Feel this country has become rotten - benefits

[She11y]

A studio apartment in my area is about £800 per month.
A minim wage job is around £1500 per month net.
After you've worked in a hard and demanding job - most minimum wage jobs are demanding - you've got £700 to pay for food, travel, bills, clothes.
You might end up with £100 left over each month. Working hard all your life with no hope of owning your own home or having any sort of financial stability.
No wonder people don't want to work. Make owninf a house affordable and over night 1/3 the people claiming benefits will stop.

My point is that a lot of people are on benefits because they're depressed at the hopelessness of their futures, and try to avoid working.

Do you really think that making housing cheaper will suddenly make people want to work?

This.

There will always be people who screw the system. Always. Sadly the ones who this affects most are also using the same system. The ones who genuinely need it most. That's why an overhaul is needed.

My point is that a lot of people are on benefits because they're depressed at the hopelessness of their futures, and try to avoid working.

And yet this is what drives a lot of people to work harder and study harder.

Unless you mean they're actually suffering from depression, which is a mental illness that needs professional help.

House prices are crazy and the social contract has gone for the youth. You are not wrong in that respect.

Sadly, wages no longer cover the cost of living and a lot of people are grateful for additional benefits, but all this does is stop employers paying a decent wage.

Benefits shouldn’t exist for working adults, because they should be paid a fair wage - I think minimum wage has a lot to answer for, some one just starting out should not be on the same wage and someone with 20 years experience.

It’s not just this country , it’s probably every country that is feeling the cost of living crisis. There will always be the takers in society that should be out working .

Low interest rates and poor lending allows house prices to go up. It impacts rents and mortgages.

The country was left to rot and gutted by 14 years of terrible Tory government. The poor mental health of the nation is a symptom of the problems, not the cause of them.😟

recent announcements have been ok for govt - in that every playground, in every city school has a family with a newish people carrier, a tribe of 3+ kids and a dad with a bad back / mum with MH that have not worked in living memory. When you’re cleaning hospital wards and your husbands driving a van for Iceland and you’re looking at pictures of these guys with an ostensibly‘better’ life (or equivalent one) on their holidays / trips to Thorpe park etc you can understand why people are less annoyed than would be anticipated. Not saying I’m envious of them - but some will be. And I sort of get that for them. Not saying they are all fakes at all - but almost everyone anecdotally can tell you of a benefits blagger - and that is what has ruined this for those actually in need.

I agree. People on low wage ordinary jobs have absolutely no way to make a decent life for themselves and a big part of that is down to housing. Being on benefits offers a better life.

3+ kids? How do they afford that many?

Yes. I want to be pro benefits a sub set of people have very much worked out how to game the system and it needs a shake up. I am genuinely disabled and I still work. I know many disabled people who cannot and I think they deserve more benefits if anything but to afford to do that we first need to set up a structure that deals with the people who play the system

People on benefits are just as badly if not worse off unless there's dependents with disability or they have an illness or disability themself and are getting extra elements paid.

Standard UC for someone who can work but doesn't, and also those deemed limited capability and cannot work "at the moment" but doesnt get the LCWRA element, is just shy of £400 a month. If they live alone they get shared housing LA rate under age 35, or 1 bedroom rate at 35 or over.
In my area the cheapest studio/1 bed i could find when looking last week is nearly £900 a month, and the LHA rate for under 35 is £95 a week, and 1 bedroom rate is £175.
You'd be £200 a month short to come out your £400 standard element on 1 bedroom rate, and under 35's only on shared accomodation rate are £430 short, so your entire monthly standard UC award doesn't even cover topping up the rent!

My partner has severe OCD, has depression and is autistic, for UC he is down as LCW, but they won't award him LCWRA element despite changing his claimant commitments to that of LCWRA over a year ago after a review. He gets the £394 a month, then because he's only 33 a shared housing element of £67 a week. His rent in the cheapest shithole 1 bed going in his area (he's literally had rats) is £475 a month (was hoping it would be cheaper to move to my area hence looking but is way worse) so he's £206 out of his £394 just for topping up rent. That leaves £178. His utilities for electric, gas and water are fixed at £170 a month. (going up to £185 in April)
So hes got £8 left. Then he has to pay council tax, yes he gets council tax support and single person discount but it's still £30 a month.
So he's -£22, before buying any food or toiletries, or his phone bill, or internet bill, since he can't just sit in a room staring at the walls day in day out with no means of communication or entertainment. He's almost completely housebound by his illness. He uses my streaming services so doesn't have to pay for those. I'm topping him up throughout the month sending him money to cover his basic bills and order all his food shopping online for him as otherwise, he couldn't eat, and would be dead. He's been refused PIP as he can wash/toilet/cook himself.

How is he better off in any way when his pittance doesn't cover the basic costs of roof and essentials like heat light and water, never mind being able to eat?

If he was capable of working he would, but he isn't, and he's been left in an impossible situation that massively worsens his anxiety and depression.

You have a point OP and I think MN isn’t representative of the people who have found that benefits is actually the most sustainable way for them to live. I’ve worked throughout my 20s but honestly, I didnt feel like I was going anywhere - had a few failed businesses too but I was your classic 9-5 worker with a side hustle 5-9 - I worked very hard, and throught I was working smart. I switched to UC during the pandemic as I was furloughed then let go, and I was so surprised to find that I was earning the exact same amount on benefits compared to work - and I had access to things like free prescriptions etc. only issue was that I rented and my rent was increasing every couple of years but my salary was staying stagnant despite climbing up to managerial level and having a lot of responsibilities- I guessed that I chose the wrong industry. I still do work now - part time , but I’m looking for a job that means my take home is £3k plus a month - because it doesn’t make sense for me to take a pay cut - it’s so sad that a job with a certain salary will mean I am worse off.

