To think that bit is impossible to live off of benefits?

[Rolf38]

So Universal Credit rates are £498.89 an adult couple over the age of 25. This is meant to last them one whole month. So £250 per adult which works out at about £60 per week or just £8.57 per day.

How is someone meant to buy food, pay their bills and maintain a jobsearch at these rates?

I understand that some may think that by setting benefits at a low rate, there will be a greater incentive for recipients to return to work. This I understand and agree with to a point.

Surely though that danger of setting benefit rates too low is that it has the opposite effect. Claimants may reun the risk of getting in to debt, depression and lose the desire to maintain an active job search, along with any ambitions and aspirations they ever had.

Is met ting benefit rates too low a precursor to the increase of long term benefit claimants, simply by affording claimants less resources and willpower to maintain their job search?

After all, say if have been unemployed fir or three months. In this time, you have been so cash strapped that you haven't even been able to go to the cinema or meet an old friend, as bills and increasing debts have taken priority.

Without just a bit of enjoyment to boost morale, how less determined would a claimant be to give their job search their all as they would be if they could take their mind off of it for a bit.

For the couples payment too, I wouldn't be surprised if such a low payment to sustain two adults for a month may cause friction in the relationship, adding further restrictions to morale and job search.

Of course taxpayers money should be treated with the utmost respect.

However, is keeping benefit rates at such a low level proving more costly in the long run?

Why not add an incentive for job search for claimants? Increase UC payments by 10% for those who continually do all they can for their job search over a sustained period (say three months).

Such an increase, just form he most committed in their job search, would act as a continued incentive for the most determined to find work quicker (thus reducing long-term burdens on the taxpayers). Restricting an enhanced payment to just the most committed would also ensure that those not committed to athe or jobsearch and envisage a long-term existence on benefits find that this, beyond subsidence level, is not sustainable.

If you are doing everything you can in your jobsearch, why should you be unable to afford very basic enjoyments (even on a very occasional basis)? Why are those who put in the effort, in testing times, not differentiated from those who show no desire to come off benefits.

Perhaps in addition to sanctioning claimants who do not fulfill their commitments, the government should do more to help and reward the positive attitude to do all they can to get back to work.

Caperberries
I am indeed an immigrant from the third world. I have lived in both ends of the socioeconomic scale in both parts of the world.

People starve, die, are trapped in absuive marriages, chldbirth kills, infant mortality rises, crime rises, injustice is rife, and so on and so on and so on.

But there are also opportunities for education, to gain qualifications throughout life, free contraception, free healthcare, infant mortality is actually decreasing. Being on benefits does not prevent anyone from accessing these.

www.qualitywatch.org.uk/indicator/infant-mortality

It's absolutely criminal that people have to survive on this pittance, especially as most of them will have contributed massively in taxes and NI over the years.

If you are older or long-term unemployed then discrimination is rife among employers and it is extremely difficult to even be considered for a job. Staff at DWP - well, what can I say. Generally speaking, they have no skills whatsoever in terms of helping someone get back into work. The exceptions have their hands tied behind their backs with red tape.

The problem with benefits has always been that governments are unable to differentiate between those people who use the system to get themselves back into work versus those people who use the system to ensure they never have to work.

The only light at the end of the tunnel I have personally found is to start up some kind of business and become self-employed. There's really good support from the New Enterprise Allowance scheme which gives you an additional £300 a month on top of your UC for 13 weeks then an additional £150 a month for a further 13 weeks. You still retain your benefits until you are earning over a weekly threshold (which I think is £190 but don't quote me). So, if you have skills or experience that could be utilised in a self-employed capacity, it's worth looking at.

It's a big nightmare getting PIP forms filled in never mind getting through the face to face assessments.

I am a Carer for a lady who needs enhanced rate mobility...she more than meets the requirements for this but the form reporting change of circumstances nearly stopped her in her tracks. I have completed it for her and said so on the form.

Awful form to complete....even to report a deterioration in her condition.

kathartic you are quite right BUT if you've been ground down by years of being to,d you are a worthless scrounger then the ability to access education and employment skills can seem out of reach.

Last year I was part of a project which helped parents who were in the above situation access education. We would start with fun stuff like art classes or Zumba and then move the person into things like Maths and English ....to help them support their children. It was a hugely successful project and we saw many people make achievements. Sadly it was cut last year so yet another service which could help is gone.

The Welfare State includes free healthcare and education. When benefits disappear then you have put your society firmly on the path of no State healthcare and no State education. Except, perhaps, that provided by charity.

What happened to most of those impoverished, beaten down women who had to ask for charity from disapproving Victorian Committee Ladies? Disapproving because that woman had left a brute of a husband, or because she was raped and so her child is a bastard.

You think it won’t go that far? I’m sure may parents back in the 60s never thought the State would be so irresponsible as to allow its own people to rely on foodbanks, or to have the NHS so squeezed that doctors and nurses were leaving in droves, that educated and qualified teachers would be leaving the profession.

