Is receiving £30k pa on benefits “living in poverty”?!

[ChumpWizard]

Amol Rajan BBC R4 Today was in Colchester this week. Great interviews but one thing had me wondering.

Is receiving c£30,000 pa on benefits “living in poverty”? That’s the equivalent of a FT job earning c£40-£42k Pa.

I’m sorry , are you actually Nigel Farage ?!

Yes it has happened. It is called arfid and is part of the autism spectrum. Luckily my autistic son will eat most things.

As soon as the money is taxed from you it isn't your money. It is the government's to do as they want. Makes me laugh when people post that on here.

Disability is neither a lifestyle choice nor sadly a "temporary hardship" in most cases and many disabled people do not receive anywhere near minimum wage in benefits despite often having contributed to the system for many decades in earlier life. They should be able to spend the small amount they receive however they want and according to their own needs, just like people whose income comes from work or other sources. It would be a sad indictment of the UK if disabled people had to retreat from life completely because they'd become unable to work and disability benefits were in fact designed to prevent this from happening, even if these days they don't always do so.

That said, I know plenty of people in minimum wage jobs who manage to eat out occasionally just fine (they aren't paying anyone's benefits incidentally, they themselves are also subsidised by higher earners). Those who can't, have usually made lifestyle choices that prevent this - choices like having children, which are also usually subsidised by higher earners and that aren't open to many disabled by poor health - another reason why we should have the means to maintain other relationships in our lives.

You earn enough so don’t need to claim. So you’re an I’m alright Jack then. I get it now.

The media are ridiculous 99.9 % of people on benefits get no where near 30k a year but let's focus on the 0.1% to piss everyone off

PIP is meant for extras due to disability but benefits like ESA are supposed to be an income for general living expenses. If you can earn enough to cover your costs you are not living with the same level of disability that most people who get these benefits are living with, as determined by what you are and aren't actually able to do.

Why pit disabled people against each other?
The lady on Panorama... you got a tiny snapshot. She will have had to provide evidence and have assessments to get the benefits she does.
There are comments on here about how if someone can go to the pub or meet a friend for coffee, that they are claiming benefits fraudulently. Disabled people have to read and put up with shit all the time.
Why encourage it more?

I know a couple of people on PIP for ADHD who use their PIP to fund their ADHD medications as the NHS won’t.

No PIP - no ADHD medication - person unable to work and pay taxes, therefore costing the taxpayer more.

No doubt the poster who was against people with ADHD getting PIP will have some reason why they should just get on with it…

For DD1 we lost £26 for the difference between her child element and her single person element, £72.60 for the difference between LCWRA and the severely disabled child element, and £113 per month child benefit. So £220 per month. That's before you take into account the fact that the money she does get is in her name, so I have to justify using some of it for household expenses. It's also before the fact that she has to contribute £88 per week to her social care.

I here you, benefits is not enough to support 6 kids in adulthood. It doesn't matter how many kids you have after they are 3 get a job.

She has far more energy than I have and I work full time. The level of entitlement is shocking. It’s going to end soon though because it’s totally unaffordable. If I was her I’d be dusting down my cv.

If I get a job, my adult daughter who needs care at all times will need to go into care, costing thousands per week. Be careful what you wish for.

She would still be on PIP if she worked. It is not an out of work benefit.

You can't really derive anything useful about her capabilities from a few minutes of her being in a TV program.
The DWP will have far more information than you, and they have assessed her as eligible for PIP, and also not fit to work.

"If I get a job, my adult daughter who needs care at all times will need to go into care, costing thousands per week. Be careful what you wish for."

Yes it's not unusual for severely disabled adults to have care packages of several hundred thousand or more a year. And that is just the care and doesn't include things like housing benefit etc.

I'm disabled by a dozen physical and neurological conditions. I do not suffer from "learned helplessness" and neither do any of my friends who have been disabled by strokes, cancer, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and half a dozen or so other co-occurring conditions that I know about (there are likely more that I don't). I am very glad that we are not currently denied autonomy over our own choices. The fact that you'd be happy to lumber tax payers with higher costs just to run a system that provided worse outcomes for disabled people in order to punish them for being disabled says a lot about you!

I know a lady who has a little boy with SEN. She can only work a part time in her very flexible WFH job as she has to be available to pick him up from school at a moments notice. She is battling to get him an ECHP. In the meantime, he is struggling at school, having meltdowns, vomiting from anxiety.

Fully expecting some of this in September. There is no way I could work full time if I might be called to pick my child up.

Or you haven't got a kitchen because you've been living for years in temporary accommodation. Or you are ill long term and don't have the energy to cook. So prioritising takeaways over other things you could be spending the money on is making the best of a bad situation.

You're so very judgemental and lacking in understanding of how some people's lives can be so very different to yours.

With a disabled husband and 6 children with SN their on a LOT more then 30k… I had a family like this when I worked in SS disabilities children’s team ( the mum had a learning disability herself , ) they had so many services going in their were even a placement for student nurses) .. The councils use to take in in turns to take responsibility for them as it cost so much money.

Yep, or it is not safe for them to be handling knives and having the hob on. So many reasons why someone might live off takeaways.

Someone commented on here that if you can afford a steak, then your benefits are too high (it led to one MNetter creating a new name as "GovermentFundedSteak", as the thread got really silly). I mean, they are less than £4 in Home Bargains (and they are pretty good too but my palate is not fussy). If someone on benefits is not allowed to "splash out" £3.something on food, then are they not allowed to spend more than that... on anything? 🤔
Some people have seriously suggested that there should be a way to return unspent benefits if you have any left after all the essentials are sorted.

You have no idea how much energy a person has when all you see of them is a snippet of their life. Many can appear "normal" for a limited amount of time when it's realistically unavoidable and be totally wiped out and unable to function at a basic level the rest of the day. Meaning they can't put on "the normalcy act" every day, because their health, homes and lives would swiftly go downhill.

When it comes to people providing care for others, they'll often be doing it whilst utterly exhausted. Yet because they are doing it, to the likes of you they'll look "fine", when in reality they're just putting themselves last and someone else's needs first because they have to.

I'm sure they'd be happy for just a little extra to be spent... on a bit of rope, so the people with no real lives, no autonomy under their proposed measures and no pleasure at all can effectively top themselves.

Well, only if it is in the form of a voucher. For B&Q perhaps.

This.

It's called "masking", many people with ADHD do it because if they don't then they end up losing their job. And the energy it takes to mask can make someone exhausted the rest of the time. Much more common in women than in men by the way.

I can just see some of the ADHD "sceptics" sacking someone because their behaviours at work don't fit in with the "norm" - things like a lack of filter, not realising if they are talking too much, interrupting people, finding it hard to concentrate with their minds bouncing around all over the place, risk taking.

All these behaviours, which can be standard for people with ADHD, means they can't hold down a job, which makes them unemployable. Yes they may look fine for periods of time but the sheer effort to show that "normal" front is immense.