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.

Im lucky my 2 bed is £94 a week.

This is going to sound very controversial.

I wonder if part of the issue is that 15 or 20 years down the line we are reaping what has been sown around the whole way that benefits are provided. You have to make a case for how bad things are. The worse things are, the more money you get. If you admit that anything has got better or improved, you lose money. Psychologically speaking that also veers away from a solution- focused mindset in thinking about disability within the family. I mean clearly if you are an amputee that will never change, but actually depression, anxiety, mental ill health, those might be subject to change over time.

In DLA in particular I find this really damaging. Parents are forced to downplay any progress or prevent it if they want to keep their money. And DLA and PIP are gateways to lots of other benefits too - you can get carer benefits, you lose certain caps, you may not have to pay bedroom tax etc. This means that a generation in financial poverty has had incentives (not of their own making) not to let their children's conditions, or their own, improve. And I don't mean that in a nasty way. It's a dilemma I myself am facing as my young adult's pip is due to be renewed next year and actually there has been some progress and we may lose quite a big chunk of money if we are completely honest about it, and in these hard times that is quite scary to contemplate.

I wonder if it would be better to evaluate pip and DLA in a different way - not like, how bad things are, but more what helps you manage better and what does that cost. Rather than "how does your condition stop you from preparing food" to "how do you currently manage with preparing food, and is there anything that would help you manage better". I am not sure exactly what but a sort of solution-oriented process rather than one that requires a person not to improve if they want to keep any of the money.

The welfare system was only ever meant to be a safety net. Now it’s become a lifestyle choice for many. If you are genuinely in need through illness or disability that’s one thing. Those people need help from the government. If you’re an able bodied young man (for example) for pity’s sake go and work somewhere! Trouble is, they see all these lives on Instagram and chopping the lettuce in Subway doesn’t pay enough to emulate that. We have a culture of greed and envy that comes before self respect. Having said that, we do need to build more social housing. Rents at affordable prices that coincide with the lower wages at that end of the job market. Give people back some pride. Make not working unacceptable. As things stand, a job that pays enough for some sort of standard of living seems out of reach because of spiralling house prices and long lists for social housing. I’ve discovered the wait is 10 years in our London Borough. Wouldn’t that fill you with hopelessness?

I agree, it’s discouraging.

BUT you have continued to work and support yourselves through thick and thin, not thrown up your hands, cited disability and ‘would be the same on benefits’ and given up work.

That’s one way to cause the cost of food, housing and electricity to rocket.

Trade gives us the cheapest goods and no one builds houses they can’t sell. They build the houses people want to buy or they go bust.

It's not about being worthy, it's about common sense. Living in shared housing with friends enabled me to slowly save enough money for a deposit for my own flat, got me on the property ladder. Doesn't have to be a HMO, can joint rent with friends, be a lodger - there are several low cost schemes where people can rent a room very cheaply with, for example, an elderly person for companionship and helping with a few basic chores. Having lots of single people occupying whole properties also doesn't help with the housing crisis which we keep heating about

I think the personal tax allowance needs upping to help low incomes. As someone on just above minimum wage, by the time you've taken out the deductions, you don't see much of the extra rise in nmw. Once Tax, N.I and works pension schememis taken out, your left with something like an extra 30p an hour . Take the rise of the council tax bill and water bill. Then it's gone. Never mind them putting up the rent.

So yes I can see how frustrating it is for people and how you can be better off on benefits than working full time, working your socks off.

Yet some people have the moral integrity to work regardless. They are winners in my eyes.

If house prices halved overnight that would be a great thing for the country.

Having to spend more and more money on piles of bricks is ridiculous and benefits no one but property speculators.

I would like to see the government phase in property taxes, like just about every other country in the world has.

Work needs to pay for a much better llife.
Benefits are providing too much comfort to those that can work. It is being exploited mercilessly.

I support moves to clamp down.

I agree with you op.
The bottom line is this:
People who work have huge bills to pay the main one being rent or mortgage.
It’s not unusual for a one bedroomed flat to cost £1200 per month. Those on benefits get it for free. They also don’t pay full council tax.
So let’s use the real scenario of a couple loveyouu dd knows.
Their 2 bedroomed flat is £1800 pm. They get this paid for by the tax payer as they have a child and don’t work. Council tax £210 pm. Then there are all the extra freebies they will receive, such as free prescriptions.
So as this is after tax it doesn’t take much working out to know that someone who works for a living is basically screwed.
It has been said before but the time is fast approaching where the only people who will be able to afford to have children are the extremely rich or the benefits class. Neither of which will be taking up essential jobs in the future.
Add to this the reality that people like myself were told that I would receive my state pension at 60, now I have to carry on working full time until I am 67, which will be knackering. 7 years of entitlement that I won’t get whilst working hard to pay for those who are bone idle.
Yes we all know there are genuine cases but that doesn’t soften the blow.
Nobody should be worse off working, nobody.
The cost of housing is the issues. If the cost was relative to wages then it would not be such an issue.

Of course we haven't. I may have to reduce cut my hours soon though, as my disability worsens - waiting for the surgery is causing me a lot of pain. Plus due to how tax and my occupational pension works, paying less petrol and wrap around costs, we won't have much less money if I drop to 4 days. Which is illogical.

