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!!

I think this thread has lost the plot!

Yes child poverty exists.

Yes the reasons are complicated. Throwing money at it is not a magic fix.

Because yes, some parents are awful. Both rich and poor people can be terrible parents.

I think that's exactly the point.

Money doesn't make you a terrific parent.

And the system, as it's set up, actually penalises far too many contraceptively responsible high earning parents while trapping low earning parents in a benefit loop.

Emotional neglect cuts across all demographics. But many poor families also physically neglect their children and blame their pay cheques while they actively make poor financial choices.

Thats not rage bait, that's truth.

Here you go - might be more now as this was from 2015. And a lot less than the 1% will be getting it as obviously not everyone in the UK receives benefits:

"The UK's share of global welfare spending is estimated to be approximately 7%, although this figure is based on older, partial data and its exact current percentage is difficult to pinpoint due to varying definitions and data availability globally.
This estimate comes from a 2015 analysis by the World Bank, which found that the UK accounted for about 7.4% of the world's social protection spending among the 96 countries included in their data collection."

The Welfare system in this country is out of control. People need to be told, "if you want something, work for it". Otherwise shut up.

I’m proud of that tbh.

Christian values. Good time of the year for them 😱

The irony, retired early on a public sector pension and lecturing others about how much money they should be contributing...
Do as I say, not as I do.

Jealousy is a curse.

Fair enough.

Am I reading this wrong. She gets 6142 per month including benefits and spends 6k. So she is left with 142 per month for clothes and non essentials and some people are begrudging her the UC? The extra Will surely mean she can afford clothes and other non-essentials including a few occasional treats or are she and the kids not allowed those because she has dared to be a singles mother living in London and struggling to make ends meet?
Sorry but as far as I'm concerned, the statistics show, lifting the 2 child benefit Will take 450,000 children out of poverty and if you don't think that children need to not live in poverty (regardless of your opinion on their parental choices), then you need to (in the words of Josh Widdicombe) give your head a wobble.

Thing is though if anyone posted that this was their household income as two working parents, the comments would be along the lines of heart bleeds, smallest violin etc. Why not the compassion there then? Struggling is struggling surely.

Okay, but she is working.

The money she gets in UC is to go towards rent (she says she’s in a one bed flat, hardly ideal with three children), and to pay for childcare while she’s working.

Yes, she can leave London and go somewhere cheaper, but it’s not easy to find other jobs hours away, plus housing and to co ordinate the two seamlessly when you are working, and you have children to get into childcare/school.

Dh and I were in her situation once. Luckily, his job went fully remote and his boss didn’t care that we were moving 3 hours away to a cheaper area. Area was cheap so my job didn’t matter, I was giving it up as we can live on one wage easily here.

It’s not as easy as “just move” for everyone.

It says ''a good month'' too which means there will be months where she gets less so has even less left over.

Exactly that!
And someone on this household income is paying a stinking great amount of tax because they are perceived to be wealthy.

It can't be both at once. It's clear the 30 hours childcare and child benefit thresholds need to change to be substantially higher

Not as out of control as the decline in comprehension standards, it would seem.

Are there no prisons? Are there no workhouses?...
Many Would rather die? Then let them and decrease the surplus population!
How apt your sentiment is for this festive season

I don't understand what you mean? Regardless of circumstances, I believe that if you are entitled to help, it should be given.

Many would think twice before having children if they couldn't afford them.

Many would focus more on education and career so they could afford to have children.

The lady in the article has a full time job, and on a reasonable salary too.
She is also a single mum. At some point, the father would have been there and maybe also bringing in a wage. But shit happens.
She can quit her job to raise her 3 children and be on benefits, or make use of funded childcare which is also benefits, and continue to stay in her career.
Or maybe she could sell her children on eBay.

Ah the simplistic naivety. To be honest, a tiny bit of me is jealous of people who don’t worry or care about the situation millions of children in the UK are living in at the moment. It must be a wonderful place to be in in your own head to be able to see it and go ‘yeah not my problem your parents should have focussed on education/worked harder/not had you’. There. That’s fixed it.

Absolutely not relevant in this context as the woman is working full time. Additionally, do you honestly think people are having babies because they are trying to get more benefit? The cost of children is more than the less than 300 pounds a month the universal credit gives.

Regardless of this your attitude seems to be that if you can't get a good enough job, then live a miserable life and have your children suffer because of it.

"If you want something, work for it"

If this was the attitude of the welfare state, how would this affect the 4.5 million children living in poverty currently?

Send them back up chimnies shall we? Make them earn their crust of bread and gruel.

The majority of people are not having more babies to get more benefits. Give your head a wobble!

If she sells them on etsy, she will get more. They're home made after all. 🤣

Selling your kids is absolutely a fantastic idea. Why hasn’t anyone come up with this before. It’s such a simple idea but absolutely genius. If you have more children than you can afford then you can choose which ones you want to sell. The ones that eat the most are probably your best bet. Pop a few pictures of them on Vinted. Set your price. Sell. Sorted. Your financial woes are gone, AND it means you’re no longer a drain on the public purse. Only snag is they might not fit into one of those tiny little InPost lockers…oh well, back to the drawing board!

just editing to add this is tongue in cheek incase anyone’s sense of humour isn’t working.

Maybe she could upload them to the internet so they could be downloaded as a PDF.

Ha ha. It’s a novel idea…but she’s still technically responsible for them financially as she’s only sold a digital version. So
is still retaining the actual children she can’t afford. We need a solution where the unaffordable children no longer need affording. Keep coming with the ideas though.

😂