Do you agree with these benefits?

[Sophieleigh26]

Do you think the amount people get in benefits (before deductions like earnings) is the right amount, or it should be more / less?

MONTHLY AMOUNT
Single & under 25 £265.31
Single & over 25 £334.91
Couple both under 25 £416.45
Couple over 25 £525.72

£244.58 extra allowance for children (up to 2 children)

A single parent not working (24) with one child (1) would receive £509.89 a month, before deductions (loans, debt etc)

obviously these are just summaries and there are different rules if you have children born before 2017, for example, or disabilities, childcare costs.

YABU - It seems ok / right
YANBU - It should be more / less

Not having to pay rent, council tax, prescriptions, school meals, dental costs etc I would say it’s about right.
UC is an in work benefit and in most circumstances people are better off in work. Those who honestly can’t work get extra, as do carers and those with disabled children

I think it's low especially if you need benefits to help you out in cases like redundancy or ilness. Everyone can fall on hard times and we need a safety net.

However, a fit and healthy single person or couple should not be on bbenefits long term, they are able to work, so why support them?

It's more tricky for families with small children. They should be supported,
but not on a no matter what approach.

Parents can work... it's not easy but can be done. But while you get similar amounts of money and a better lifestyle on benefits, I can see that nobody wants to go to work with all the stress that entrails.

I'm also against top up benefits, employers should pay decent wages. This would also be hugely beneficial to families...

I think if that’s for healthy people able to work to tide them over then it’s fair especially if you get additional money towards housing. For people who are unable to work (disabilities/illness/full time carer etc) I can’t imagine it would be enough to live on but I’d hope they’d get more benefits to support with that.

Except, as has been pointed out on this thread a few times already, these people DO NOT get their rent or Council Tax paid for them - at least not in full. A sometimes significant portion of these expenses have to come out of their basic UC.

Why are some posters finding this so hard to understand? It's hardly rocket science.

Oh yes full time carers get paid a whole £67 a week. They have to do at least 35 hours a week to get that though (and most do a heck of a lot more than that)

Not everyone on Uc rents. Many like myself have a mortgage and get no help with paying it whilst on UC. Shock, horror most people on UC are employed.

Attitudes will harden if people don't read the amounts as reported. 🙄

They are far too low!! I don't live in the UK, but was recently receiving a benefit and it was higher than those figures - and even it is considered too low here.

Too low, I'd say.

Definitely too low.

Regarding disability benefits, for those still on DLA, the various current weekly rates are:
Care: £24.45/£61.85/£92.40
Mobility: £24.45/£64.50
Someone might qualify for care but not mobility (the latter has only medium & high need categories, I’ve not missed a tier btw) or vice versa; & people often don’t have the same level of award in each category.
For PIP you are awarded either standard or enhanced rate, again paid weekly:
daily living: £61.85/£92.50
mobility: £24.45/£64.50

Before anyone loses the run of themselves thinking that means people on those benefits are doing Scrooge McDuck dives into vaults of cash - on average disabled people face extra costs of £583/month according to research by Scope from 2019. For 1 in 5 disabled people those extra costs are over £1000/month.

People on legacy benefits were not given the £20 benefit uplift during the pandemic - the ruling it’s justifiable disability discrimination to work on the basis that people used to being poor are good at & used to it is being challenged. (That article also has some fun stuff on Chloe Smith’s assertion the DWP can’t possibly be expected to produce statistics on work capacity assessment stuff - full article is worth a read.)

The UN Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities 2017 Report is long, but thorough. The government’s response to being told they are breaching the human rights of disabled citizens? Essentially, “nuh-uhhh, we’re so not!” 🤨

Prescription pre-payment certificates are available, yes - PPCs cost £30.25 for 3 months or £108.10 for 12. Were I to be unaware of them, between them, whatever else - my monthly prescription would be (England’s current prescription charge being £9.35) between £168.30 & £233.75 (I don’t need EpiPens, for example, every month). The more expensive month is still less than a single night of treatment in a hospital bed. People going without medication they need is all kinds of dangerous; & fixing the issues it causes (assuming the good fortune to be able to do so) is always vastly more expensive than funding medication in the first place. Good arguments for free prescriptions in England as in the rest of the UK, arguably.

