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.

This.

The higher amounts are rent. The standard allowance is about £400pm. That is for bills/general living costs. It is not much at all.

To recieve that much they would either be a family or severely disabled.

Edited to say sorry, I didn't mean to quote the OP!

Single parent here with two kids who live with me full time. With universal credit and working I have a total income of £32,000 a year £19k of that alone is our rent. It’s a struggle

The point about rent is fair and well-taken, but how about those who work for a living on less than £30k take home and still have to pay rent out of that too?

The question is surely how many people does the £30k cover? It's like how many apples in a barrel. £30k for a single person isn't generally living in poverty. But as a single income for a family then yes it is. People splash these figures around without a single shred of context.

Exactly, but many people don't want to acknowledge that.

@ChumpWizard Are you going to give us more information?

Families who have no working adult and receive £30K a year in benefits will be those with several children. A family of the same size with an earned household income of £30K would also usually be eligible for top-up UC rather than relying solely on £30K.

Considering the largest part of DWP expenditure is on pensions and related benefits, where would you like to start?

And how will you pay for the consequences?

I’m not surprised but with COL you are left with depressingly little ☹️

Yep. A family on benefits with various disabilities and high rent costs gets compared to a single person on NMW, and they lose their shit over it.

Apples and oranges.

No single non-disabled person is on more in benefits than someone on NMW. Never.

Absolutely mad that someone not having worked for 10 years with a disabled husband had 6 kids. Just saying.....

OK, so take her money way. What happens then?

£30k a year is loads. If people have children thats their own choice. It's not like people working for a living get a pay rise everytime they pop out a new kid.

They get child benefit.

I’m politically centrist with probably some views which lean towards the right. But I worked a significant part of my career in social research and social housing, and when it comes to welfare I’m a pragmatist: cutting welfare doesn’t stop people making bad choices like having more children than they can afford, it just means that children grow up in poverty. And when children grow up in poverty, we see the repercussions of that in our education, health, criminal justice and social services: the money that isn’t being spent on welfare just has to be spent somewhere else along the line.

Yes i was hit with a big ct bill

Aren’t benefits based on housing & childcare costs as opposed to a flat rate?

Rental prices are definitely out of control and I don't understand why we are not building more social housing. Modern up-to-spec modular housing can be installed in 6-9 months on permitted land (installing mains, water and foundations is the bit that takes time). Why is the Government so insistent on private homebuyers and ignoring the need for rental?

Anyone getting that much would need to have multiple kids/disabilities and high rent costs so yes they probably are still living in poverty.

I agree and this is where I struggle. Children shouldn’t suffer because of their parents’ poor decisions but how do you then deter irresponsible and feckless people from making benefits a lifestyle choice?

Please don't bring facts into this thread

Yes but the point is people who are no where near hungry also live in poverty

People that have mortgages and are on UC are shafted

You think home owners should have help paying their mortgages off?