£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?

I definitely think that the amount given to individuals living alone is very low een including rent and council tax allowances. Heating, lighting, electricity/gas for cooking costs are similar whether you are heating the place for one, two or a family yet a couple would receive twice as much. Food is more for two or three ext but utility bills are similar. Been there, done both.

However the system isn't the fault of better off people. I think that the system needs tweaking with a higher starting point for individuals.

It was ever thus. When I was a child a mother got nothing for the first child regarding family allowances then more for each subsequent child. A strange idea when you think that the first child causes the most initial outlay all at once ...pram, cot ext ext with some at least of what you buy for first child being useful again.

Maybe I had lower standards then? We were in that situation for about 6 months. I had to budget very carefully for food, but could make fairly nutritious meals for 50p-£1 per head. DH used to go to the supermarket before closing time and get massively reduced food. Clothes were from car boot sales. Our rent was covered. At the time we had no insurance other than the car. We managed OK but it was a stop gap for us, not a long term thing which I'm very thankful for.

Be annoyed at the MPs who have repeatedly voted to deliberately push vulnerable and disabled people further and further into poverty.

But you'd be pretty reasonable to also be annoyed at some of the dickhead comments on this thread.

Decent societies don't impoverish people on purpose, or shrug their shoulders and say "tough luck". Easy to be callous from the safety of your own bubble.

Any of us is only one freak accident or illness away from being profoundly disabled for life.

I'm sick of people quoting 'you get housing benefit' - no you don't if you have a mortgage. The bloody council wants another £30 a week off my benefits. So greatful for food banks as they are the only way I feed my children.

"you can't get angry at it"

I can actually, because that's my prerogative.

I can get fucking angry because disability benefits are not enough to live off. I can get angry because trying to better myself by studying means that although I worked for 15 years before that study, it means I haven't made NI contributions in a two year period, so am therefore ineligible for any benefits. I can get really fucking angry at how differently I'm treated by everyone because I use a wheelchair. I can get angry that people voted for a Tory government knowing that it would have an impact on people in need. I can get angry that I have had to use foodbanks and always put something extra into the donation box myself if I have some pennies because there are people who need help, in the UK, in the 21st Century. I can be angry at where all the money goes, yet people moan about those on benefits.

I have a LOT to be angry about. I'm entitled to be angry and my anger is justified.

*People have more, people have less. I’m sure homeless people would love that money and a flat.

You can’t get angry about it.*

Why on earth not?

I'd get angry if we had a cupboard full of food and my husband decided to make dinner just for himself. Why the hell can't people be angry that half the nation has decided to do this to people who can't reach the metaphorical cupboard door?

@ProfessorMoody well said and next time there's an election I'm not voting for labor or conservative because they are both crap

sossages - just checked and 42.4 % voted Cons in the last election, so not quite half the population.

@tiredmummyofmany it depends where you live in the UK. Even in London - which another poster pointed out as being more expensive than the rest of the country - it still depends where you are.

There are areas in this country without decent food shops, including supermarkets, within walking distance.

Yes I totally accept that Blue. We were very lucky.

Yes yabu

Why do these unemployed people live on such little? Because they don't do their best to get up off their arse and work. Any work.

I was 17 and I'd scrub toilets rather than live on nothing.

It's different if someone is ill abled or similar, but I have no sympathy for people who just don't try hard enough to get work and just accept what they're given, we would all be on that income if we didn't bother.

Ilovefood Big deal, you cleaned toilets at 17. I did worse jobs than that believe me. Still means you can end up being made redundant unable to find anything else, or on long term sick.

And people in London also get £73.10 a week to live on.

Any work.?

Including sex work? Because when you bring it up you get "Well of course i didnt mean that"

"But you did. You said Any work.

i worked in a sex chatline office in the early 2000s

The boss once took a booking from her own BIL. His wife (the bosses sister) was also of the mind that people should do any work.

i quite enjoyed doing that call.

iloveFOood you need to read up on UC People are being told to take time off work to attend appointments.

One example is the MNer who has been told to take time off to attend an appointment 30 miles away.

Also very different for an able bodied 17 year old to be taken on to do low paid physical work. 17 year olds get paid a lot less than 18 year olds and above - minimum wage legislation. Try getting the same job as a 55 year old.

What are the figures for expenses for attendance at the House of Lords? Isn't it £300 per day? Where does that money come from? Is it tax payers? And UC for a single person for a month is £320 i believe.

I'm not rich but comfortable (full time work, reasonable salary, no kids, mortgage paid off) but I do empathise with those less fortunate. I have direct debits to St Mungos and the Trussell Trust and buy the Big Issue, give to homeless people and contribute to food banks in supermarkets. I vote Labour too in an attempt for a fairer society.

I think yanbu. People who are well off can attribute it to working hard and saving but what if you don't earn enough to save.
Teachers, nurses, hairdressers and cleaners etc work incredibly hard but don't earn much.

ProfessorMoody you could be entitled to income based ESA or UC. These don't depend on previous NI contributions.

benefits calculator

The point OP made about 'it sticks in the craw to have people on £50k complain' is what stands out to me.

I will never forget sitting in the very naice house of a mum-friend while our children played with the selection of very naice toys (fancy toy kitchen, no bright plastic there, specially made toy drawers devoted to different genres of toy, gosh it was child luxury) drinking coffee from her lovely coffee machine while she complained about how little they had left each month with only her husband's £70k job and how unfair they didn't get CB. I mean, they had something left each month, for a start. Meanwhile I was sitting there on my PIP and housing benefit that didn't cover all the rent, knowing my DD would never have the things her child had- groups she invited us to that we couldn't possibly afford, holidays, a specially made play area, decent food. They had a free access fruit bowl on the table and she complained about how hard it was while we couldn't afford fresh fruit because it's too expensive.

I don't care how hard her husband worked, it is hard to empathise with someone complaining how hard it is to only have a little left over each month when you are left owing each month despite having worked as often as your disability allows since you were 18. I managed it, and said 'mm hmm' but I felt the jealousy stick in my throat.

@abacucat different in Ireland, I was getting full minimum wage at age 16&17 the majority of employers pay teens the full minimum wage.

You've got to love MN.

The first few posts were measured responses, but now I see the 'others' have arrived to tell us we 'Know Nothing' and to the explain 'The Facts' for us, then accuse us of being Tories and Daily Mail readers.

Abucat, of course it’s natural to feel anoyed when people make thoughtless comments about things they know nothing about.
But it’s human nature, if they haven’t experienced it themselves it can be difficult to understand how hard it is for others (And some people have poor imaginations/ lack of tact/compassion!). It reflects badly on them doesn’t it?
Don’t waste your precious energy on them, there are many more people who DO understand how stressful it is to survive on a tiny amount.

Actually it took a poster to say "money for nothing" to really get things going. Them again that's the type of person the OP means. Wouldnt know poverty if it smacked them in the eye.

£73 a week.

Take off gas/electric (esp this tums of year)
Take off water
Take off travel if needed
Take off council tax contribution
Take off any top up housing costs.

All before you factor in food and any emergencies.

Doesn't leave much for food.

Yes it's doable short term but imagine that long term and how it might grind you down.

I wouldn't accuse people of voting Tory or reading the DM but I would accuse them of having no compassion or understanding. I know plenty of Tory voters who do get it and who support others by donating regularly to food banks. One rings our local food bank every time he shops to see what they are short of and then bulk buys and delivers it to them.

Others (some here) wouldn't dream of it and my autistic son had more understanding in his little finger than they have or ever will.