£73.10 a week to live on

[abacucat]

If you are single and on statutory sick pay or unemployed, this is what you get a week to live on. You will also if you have savings below £16k get help with rent and council tax, although you are unlikely to get all your rent paid, so will have to make a contribution out of the £73.10. That is the grand total of your entitlement.
So my AIBU is, I am AIBU to get annoyed about people who are well off and have no idea how little many people manage on?

It's simple to see why someone could be frustrated at those on 50k saying they were poor/couldn't afford something when others are on 3.8k a year. That's not unreasonable.

Surely those who take home 20k and complain about their living costs understand that those suddenly on 3.8k might've had the same living costs until being hit with being unable to work? When someone loses their job essentials don't suddenly become 80% less just because their income has. That bus ticket to get food is still the same price, the food costs the same, the heating is still the same (but more, because they're ill at home full time). It's not unreasonable for someone on £73 a week with £150 basic living costs to be frustrated at their friend taking home £350 a week and complaining about it not being enough. I don't know how someone on so little with health issues could even afford to seek a job on that income (travel, internet etc).

The language and assumptions about people living on the 3.8k is truly horrible. Their lives must be hard enough but then to experience the ignorance and hatred of a significant proportion of the country in this day and age is so sad.

Didn’t take long before someone came along to point out their husband worked loads and paid lots of tax for people “to sit at home” did it .

Because yeah I would love other people to work loads and pay loads of tax for me to have the privilege of living on £73.10 a week and struggle. What a prize!

Then again I guess this was the kind of poster the OP meant, wouldn’t know poverty if it smacked them in the face.

And those going on about the third world and poverty need to educate themselves about “absolute” and “relative” poverty because it matters when you oook at national health outcomes...and in Britain we are falling behind in outcomes.

So OP...YANBU to think that some folk don’t know poverty or have any idea about it.

YABU to assume all people with good incomes don’t understand what poverty means, I’ve been there and experienced it as a child and as an adult.

The fact I don’t experience it now doesn’t mean I don’t remember not being able to afford fresh decent food and scraping together coins to buy milk, cheap frozen mince and rice and being to scared to put the heating on because the prepay meter was running low and I only had expensive storage heaters.

It’s hideous to have to love that way, I feel fortunate that I no longer have to.

Are those of you who think this amount is reasonable aware that this too is the amount for people with disabilities. There may be top ups later, but not initially.
As for having choices clary, I went to uni etc. Didn't plan to become ill and disabled.
As for insurance etc. Doesn't always pay out.

@DeloresJaneUmbridge but how unbelievably rude is it to actually be angry that some people earn more than others, does OP not realise that people earning a lot pay a large chunk of tax, without this, the £73 wouldn't be available? I'm not trying to say that people don't deserve this money, or that they don't need it, but how can you actually have anger for the people who pay these taxes that fund these people's lives?!

If OP is angry at the amount, she should be talking to the government to rearrange their budgets; not the people who do work a lot and contribute to the benefit pot.

Yep no point be8ng angry that some earn more than others. A midwife I know was earning around £36 at the top of her salary level which was a good amount of money but pales into insignificance compared with my niece on £40k with few qualifications but who is steady and reliable as a paralegal with a property law firm at the age of 25.

Life isn’t fair but it isn’t right to assume people don’t understand their privilege . My niece is only too aware of how fortunate she is and definitely appreciates that it isn’t the same for everyone,

I've never know a single person earning 50K with most of their council tax and rent paid for complain that it's not very much.

So whilst I agree with OP that £73.10 is not very much to live on, she is not comparing like with like.

Try living on the single person's state pension

I think you're being unreasonable OP, not to be pissed off about the poor support for those who fall ill, but for blaming those who are better off than those in that situation.
But also as equally unreasonable are the 'free money' and 'high earners work for it comments'.
I work full time, and have zero benefits with my job, so if I'm to be hit by a car tomorrow, I'll be on SSP, which is around £100 a week less than I earn. That £100 is the rent. Yes I may be entitled to some housing or council tax benefits, but they take a long time to get sorted out. Meanwhile the landlord, council and utilities still want paying don't they? The council are the worst, and demand you pay and then any benefit entitlement is taken off the rest of the year when sorted - likely after my legs healed and I'm back at work. And if you can't pay? Well then you deal with bailiffs. I currently have a cushion of around a month - hard saved from low income, so with an illness or accident of more than a month, I'm screwed.
And as I work full time, I pay tax and national insurance - so whatever I receive is hardly free is it?
I pay towards the NHS, I pay towards the benefits system, I pay towards the council - yet just because I'm on a low income should I need support through no fault of my own, I'm branded as not working hard enough, being lazy and a scrounger in receipt of free money from high earners.
Society could not function without either end of the spectrum as far as I see it, low wage workers who need support from tax payers money often do jobs that mean that high earners can actually earn effectively - they care for the elderly and sick relatives of high earners as well, they care for children of high earners as well, they do the menial jobs that keeps society going, that benefits high earners as well.

