Can we all take a moment to pray for Thea, living life on the brink of poverty at £6k a month (£3.2k of which is UC).

[BananaramaDefence]

In a good month when UC gives full entitlement, Thea has a total of £6,142.00, from £2,800 in take-home pay and £3,342 in universal credit plus child benefit. Her monthly expenses such as childcare, rent, council tax, energy and food etc are usually around £6000. She says: "So it’s living very much on the edge."

And now the cap is removed she will get more!!

From this: Pregnant mum-of-four: 'Budget benefit change saved our Christmas' - The Mirror https://share.google/QGbNeuIKPAmg1qNG5

No wonder people get pissed of with welfare in this country. I work 40 hours plus a week, have children, have to pay a mortgage, childcare and I earn way less than this!!!

No child should live in poverty but at the same time no family should get this muxh in benefits.

Before people say, yes but it's to pay rent and collate, I also have to pay all that and my mortgage is half my wage!!

They are being funded by the rest of us! We’re having to pay even more in taxes while trying to feed our own children. That’s not only difficult for us but it also feels unfair and acts as a disincentive to work!

Because it's the rest of us that pay for their life choices, so that they can be on average 18k better off than the mugs who actually work.

www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2025/11/29/working-families-18k-worse-off-benefit-claimants-budget/

The ones who benefit the most from the scrapping of the two child rule are working parents.

I don't care, other taxpayers should not be funding their choice to have a large family.

Not those working parents who restrict the number of children to two!

So? It is still working parents.

It can be generational.

Suffer little children…

Define "suffer".... relative poverty is pretty meaningless.

No one “pops out” a baby. Pure misogyny.

Can you not understand the difference between working parents who work hard, restrict the number of children to two and now have to pay MORE tax to support those families that have more children than they can afford?? Surely you can see that difference!

The definition of 'working parents' is quite broad. I'm not sure if it's still the same, but it used to be the case that if you had pre-schoolers, the amount of hours you had to work was quite low, IIRC, it was 16 hours for a single parent or 24-30 hours between a couple.

A relative of mine had 5 DC between age 12 down to a toddler and they deliberately did the right number of hours so they both worked a couple of days a week, didn't need to pay for any childcare (they also had a mortgage so no rent entitlement) and they got nearly £2k pm in top ups, so in effect their income was that of a decent professional salary but they only had to work a few hours a week in an easy, local job.

I did it for 43 years and I still pay tax in my retirement. I’d rather have my life than theirs. What do you want to happen to them?

Define what you mean with ‘suffer’ please because as a previous poster said, relative poverty is pretty meaningless - it’s relative to the median salary at any point in time.

Don’t work then.

I want them to start taking personal responsibility for their actions. Our economy can simply not afford such generous welfare payments.

Did you miss a word out?

Don’t pay it then.

No. Which bit are you struggling with?

Exactly - let’s all live off the benefits and see our public debt soar and our economy shrink! Someone will bail us out, no doubt.

Your manner.

Your choice. The lack of empathy is also often generational.

Luckily I have an EU passport and can choose not to pay and leave!

So you can't define "suffering" in this context? And you do understand that relative poverty is an ever moving goalpost? It's not something that can be eradicated, and it is how we measure in the UK.

You think working parents on UC don't work hard? I say they work harder than high earners. Some of these high earners could have had the number of children they want in my opinion but they don't want to try and budget.