To think dh is winding me up when he says some people on benefits are getting £500 a week?

[angelos02]

I'm pretty sure he's talking bullocks? Otherwise why the fuck would anyone do a minimum wage job?

UK average wage is £27000 which is just over £415 a week after tax etc. To get as much as £500 a week you have to have disabled children which incurs a huge amount of extra expense in itself. Even £500 a week is still only a £32k wage which is not a staggering wage to live off if you have medical issues, lots of kids, disabilities etc. Most people get far less than this.

With 3 kids and a disabled husband we got about equivalent to a £26k wage when DH was bad enough neither of us could work. It was a wage we could live off but all our luxuries went. He earned £35k, it's a monster pay cut, especially when you become disabled through no fault of your own. You can now no longer earn more than the average wage so this often means cutting down on luxuries or compromising on home etc. If you don't have kids your income will be a pitiful fraction of this and you will be cut to the bone.

People are really clutching at straws here. We're now all expected to believe that increased rental isn't down to demand, because of the increase in house prices. No, it's yet another thing to blame on them scrounging benefit claimants.

Let me guess, the rise in house prices is down to those good for nothing layabouts, buying all those houses in central London with their massive handouts, and out pricing the decent hard working tax payer.

A bit like the nhs, all those naice people having to wait because gp surgeries are full of people pretending to be disabled.

Perhaps we can also find a circular and improbable line of reasoning to blame zika, famine and terrorism on welfare claimants too?

We would get £18k if I didn't work (single mother London) a year which is £346 a week including housing benefit which I think is too generous.

As someone said above about 90% of people who rent don't get housing benefit so it does not particularly distort the rental market except that many many of those landlords have mortgages which prohibit them from taking housing benefit tenants and the HB rates are too low to cover their costs anyway. We certainly need a lot more house building in the few areas where there are jobs like London.

Why do you think that's too generous?

£26k is above the average wage in many parts of the country, including where I live. There are plenty of people where I live with a degree and many years of work experience in their chosen field, who are earning about this. £32k is a good wage where I live.

I think the problem is that wages are too low. And I think some people on benefits don't realise how most of the population live.

What is the present benefits cap as instigated by the tory government ?

practy,. I agree with that and some people on benefits think workers keep 100% of their pay not have masses taken off in tax, travel costs etc.

Practy, the benefits paid are relative to the living costs in the areas that the claimant is living, and as has been said before to get £26,000 you'd have to have a very difficult set of circumstances, its the very top of what can be claimed, not the norm.

I agree that some people on benefits don't see how much goes on the cost of living, mainly because they fantasise that when they get a job all their woes will go away, I think its a shock to many.

However I don't think its helpful to say "£26 k is above average wage in many parts of the country" when benefits paid reflect the cost of living, and £26k for a family claiming benefits is far from the norm.

Yes working has costs, and of course tax comes off our wages.

Ah well, you've got to earn about 40,000 before you're a net contributor anyway.

Even for people who don't have DCs?

Yup. If you have DC it's higher.

again - the person on 26k wouldn't just be getting 26k and would themselves be getting child benefit and some tax credits.

i can well believe it ineedasock - they seemed totally disinterested in the fact you had enough savings to pay 18months rent in advance. i guess because it's not really about money it's about 'who' they think you are if you do or don't work full time.

40,000 is per household. So per 2.3 people

And the average income per household is 27, 000.

No if you are on £26k with no children, you will probably be getting nothing.

Net contributor doesn't just mean about getting benefits, the work out your contribution to the entire state and the liklihood of our service use etc.

A family with 3 dc will need a higher income than this, basically it assumes you've used the average level of service for an average household of 2 adults.

It also works on just two adults in the household, doesn't take into account dc.

So two adults in a household both with a salary of £26k are net contributors?

By a little under 10%, but again this is all taxes, and as the average propensity to consume is higher, you pay more vathan etc.

So most childless adult couples will be net contributors then.

Depends, as the average household income is 27k it would suggest not.

However, yes they would be providing that they are absolutely average, no medical conditions etc.

Also bear in mind that their increased consumption adds to this.

speye.wordpress.com/2016/08/13/no-job-no-house-begins-7-november/

It was a tory wet dream to bring back the workhouse, seems its going to be a reality.

Why are we supposed to be nuanced when it comes it business and stuff like Grosnvenor's IHT, but not when it comes to the poor.

Oh that's right, no one gives a fuck.

This will end up costing more than it saves, but its politically expedient because it makes the anti benefits posters here happy.

Oh, those posters who won't be getting any tax cuts. Do you know why? Cause they don't give a fuck about you either.

The single person tax allowance has gone up to £11k per person so it is not fair to say there have been no tax cuts. Obviously the rich do not get that allowance so they don't have the cut but it has helped middle earners.

The reduction in housing benefit for people who don't work who live in areas many of those in work cannot afford to live in is supported by very very many of the UK's workers by the way on left and the right. It was one reason the Tories got in. I know there remain some people who don't like it but don't assume it is not a popular move. It is.