"Family Life on Benefits" A Case Study Courtesy of the BBC

[MrPants]

I know there have been hundreds of these posts recently, but is this case study typical? Linky is here.

My first thought was that the difference to the household budget, before and after the £26k cap, is going to be roughly the cost of her 200 fags per week habit - a habit which, I reckon costs around £70 per week, I couldn't justify financially.

My second thought was that, if you took away our two cars (needed to get us to work) and their additional associated costs, and the factor in that we pay a moderate mortgage rather than rent in massively subsidised social housing, their outgoings - or crucially, disposable income - look uncannily similar to our own.

I pay income tax in the middle rate and I'm middle class. It's taken me fourteen years of working very hard to get to the level I'm at in my career and my wife and I decided to wait until our careers were firmly established before starting our family and yet, I can still look at this family and think that I'd be better off if I was in their shoes. How can that be right?

What really grates though, is the emotive language used "If they do cut our benefit we are going to have to choose between eating and heating the house properly." Am I right in interpreting that statement as meaning "My wife could quit smoking but she'd rather our kids went unfed or cold"?

It's nice to know that my family is forced, through taxation (backed up with all the threats and force that the state can muster), to go without stuff just so that some unemployed family, who will never thank me for my hard work, generosity and sacrifices, can sit on their arses all day smoking themselves into an early grave.

Pinktoliberal - I would have agreed a couple of years ago.

I am not sure many working people do feel in control any more. Their house is probably worth less than they paid for it. They may risk redundancy.Transport costs for commuting have rocketed. Childcare wipes out a big chunk of earning.

And as I said, at the end of their working life, if the pension they've paid into is screwed, and any savings or assets which they've been responsible enough to accumulate, have to be sold to find their care in old age- frankly, many people are going to wonder what the point is of being frugal and responsible. In fact many people are already questioning it. Look at the mood of the public. Stop kidding yourself its only thick daily mail readers who are pissed off with it all. It's your average, intelligent, thinking person who has had enough of being shafted.

That should be FUND their care in old age

I don't agree with the 'better off in the long term if you work'. Loads of people, myself included, built up a career & a good salary, then the recession hit, jobs are lost and people are back to what they were earning when they graduated/left school. I feel like a mug when I see people getting more in benefits than I earn working full time. It is absolutely disgusting. People moaning about the amount of money they get for doing nothing.

I do think there needs to be a cap. Does having a lot of children cost more then only having 2? Clothes/toys/prams etc can be handed down so it's not as if the parent/s need to go and buy more for each new child. Heating bills are not going to vary either and maybe electricity would be slightly more. My parents lived off benefits when I was a child. There was 7 of us in a 3 bedroomed house and the benefits were £230 a week (not including rent), £11960 per year or something like that. I've just put their details into entitled to and, if I was a child now they would receieve benefits totalling £494.28p per week (assuming rent was £100 a week), that's £25,843.77 per year! I know that things are more expensive now but the amount of benefits that people are entitled to is out of control.

Callmemrs the points you raise about old age are very true. You honestly wonder why you bother being thrifty and sensible.

Also they keep on raising the age of retirement so you are still working when you are '68' for the likes of Ray who still feels he hasn't been able to find a job suitable and then he has effectively retired and not made any contribution for donkey's years.

He has no assets and one day you may be sat beside him in a nursing home still subbing him.

on the other hand the CEOs of the FTSE 100 got an average 50% pay rise last year.

The CEOs of Tescos, Sainsburys etc are on about £3 MILLION pounds a year, (that's our money!) while they get "unemployed" people to work in their stores for free.

seems to me that those CEOs and the RAY's of this world are the opposite sides of the same coin...........:USERS!!!

How is he meant to retrain? That costs money, in both travelling and course fees - and NO the courses AREN'T free, you get NO help with childcare so if his wife is having problems with his bipolar he'd have to take time off from college and probably end up being kicked off the course anyway. Giving up fags is INCREDIBLY difficult, add in Bipolar and it is even harder. The alcohol IS a luxury though, and she should switch to roll-ups - significantly cheaper. The Sky TV should either go or be cut down to the basic package.

While yes, I agree that they don't have their priorities straight, I can attest to the fact that this family are NOT typical of most benefit claimants. I have 4 dc, and live in the SE, with considerably higher rental costs - and I get nowhere near what they do, and don't have the money to spend on any of the luxuries they do. The only reason I have the internet is because my Uncle pays the bill so that my dc can do online homework - I just happen to get the benefit from it too when they aren't doing H/wk. No fags, gave up in 2009, am teetotal, Sky TV (basic package) AND TV license is paid for as ADDITIONAL maintenance from Ex-P - who CHOOSES to pay extra so his dc can have TV, because they wouldn't if he didn't pay, as it is outside my budget.

