How much do you people understand 25 get in benefits if they dont work?

[JacknDiane]

If they stay at home.?

Does anyone know?

Same I work in a supermarket and now when people leave or retire they aren't replaced. We don't even have Christmas temps anymore

No you wouldn't as appealing as it sounds on the surface it just leads to mental illness nothing good comes from young healthy people not working. Everyone needs a purpose in life and routine these are things you get from a job not sitting in a dark, smelly room alone for months/ years.

Let’s face it, wouldn’t most people? How many are there out there who genuinely love their jobs and would continue even with a windfall, lottery win etc? Not that many I bet.

I know a 22yo, he receives £338 a month in UC. He applies for the bare minimum with a purposefully bad CV. No desire to work. £338 a month to him is more money than he ever had, he’s been paid that every month since he left school. It’s a lot when you previously got nothing.

Thats really sad still living with parents missing the best years of his life.

Presumably though he must be living with his parents and they aren't charging him rent and expecting contributions to bills etc because otherwise that money wouldn't last very long at all.

My 18 year old gets way more than £338 a month. They are eligible for an enhanced payment. They do a further education course at college and live at home. I have been shocked at the amount and didn’t even know they were eligible until someone told them to apply. Add PIP on top and they have a shocking amount of money.

My 23 year old gets the same but doesn’t go to college and doesn’t live at home.

I actually think it is too much money and not healthy for them.

Yes. Jesus, sorry! Stupid looking title award goes to me.

Ah shoosh

Because we have swallowed the lie that we need hugely and highly educated work forces, lots more people have degrees, so jobs that in the 80s you would walk into and learn on the job for a few months, now needs 3 stages of interviews, a group task, a degree level education, to do some basic nonsense

I saw a job the other day for a barista in Asda. The way it was written you'd think it was an advert for an artisan producer in a Michelin starred restaurant. For a fucking coffee maker in Asda.

I would agree if the economy was firing on all cylinders...have you noticed that it is not the case at the moment?

My son gets the enhanced rate plus PIP. He lives in supported living in a single person house (he couldn't share). It really isn't a shocking amount for someone not living at home.

Problem is that if he doesn't get a wriggle on to improve his skills and experience and actually find work , he will be a broke older bloke struggling all his life.

People who become unemployed and have paid enough NI in the qualifying years can still get JSA.

No, it's money for adults to live on while unemployed. Parents can't afford to buy food for adult children living at home once child benefit stops, and need them to contribute to bills too

Your question doesn’t make sense.

Indeed.

The Dutch seem to be onto something here: "In the UK, the researchers said, young people claiming incapacity benefits could be left without real institutional contact or work-related expectations for months, even years; in the Netherlands, local councils offered tailor-made engagement programmes with psychological help, subsidised employment and specialised training."

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2026/may/29/netherlands-britain-youth-jobs-crisis

Some schemes like that do exist - in my city at least. We refer the young people at risk of becoming NEET. The support is great and sometimes we get that young person back in education a year or so later.

The thing that’s frustrating with these schemes though (as they exist on very specific funding) certain postcodes or ages or other criteria must be met.

And schemes change. Names, provision or criteria. I know this is due to funding bids but I’d like to see consistent options available. That we can then refer to and parents / young people could directly refer to.

i think what the 80s post 16 work scenario looked like rather depended on where you lived. Mid to late 80s, and into early 90s, there were huge rates of unemployment generally in vaste swathes of the North. (Remember Boys from the Black Stuff, Auf Wiedersehen, Pet, Brookside?)

There was a massive issue with youth unemployment as the apprentice system had largely disappeared, replaced by some frankly exploitative and useless youth training schemes, and there was the same issue with getting an entry level job with no experience. Again, maybe the North South divide as it was termed but certainly in my area of the North there were no options I know of where you could walk into a job and learn in a few months, and if there were low skilled jobs, the employer would still be looking for work experience related or not to demonstrate general work competence, reliability etc so young people would be bottom of the list.

maybe it was different down south. I know some people tried to move but even then the discrepancy in house prices, rent and cost of living was there. Again, in media, there was a whole off shoot of Brookside that focused on that.

When I applied for Uni, I applied no where down south except Oxbridge, and then only there as the accommodation was provided for 3 years. There was a very negative mindset in my school;’why study? It gets you no-where, there are no jobs.’ At one end there were youth training schemes that went nowhere, at the other there were graduates unemployed after their degree. I can really empathise with young people today in this scenario, it’s even worse at the 21 plus degree end saddled with debt.

I see this with a lot of threads.

I agree. Last summer a woman who works for my DH asked if I would help her DD. A year out of uni and still unable to find anything beyond part time cafe work despite having a first in law.

I helped her to get an entry level job in my industry. There was really very little wrong with her application and interview technique. I helped her tweak it to improve and I knew how to get past the AI screen at application.

I still shake my head that such an intelligent young woman was going in at entry level. I had a choice of graduate trainee schemes at her age. I expect she will do well in the long run but there is very little in the way of a ‘leg up’ for young people.

His mother’s rent is fully paid for by UC, so he sees nothing to contribute to.

You sound very ignorant and uninformed about the current situation within the job market. Young people want work, we recruited last month and had the highest number of applicants we’ve ever seen and most of them were young people. I’ve worked in retail for a very long time and the jobs are not there like they were 20 years ago, it’s easy to say go find a job but not that easy when you are the one actually doing it.

Well his parents could insist on him paying his share of the bills 🤔