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

[TerrazzoChips]

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.

Oh no! I didn’t know that - re IDS. Thank you for telling me.

Yes I agree re the spiralling wealth inequality 😭

Iain Duncan-Smiith, former leader of the Conservatives, was one of the founders of the CSJ.

People still get benefits if working less than that it's just that they are supposed to be finding that much work. Plenty don't and plenty pretend to be looking.

Yes I’m quite embarrassed now!

I’m a single mum on benefits.

currently I’m just sitting here in my 15 bedroom mansion, eating my plate of foie gras, caviar and oysters as a little snackie-poos while I choose my 5 star holidays - skiing in Val D’Isere in February, the Maldives for Easter - I haven’t decided where to go in the summer yet - any ideas??

Alternatively, in THE REAL WORLD, I’m trying to work out if I’ll actually be able to pay off any of my debts in 2026, or will I just have to add to them again to make sure my kids have food, a roof over their head etc.

I work full time - despite having a chronic medical condition that is life threatening, I am “not disabled enough” for PIP or any other disability benefits, my 2 neurodiverse kids are also “not disabled enough “ for additional support, my ex hasn’t worked since 2018 so hasn’t paid any child support in the 5 years we’ve been separated (I can’t actually afford to divorce him), my car is 17 years old and a wreck (but I need it because of my kids).

I have worked since I was 17 and am now 55 - that’s nearly 40 years of paying taxes and national insurance, so do I feel bad about being on benefits? Fuck off, I am entitled to them and am proud I am providing a decent home for my kids - the amount I get pays for only 3/4 of the rent by the way (oh, and my last holiday was 3 years ago - a week in Northumberland that my ex had actually paid for before we split, but kept getting delayed due to COVID)

£140k a year - don’t be daft!!

You’re getting a load of snarky responses which I get tbh but if you’re actually serious, then find out for yourself and don’t rely on newspapers and SM. Do a benefits calculation for yourself in your current circumstances on Turn2us or similar. Compare your results to your financial status atm. If you’re better off at all, compare all the extras it doesn’t take into account, career progression, pensions etc. Do also bear in mind that childcare costs last for a very short amount of time (and don’t cover 100% of costs) and then try to look at the big picture from where you start to where you end up, and compare that too. No one on benefits is going to be better off than you in the end, nor will their kids because of what you are able to provide for them. If it really seems unfair after weighing up every single pro and con, including disability for yourself and/or your kids, then quit, claim PIP and don’t ever work again. Apparently it’s really easy.

There is a cap on Housing Benefit.

OP, now that so many people have taken the time to come here and correct the misinformation in the link you posted, I do hope you'll come back and comment. Have you changed your mind in the face of new evidence?

It's perfectly ok to get things wrong - there's lots of misinformation out there, lots of newspapers are owned by billionaires after all - but it's important to update your views when you're given new information. You could take a leaf out of @HappyNewTaxYear's book, who immediately changed their view when corrected, and did so with grace and good humour.

If you are in the work search group, you get £400pm and have to prove you are looking for work or you get sanctioned.

Daily Mail and the like will have you believe that the people in the work search group are getting over £2kpm and they fake applying for jobs.

If you think it is that easy, then go do it.

I get you, I really do anf I dont know what the answer is. But where do you draw the line, slave wages? People should have an income that enables them to pay bills and live relatively comfortably, in the snese they can afford food, clothes and a treat a month (albeit frugally)

Not be having to go cap in hand for a top up gor a wage that doesn't provide this for people who work hard in useful jobs.

I just read the article you’ve posted, and the chairman of the CSJ is Iain Duncan Smith, and there are things mentioned that do smack of the right wing.

Agree with what you say that people should be able to live off full-time wages, but it’s a massive struggle for many.

I had a look into this the other day, I wondered how a single person on full time minimum wage could survive, it appears they can't without help/housing from family and friends.

Same for a single person living on benefits.

It becomes possible to live by adding kids, I hope no one does that just to get the benefits. Would we rather the kids starved or were removed?

I also think the single people need enough to be able to survive.

They wouldn't be getting childcare costs then.

Single people on full time NMW wage get no help. You only get help if you have kids.

Given that The Daily Mail predict major snow events, monsoon levels of rain and tornados fairly regularly, I'm not sure I've much faith in their general accuracy.

A lot of it pays for the landlords house

Classist, ableist, and gets all their reliable information from the daily mail. Here we go again...🙄

Don't' forget cancer. Everything causes cancer according to the DM.

Hmm, from what ai have seen if the lifestyle of people on benefits they have far more spending power- and better quality of life then I do working full time.
It’s not just the everyday luxuries like cans of pop (if they’re not luxuries for you, Reader, then Bravo) but they have free time and wherewithal financially for regular weekends away with their kids.
also, don’t know if this still applies but their kids can get free/ subsidised places on school trips so they don’t meet out due to being deprived and raised on benefits

I’ve been on tax credits as a single mum and now I’m working a decent job and don’t get any benefits. I’m not, never have been and would never be “better off on benefits”.

Compare your life with someone who is on benefits as they are unable to work.
No kids, just crippling mental health issues.

I bet you will change your tune then.

Its not actually impossible but its clearly an extreme scenario.

In reality, unless they are in social housing (haha in central london, land of the 30 year waiting lists? Unlikely), the housing allowance won't cover the rent on a 3 bed. The childcare element of UC also likely wouldn't actually cover the nursery bill, so it would be pointless claiming it and sending the kids in for the 1 day a week each parent apparently works. Unless they have twins, a parent would have 3 children in full time childcare for a vanishingly short period from when maternity leave for baby three ended to when child 1 started at school & the bill dropped.

It does flag some absurdities though.

• that you only have to earn £846 a month for the benefit cap to be lifted (this is sod all at current minimum wage)
• that you can full time UC childcare element even if you only work a day a week
• housing allowances in central london are very generous. We shouldn't be funded people to live in the world's most expensive postcodes at state expense.

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

This is true however. We have too many low paid jobs with poor prospects in the UK, especially compared to our high cost of housing.

The worst part about being on benefits when I was a young mum was the housing insecurity. Letting agents don't accept people using housing benefit. I would have to look at private ads and ended up in insecure tenancies with issues in bad areas. One of my flats was infested with bugs I couldn't get rid of, and the landlord refused to lift the carpets. It's still a dream of mine to own my own house. I never got 140k, by the way, maybe more like 1400 a month or something including rent ?

There's social housing everywhere in London, including Kensington &Chelsea and they get it for a fraction of market rent. Working people will have to pay for smth similar 25K after taxes out of the pocket.
Plus 2K in council tax, again after taxes.
Plus 2.5K for public transport.