to think that £3640 plus housing benefit is not enough to live on.

[martini84]

Sorry another thread prompted by that nick and margaret programme.
I am getting more and more angry with that stevie person.
Not even watched part 2 yet.
Obviously the programme makers must have had an agenda in picking a single person with no bills to pay.
But really stevie £3640 is npt enough for a person to live on even if you don't pay rent. There are still gas electricity water rates telephone bills to pay and food of course. O and tv licence and house insurance. Council tax too in many areas.
Also how dare she say voluntary work is not valuable if you don't have e paid employment too. So the 14 hours my sister does a week has no value because she is on jsa.

Sorry typing whilst feeding dd.

how long is that money for? a year, a month?

A year. £71 a week

303 a month

I agree that he wasn't the best choice to represent people on Jobseekers allowance. He didn't have to pay bills or rent, his family provided for him, so it was really just spending money.

If he didn't live where he did surely he would be entitled to housing benefit, council tax benefit and whatever else too. By living with his grandfather he's probably claiming a lot less than he would otherwise.

The key phrase that people conveniently overlook in programmes like the one you are talking about is that people on benefits receive

The least amount money required to live on

Now you can question the wisdom of having a welfare program like we have here, you can question what motivates people to stay on welfare, but what really aggravates me is this common misconception that people are living it up on the taxpayer.

If it was a truly fair and balanced view of the welfare system then the next episode will be the proper discussion of where the bulk of welfare spending is directed...

But it is much easier to continue to perpetuate the myth of the workshy breeder...

It's not too bad tho, definately tight but if I got rid of my non essentials and rent my monthly bills for the three of us would be £395 in a three bed house so for a single person it's doable.

At my skintest as a single person I earnt £320/£350 a month and wasn't eligible for any benefits and still had rent to pay. I was depressingly skint but it is doable

I am not saying that the money wasn't enough for hm. But it certainly isn't enough for a person with bills to pay. Obv not sure if stevie was speaking in general or jus referring to her paring. She was certainly speaking in general re the voluntary work though.

Ah x posted didnt see he doesn't even have bills. That's a decent amount for food and spends

If you do pay rent then you're likely to be even worse off - yes, there's housing benefit, but it can be very difficult to find somewhere cheaper than the relevant LHA rate, which means as well as bills and so on there's the rent to top up too.

I've yet to actually watch the programme in question, because I expect it's going to make me very ranty.

I think the annoying thing is that my single sister now has to pay council tax out of that £71 has to pay council tax. Yet a family of 4 take home over 3 times as much doesn't.

Even in the most expensive area tho its not going to be more than £3.5 a week or so and you can apply to not pay that too. It's a maximum of 8.5% of your bill and you can still get a single persons reduction. It's not quite as bad as the papers are making out.

Although the way benefits have changed this year I'm £800 a month down on what I was told I would be receiving before the changes. First time in needing the help and I missed out on the good bits, darn it ;)

She has to pay £5 per week in the south east.

How do you apply not to pay it? Her letter basically said we can't possible charge those with dc under 5 etc etc so you are going to have to subsidise them.

O and add on the £5 every 2 weeks she has to pay to sign on since they closed the local office. When she mentioned it to the staff they said "we hzve to pay it too".. nice!

Most areas are only giving full ct reduction to vulnerable households I.e those in receipt of a DLA pip or a disablement pension.

So a family with children on a very low income would still have to pay some ct

And out of the 4 counties I work in it works out at about £5-8 per week.

£5 for a single person is a much higher percentage though than 5 to 8 pound for a family.

Or with children under 5

Not one of the areas I work in exempt those with under 5's but I wouldn't know about single people with no children as I don't tend to work with those

Sorry I tell a lie one of the areas do

I felt quite sorry for the single mum with 2 kids, that tax payer woman was awful begrudging her a whole chicken and insisting her children don't need a school dinner aswell as a cooked meal in the evening!!
After bills, rent, and food is paid it doesn't leave alot and she hardly seemed to be living the life of luxury!!

I know some people work the system but some of tax payers had no clue how little they actually do have. There was only one tax payer that had empathy on that show & that was the fellar that used to be redundant.

Yed. My dd has school dinners half of the week and still eats a cooked meal in the eve so why shouldn't her kids.