I also used to live in an area where there were people who lived on benefits their whole lives, what makes me sad and angry is that nobody challenges them to change. They know their way around the benefits system and cream it for all it's worth, but still, the TVs and consoles and whatever, come from credit, and not low interest credit, it's the Provident types who provide credit at 10x the cost. They come around and promise you can have large amounts of money and you only have to give them a fiver a week, these people are largely uneducated and don't know what the long term cost is, they just see nice lump sum and only a fiver a week to pay back.
Sadly, some of them also live on the proceeds of crime, small time drug dealing, burglary, car theft etc. They don't know anything else, and nobody tries to help them to see what else is out there. They are often ghettoised, so they can live in their own little bubble, cut off from the real world, where the rest of us live.
I could hate them with every bone in my body, I was forced to live on their estate, where I didn't fit in and was burgled, beaten up and harrassed for it, but I pity them. They have no aspirations, no future and no chance of doing better for themselves, and, due to them not having enough resources, the likes of social services and other agencies who could help, they get no help and just carry on breeding feral kids for the next generation of the same.