People who won't work otherwise they lose benefits

[Alphavilla]

Came across BBC article recently quoting a 20 year old man saying he had cut out Netflix and booze to cut his costs in these difficult times. However apparently he could not work more than his 16 hours otherwise he would lose his benefits. My DH is a manager in large organisation and he finds it difficult to get shifts/jobs covered as the employees claim they can't add more hours to their part time shift because they would lose entitlement to benefits. So there is work to be had, but it seems it is more lucrative not to work. What has gone wrong?

The choice isn’t between watching Netflix and staring at four walls. He could start by working more hours. Novel idea, I know.

Who, in your opinion, is "inherently lazy?" A single parent receiving no help from her ex, taking care of children on her own, working 16 hours a week because childcare is expensive?

On mumsnet, a married SAHM is working far harder than her husband. A single mum who is a SAHM doing everything alone is "lazy." It's interesting.

The problem is real tbh. But it’s not that he would lose money in the long run but short term they do because benefits stop or reduce while they recalculate and beleive me it can be a shambles. When I was part time it wasn’t worth doing extra shifts for that reason. When I would the following month I’d receive way less or sometimes they’d not pay me at all! Leaving my housing benefit and rent in arrears until they had worked out what I should get and it was very hard to calculate. But even now on the universal credit system it’s not all that much better. I work full time now and still take extra shifts every week and my take home pay is shockingly low still.

if I take home 1300 that month UC give me around 250.
if I drastically reduced my hours and earned 900 a month I’d receive almost 600 in UC. Both give me a similar level of income but you get more time off so for a lot of people it’s a no brainer

I choose to work more as I love my job but they definitely don’t give you much incentive. The government should enforce proper wages instead of subsidising companies this way. And the universal credit system should work more quickly so that people aren’t worried about how changes are going to effect them.

I suggest reading the original comment and the post it was referring to.

@Florenz

I think there should be some pride in working for a living instead of claiming benefits. People should be willing to take the extra hours even if it leaves them only slightly better off or no better off. And the system should be fixed so that everyone is better off for working more hours.

And would YOU work lots of extra hours for no more pay than being on benefit/part benefit? No. I thought not!

As a pp said, yeah some people DO swing the lead a bit, and take advantage of the benefits system, (NOT ALL OBVIOUSLY!) but you can't blame them when so many people at the top of the food chain take the piss. (MPs, chief executives etc etc) with their colossal expense claims, and high salaries. As one pp said, what's good for the goose is good for the gander.

There's a spot where th vendors you moderately covered by the income you make from working. This is especially true if you are already on a low wage. If you're single by the time you've lost your reduction in council tax , your housing element, your free sight test and prescriptions the increase you get from working is eroded. This is a problem with low wages not generous benefits.

This is a forum. I suggest you explain what you mean or leave it to the grownups to have a conversation 😀

Surely it might be more efficient to burn the non-working poor to help keep the working poor warm?
Or how about fast walking on a human sized hamster wheel to generate electricity?
Id do that for a job, I could listen to a podcast I think it would be great 😁

*People should be willing to take the extra hours even if it leaves them only slightly better off or no better off.

For the hard of thinking, what happens when you mess with people benefits is they can get caught in a spiral that ends with being made homeless, not 'no better off'.

How deliciously naïve you are to assume the hours are THERE for this young man.

Your posts swing from laughable and naïve, to offensive and benefit-bashing. All of them make me cringe for you.

Few people earn £125k but plenty of people on £40k-£60k will be only marginally better off (or not at all) once you factor in loss of child benefit, high rents, provision for extra bedrooms depending on childrens ages and sex if on benefits which gives them a much higher housing benefit award and entitlement to larger housing and all the satellite extras that people on benefits receive (such as £900 cost of living payment, free prescriptions, free eye tests, dental, free or subsidised school meals, social tariffs for internet, social tariffs for energy bills, social tariffs for water bills, social tariffs for leisure centres/gyms, social tariffs for travel/oyster). It's often better to work a minimum wage job and get a large amount of benefit top ups (if you have children) than work full time on one of the above wages after tax.

See this article from 2015. It's probably even worse now;

moneyweek.com/merryns-blog/the-truth-about-tax-credits

The 20 year old man is living in supported living. This suggests he is vulnerable in some way, not because he is a care leaver.

Supported living is exempt from the housing benefit cap because the housing provider provides an element of support (which can in practice be very little). His weekly rent is likely to be c. £300 per week, most of which is met by housing benefit. In the article it says he. pays £25 rent a week. This isn't rent. This is a contribution to the housing costs (e.g. cleaning, utilities) which aren't covered by the housing benefit.

Because of the rules regarding exempt/ supported accommodation, if he works more than 16 hours a week on minimum wage, he will be liable for this full amount of rent. At c. £1200 pcm, that is likely to be unaffordable for a 20 year old vulnerable adult.

There is a lot of exploitation of the exempt housing market, but this more likely to be by the real-estate investment trusts (some of which are based offshore) who own these properties than by their vulnerable tenants.

Exactly this. ^ Some posters on this thread are breathtakingly clueless and naïve. And some of their posts are just blatantly bloody offensive.

There is tons of indignation on this thread that Ip should question someone making a lifestyle choice not to work full time and live off net contributors.

You can be as outraged as you like, but your moral outrage doesn’t change facts. This culture of dependency is a major contributor to the low productivity problem in this country. That, in turn, is one of the reasons that the UK is about to have a deeper and longer recession than other G7 countries.

So your ‘compassion’ may make you feel you better. But guess what? It doesn’t change facts. Milking the net contributors to this extent and applauding this dependency culture is about to hit everyone. And the benefits claimants will feel it the worst. The very group you think you are standing up for will feel the brunt the most. Well done, give yourself a pat on the back.

You're embarrassing yourself now.

I work full time in a minumum wage job as a single parent, I get UC top ups and I do NOT get free school meals, subsidised gym or Internet or eye tests or any of that. You only get those things if you earn less than £7k a year or something like that.

I work 24 hours a week. Some of my colleagues keep it under 20 so they can claim benefits. Everyone of us has the opportunity to have a FT contract, but many don’t want it.

It’s the fault of the system but also a lot of people especially women can’t work more due to childcare

I'm given to understand that in certain job centres (Derby) the advisors are telling people to cut their hours so they are able to claim the maximum UC Benefit.

As another poster said, if someone is paying rent they need a guaranteed income, so unless their employer can promise workers guaranteed number of hours, then there is a disincentive to work more than the minimum.....just for the stability of knowing whats going into the bank.

Yes!
or to put it another way many people are unable to take on more paid work because they're hugely burdened with unpaid work
Unpaid work which is essential for society and yet still unpaid and not recognised and they are considered to be scroungers, even though they are working very hard☹️

But people do work full time and still have to claim top up benefits due to high rents.

The problem is that the high rents are propped up by the benefits.

Brilliant post

Exactly this!

@FatAgainItsLettuceTime

Spot on

My son has just got a job in Tesco. His contracted hours are 2 shifts- total 15 hours.
He has actually worked at least 30 hours for the last 5 weeks, but there is no guarantee of those hours. So they gave 40people part time jobs, they could have given 20 people full time jobs. That is just one store.
Because my son lives at home and doesn't need to worry about rent and bills he has no need to claim any benefits.
It would be a very different picture if that wasn't the case.

And the only people who benefit from that are the private landlords.