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.

Exactly
people think low pay = low skilled. I’ve never earned more than 29k
jobs I’ve had include emergency services call handler and working for a prestige car brand
if you want to tell me handling 999 calls is low level and low skill then go watch Ambulance and come back to the thread. I still hear some of those calls in my sleep

I already answered that question in my initial post and I don't appreciate attempted entrapment by people who aren't half as clever as they like to tell themselves they are.

The number of people claiming disability benefits is rising from what I understand but because people are being given smaller and smaller amounts (hence stories in the disability news press about people being forced to live off dog food and cases of people starving to death), the amount spent is not going up by all that much. Fewer people working, however, is bad news but all the evidence suggests that we are seeing increasing levels of genuine disability which we cannot just pretend isn't happening. We must work out how to help people who are not able to work. Not just "slash" their incomes.

And the money paid in benefits was only the interest element, not the capital, so the actual cost of the property wasn't covered.

The main issue with the benefits bill is that old people are living so long. I am in my sixties myself so heading that way.

When the state pension was introduced, it was intended to prevent poverty and homelessness for about ten years after retirement.

The silent generation and boomers are living another thirty years. And of course with the boomers, there’s just so many of them. We can’t afford it because people can’t afford to have children (aka future taxpayers) to pay those pensions.

But in the same way as we can’t send people’s babies back, we really can’t start culling our old folk. At some point the old age pension will have to be based on need rather than being universal.

The irony being as a single parent earning £42k I’m expected to live off that with zero help or benefits! My friend earns £28k and work minimum hours to receive benefits that take her wage up to £43k - the irony! The system is ridiculous and something Labour will never acknowledge - they are not a party of the working people. They are clueless! And they will never receive my vote again!

A healthy / non-disabled person on benefits is much poorer than a healthy/non-disabled person working full time and on minimum wage.

If you look at my PP, you will see the figures for benefits.

My niece gets UC & PIP high rate for both
live in a council house 2 kids
she transferred over from the old ESA system so gets a bit more money because of that

her rent is 400 a month
council tax around 200 a month she gets 100 rebate on this for both rent / council tax

What she has for herself after rent and council is paid is 1k from having LCWRA And pip 700

then child benefit 160 for her 2 kids
640 for both of her children on UC

add it all up it’s roughly 3150 a month
yearly is roughly 37k

minus of the rent & council tax it’s roughly 30k a year or 2500 a month to live on

her prescriptions are free

Currently filling in a DLA form for my son. It isn't as easy as people think!

Yep you did. By manipulation to fit your own agenda. Thats the definition of ‘attempted entrapment by people who aren’t half as clever as they like to think they are’……

It’s not meant to be easy. Money from the ever depleting public purse is being offered out here. DWP need to get it right, so however difficult it might be, all the appropriate questions and information needs to be obtained. Lots of online help out there to help with completion….

@previouslyknownaswhy does she get PIP?

I largely agree with you, provided the money is actually spent on the children - often in these cases it is not, and the children are still turning up to school hungry and their teacher (who may well earn less than £30K net - because remember we are talking here about a £30K NET income not gross) is buying them breakfast.

I have heard of children with cancer being denied. Utterly stupid. Yes I am aware that they will try not to award it and yes my child has SEN.

We do know she’s been unemployed for ten years and the youngest child is three, so she had at least one (and likely more, given the oldest is 20) since she stopped working. Given the age range, it would presumably also have been apparent that the older children had disabilities before she and her DH decided to have the younger ones. If you can’t manage the children you have alongside a job, why go on to have more?

They may have no choice depending on where they live. If you look at say, Kent, minimum rental for 3 bedrooms is around £1k -per month, and living within a few miles of any towns nearer £1300 - £1600 per month. Many of these are apartments. Greater Manchester area starts at £1k per month.

The closer you get to the greater London area the more rents go up e.g. Brentwood a 3 bedroom home starts at £1800 per month, Dartford around £2k, Croydon £1.8 - 2k. If a family has 2 children of different sexes they need that 3rd bedroom once they get to a certain age.

And bear in mind that they may have been renting that home then the main earner loses their job for whatever reason - finding a new place that accepts benefits is really hard due to the conditions on most Buy to Let properties. And don't even think of suggesting Housing Association or Council housing - there can be years and years of waiting for that in some areas.

They probably can't just up and move, they may have support networks where they live now, or children in special schools, or other health needs.

The ‘ever depleting purse’ of public money while billionaires get ever richer…

You ain't paying any student loan back on £25k

But you can disincentivise them from having more children by reducing the benefits available, so they can choose to have more kids but are required to consider whether they can actually afford to support them rather than just knowing the state will provide.

Also if it's a single parent family they will lose any child maintenence too.

But many of us might in an ideal world have liked to have more children, but we limited our family size so we could give the children we have a good life. Surely everyone’s children are their pride and joy - doesn’t mean we should all be able to have six and not to have to work!

It depends on the number of people that £30,000pa has to support and what abasic rent for an adequate home would be for a family that size. If an adequate home is going to cost £2000pcm leaving £500pcm to cover all bills food and other expenses for 5 people then that would indeed be poverty. The same amount of money to support just a single parent and once child in an area where rent is only £600pcm would not be

Of course there are rich people on benefits because some benefits aren't means tested. I regularly help older people to claim Attendance Allowance. Some live in massive houses and have hundreds of thousands in the bank and still want to claim AA. I personally think it's wrong and it should be means tested but that's unlikely to happen.

We know that educated women have less children. In many parts of the country having DC is the only real joy they will experience. There are many children growing up in 'rough' areas that go to schools in special measures. Maybe if the government put more effort into properly funding and improving education outcomes for these children would be improved. Plus so many low skilled jobs have been replaced by technology so it is vital that these people are given an education if we expect them to work.

That’s £15k each then so you both must be working part time