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Original poster

How can it be right that you can get so much money on benefits?!?!

193 replies

TerrazzoChips · 27/12/2025 21:17

How on earth can this be right? Link

it doesn’t include disability benefits but does include housing allowance and childcare costs. But a single earner will also have those?

I despair and could honestly cry. I am genuinely considering having another child and dropping my hours. I would be better off. I hate this so much.

Forget working, how you could be better off on benefits under Labour!

Benefit-claiming parents who work as little as a day a week are set for bumper pay packets worth the equivalent of £140,000 next year - and it's all thanks to Labour's 'Benefit Street Budget'.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-15388599/better-benefits-labour-analysis-graphic.html

OP posts:
VikaOlson · 27/12/2025 21:40

AstonUniversityPotholeDepartment · 27/12/2025 21:37

Hmmm.

I see the weasel word "equivalent" being used a lot in that article...

In whatever unrealistic, convoluted situation is required for a couple to both work part-time and yet qualify to have three children in funded full-time nursery, you realise that said couple would not personally see a penny of the childcare fees?

So how would this mythical couple be as well off as someone who actually had that much paid into her own bank account? And yet the Daily Mail has bracketed the childcare fees as take home income!

After that, I stopped reading, because the rest of it has to be an equivalent level of bollocks and I have work in the morning. Grin

Edited

They would personally see the childcare fees.
They would have to pay their bill upfront, then submit the invoice and receipt to universal credit, who would refund them a proportion of the bill - up to 85% depending on the amount, their earnings etc.

UserFront242 · 27/12/2025 21:41

AstonUniversityPotholeDepartment · 27/12/2025 21:37

Hmmm.

I see the weasel word "equivalent" being used a lot in that article...

In whatever unrealistic, convoluted situation is required for a couple to both work part-time and yet qualify to have three children in funded full-time nursery, you realise that said couple would not personally see a penny of the childcare fees?

So how would this mythical couple be as well off as someone who actually had that much paid into her own bank account? And yet the Daily Mail has bracketed the childcare fees as take home income!

After that, I stopped reading, because the rest of it has to be an equivalent level of bollocks and I have work in the morning. Grin

Edited

I stopped reading when it said benefit claimants will get a "bumper pay packet worth £140k". Absolute bollocks.
I work with a lot of people on benefits. If they can get that much, then can someone post a link as to how they can do so. Thought not.

vodkaredbullgirl · 27/12/2025 21:42

🍿

Fangisnotacoward · 27/12/2025 21:44

menopausalfart · 27/12/2025 21:30

Let's bring back the poorhouses and really make them suffer. Happy fking Christmas.

"Are there no prisons?... And the Union workhouses?!"

AstonUniversityPotholeDepartment · 27/12/2025 21:45

VikaOlson · 27/12/2025 21:40

They would personally see the childcare fees.
They would have to pay their bill upfront, then submit the invoice and receipt to universal credit, who would refund them a proportion of the bill - up to 85% depending on the amount, their earnings etc.

Show quote history

I sit corrected! I thought it went directly to the nursery.

But hang on, so are you saying that parents entitled to help with childcare funded still don't get it completely funded? Only up to 85%?

Seriously?

Galatine · 27/12/2025 21:46

If I read a story about myself in the Daily Mail and knew it was true. I would still not believe it. Daily Mail and the Truth is the ultimate oxymoron!

MikeRafone · 27/12/2025 21:47

Give up work and claim benefits if you think it’s so much better…

VikaOlson · 27/12/2025 21:49

AstonUniversityPotholeDepartment · 27/12/2025 21:45

I sit corrected! I thought it went directly to the nursery.

But hang on, so are you saying that parents entitled to help with childcare funded still don't get it completely funded? Only up to 85%?

Seriously?

Show quote history

Yes, universal credit pays a percentage, up to about £1000.
If your bill is £1500, £1000 is the max you can get back.

It's separate to the 30 hours funded that many parents get now though.

MikeRafone · 27/12/2025 21:49

sit corrected! I thought it went directly to the nursery

no because UC is all about empiwering people to pay their own outgoings 🙈 which doesn’t always work well.

Truetoself · 27/12/2025 21:51

I remember watching an episode on Stacey Dooley sleeps over where i think the couple had three kids, does not participate in formal education and do not work. I can’t recall what benefits they said they claim but it really infuriates me

UserFront242 · 27/12/2025 21:54

HappyNewTaxYear · 27/12/2025 21:52

Here’s the research, and I don’t think these people are right wing:

https://www.centreforsocialjustice.org.uk/newsroom/post-budget-research

But imo, the question should be Why are so many jobs so poorly paid?

You should be able to live on the wages from any 35 hours a week job in a developed Western economy, but you can’t.

I don't think it is fair to blame employers for this.
Years ago, a single person on NMW could live alone and have extra for fun. I know because I did it.
It is the cost of living that is to blame.