We would never dream of stopping work though, I enjoy my job, it makes a positive difference, and in those society which can still at times be quite male dominated, I want to demonstrate to my girls that they can acheive anything they want if they work hard enough. That is getting harder though, they do ask 'why can't we do X trip or X holiday'. My parents would tell me as a child 'if you want to have nice things when you grow up, you must study hard now', our girls are seeing 'if you want to just about be able to afford your bills, you must work really hard' - not quite as attractive!

Trade might give us the 'cheapest goods' but it comes at a massive cost. Other countries can and do (China, in particular) subsidise their production so it's not a level playing field.

Just the other day, Scotland awarded a contract to build 7 new ferries not to Ferguson shipyard in Scotland, but one in Poland. 900 jobs are now at risk. Big risk. How does that cheaper contract look once 900 people are claiming benefits and unable to get new jobs? It's utter bullshit. Labour said they weren't going to do this. It's the same old crap, probably done to keep Poland on side in Starmer's coalition of the willing (ffs, who came up with that name?) in regards Ukraine.

The middle classes laud France. France puts France first, it backs French companies and puts France first in everything it does. Britain? Britain couldn't back itself if it was the only country left on earth.

What “corporations” are using our infrastructure and paying no tax? What infrastructure?

I often see this whataboutery on these types of threads with claims of big business bogeymen who don’t pay tax who are somehow the cause of the nations poor finances. As a former tax professional it just isn’t true. The large companies are invariably paying huge amounts of taxes to pay (among other things) for welfare benefits. We need to be realistic about the facts if we want to solve the problem

In your OP, all your figures relate to one single person. If you make that a couple, the costs don't increase much, but the income doubles. That's how you own a home. Even "in my day" it would have been hard to get a home to buy on your own. Me and DH got a home by living very frugally on one salary and saving the entire other salary.

I’m also sick and tired of the tax payer supporting children from couples where they have chosen to live separately. The mother claims benefits, including her free house. The father swans about driving a wack off luxury car. Spending his money on enjoying himself. Yet she claims to be a single parent. This is a common scenario where I live. She isn’t a single parent, they often have multiple children. They are screwing the system and it should be clamped down hard on.

And even if you aren't in a couple, you can buy with a sibling. This is how my siblings got onto the property ladder 20 years ago.

it's a start isn't it,how about they stop paying there own so much money and that would be a big start,stop sending OUR money to other countries unless it's a natural disaster,our country is failing so much and starmer is making it a whole lot worse,who ever voted for this conman need there head checking,I myself thought at first this guy knows what he's on about but never voted,so glad I never or I'd feel guilty he's in power,I know 4 people so far that have had their pip stopped since he's been in,see borris and sunak want that bad was they,il never get the chance to buy my own house especially now but strange thing is my rent is about 3 times more than paying a mortgage off would be for the home I'm in now,it's not fair,there stopping pip for certain. people to get them working,how about leave the disabled people alone and concentrate on the lazy ass druggys that don't wanna work or just pure lazy people,don't pick on disabled people makes him sound like a school bully picking on the vulnerable,piss eds and smack beds ain't disabled it's a lifestyle they chose so focus on these people so all other people that live a decent life can make something of there life's,but yh this country sucks right now and will only get worse,we need labour out and fast

free trade uses resources to produce goods in the cheapest most efficient way. Economists are pretty universal in approval of free trade. we’ve had low inflation for the decades before the cost of living crisis hit largely because of the economic rise of China (which has lifted billions out of poverty).

the ferries contract is an excellent example of how protectionism doesn’t work. The Scottish government gave the previous contract to a bankrupt shipyard because it was local instead of picking the best supplier. The ferries they produced were of a low quality millions over budget and years late. And are now broken.

It was calculated that they could have given each worker in Ferguson shipyard a million pounds and paid to get the previous ships made elsewhere and it would still have been cheaper.

We need ships for our island communities. We can’t afford to subsidize a few jobs to that extent.

France is part of the EU and abides by its rules. That means they have free trade with other member states and that they decide together with the other member states re third country trade agreements.

Yes, frustrating, but that’s not a reason to just not work and live off others.

No I agree. I was out of work for a while when I was younger due to bed mental health and it was rubbish. I just felt like I was a waste of space. I'd never give up work these days. It gives me a purpose, a social life etc. I would like to see people with depression, anxiety etc helped into work. Although I feel they will just have their benefits cut, without the support they need.

This is a sound take on the situation.

We also have an aging population. We live in a place where half of the population are over 55. 30 years ago, many older benefit claimants would have been classed as pensioners rather than working age adults.

The rising pension age doesn’t reflect the biological realities of aging and disability, especially whilst NHS services are leaving people waiting for surgeries and other treatments that will make them more able to work again.

Minimum wage workers not having much money is hardly a shocking concept is it? Surely the clue is in the title.

Wages have stagnated in this country for middle earners. Look at how salaries for entry level nurses, teachers, social workers, etc compare to the full time minimum wage. There's not that much difference and we certainly wouldn't consider these professions as low skilled.

In the meantime, housing costs are astronomical, bills are going up, food prices are going up.

So the posters who are saying that young people just need to work harder to get a better paid job are being naive to the current challenges that young people face in the working world.

Well billions do. And good chance people in the UK will be in 50 odd years if they don't turn things around. Just like they did over 100 years ago.