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

here in the south we have problems with young males (17-23)approx who have never worked but dont claim as they dont want to comply most will be living at home putting huge pressure on mostly mums that earn min wage cant claim for the son so a whole house living in poverty

also the boys/men take on the role of the man of the house but keep very late hours get up late afternoon hang about doing petty crime,smoking pot and being a general pain

they have no direction and nobody will employ them as no experience and the boys wont work for min wage they do as they please it's normally mum that is run ragged

there are plenty of jobs here but i guess as they have no financial commitments so they can do as they please

i really think its a problem how do we solve it

Though one of the reasons LHA was changed was that the old system helped drive up rents: it used to be that housing benefit would pay whatever rent was asked. So of course, rents rose once landlords realised they could more or less name their price and have it paid by the council if their tenant was on benefits; this also penalised working tenants who of course could only pay as much rent as their earning afforded them sand so were seen as second best by many landlords. It was incredibly unfair, thus a decision was taken under New Labour to only pay rent to a certain level of the market. And some argue the pendulum has now swung in the opposite direction of fairness.

Maybe put down the binoculars and logbook, close the curtains, stop watching your neighbours and imagining their situation is a large scale problem?

Seriously, how would you know this level of detail unless you're just referring to one or two not very representative anecdotal examples that have got you all excited?

There seems to be this weird mentality of “why would people WANT to work when they can get nearly minimum wage by being on benefits”

And that thought process doesn’t extend to “oh, maybe minimum wage is too low”… (which it is, as are UC payments)

Also worth noting that if you’re in receipt of disability benefits, and you move in with a partner, you lose them. Even though they’re paid to you, for a reason, and it’s your income. There’s just this assumption that you will become entirely financial dependent on your partner. It’s a very precarious situation to be in.

Oh, and apologies if I’ve missed others mention this, but Carer’s Allowance is considered taxable income.

lol do you not have friends do you not live where neighbours know each other do your adult kids not have friends that you have known for years

you sound like you dont really know what is going on in the country,or you live in a wealthy area where you never see your neighbours and you just interact with people like yourself

i dont have any binoculars and logbook i dont need to im in the thick of it not everybody lives the MN dream

I don’t understand how a friend can work 16 hours a week and still keep her UC, yet if she works full time she’s much worse off? Surely the system is flawed somewhere, full time work should always pay more.

It's insanely low. I don't know why people talk about uk benefits being generous. There would be outrage where I am if those were the going rates.

it is low if your just on the basic the only way you could up it is if you get CMS payments but sadly many dont seem to want to pay for their children

1. Minimum wage needs to be higher
2. Childcare costs need more funding

You will ALWAYS get a minority of people who want to live on benefits, who see them as a way of life. Its a small % though and others who are disabled, unemployed for a short amount of time or are raising young children need to get more.

I wish benefits were given on a case by case basis.

Absolutely!

This!

To clarify the important point made by heresamarshmallow, while you will continue to receive DLA/PIP (they’re not means tested) you stop receiving ESA/UC (or receive a reduced amount) because they will be expected to support you completely.

The government are well aware that disabled people - particularly disabled women - are at much higher risk of domestic abuse of all kinds. For example, Public Health England wrote a report in 2015; & as Women’s Aid point out, the 1995 British Crime Survey showed disabled women are twice as likely to experience domestic violence than non-disabled women.

Despite this; & despite knowing DLA/PIP are frequently not enough (as per the Scope research I mentioned in my earlier post) to cover the extra costs faced by disabled people; the government choose to put disabled people in a situation of being completely financially dependent on their partner if they move in together. There isn’t even a mechanism to pause a claim as some kind of safety-net: as soon as you move in together your ESA/UC is gone; & if you break up you’ll have to make a new claim.

Too low; and obscene that under 25s get less. It's pure ageism.
The crazy narrative that benefit claimants have made it a lifestyle choice is nearly always false in my opinion. I'll never understand why people pick on the poor.

It does seem quite low, I don’t know why it’s less for under 25s either- presumably the costs of living are the same.

Obviously these benefits are not enough. If you have a car or any debt when you claim benefits you are truly screwed. There are also plenty of people who suffer illness, or have an accident who can't work but don't qualify for PIP. The benefits are just so low and it leaves people desperate.

With more automation we will end up with less people needing to work, and some people frankly aren't up to it. I think we will move to a universal basic income. We really need to focus our anger at the high earners, and large corporations who are hiding billions that should be paid in taxes.

Also fun fact, the majority of us will never pay into the system what we take out, so anyone using that argument should consider earning more to put more in the pot.

Why would any company choose to pay more than the bare minimum when people like you force the taxpayer to top them up to market rate?

Perversion of market forces is the reason for so many problems in our society.

Do you know how expensive being disabled really is? Scope did research and it's around £583 per month. I've had to take out a loan (provided by the company with no interest charged) to buy a piece of equipment just so I can read. And a lot of the basic things (landline phone, mobile phone, laptop, etc) you buy are more expensive because as a disabled person, they need to be adapted. I bought my first landline phone when I moved out in 2015 for £10. I started losing my hearing about 9 months later. My adapted phone cost me £50.

I have to pay for care.

Disability benefits really aren't as much as you think they are.

A lot of the things disabled people need aren't provided by the NHS. I could get a magnifying glass from them; but they're actually not that helpful. My current electronic one (where I can change the background colour and magnification level) cost me around £700. My talking one cost me around £2500.

If you don't have caring responsibilities, nor disabilities, there are no reasons why you shouldn't be working. In this instance, it is right that benefits should only cover the minimum for what should be a short time.

If you are disabled or care for a disabled person, benefits go up significantly, often more than the average salary.

If you have children, you should get CMS. Once the children are over 5, you should be working FT and claim help with childcare. It won't pay all but you should still be better off than claiming benefits.

My benefit for working at least 35 hours a week is 69.70.

Some people are under the impression that the NHS or Council provides all specialist equipment for disabled people. It doesn't. My teenagers specialist buggy, specialist sleeping space ( costing thousands), safety products and alterations in the house and most of his continence products were/are funded by us/disability allowance. On top of this is extra day to day costs of a profoundly disabled child.

£69 is such a significant amount extra for the fact that I have had to give up work to care for my son. The idea of it not being 35 a week is laughable too.

It's a joke saying PIP is Hugh. I get £333 a month.

Not a lot when I have to pay for a Gardner, cleaner, cabs, loan for an adapted bathroom and dishwasher. I even pay someone to wash my hair twice a week because I can't.

PIP is a huge benefit. Sorry but it is. I have a few members who recieve it. You can also work along side PIP and its not affected. Is there different rates to PIP?

they're way too high, i gave my fellow tory chum £2.6 million for 100 boxes of out of date unusable face masks during the pandemic, i need to make cuts somewhere, and as these plebs probably don't vote for my cult,.......

''we need to focus our anger on high earners''

i don't know about that, but the sun, daily mail, express are all good at pitting us against each other, like the ''disabled'' guy thats running around in a brand new SUV for free, when in fact a whole chuck of his benefit is taken from him to pay for it, and they also don't see him unable to get out of bed on a bad day.

basically the posh/rich have always been posh and rich, they've never been in our firing line, when people we perceive to be lesser than ourselves seem to be getting on, then we see the toys coming out of the pram and people buying into the shit the centre right media sells us.