The higher earners pay more in tax to support the system, to ensure that the people doing these jobs can afford to live.
Each side is reliant on the other to function and for society to function.
Of course someone will be along shortly to say they've paid in 20 zillion pounds and not received so much as a penny, and someone else will say they know at least one person who has never contributed but always taken. It's true that there are extremes of both ends of the spectrum, but for the large part that's how it works.

I agree that some things should change, that people need to regain personal responsibility, I'd see any SSP as a result of what I've paid into the system, support for me when I need it. Not free money. I wouldn't expect to receive if I were capable of earning it myself. But I also don't expect to be villified for needing it in the first place - which some comments on here do.
Low wage earners work hard, often with more physical demands than high wage earners, they deal with stress, they deal with unfairness, they don't set the rules, they have to live by them. And then are blamed for them.
And if everyone were to suddenly go to work tomorrow in a 50k job, as has been suggested we all aspire to, who's going to drive the trains to get everyone there? Who's going to welcome the children into school or nursery? Who's going to make sure that elderly relative is fed and clean? Who's going to fix that car that's in the garage and then drive you to work in that taxi? Who's going to serve you your morning coffee and then empty the bin you throw your cup in? Who's going to answer the phone at the doctor's surgery for you to make your appointment?
None of those jobs will exist if everyone aspires to professional roles and society will crumble.
Those who earn more pay more so these jobs can happen.
Each side is reliant on the other.

All those with salaries of around 50k banging on about paying for 'people's benefits', should be mindful that if they have a couple of children or more they are probably not actually making a net contribution to the nation's coffers.

YANBU to think that a lot of high earners, including most of the politicians and business leaders that run our country, have no idea what it's like to be in crushing poverty.

But YABU to think that a high gross income means an easy life financially. Dickens said it better than I can

Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen [pounds] nineteen [shillings] and six [pence], result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result misery

Yab a bit of both. When I was single and paying rent/all bills myself on the min wage, after everything I had £39 a week left. I never went to the dentist for two years and by the end of the month I lived on Basics tinned soup and toast.

@generalexpert I hope you donate to them from your salary

Quite a few people saying getting £73 a week for nothing is rubbish. However this is money you getting for nothing. Some countries you wouldn't get a bean. So really it isn't the ones on 50k that are lucky really. Is it?

@abacucat I think I get what you are saying tell me if I'm wrong
People who are in a good financial position normally despise people who don't work because they are" living off them "
However you are in a position that you don t want to be in which is no fault of your own and you want some understanding from people and maybe sick of the stigma

@lyndar I have lived in some of the countries and raised money whilst there and donated.

I donate money to charity. I could do more.

@starzig I'm sick to death of people saying this sort of thing -comparing us to third world countries where they are in it together
They are a community who are poor together
Who are ill together and who struggle together
We are worse off here because of the divide and lack of understanding
So stop with your there's people worse off than you -it's disgusting

@abacucat why aren't you annoyed that companies aren't made to pay more than SSP? The system isn't the fault of people who earn a wage. FWIW maternity pay isn't any more than that even for some high earners

@generalexpert I hope you give to people in your own country too

YANBU OP and I am not sure why so many people have been such complete twats. Of course the distribution of wealth in this country is unfair. Plenty of people on NMW jobs who get SSP work just as hard as those on £50k.

@Starzig

Not always for nothing, in some cases yes, but if it's for nothing then why am I paying tax and ni contributions? I'd get SSP should I be too sick to work, but I've paid into a system designed to catch me when I fall.
As a low earner I also get pissed off with people who take the piss. But my view isn't counted because I'm a low earner, despite the fact I do contribute. So not only do 50k+ earners have a better lifestyle (no problems with that btw) they get to ridicule and finger point at those who don't because they think they're superior. They're not.

@lyndar I'm pretty perplexed at why I should be more concerned about poverty in the UK where there is a safety net, than in places where there is none. Do you think they are less worthy than you, or less capable of suffering, or less real, or what?

I agree the tax you pay should be your safety net. But a lot of people take a lot more than they pay in which is fine but just saying they should be a little more grateful for the benefits system we have rather than constantly complaining that other people earn more.

I love how some bang on about long hours and working hard. Do you not think that many people on statutory sick pay or JSA have not also worked long hours? I know I have.

But you are not working any hours at all if you are on SSP or JSA! Literally money for nothing!

@LittleBitNuts it sounds like we have rather different ideas of what having 'fuck all' entails.