I was raised on benefits. My Dad always worked full time, apart from a brief period when I was in my 20s and already moved out - the experience was extremely stressful, and benefits were threatened to stop once when he was 6 minutes to the job centre, when it was snowing! He was totally humiliated, and what he really needed was help filling in application forms...it had been over 20 years since he'd last had to do it.
For reasons I won't go into here my Mum hasn't done much paid work, only partially because it wasn't financially viable with us kids.
I knew we were poor. Holidays were camping, and I don't recall them being every year - best holidays ever though. You couldn't help yourself to food from the fridge because everything was accounted for, but we didn't go hungry. My parents did sometimes.
Those benefits enabled us to eat. Get to school, continue education (to college level, not uni - I did that myself in my late 20s). They housed us, somewhere that I can still go back to if I needed to (although they don't claim income related benefits now, home ownership has always been out of reach for my parents).
Those benefits gave a life to myself and my 4 siblings which means none of us have to claim benefits ourselves. I've never had to claim. I drive a reliable car and live in a nice house, with two kids (and would love a third but haven't fully decided yet). I'm in a very fortunate position and still only a few months unemployed from losing it all - income protection not available in my industry.
Money management was not my parents strong point, but it's hard to be good with money when you're poor. Buy cheap, buy twice doesn't mean much when you can't afford the quality to start with. If benefits for my parents had stopped at two I doubt they would have stopped having kids, but my life now is likely to be vastly different.