Coffeeandbooks88 · 27/12/2025 21:56

Truetoself · 27/12/2025 21:51

I remember watching an episode on Stacey Dooley sleeps over where i think the couple had three kids, does not participate in formal education and do not work. I can’t recall what benefits they said they claim but it really infuriates me

They claimed tax credits.

MikeRafone · 27/12/2025 21:56

HappyNewTaxYear · 27/12/2025 21:52

Here’s the research, and I don’t think these people are right wing:

https://www.centreforsocialjustice.org.uk/newsroom/post-budget-research

But imo, the question should be Why are so many jobs so poorly paid?

You should be able to live on the wages from any 35 hours a week job in a developed Western economy, but you can’t.

This is a load of BS

go to entitled to and put in for 3 children in a two parent household with one parent earning NMW full time and see the reality

I worked for a short time with c/tax and HB and people would come in and not understand how little they actually got, then rant that how come everyone else got more 🙈 they don’t get more you’ve swallowed a lie

Mumptynumpty · 27/12/2025 21:56

National Minimum Wage because if employers could pay you less, they would!

MikeRafone · 27/12/2025 21:57

UserFront242 · 27/12/2025 21:54

I don't think it is fair to blame employers for this.
Years ago, a single person on NMW could live alone and have extra for fun. I know because I did it.
It is the cost of living that is to blame.

Show quote history

Cost of living is tight as wages haven’t kept up with inflation

UncannyFanny · 27/12/2025 21:58

Yay! Yet another tiresome benefits bashing thread! When is MN going to ban these threads? 🙄

TooBigForMyBoots · 27/12/2025 21:58

This is my Christmas gift you @TerrazzoChips:
Just because the Daily Mail say something could happen doesn't mean it is happening.

Remember this. It will make you happier and healthier in the future.😊

JaceLancs · 27/12/2025 22:00

@TerrazzoChips
Please have another child or 3 and drop your hours and come back and let us know how it’s going - I dare you

HappyNewTaxYear · 27/12/2025 22:02

UserFront242 · 27/12/2025 21:54

I don't think it is fair to blame employers for this.
Years ago, a single person on NMW could live alone and have extra for fun. I know because I did it.
It is the cost of living that is to blame.

Show quote history

Employers and the constant push for ever greater profits for shareholders are absolutely to blame!! Or alternatively, blame Blair and Brown for starting the precursors to Universal Credit, namely, tax credits. They weren’t ‘tax credits’ at all, they were benefits by another name. These benefits supported the low-paid (and I was one - I claimed). But I really resent that I worked for the State, teaching the state’s children, and yet wasn’t paid well enough to take me out of eligibility for tax credits. What kind of a country does that?

Ifeellikechickentonightchickentonight · 27/12/2025 22:02

HappyNewTaxYear · 27/12/2025 21:52

Here’s the research, and I don’t think these people are right wing:

https://www.centreforsocialjustice.org.uk/newsroom/post-budget-research

But imo, the question should be Why are so many jobs so poorly paid?

You should be able to live on the wages from any 35 hours a week job in a developed Western economy, but you can’t.

Lol that organisation was founded by Iain Duncan Smith. It has been given the second worst rating possible for funding transparency.

I agree with you about the wages though, and the reason you can't live on them is asset price inflation caused by spiralling wealth inequality

RudolphTheReindeer · 27/12/2025 22:02

HappyNewTaxYear · 27/12/2025 21:52

Here’s the research, and I don’t think these people are right wing:

https://www.centreforsocialjustice.org.uk/newsroom/post-budget-research

But imo, the question should be Why are so many jobs so poorly paid?

You should be able to live on the wages from any 35 hours a week job in a developed Western economy, but you can’t.

That talks about one adult claiming pip or a child getting dla though so the benefit cap wouldn't apply in that case. It's not a direct comparison to working vs non working families.

UserFront242 · 27/12/2025 22:08

HappyNewTaxYear · 27/12/2025 22:02

Employers and the constant push for ever greater profits for shareholders are absolutely to blame!! Or alternatively, blame Blair and Brown for starting the precursors to Universal Credit, namely, tax credits. They weren’t ‘tax credits’ at all, they were benefits by another name. These benefits supported the low-paid (and I was one - I claimed). But I really resent that I worked for the State, teaching the state’s children, and yet wasn’t paid well enough to take me out of eligibility for tax credits. What kind of a country does that?

Show quote history

Not all. Not everyone is employed by some massive company with shareholders. Many are small businesses that employ a handful of people, and are operating on bare margins themselves. And they get told to increase their wages but do not have any means to get more income to do so.

Truetoself · 27/12/2025 22:13

Coffeeandbooks88 · 27/12/2025 21:56

They claimed tax credits.

Show quote history

even though neither of them contributed to the economy?

ThatFairy · 27/12/2025 22:18

It isn't realistic. That someone on a 10 k salary is living in the city on thousands of pounds of housing benefit. You can live close to the city affordably in rough areas it's rich people that live in the west end.

Childcare costs, yes, you are correct, in that in the end of it all you would be able to just look after them yourself, and not work.

However, the rules are that you can only do this till your child is a toddler. The only way around that is if you have an illness or disability