Who really gets £500+ weekly state benefits?

[vivizone]

I find this shit so hard to believe. Reading the media, you would think this was a common figure on life on benefits.

Yesterday and today's Metro newspaper - people writing in saying they agree with the cap of £500 and why should people be sat on their arse and be rewarded by £500 per week. . Why should they earn £200 per week working and people are getting £500 a week doing nothing.

Seriously, who gets this £500 per week that is being peddled out of the media? I spent 7 months out of work after redundancy and I could not live on the pittance I received for me and my children. I do not know how people do it. I really don't. I had a decent redundancy package and that was the only way I could make it.

How many people do you know (forget the newspaper stories) that are RECEIVING £500 or more every week? I thought so.

How come if life is/was that cushy on benefits, not enough people are/were packing in their jobs to join a life of riley?

We have been had. Life on benefits is HARD and DEMORALISING. I have tried it and I can tell you you get PEANUTS.

The reason why stories run on people living in million dollar homes/getting thousands a week in benefits is because it is RARE. It is SO rare, that it gets reported on.

Maybe it's not that they are wilfully ignorant, it's more that they fundamentally disagree?

"There is no legal definition of an "affordable" rent, but most people might presume it should never eat into the absolute minimum the state provides to keep a family alive. Yet, even after families are exported, many of these "affordable" rents will leave them with virtually no money to live on. One estimate finds only Middlesbrough has rents low enough for a family with four children to pay up and still keep the sum unemployment benefits are supposed to provide for bare survival.

"Meanwhile, many of these families won't be able to pay the 20% of council tax due in April. That will mean huge arrears for councils, with bailiffs bills adding to the cost."

There are already people paying rents - the cheapest they could find - that leave them with £20 a week or less for bills and food.

Maybe, but I think a great number are actually just wilfully ignorant.

mumstonic perhaps your sister needs to think about the future,

Job with no prospects with income top ups

V

Job with prospects without need for top ups

Same financial result short term.

If your sister does have the choice and she is choosing not to pick the one with prospects because she would prefer to currently receive the same income via top ups then she's an idiot who probably deserves to have troubles in the future.

outraged if I showed you a photo of a duck and said it was a horse and you replied no its a duck, would we just be fundamentally disagreeing or would I be wrong.

Sockret - Its the system is idiotic not the individuals.

It?s unfair to encourage people into work by offering massive financial incentives and then say, well actually it?s not the 'right' work there are no prospects so you're an idiot.

Yes, longer term I may be better off but define long term?....

Another 4-5 years paying full time nursery fees, followed by a further 7-8 paying after school care, after which we'll then have DD1's university fees to consider?

DSIS agrees, working PT in a shop isn?t the most challenging, but when asked 'would you swap places with me?' working double the hours, more stress, less time with DC's for another 10 years+ the answer was a most definite NO!

I didn't say it wasn't the right work I don't think there is right or wrong work its all just work to me.

It was actually you who implied your sister wouldn't put in any additional effort without instant financial reward and that was the only thing stopping her that's your sister exercising personal choice not the system forcing her. There is a difference

Sock, you would be wrong, obviously

Outraged no but just pointing out tennant not see £500 here £300 goes to LL and yes there'd a premium here if On HB they know you won't have much choice of LL or property's

As to long term, to start with when universal credit comes in part time nmw workers will be treated like people claiming Jsa sent for interviews sanctioned if they don't go etc.

Your income is probably not at the whim of who ever sits in number ten or a pen pusher who thinks you should not go to your shift at your actual job that pays you so you can attend a job interview that may be for a zero hour contract where they can offer you the job subject to you waiving your employment rights in exchange for worthless shares by a company that has been offered massive tax breaks for doing so and if you don't accept it you get your tax credits sanctioned for 3 months. ( only one bit of that threat is only still a possibility)

sock why will people who alreday work have to go for a JSA interview and apply for another job?

Because they arent working enough hours or earning enough money....tis the new rules courtesy of david cameron.

and scared for so many people.

Because under uc part time workers become the new benefit scum

By the way I don't believe that it's not my view point

are people talking about this in all of your RLs? no-one is talking about this in mine. i only know it's happening because of MN. not one RL person has mentioned it. do people in know?

I knew somebody who worked and received £900 a month in childcare allowance. I was amazed. That would almost have paid for another person to be employed. I can't see how this was fair in any way with so many unemployed people.

Rules for partnerships where one person is a carer for a disabled child will change too. Currently the working partner has to do 16 hours to qualify for WTC. Under Universal Credit it will be 30 plus ie face the same conditionality as any working person.

That alone will affect parents of severely disabled children not to mention the assumption that you will make minimum wage. That's quite ironic given that the governments recently haven't been able to sort out a living one.

People don't seem to be talking about this in RL, personally i think this is because people don't realise it will affect part time workers&the self employed.

but vivienne if they hadn't subsidised that £900 (in favour of paying another employee) of childcare that person wouldn't have been able to work and so would then become unemployed filling the space in the queue that the new employee had just left. with that sort of thinking you're really only looking at employing people with no children. you could always suggest wages go up to cover the childcare but who subsidises that? employers? how can they afford it?

i'm going to bring up UC with a few friends in RL and see what they know or think about it.

Wayyyy back when I got a lot of working tax credits it did actually pay for another person to be employed, it paid for my childminder who had my 2, her 2 and only a couple of other children she could be paid for.

Childcare allowances not only let the parent work they create Childcare jobs and get money into the economy and make a huge amount of economic sense on many levels.

I still think it was unfair and what made it worse was that it was a government department. That money could have paid for two people to have a job. The person was getting almost as much in childcare top up as she was earning. I think this is quite simply wrong.

Oh and if the rules transfer, it's a single parent working 16 hours or a couple working 24 who will be eligible for the working element of uc and households eligible for Wtc at the moment aren't subject to the benefit cap.

I completely disagree Vivienne for so many reasons.

Not least being that not everyone can earn the ridiculous amounts needed to pay for Childcare, especially while young enough to have children, and it's an investment in their and their children's futures.

How do you feel about the special "free" Childcare set up for single parents and vulnerable families who aren't working then?

vivienne have you read mine and rhonda's posts? what is unfair about it?

There really isn't such a thing as 'free childcare'. There have to be decisions made and a fair system put in place. How many taxpayers does it take to subsidise that £900 a month. Nine people on say £14,000 a year paying £100 a month tax each to subsidise one person's childcare. Sorry I simply think this is wrong.