not better off than a single person in full time NMW work.

The press like to compare totally different situations.... a family with several disabled kids with a single person on £30k, and it gets people in a rage. Every fucking time.

So selfish of them, I don’t agree with it

Hilarious comment. You think the current Welfare spending is fine and dandy, nothing to see here?

As a mum of 3 dcs (1 of whom is disabled and 1 who has significant medical conditions i do agree with this). DC2 was 6 weeks old when we found out DC1 was disabled.

DC3 was 2 by the time we found out DC2 had a lot of underlying health issues. We had planned to stop at 2 kids but DC3 was an unplanned surprise. He is now 7.

We will not be having anymore kids because its not possible to stretch ourselves any further. I do know people with multiple kids with SEN who still continue having more and complain they struggle and nobody will babysit. It seems madness to me to carry on having kids when the kids you have need so much extra care already.

If people on benefits get their rents paid then yes!