A worker on £40k per year is £39 pw better off than his unemployed counterpart.

With benefits and child support my income is nearly 40k. I'm doing ok but certainly even with the help 2 buy scheme I can't see owning a suitable family home a realistic goal anytime soon. And I have been in continuous employment, including whilst at university, since I was 15.

I am not an accountant but think there needs to be a massive increase in the minimum wage and then an increase in wages (if there cannot be a massive decrease in the cost of living).

Once the minimum wage is hugely increased then what about this for an idea - rather than giving tax credits to people (who wouldn't need it as everybody would be getting a living wage) the government could give a type of tax credit to any company that can prove it is unsustainable for it to pay the minimum wage. Therefore subsidising those companies genuinely struggling paying a liveable wage and thereby keeping the economy going while artificially enhancing wages. But not subsidising those companies able to pay more in wages with still a good profit like we do at the moment (I wonder how many people working in the UK for the energy giants get working tax credit - yet the companies are making millions in profits. Same with supermarkets. It really doesnt currently make any sense how it is).

We managed very much nicely on 40k in the SE a few years ago.

Now we struggle a bit on nearly twice that.

My diamond shoes must be pinching a bit

The cost if living has far outstripped wages in the last few years.

MrJudgeyPants, I would answer your post if I had any idea what you said. It didn't seem to have anything to do with what I said.

KiplingBag you said being on bens and then increasing the family is just plain irresponsible

My instinct is to agree with you there. I certainly wouldn't be trying to have a large family in that situation.

Then again nearly everyone I know who is working full time is also on benefits of one kind or another. Should I frown on them having children too? They will get more benefit if they do so that's a drain on the system.

What about someone who can't work because of a disability? Should they have less right to breed than a banker? It gets tricky.

Some newspapers created an image of people saying "Hey, I don't think I'll work any more. I'm going to have a whole bunch of kids to milk the system and spend the extra food money on a big TV and lots of beer".

Such people do exist, but I suspect in tiny numbers - they are just too good a front page story to resist.

I think most people are just trying to get by and can't work because there are 100s applying for every job.

I did suggest once that we pass a law limiting all families to 2 children. That way it is fair and limiting the population growth makes good sense if there's not enough jobs and homes to go around.

PMSL @ £40k being enough outside London. There are several cities in the UK that rival London for house prices and low wages.

You make a good point eggyhead. The job that I did in 1990 for £16,000 attracts a salary of about £22,000 now.

"You're right that middle earners struggle, but please don't fall into the trap of hating poor people because of it - it is not their fault."

I don't see any hatred on this thread but I haven't read every post.

I have a friend - a single parent of two - caught in the benefits trap. And the scandal is that she is a skilled person who could earn a good salary (£30,000 + at least).

£40k outside of London is enough, oliveoctagon?

Do you have a couple of kids and live and own a house in the South East?

The LHA for a two bed property in zone four is currently at £184, not £236. I have no clue where you got that figure from.

Another single working parent who did claim benefits when unemployed a couple of years ago. All I got was JSA and free council tax. I was unemployed for 3 months. I wasn't entitled to anything else as I owned a house (with a mortgage). If I rented I would have got housing benefit too. On balance I'd rather be working than live on that and put up with the patronising attitude at my fortnightly JSA interviews.

In reality, is it possible to get all those benefits? If so, yes, that is very unfair.

I think the problem is that wages just haven't risen (not in my sector/location) anyway.

My friend was earning £20k as an HR Assistant almost 20 years ago. I see the same type of jobs being advertised at the same salary yet they are asking for graduates. What the hell is going on?!!!

Yes, because those who are too poor to have ever bought property deserve the worst! We can automatically assume they sat on their arses their entire lives and never did a single day's work .

Forgot to add the

I don't think it's fair to include travel card costs, as unemployed people are still obliged to travel to a job centre regularly, or might need to leave the house.

You're right that middle earners struggle, but please don't fall into the trap of hating poor people because of it - it is not their fault. We should be raising living standards for all, not fighting over scraps.

If your outside of London mintyy 40k is more than enough

I mind, I wish I didn't, my view of the whole benefits industry has changed over the last ten years. I now live surrounded by the pension credit mafia. They pay no rent or council tax and get help with their utlility bills, get attendance allowance for 'disabilities' which somehow don't seem to require any 'attending'. They nearly all have cars less than three years old, take two or three holidays a year (cruises, trips to South Africa and New Zealand, Christmas hotel breaks), have a succession of upgraded white goods, TVs etc, home redecoration at least every three years with the new furniture/flooring to complement it. I live in a rural village, in a smallish area of social housing for the over 60, but I do not think this is a local aberration. How do they do it? Cake and eat it. Capital stashed with relatives for a start. These people
seem the most respectable, upstanding citizens, who are the first to criticise and report anyone working on the black, for example, and would be affronted by any criticism of their state clienthood- in fact, amazed that anyone should question their entitlement. If I had read this before I moved here l would have dismissed it as benefit bashing tosh. Why did I work and, save (and forgo holidays and a lot more to do so) to ensure I could retire with a reasonable pension and pay my way? This lot all have more affluent lifestyles than I and look at me with a dead stare when I mention concerns over rent rises or utility costs.

So nothing about our current system truly surprises me any more. But, working and providing for myself has given me immense satisfaction, stimulation, sense of self-worth and pride and I would not have chosen another path.

I think it should be possible to be surprised at the reality of this without being accused of benefits bashing. And I am a lifelong lefty and proud.

An income of £40,000 is not a high income if it has to support a family. I think some of those on lower incomes who say that they would love an income of £40,000 plus are forgetting that at level you don't get any benefits or support, which makes a huge difference.

The reality is that (where there are two parents in a family who are able to work) only those in a relatively cheap area of the country would choose to live on just one income.

The low wages and high housing costs in this country are a national disgrace.

Benefits basically subsidise employers (many of which are large, wealthy, multinational firms) paying below a living wage and landlords charging exorbitant rents.

Our taxes are subsidising a load of freeloading sponging fat cats - and I am not talking about benefit claimants.

Benefits are far too generous, and the cost of housing is far too high.

At least they are changing the benefits system to make it harder for people to opt out of working at all and claim benefits as a lifestyle choice.

Now we just need the housing market to properly crash and rents and mortgages go down significantly so we aren't all wasting so much of our income just keeping an overpriced roof over our head.

And I truly think it is shit.

And DC needs to wake up to this imo. Its too hard for too many people.

Expat - I don't think anybody is saying it is a life of Riley. Just that life is shit for all on benefits or earning under £50k!!!!!

I don't think the figures can be that far out as it is only about £230 plus child benefit to live on. The housing benefit is different as specifically for housing.

Surely benefits of £230 per week for living isn't far out if you are two adults, two children. Plus child benefit. Plus housing.

That cannot be too far out of line I don't think.

Jack it in and go on benefits if it's such a life of Riley.

But op hasn't said you get the same CB for each child? Just stated that for two children it would be £33 a week. That sounds about right doesn't it?