Working families £18k worse off than benefits claimants after budget

[shoelances]

This is madness. Can the last taxpayer in the UK please close the door behind them.

www.msn.com/en-gb/money/other/households-on-handouts-to-be-18-000-better-off-than-families-on-modest-wages/ar-AA1RqxlQ

I agree with pp about where does it end?

Someone with dcs in paid-for housing. Each of those dcs is probably going to apply for social housing too. Why wouldn’t they? But they’re not going to get housed if they have a job. But if they have children…

Build more social housing! But the numbers on waiting lists is huge. The only way to begin to address the problem would be to build swathes of tower blocks with shared facilities a la soviet Russia.

Weren't they in social housing? Very different to renting in the private sector.

Not the majority though. 34% as of May 2025.

I know.

Sure, but I was specifically responding to a PP who said:
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People who rent are not doing it on purpose to claim benefits. They are people who can not afford to buy.

These people could afford to buy, but decided to continue renting, with the encouragement of the majority of the thread, so that they could claim benefits if anything went wrong.

If I was one of the people with a £2 million council house that was exempt from the Mansion Tax I wood absolutely stay 'renting' for the rest of my life.

Average number of hours worked is 20. This is much less than most working families I know.

PP is correct as well though, many people also won't be able to afford to buy and renting isn't a choice.

I have no hope of ever affording to buy.

Labour just trying to buy votes by bankrupting the country

To expand on my comment below…

People always counter this with saying “well what about the big corporations who are dodging UK tax? They are much more of a problem than people on benefits?”

Well, yes, the government absolutely needs to be addressing this. 100%. These companies should not have the option of declaring their profits in Luxembourg etc so they pay no UK tax.

Doing this would result in millions and millions of tax revenue. Yes, probably more than cutting spurious benefit claims.

But it’s not all about that. It’s about people’s lives. And at the moment it just seems like a race to the bottom. There’s a certain demographic of people who would rather not work. They are poorly educated, they are often in bad health, and they are languishing in these existences, and bringing children into it who are doomed to just repeat the cycle.

It’s no way to live and it needs to stop.

But we really need to get to the true root of the problem. And it’s a deep rooted issue. Why are these people making these decisions and choosing this lifestyle?

Growing up in poverty, poor education / access to education, lack of opportunity to see other options. Lack of confidence. Abuse, neglect. In short, things that aren’t solved simply by letting them live their lives on benefits.

Kids and parents need better support and education.

Same where I live.

And they're getting a double payment this week for just sitting on their arses.

Why are they getting a double payment this week ?

Thoroughly agree, @ElReverendoGreen . People want fairness in life, and currently the situation is not fair.

A huge problem of course is lack of “man” jobs. By that I mean physical jobs that pay a decent wage but do not require much education. There was mining, heavy industry, docks, even farming. A boy could leave school at 16 (or 15 if summer born) and be in a job on the Monday. That’s not the case today. The state has replaced men as provider for women. The state puts a roof over their head and pays their housekeeping. Men are in fact a hindrance as if they work they reduce benefits.

You should still work full time even if you have kids. It’s not the taxpayers responsibility to pay for people sitting at home for half the week. If your full time wage needs topping up because it’s not enough then is should be topped up to help

You realise two full time working parents end up claiming thousands in benefits for nursary fees anyway? It works out the same amount to have a parent at home

Well yes, of course, many people who rent can’t to afford to buy.

I actually now think there should be some kind of Government incentive to help people buy because it would probably be cheaper in the long term, and actually benefit the individual, rather than the landlord.

But it’s certainly not true of everyone who rents. I was actually shocked at the amount of comments along the lines of “but if you buy a property, you will be liable for repairs and upkeep” and “but you won’t be able to claim any benefits”.

It’s shocking how ingrained in people the mindset of claiming benefits and having other people pay for things is.

The question should be why isn’t she working full time then and where is the father of the children?

Kids aren’t in nursery all their lives

Agreed

Its partly because of the expectation on women because women still are the default childcare, to run yourself ragged doing both that i chose not to have children.

https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/employmentandemployeetypes/bulletins/jobsandvacanciesintheuk/october2025

I will agree that everyone should be in full-time employment if they are able to work, the day that the number of jobs available matches the number of people seeking work.

Currently, it is not actually possible for everyone who wants a job to have one.

Oh joy. Yet another benefits bashing thread. Can you not see that while you are busy falling for all the propaganda being used to distract us all from the real villains and turn us all against each other, it’s actually the people in parliament that are screwing you over and pilfering from you, not the single mum down the road on benefits.

My main takeaway from this is that we could easily wipe out a third of the benefits bill by building more social housing and abolishing Right To Buy. Which would also benefit people not on benefits by increasing rental availability.

Probably because she can’t attend college AND work 5 days a week. Once she has her L3 in July she will be able to work five days because she will be suitably qualified and there are more vacancies at that level.

With no qualifications the only work she’d get round here are part-time cleaning jobs, or 6 hours in a supermarket. Full-time jobs for unqualified people are like hen’s teeth. So what does she do? Be forced to work as a cleaner and not be able to improve her employment prospects or go to college one and a half days a week and get qualified so she can get a full-time job and give her children a better life? She’s not sitting on her backside.

The children’s was killed fighting in Ukraine.

Yes however they would still be contributing by paying tax and NI just like everyone else. And once the nursery days are over they will have their full wage. It’s ridiculous for parents to stay at home and claim when they can work and the taxpayer has had enough of it