to think that there are people who choose to live a life on benefits?

[autumnlights12]

the recent threads about George Osbourne made me wonder..
A high number of posters say that people don't choose to live like that, they stumble into it, hate it, what a miserable existence it is, nobody would ever choose it etc..
but if you have two or three children through choice, whilst at the same time having no job to provide for them, or if you turn down the job at the local factory (as I know someone who did) because it pays £7.50 an hour and a full time job there doesn't give you the same unemployment rights and benefits, isn't that choosing to live a life on benefits? Or being trapped on benefits? I'm not talking about people who can't work, disabled people, ill people, women dumped by feckless ex and left to fend for herself etc.. of course they should be protected.
I was watching 999 What's Your Emergency and I know that area. And I know people like that exist. And it's often a second, third generation who have never worked a day in their life, even during times when work was freely available. In the town I live, we have numerous Eastern European immigrants who all seem to be working, but mostly in low paid work the locals wont do
What say you?

Sorry just catching up now. I have done two lists now and its really not looking pretty. I thought I would be down about £50 per week its looking like a more realistic figure is around £85 per week. That's far more money than I can afford to lose. Its so blimming hard. I want to work but my husband does crazy hours 6 days a week so trying to find a job that's fits round him and fits round my caring responsibilities is nigh on impossible.

Would anyone really take an £85 loss on the chin to work somewhere were there is no room for promotion (bar work) so you would be stuck at national minimum wage for the foreseeable future?

A week? So, a single 20-year-old woman with one baby gets £68 a week? You can't claim immediately after school, I believe. And it goes up with each child? And that's it. The sole benefit?

Me? I would train for something better paid. I'd try to negotiate a higher salary. I do think work often leads to work. Not always of course. But friends of mine who have been made redundant recently say it's easier to get work if you are in work.

Thats IS.

Then they get CB at £20 and ctc at around £80 for a baby and £67 for a child over 1.

Housing benefit. Council tax benefit.

Theres no Council tax where I live but a single mum would basically be getting around £900 every 4 weeks. That includes rent which may or may not be paid direct to the LL.

I have been out of work for 5 years. I am not coming from a very strong negotiating point here. I am currently re-sitting my standard grade maths (GCSE) to get a better grade than I got at 15 to try and better my job prospects. I went to college for 5 weeks until I had to give up due to my daughter not being able to cope without me there to take her to school and pick her up. I'm not sure what I'm expected to do!

Yes Bitofa I think you should re train.

You can do part time courses now and Im sure you could fit it round your caring and your DHs job.

£85 is far too much to lose a week. But if you retrain then you will have better opportunities in the future.

wannabe the baby element of ctc has been removed for some time. you get the same for a baby as you do a 5y.

If your daughter couldnt cope with you at college surely she wouldnt cope with you having a job though?

Im sorry for your situation. It sounds really hard. But you mustnt think of yourself as a scrounger.

Thank you Wannabe. That's more than I would have thought to be honest. You can see how it can become a trap. Because that's the equivalent of earning about £1200 a month gross. £15k a year. The wage of a Teaching Assistant. And you are not paying childcare. What happens if you have more children? And what happens when your youngest goes to school?

Ah sock. I didnt know that.

I would need someone for 3 hours instead of the 11 hours I needed someone to care for her while I was at college so I was hoping she wouldn't struggle with it quite so much.

It's also an infantilising system. Having your rent paid direct to a landlord - I can see why it happens but it's not an ideal way for a grown up to live.

You can study in the evenings. You can even study online. Getting Maths GCSE shouid be a priority for you.

Given what some people spend the money on it is very wise housing benefit if we really have to pay it at all is paid to landlords. So the bar work job at £6 an hour if it were won would mean a loss of £85 a week. But perhaps the bar hours might be increased. Perhaps once in regular bar work one could argue experience is built up and managing the bar becomes possible.

What about also offering services locally to make up for the £85 loss, leaflets through doors offering things like baby sitting and cleaning and all those jobs lots of people don't want to do. If you target a more prosperous area that can pay off. We get leaflets like that through the door offering services.

It is my priority that's why I have already sat (and passed with 100%) the first part of my GCSE maths exam. I still need to sit the second part once I get some more studying hours (with my Big Plus tutor) under my belt.

My husband is out from 7am until 8pm most nights. He works an hour away from home so to go to college at night I would need childcare. Both childcare places here close at 7pm.

I'm not making excuses just showing you the situation I am in.

It is a trap. If the woman has no skills/qualifications then what job is she going to get?

I was in retail management before I had DD. I tried to go back, I got a job that paid enough to break even. But the hours were late nights and weekends which I couldnt get childcare for. I couldnt take the job.

I then wanted to retrain. But again, I was worse off (considerably) by the time I travelled to college and paid for course materials. The workload was impossible with a small child and then my car broke down.

By then I was with DP and we moved in together. He supported us all on his wage. I got CB still and some TCs. He then got a three year contract so we decided to have another baby. He lost his job a month after I found out I was pregnant. He got another job but that company went bust in august.

The only light at the end of our tunnel is that now that there are two of us we will be (hopefully) able to get jobs which work round each other and share childcare.

But its defiately a trap. And its not high benefits which are the problem, its lack of jobs that pay enough to support people.

A typical management job in retail starts at £14k. Who can pay the bills with that?

I'm from a small town in Scotland not a big city so not many options open here.

Xenia, Bitofa's DD wouldnt cope with her hours increasing.

Dont you get it. She is a carer. That has to be her priority.

Thank you wanna.

You will get people on here who say they manage fine on £14k or not much more than that.

I think retraining is often an investment. I did it about 10 years ago and I refuse to even think about how much I was out of pocket in that year. A friend recently retrained to become a doctor. Nightmare childcare arrangements because medicine training assumes young people and shifts are ruthless. Worth it. She's now trained and will probably be a consultant within seven years.

The hellish situation is unqualified/low qualified and scrabbling around for minimum wage jobs while trying to have a lifestyle that is reasonably first world.

If people lived 12 family members in a small house and all the adults were on £14k, it could be made to work. But only non Brits would ever consider living like that in the UK.

She wants to work so I 'm thinking of ways. Small town in Scotland so probably fewer people than in London who are able to pay for all kinds of services. I have commuted to work in Aberdeen from time to time )not fun as a single parent getting early flights and arranging childcare) but that has a special economic climate all of its own.

So every weekend she has her husband to mind the child so we need something which either she can do from home (I bid for work on peopleperhour.com which has loads of jobs people can do from home but things like writing and proof reading will require good English skills) or else she has to commute to but which pays enough to cover that cost. Even a very early start on Satruday am to get somewhere to work all weekend until Sunday night might be a good break from the home situation and would mean the burden of keeping the family were more spread between them both. What about a live in carer for an old couple who need someone for relief for their week day people over weekends? People advertise for that around here (or may be Scotland because it thinks it is so much richer than England pays for all that for people so they are not likely to hire anyone to do that service).

i would love to live in a world where everyone who got a nmw job all of a sudden ended up running the place for any more than about £7 an hour.

xenia y

you are really showing your ignorance

It can all start to sound American Dream but not working for a long time seems to lead to more non working.

My husband works Saturdays. Only day off he gets is a Sunday.