Oh & there is the [in]famous £10 “Christmas Bonus” payment - never increased since its introduction in the 1970s. The way the Tories have just tanked the economy, by the time that comes round this year I fear it’ll have less purchasing power than a Christmas pudding sixpence did when the payment was first introduced.

If you have children and you work as well, I think the benefits are pretty good.

In all honesty I used to think they were too high and people had no incentive to work. But the issue is far more complex than that. The amount that you need to earn to get support is too low. The amount you get is too low. The people who are "choosing" to be on benefits rather than look for work have most often been failed by other underfunded services throughout their lives.

Our country is built to serve the rich. And the whole things need overhauling to serve the working person and to protect and support vulnerable people.

It's enough I have lived off it before yes it was hard but manageable, rent was covered in full 80% of council tax covered used to be 100%, free prescriptions dental ect, only had to pay for gas electricity water, Internet, phone food and the odd new clothes for ds and there is plenty of places to get free clothes for him and uniform

Let's hope you don't need them.

Where is the incentive for people to work though??

The reality is many people in the U.K. expect a great standard of living provided by the taxpayer but don't want to do hard jobs. It's logic that for a similar amount to min wage, I'd stay home too!

I agree, it is too low.

But if you worked for minimum wage you'd also get top up benefits so you'd still be better off.

When I go back to work, (hopefully soon if my MH remains stable,) and work 38 hours at NMW I'd be roughly £960 pcm better off. Due to top ups That also takes into account how much CT I'd have to pay (not that it's free at the moment like people think) and is after tax/NI
I'd still get free prescriptions due to a medical condition. Can't find an NHS dentist anyway so don't benefit from that being free. I guess I could afford new glasses rather than just having new lenses in my old frames, but tbh I love my frames so probably wouldn't.

Of course that doesn't take the cost of getting to work into account, but if I go for the job I'm looking at I can walk there anyway and wear the clothes I already have.

DISCLAIMER: this applies to my exact circumstances and cannot be extrapolated.

Where is the incentive for people to work though??

Have you been on UC? The threat of poverty should not be an incentive to work.

Benefits should be fixed at the same amount as a minimum wage job and for those with disabilities, they should be fixed at the same amount as the national average wage. Otherwise, the whole thing starts to have an air of punishment.

Of course, we're dealing with a government who saw fit to take away money for a third child and we stood by and let them. In any fair society, the more children there are the more money for the mother there should be. Our children are the future and punishing mothers for having them is crackers.

Where should the money come from? Corporation tax should be raised and, controversially, so should the taxes of those who don't have children and those whose children are over 22.

Several years ago an unemployed single mum of three children posted on MM exactly what benefits she received. She was on a similar income as a friend of mine who was a teacher (single with one child). Friend and I read the thread together, gave it some thought and realised my friends TA colleague, who was also a single parent with 3DC had a very similar income to my teacher friend. Now, my friend only had one DC, so in real terms was better off than her TA colleague. But teacher friend had worked hard to be in the professional position she was in. I really don't know the right answer to this, apart from teachers should be paid more.

As I said, this was a few years ago so might no longer be a reality.

How do you know it was the reality then. That poster could have made her figures up in order to get people into a froth.

I agree. Teachers should be paid more.

TA’s are severely underpaid but that is a separate issue

UC should be increased significantly by incorporating housing benefit and normalising the amount so it no longer varies across the country.

Net result - people on benefits can live better lives than currently in low cost regions. They would get more than they do now. Fantastic thing is it also costs the taxpayer less money at the same time.

People have a right to a home. They absolutely do not have a right to a home in a specific city, e.g. London.

In a society where net contributors are so often priced out of living in London, it's a joke that the same people are forced to massively subsidise non-contributors to live in London.

So yeah, incorporate housing benefit into UC and provide a flat rate not dependent on location. Let market forces do the rest. People will naturally move to cheaper areas, improving their own lives and the lives of all taxpayers - the whole country benefits from such a push for efficiency.