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.

No, it isn't. Welfare spending as a percentage of GDP has barely increased since the 1990s (apart from a spike during the pandemic). The raw figures are jaw-dropping because a) they always use the raw figures, rather than presenting the big picture, to scandalise the masses and b) they always include pensions, which are not a welfare benefit, in those raw figures.

Welfare recipients are the latest scapegoats, blamed for everything by mainstream media and right-wing morons. If you want to be a sheep, go for it, but don't post lies like "Welfare spending is out of control" because it simply isn't true.

I work full-time btw, but I just can't stand liars.

I know of a couple with SN. The husband works (at the local tip) but his wife does not. They keep having children and having them taken into care. It is sad, and they really are a lovely couple, but they think love alone can keep a kid alive and thriving. I doubt social services took their decisions lightly.
But there are deeper issues there.

But just being short of money should not be a reason to have children taken away.

Yes, also the headlines bleating about the massive increase in UC claimants... that fails to mention it is because people on legacy benefits like ESA and tax credits are being migrated to UC.
Where are the headlines saying there has been a massive drop in ESA claimants? Hmm...

I just worked out i get 26k a year benefits. But it used to be a lot less as just child disability payment etc and a small uc top up. However my dh is currently unable to work and awaiting diagnosis for potential MS so I cant work now either so our benefits have went up.

If he is then classed as disabled itll go up again.

We have 2 children and up until Nov 2025 he was working every hour under the sun as he loves working and is increasing frustrated he cant work right now.

Yep, carers actually save everyone a ton of money.

So the following statement is incorrect, or does it depend on how people are interpreting the figures here?

UK welfare spending is experiencing a significant increase, with
projections indicating it will rise by over £73 billion over the next five years, reaching a total of £406.2 billion by 2029-30. This surge is driven by rising health-related and disability benefits, an aging population, and policy changes, with spending on disability benefits alone set to increase 49% between 2023-24 and 2028-29

"...low-level, low-skill , low-paid staff in your area are very often the local council."

Please don't equate low pay and low grade with low skill or unskilled. For my local council job, which pays the princely sum of just under £27k pa (less than £2k more than minimum wage) I need to have good Excel, Outlook and Word skills plus various specialised software, be responsible for handling 10s of thousands in expenditure every month including pushing back when rules have been broken or processes followed incorrectly by seniors, take calls from often distressed or abusive "clients", be able to work flat out to make up for the recruitment freeze meaning we are at not much more than 50% of required staff, be able to drop everything at a moment's notice & change to the 10th different task of the day, be able to respond at a moments notice on any query, know certain aspects of laws and council rules...

It can take months for someone to learn how to do our job properly; when we had a temp in recently we were still finding little things we had to correct months later as there are so many little nuances to the job that I'm still finding out after being there years. Plus the rules and systems seem to change constantly, with senior management not bothering to tell us properly or allowing for the time it takes for new systems to bed in etc etc etc. We've had 2 staff off for a number of weeks over the past year due to work stress related breakdowns; they definitely weren't taking the micky it's that hard and pressured.

As a single adult with a mortgage I am eligible for virtually no benefits at all, just 25% council tax deduction and in my case PIP, lower level as I can actually walk more than 30 metres.

Plenty is people who are working full time also receive Universal Credit.

No it’s not

I don't think single people with no kids get any help at all. They get told to just earn more.

I am free to be corrected on that.

If you look at all the data since the two-child policy for benefits was introduced, there’s been no meaningful reduction in children being born into homes which can’t support them. There’s a significant minority of people who simply don’t think in that way. They want baby, they have baby. Through vulnerability, stupidity, or thinking everything will just turn out okay. They aren’t doing the fore-thought around whether it’s a good idea or not, they don’t have that intellectual capability. If you’re astute enough and have the social capital to be engaging with this thread, you aren’t among the people who just don’t or can’t think through actions and their consequences

On SN children it’s an interesting debate. There were several recent threads around proposals to prohibit cousin marriage, focusing on the high propensity of children from cousin marriages to have disabilities, and the vast majority of posters thinking cousin marriage should be banned on that count. The logical extension ultimately is that people who have conditions we know to have genetic propensity - such as autism and ADHD - also shouldn’t be allowed to marry or have children. That’s a politically and socially complex stance to take.

Why does every thread on benefits end up bashing LL's. For the thousandth time almost all LL mortgages are interest only so no tax payers money is buying a LL a house. LL have to put down a minimum of 25 percent deposit to get an interest only mortgage.

No offense but how is this possible? 2 people both working but earning only marginally more than one person on minimum wage, and what do you mean by comfortable?

Oh goody another benefit bashing thread.

Look, it is neither easy nor desirable to claim benefits despite what the Daily Mail might tell you. Nor does it afford one a life of luxury. Yes of course there are examples of people abusing it but they’re unlikely to out themselves on a radio or tv program FFS.

What are you hoping to get from this thread?

Not all LL are just paying interest. I know a few who own their properties outright and have done for years. The rent they get just goes in their pockets, and the clincher is that some of them are not even living in the UK.
So a UC claimant is paying them rent from the government coffers, and it is not even staying here and boosting the economy.

Not for a single person, yes if you multiple children and some members of your household have disabilities with increased costs.

No, the assertion the UK's welfare spending is "out of control" is utter nonsense.

Whether it's "fine and dandy" is a matter of personal opinion, but the UK's spend as a percentage of GDP is still lower than most similar European countries, and it's actual payments rank near the bottom in generosity.

I'm glad you found my comment "hilarious" though. Some people are easily amused it seems.

What job is someone who has been out of work for many years going to get that supports 6 disabled children and another disabled adult?

I work and couldn't support that sort of household. I do think people shouldn't be in such a situation in the first place, but once they are, what is a reasonable solution?

Why do you earn so little? You either both earn under minimum wage or one of your is not contributing anything

A severely disabled single person who is too unwell to work and rents in outer London would receive just over £30k (Max PIP £9,747 pa + Universal Credit with LCWRA £9,880 pa + a maximum of a £12k contribution to the rent).

A normal healthy single person would receive £4,801
Universal Credit and £12k rent.

disabled people get more because their cost of
living is much higher.

People aged under 25 get less.

Yep, I know a lady who has one child with SEN, and she has had to pick him up from school at all sort of times due to meltdowns/overwhelm etc.
She WFH in a part time role, so she can be flexible about it. But a lot of jobs are not like that at all.
Now imagine that x6. Looking after that many kids is a fulltime job in itself, let alone them all having SN.

yes, I expect you are right.

I can’t actually understand how successive governments have allowed us to get into
a situation where employers are allowed to pay people with a couple of kids an amount that is not enough to live on. Wages and rent are totally out of step.

What clown on benefits goes out of their way to have 3 children and take on a colossal £2k a month rent?

That’s what my DH said when he told me about the program on the radio.
Youngest child was 3 so they carried on procreating whilst on benefits.
Children would only drink milk apparently so they went through something like 14 pints a day!

i think your find you are if your a disabled person on UC with standard amount , LCRWA , housing element and enhanced pip however there are also people as you say rightly who earn good wages and still get a lot of UC …. And with the removal of the two children cap will go even higher