To see benefits as a safety net, not handouts?

Yes but he will need the safety net for ever and deserves it.

Benefits have changed over the last few years now everything is pretty much uc most people will be on them for life as its mainly, disabled and carers and people on low income

Here you go, link to the original report.

https://www.jrf.org.uk/work/are-cultures-of-worklessness-passed-down-the-generations

3 generations a child, a 20 year old parent of that child, a 37/38 year old parent of that young adult only takes you back to 1988 chuck another generation on top and you might get as far back as late sixties early seventies. 😂 Inciting hatred you don't know the meaning. My husband works in criminal justice and has now worked with 3 generations of the same family the youngest being currently 15 and in prison none of them have ever worked. Don't claim to have experience of this world

Businesses and landlords. You see these rage bait things where we get told claimants get ££££ yet so much of that is the housing element going straight to a landlord.

This.

This fits my family profile so I suppose they would be excluded too!

4 generations? So people born in 1920's? There weren't 'benefits', they'd have starved.

In fact there is no evidence of this. There IS evidence of people cycling in and out of work, short term and seasonal jobs, ill health and caring responsibilities, in deprived areas. But not the norm. Stop trying to incite hatred.

It was a very flawed study.

And excluded any 'work' at all.

So if a Mother worked for a fortnight in a cafe aged 16 and was sacked before she went on to have multiple children starting as a teenager, that couldn't be counted.

She'd 'worked'.

They were intended to be a safety net, yes. However, we all know people who make sure they always qualify for some help on paper.
I don’t mean people with disabilities obviously. I know a few families (young, fit couples) who have qualified for social housing and pay very little for a house just like ours and will be able to buy it off much cheaply, while we had to save for a very long time and pay a very big mortgage on fairly low wage(s).
As we all know someone playing the system, I suspect the number of these people is not small.

Not having proper restrictions and checks harms those who genuinely need it, and harms the country overall (less taxes - poor quality public services, people without ambition don't value education, etc, etc)

Maybe read up on the benefits system so you can understand how it works?

Exactly.

And don't get me started on the 'claiming but just about to go over 16k savings, how do I spend some money so I can carry on claiming without it looking dodgy' posts where some responders attack anyone saying 'maybe you don't need benefits if you need to dispose of some cash to carry on getting them' with 'poor people should be able to save too!' 'it's not YOUR money they're getting so why are you bothered when Amazon doesn't pay full tax'?

There was a poster recently on MN whose husband earned 67k a year but because of having a disabled child that needed an adapted home, the family were in receipt of almost 4k a month benefits. And the OP wanted more as she was acting as an informal carer to her MIL and was asking about carers allowance.

That's ridiculous and that poster is one of many.

But the response of a lot of posters was 'they're entitled to it' 'well they've got a severely disabled child, would you like to swap places to get the money?, bet you wouldn't'

I've seen posters post about how they don't need DLA or PIP (over 16) for their child as they don't have any additional costs or can afford any additional costs but they're wondering what to do with the money and posters saying 'save it, it'll be a nice nest-egg for them' 'it can go towards a house deposit' when that is not what DLA or PIP are for.

Which is the kind of nonsense which makes people question the 'system' and become aggrieved by it.

Along with all the PIP fraud cases that have been publicised recently which refute all the 'it's so hard to get' 'you only get it if you really need it' 'you have to have tonnes of medical evidence' 'fraud is 0%' myth posters.

These are some of my relatives, so I don't perceive it as rare. 3 generations on benefits who have never worked and no aspiration to work. All their friends are the same. I would be interested to see the statistics!

Sorry the article:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/crrpx4p1z71o

This is a frightening article in the BBC today:

One possible solution to my mind is to simply scrap income tax for those aged 18-25. This will encourage young people to get into the job market as quickly as possible, discourage people studying unemployable degrees and set up good working habits for life.

@monkeysox exactly. How can anybody not realise that not everybody will climb the "ladder". Even if they do its still not enough.... you could be a nurse and have 2 babies and a husband then he might suddenly pass away leaving you with toddlers both under 5 years of age.

Now that 1 wage as a nurse to cover 1 adult and 2 kids isnt enough. Benefits is a way of living unfortunately. Even 2 parent families could be on UC.

It should be a safety net but we are at a point where people think that living on benefits is a viable choice. Young people see their parents living on benefits abd think 'i can do that, why work?' These people have not learnt a sense of pride in earning your own money or value of being productive or work ethic. There is no incentive to working over claiming so they don't. I worked for as long as I possibly could from my first job during uni in 2006, I even did a short (9 months) stint in Maccas because I wanted and needed to earn money through my disabilty diagnosis in 2022 til i was declared medically unfit to work in 2025.

How does that work if there are no jobs either as an employee or client if you want to go sole trader/self-employed?

Yes, same here. I became disabled almost overnight at the age of 46. Single parent with two DC aged 14 and 10 at the time. A very frightening experience.

@ParmaVioletTea
“We seem to have a situation where a lot of people work very hard, for more or less earned income, while a significant minority does not work at all. Something up to almost 15% of young people 18-24 are not in education, employment or training. That’s not acceptable or sustainable.”

It is due to a lack of jobs that is hitting that age category the hardest.

As of a year ago, 30 Jun 2025, the UK's entry-level job market had plummeted by 32% reducing graduate roles, apprenticeships, internships, and junior positions without degree requirements since the launch of OpenAI's ChatGPT in November 2022.
https://www.liveaiwire.com/2025/06/uk-entry-level-job-market-plunges-32.html

https://bmmagazine.co.uk/news/entry-level-jobs-slump-reeves-tax-raid/

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/jan/26/ai-uk-jobs-us-japan-germany-australia

I agree the lack of jobs is not acceptable or sustainable.

There will always be people for whom the NMW jobs are the ceiling of what they are able to do, for a lot of complex reasons.

@HoskinsChoice And for people who can't afford to buy or rent privately? The trouble with social housing is there's not enough of it, not that people are living in it.

What about disabled people who are unlikely to ever work? For some people, benefits are going to be their way of life through no fault of their own.

I know a single mum, works full time for the council. Gets UC. Wouldn't be able to afford the rent otherwise. Will she just need it "for a time"

Hm, I think it is still a safety net, just that many families get caught in the net and can’t swim back up because they keep getting pushed back down.