Benefit cuts will cost the economy.

[MistressoftheDarkSide]

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2025/apr/29/labours-benefit-cuts-will-cost-uk-economy-billions-charity-says

Interesting article which repeats what some of us have been saying about the likely consequences of the proposed measures, including increased pressure on services.

£4000 PIP?🤣

The absolute maximum for 1 adult and 2 children claiming top rate of PiP and DLA would be £2,249.40 every four weeks (£187.45 per person per week).

I don’t need to. This is the sister organisation of entitled to. These are the PIP rates. Lots of charities publish them. So do the government (usually buried in a long list of rates). Feel free to look at multiple sources. £4000 PIP isn’t an award that’s possible.

Low rate PIP x 1 - £400 per month
Low rate DLA x 2 - £480 per month
Carers - £320 per month
UC of around £2,000 is absolutely not ‘far outside the maximum’ - seems a very normal amount

Even just those things - lower rate everything, everything rounded down - is over £3,000 per month, or £36,000 per year.

I didn’t say £40,000 in PIP. Did you even read my post?

Tax the rich more? Close loopholes for businesses and wealthy individuals? Reduce government spending in areas that can manage it?

What do you suggest? Forcing people with severely disabled families to leave them at home unattended for 9 hours a day while they work full time, then come home and care for them for the other 15 hours? The options are, we allow families to care for their relatives and pay them a pittance to do so, or we force these people out to work and force the government to pay for professional carers on NMW?

Links here;

https://www.turn2us.org.uk/about-us/news-and-media/latest-news/benefit-rate-increases-this-april-2025

Government page;

https://www.gov.uk/pip/how-much-youll-get

Or you could phrase it as once it stated to become a more equal responsibility for men to also do unpaid caring work, that's when expectations grew that it was for someone else to do, preferably paid for by the state because you know "we pay tax for this".

So yes in future, the care support required within families will have to be bore by both male and female parents and offspring.

Can you provide some figures as to how you would tax the rich who are already very taxed?

You said £4000 for PIP. It’s nowhere near possible.

You said £4000 PIP, which is what the poster you quoted said. This is the exact quote from your post:

"£2300 UC
£360 carers
£145 council tax support
£262 child benefit
£4000 PIP"

Anyway, ready to share your magical tip for managing living costs while choosing not to claim benefits yet? You can't care that much about getting people off benefits if you won't share it.

Where did your £4k figure for PIP come from?

Anyway, as @MistressoftheDarkSide said, unless you have the entitlement letters of the people you know, you have no proof what their income is. The figure of £4k for PIP you quoted shows you have no idea what you are talking about.

Also, UC has a LHA component which usually falls several hundred pounds short of actual market rents in an area, so a good chunk goes straight to landlords with a top up from the "what you need to live on" bit. Which has to cover all bills plus food. So what sort of rent did you put in for that calculation?

I know two families getting dla for four children. Their children aren’t any higher needs than mine (all have asd). It’s a huge amount of money to get from the state. I don’t see that we should award such significant amounts to people just because they have something we consider a disability unless there are actually additional costs.

Maybe it’s an idea to move to a voucher system to cover costs only. As a disabled person i can say its a good thing to work if at all possible and most disabled people can do some work

Our mortgage doesn’t get paid if we need to reduce hours to provide unpaid care.

If I crash out of the jobs market, because, for example, my disability worsens, then not only does our mortgage not get paid, but there is no underemployed family member available to care for me.

Low rate for mobility and living.

Ok, so

statement:

most people claiming don’t need specialist equipment.

as of Jan 25 there are approx 3.6 million people getting PiP.

1.8 million of them cannot walk 20 metres. They will definitely need a wheelchair.

an additional 1.1 million can walk 20 metres but not 50. They almost certainly have a wheelchair as well as 50 metres really is not far.

1.1 plus 1.8 gives 2.9

so 2.9 million out of the 3.6 million are almost certainly using a wheelchair.

probably some of the rest are as well, but if you can walk 50 metres you don’t get the mobility component.

so, yes, the vast majority of people getting PIP in this country need equipment.

data from the government statistics.

4!!!! What even are the odds? It used to be unusual to have 1 child in receipt of disability benefits - 4 would’ve been unheard of. Yet it seems so common now, to have 2 or 3 out of 3 or 4 kids on DLA!

That would depend on the disability though, does it not? So your friend is not a barometer for the higher cost of being disabled, that thousands of disabled people face.

Yes. Thats apparently what’s driving the worst hardship. IDK how people keep their morale up in a trap like that.

If you do vouchers for pip you do the same for every other benefit

It would also cost a lot to administer. But hey, it might give a few disabled people jobs

That accords quite closely with what I’ve seen.

Also, all employees perks, like MPs expenses and subsidies could be done by voucher too.

No, I can't, sorry. Which is probably why I won't run for MP ever. I don't believe in hoards of wealth for a very few individuals. I'm not talking about employees earning £100/£200k a year. I'm talking obscene wealth and companies that use loopholes to reduce their taxes.

I don't know of this would work in real terms because I'm not an economist. But I do know that I would want any government to go down those avenues before I tried to take money from disabled people.

In my (probably unpopular) opinion, those that CANNOT work should be given incomes matching the average UK wage, not hovering around NMW.

The myth that there the UK is teeming with workshy people who could go and get well paying jobs and be free from the welfare state if they were just hit a little harder with a stick, is just that...a myth.

Well no. What is increasingly common is for anonymous posters to make unbelievable claims.

I’ve asked you to post screenshots of the benefits calculation that you say you did on entitled to. The one you say shows a single adult receiving £4k in PIP (which isn’t possible).

Please would you post the screenshot so that we can unravel that?

I wouldn't hold your breath!