Id like to add I have been job hunting for over a year to find something with a much larger salary but haven’t had much luck yet - but I’m sure it will come. But then I read posts from people on MN from people with salaries that are £40k plus and they are struggling!

I know plenty of people that have chosen to stick with benefits, get the council house, those that work will only do the required 16 hours but have capped their ambition and actually are enjoying their day to day life being with family, going on their walks, tending to their house and living a stress free life.

I wish there were more incentives for workers, but before I had the UC top ups and this part time role, I was earning £35k (which isn’t much) and would have barley anything left the week before payday. Both options are a struggle but the question was would I rather struggle with more time (and that means I can job hunt) or struggle whilst being stressed out.

Wages need to be o up - companies need to be incentivised to give their staff a good salary especially later on in their career and the housing crisis needs to be sorted out.

I end by saying benefits is a terrible long term plan for anyone - I believe having a career and working up or creating a business that works means longer term you can afford a better life.

At that point move him in with you ?

You're not wrong OP.

What seems to have happened is that the super-rich have brought up all the worlds resources and are now selling them back to us at an extortionate rate 😕

Looking forward
Increase in minimum wage will make monthly take home full time £1626 ( 35 hours )
Rather than a studio apartment a room in a shared house is cheaper ( I did this till I was 30/ 31 ( as I couldn’t afford to buy )

Working gives you experience and the opportunity to move on in life….benefits and doing nothing with your life don’t.

Its not just the UK that’s suffering at the moment and these things pass and when they do it will be the current workers that will benefit leaving those that can’t be bothered behind.

Agree
Too many of our essential resources are no longer UK owned
Its time to produce our own
So it’s worthwhile supporting all renewable energy and our farmers. Including producing as much as we can personally ie solar panels, heat pumps etc and preventing our farmland from being concreted over to produce large detached houses on farmland that no one can afford anyway.

Meanwhile we should support our own businesses and producers

I'd love to but i can't. I'm disabled and live with a parent who is my carer in their home and they have said no to partner moving in.
My parent cannot afford for me to move out and lose my disability benefits being part of the household income, and both being disabled to the point we can't work me and partner couldn't afford to private rent, even if we could scrape it many landlords would turn us down for being on benefits. Neither of us have a working person who could be guarantor. As a couple with no dependents we would never be priority for council or social housing, and neither could cope in shared or emergency "temporary" accomodation with shared kitchens or bathrooms due to specifics of our OCD.
Everything was ticking along fine til last August when his housing situation living with a parent fell through as they couldn't afford their outright owned house anymore thanks to COL. They sold up and bought a one bed they can manage til state pension age and made him homeless.

And? What do you think would happen to you partner if he was one of the vast majority of people in the world right now who live in a country without a benefit system, or the vast majority of people over human history anywhere. Yes the UK had a purple patch where there was more money than there is now but it was never going to last and a world where a government can support masses of unproductive people indefinitely is a fantasy land.

That what happens when millions are sitting around doing nothing, then we import millions more who are doing nothing or are net takers from the system. All putting pressure on infrastructure rather than contributing to building more. Those left to pay for it are screwed even more.

Minimum wage is £1500 a month but in many cases a mid-level professional graduate job which requires travel and extra work on evenings to meet deadlines and which comes with a lot of stress might only pay £2000 a month.

Well I think the argument against you is that you should be aiming to earn more than the minimum wage. Education is free in the UK until university - why did you not take advantage of that, or learn a trade, apprentice yourself etc?

There are many ways to earn above the minimum wage and live a comfortable life. Even if they are more difficult than slotting into a low paid job and sticking there forever.

How does that solve anything? Even if the person did train more or get a better job somebody else has to do that (probably absolutely bloody essential) job and get only poverty in return. Plus, some people can only realistically do these minimum wage jobs, stop blaming working people for their own poverty. It's no wonder they get depression/anxiety and opt out onto benefits, they're very, very often better off on benefits anyway.
We also need to stop looking down on jobs. I was saying on another thread that my teenage kids are going to be getting up off their arses and getting a job in the summer, no way are they just lying in bed. A couple of other posters started slagging off the jobs they'll likely be doing. In another thread a single mum asked for advice how to manage getting a job. Loads of sensible suggestions from posters put forward. Another group of posters made it their mission to shoot down every single suggestion, even claims single mothers can't get up as early as others! This idea I've hear from many lifelong benefits claimants (I know a lot in my family) that they'd live to work if they could get a 'good' job if nothing but a lie. Some of them talk as if they're just waiting for the right C Suite job to come along and then they'd consider, it is delusion and self agrandising after their 20 years on benefits. But we are all sold this lie of 'success' and a fancy job for everyone and so failure isn't a life on benefits, it's a shit job.
Low paid work (and increasingly middle income) has to benefit people doing it and give them a better life homes/money than not working and at the moment it just doesn't. This is the root problem.

Oh, and if you are lifelong unemployed and have young adult children living with you, if they do get a job, well that messes up your claim as well. Unlike my kids who are lucky enough that if they get a job, all the money they earn is their own. If I was on benefits, they'd have to use a massive great chunk to pay my rent.
And so it continues.