I’m sure that back in the 60s my parents never thought that people already on subsistence level would not be sanctioned by petty bureaucrats and an over-bearing State and so forced to try to manage even less.

And yet, here we are. How lovely is the world we have built for our children.

How lovely is the world we have built for our children

That's down to the parents though not the state. Nobody is forced to have chidren, contraception is free and readily available and abortion is legal in this country.

Rather than whine the state isnt throwing more money at people parents need to look at themselves first. A child is their responsibility and if they won't step up then we should have harsher penalties. So many seem to think their chidren shouldn't cost them anything as that's down to others to pay.

I was made redundant and was on UC, the bills still kept arriving. I had to attend the job centre once a week and prove my job searches and interviews. The company I worked for moved my job to a cheaper country that pays people much smaller wages. I was very lucky to find new employment quickly. As you get older, I think that it is more difficult to find employment. As a country we are lucky that we have a benefit system to help people, however I don't think that people should be unemployed long term. I have worked doing a variety of jobs in different industries and various hours/shifts. I am not taking into consideration people who are ill.

As you get older, I think that it is more difficult to find employment....yes, and so everyone has a responsibility to keep themselves qualified, their skills relevant and in demand (through CPD for example).

As an employer I would want my staff to be computer literate, the be able to use a keyboard, use emails etc Maybe even have taken on roles such as Fire Officer or First Aider.

'yes, and so everyone has a responsibility to keep themselves qualified, their skills relevant and in demand (through CPD for example).'

And that's still no guarantee of finding employment later in life, hence, those who make up the greatest segment of long-term employed. But it doesn't fit with your narrow paradigm so it's farting in the wind to point that out.

yes, and so everyone has a responsibility to keep themselves qualified, their skills relevant and in demand (through CPD for example)

Quite the opposite for me - I can't count the number of times I've been turned down for jobs because I'm "over-qualified". The usual assumption seems to be that as soon as I get a sniff of anything "better" then I'll be off leaving them in the lurch.

As you get older, I think that it is more difficult to find employment....yes, and so everyone has a responsibility to keep themselves qualified, their skills relevant and in demand (through CPD for example)
59. PhD. I shit myself up to fifteen times a day though, funnily enough nobody wants to employ me.

ye and whoever told me I was disgusting or whatever word they used, for not working as a cleaner, guess what I applied for a job doing housework and stable work (qualified horse person from years ago) and they wrote back immediately saying I was 'much too overqualified!
Ditto the local abbatoir except they didnt even bother answering.

" As an employer I would want my staff to be computer literate, the be able to use a keyboard, use emails etc "

doesnt that go without saying these days?

D ull
Leave qualifications off ?
I've done so in current job
They not interested !

ye i was just thinking I should never have put my degree on my applications for such jobs, it puts people off.
Plus the slaughterhouse would be v suspicious of an English degree, in case I was a journalist..

I also did a cleaning - they knew I had
A degree
A post grad
A professional qualification
I just said that yes I did do so and so but now I want diff type of work / life - they understood that ..

I think it's oft about their perception
So you fit what they think they want
For example I was a serious professional etc - my current job which is minimum wage I am labelled as dotty - however am playing the game 😁Don't care - love the job . I do it in quite a toungue in cheek way I guess .
A cleaning job is also fab
I did this in addition to my professional
Job - got left alone and it was neatly as much pay as my professional
Job - with no stress .

I had all the added extras eg first aid, volunteering, fund raising, completed courses. I also had some great references and I relocated. I also looked at a wide variety of job roles. I still feel that I have been very fortunate to find new employment. Gilded - can you work at home? Have you looked at being a website chat person eg when you go onto a website a message pops up can I help you. Just a suggestion

Gildead someone I know used to rewrite CVs for £20. I also know some people who sell from home. Perhaps you could look at something similar?

My new job also involves working shifts which include nights. Also shifts get changed to cover holiday and sickness. However it's a job.

Well I see people on benefits round the school and they seem to be doing ok. Smoking going into the shop and buying booze. All things that are not essential to living. I do wish people who are unable to work would be given a decent amount to live on and enrich there lives. It makes me really sad that our vulnerable are not getting a good standard of life.

However, I feel if people are able to work physically, then they should just get the minimum amount and it should cover essentials and nothing else. No holidays, eating out, going to the pub etc. Then give our vulnerable the money the government saves

" No holidays, eating out, going to the pub etc. "

are you broken? do you honestly think that JSA covers those things?
Get real, find out some facts before you spew nonsense, thanks.

Yellow, you think I meant that literally?

Oh my.

Being on benefits is far from a walk in the park, its by and far the total opposite. I have bad mental health problems and my physical is poor. Im 25 and there are days i cant walk the length of myself. Id love to get back into work. My esa assessor said i wouldnt be safe in a workplace and id be a danger. I would love to wave a wand and make me better but sadly i cant