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.

You don't get a work allowance if you are a single person with no kids or health conditions.

It's got nothing to do with diagnosis and everything to do with dla but it needs to be middle and high rate DLA low isnt enough to qualify for anything extra

I would rather a child who didnt need DLA than the money quite frankly he is 13 and still holds my arm to cross the road I certainly cant cross it alone holds my hand constantly yet he is the same size as me you think I want this "benefit?"

Yes I'm aware of that and understand that for a single able bodied person who has the misfortune to lose their job UC really is ridiculously low but so many do get the work allowance and personally I think they are pretty generous.

Wasn't Labour floating the idea that LCWRA/LCW be denied to anyone under 25?

Im sorry for your situation and I’m not criticising you but I do think it is irresponsible to have six SN kids.

I don't think that lasted long thankfully. I don't see how they could with so many SEND young people.

That seems like a sensible thing to do.

So are you saying people who don’t work, who’s only income is benefits, but choose to live in expensive areas, are being hard done to for having to spend the extra benefits they receive on the expensive rent they choose?

If its come to the point when folk are better off on benefits than workers. Its a mad situation if this is the case. The system is screwed.

If you're getting £30k benefits, I doubt you'll be forking out £2k rent. Surely some of that figure would include rent?

If all 6 kids are SN then chances are the parents are too.
You can't stop anyone having children. That is a massive slippery slope sliding down into eugenics territory.

If people on benefits get their rents paid then yes!

As a mum of 3 dcs (1 of whom is disabled and 1 who has significant medical conditions i do agree with this). DC2 was 6 weeks old when we found out DC1 was disabled.

DC3 was 2 by the time we found out DC2 had a lot of underlying health issues. We had planned to stop at 2 kids but DC3 was an unplanned surprise. He is now 7.

We will not be having anymore kids because its not possible to stretch ourselves any further. I do know people with multiple kids with SEN who still continue having more and complain they struggle and nobody will babysit. It seems madness to me to carry on having kids when the kids you have need so much extra care already.

Hilarious comment. You think the current Welfare spending is fine and dandy, nothing to see here?

So selfish of them, I don’t agree with it

A single unemployed person on UC is not better off than a single person in full time NMW work.

The press like to compare totally different situations.... a family with several disabled kids with a single person on £30k, and it gets people in a rage. Every fucking time.

If they don't get the benefits though, then the kids will be the ones to suffer.

They could probably live more economically and cut their cloth accordingly. I do wonder if some of the SN is socio economic in the first place especially if they are living in a c..p environment and are influenced by their parents and siblings

This rage-bait thread is by @ChumpWizard who makes no arguments, presents no evidence, and has fucked off.

Don't engage.

If a single parent has a severely disabled child their monthly UC payment would be made up as follows:-
Single person rate £400.14
Carers element £201.68
Child element £339.00
Severely disabled
child element £495.87

Total amount £1436.69

They would automatically lose £739.14 once their child is no longer on the claim. The child will get £534.24 in UC including the new LCWRA amount. Child benefit will also stop so a further £110 will be lost. If the child is not classified as severely mentally impaired they will also lose their single person Council Tax discount.

The child will already be in receipt of PIP so that makes no difference to the household's total income.

The household will be at least £300 per month worse off so I'm not sure how you work out that they won't be significantly worse off.

@crayonmess I am separating the employees and the employer. Of course public sector employees pay tax, but the departments employing the low-level, low-skill , low-paid staff in your area are very often the local council. They can't justify paying any more for unskilled work to the people who pay council tax and get their bins emptied for £4k pa (my CT for 26-27). I don't have kids in school, and when I did, I paid fees privately. More often than not, I now pay for medical stuff rather than using the NHS. I understand that I am contributing to the costs of care for people who are living longer than any generation in history, whose children have not had to face the reality that we all die.

Of course you can stop people having multiple children they can’t afford to support. By making sure that benefits do not take into account any children after child 2. And anyone who can reproduce is made well aware of the policy. As controversial as it might be, maybe two parents with significant SEN should not be having children, and appropriate measures taken to prevent it happening. It’s child cruelty and neglect to allow people without the skills or capabilities to give birth to children who are not going to thrive in these circumstances.

I heard this piece. Whilst all 6 children had SEN, that doesn’t mean they’d all qualify for benefits related to the SEN. The mum adored her children, they were her pride and joy and gave her purpose in life… I think that goes some way to explaining why she’d had six.

I tend to agree, it is appalling and I think some of it is learned behaviour and the kids would do better in a different environment and may not even have SN just rubbish parents

And how much would it cost the state for the carers they'd all have to have, if she wasn't doing the majority of the caring? Which is most probably the reason she's not in employment.