I can't see HOW they CAN afford to spend like that while on benefits - because I can't. I KNOW that this family isn't representative of the majority of benefits claimants. Just propoganda IMO.

He can retrain with the open university and he doesn't have to leave his sofa. Does he need childcare if they are all at school? Surely the older ones can help as well. It's propaganda, every time benefits are in the media 'families' like this are found to portray the 'average' claimant. The attitude of the public towards claimants isn't a surprise really.

I work in the community,frequently with families on benefits of some sort. Like it or not there do seem to be some who do very well on them and have a nice lifestyle,holidays abroad,nights out,decent clothes,nice cars,fabulous xmas's and birthdays and all mod cons in the home. You may not like to hear it but it is true.
I also see many families who are on their arses financially and have no luxuries whatsoever. Often this is down to debts but sometimes it is not.
I so financial managemnent plans with them and some are left with nothing whilst others are left with a pretty reasonable expendable income.
My only conclusion is that the system must be very unfair and ambiguous.
For example,maintainance is disregarded so some will be better off.
imo the whole application process needs an overhaul so that it does the job it is designed to do and support those in real need.
As for the fags in the above case-Roll ups/?????

Last time my dh had to retrain we had to scrimp and save to pay for it ourselves as there was no help and it took every penny we had. That was about 8 years ago. He did get work from it but had to give up due to ill health and his boss being an arse about him having time off for hospital appointments (no sick pay and he wasn't allowed to use his holidays as odd days here and there).

However there are now govt. schemes to help, he is currently doing training to learn a different area of IT where hopefully he will be more likely to find another full-time job. He is also taking his maths and english gcses as he had to leave school at 14 to go to work so never got to take exams. It is all FREE (apart from bus fare) and he goes when the dcs are at school (he currently works weekends and some days in the week but the course is flexible so he can fit around work).

Alternatively as someone else said, there is Open University or I'm pretty sure there must be online courses available.
But let's face it, this is all a red herring. 'Ray' could have, at some time in the last 10 years, looked for work doing something different. (I know, it's a shock.)

Btw, I don't know why everyone seems to be assuming that his wife needs constant care, Ray himself never cites that as his reason for staying at home and nowhere in the article does it say that she needs 24 hour supervision. No one has said that she should be working, which is fair enough with her condition (although some do, my friend manages to earn her own living despite being bipolar), just that perhaps Ray could have made a bit more effort given the length of time he's been out of work.

hey usualsuspect >cardboard box with a LID !! now! that is seriously abuse of benifits, right ?! box with it s own lid ! well i never ! orf wiv their underclass (happy ) healthy lives head s!! a missile mounted on a fighter jet 2 be fired at anyone not in BRITAIN costs several thousand pounds , the jet cost , 70 to 100 million squid , 2 kill people who are NOT claiming BENEFITS > funny old world i think

and does ALL that money they spend on sky fags booze etc contribute towards others employment ? its wot they spend it ,right ? if perchance they spent it on organic overpriced lettice say ,well the vitrol may be maybe > less ? in dumbpants bitter opinion

Good post pixel, and well done to you and dh.

I was forced from my job a year and a half ago as they didn't like me taking time off sick (I was diagnosed with MS so it's not as if I had a choice). I left, took a few days to think of my options, then registered as self employed and started writing freelance. I have a couple of publishers interested in my work, have a few clients who I do regular work for and have just been asked to contribute towards a book.You have to look forward and adapt. If there's no work out there then you look at what is. I'm learning constantly as well as working and have almost finished writing a novel.
I could have lived off benefits but I don't want to sit around and wallow. I don't smoke, I rarely drink, holidays are on the cheap (we house sat last time). Life's what you make of it. Benefits shouldn't be used to fund a lifestyle, but should be a stepping stone towards something better.

Thank you Hunty for a more realistic view of life on benefits.

I agree they are certainly not a representative family, and this example ignores the fact that large amounts of the cap will be taken up by extortionate private housing costs esp in the SE.

Lisad- it is £100 pwk for 2 adults on jsa, not one. Jsa isn't higher than carer's allowance.

ChickenLickn Sun 05-Feb-12 03:45:16
"I agree they are certainly not a representative family, and this example ignores the fact that large amounts of the cap will be taken up by extortionate private housing costs esp in the SE."

I think the BBC was possibly trying to avoid the high rent scenario - every comment underneath would be along the lines of "move!", which is even more tedious than all the comments saying "give up smoking".

They also needed a family not claiming DLA or working otherwise the cap wouldn't apply. So, you need a family with at least 6 kids, cheap rent, no work and no disabilities - it's probably quite hard to find. I almost get the impression the article was meant to be sympathetic but kind of back-fired.

The irony is that if the same couple was working and earned £35k a year, people would be telling them how lucky they are and to STFU

Yet because they're on benefits they're considered poor despite clearly having some spending habits most of us would love to be able to afford.

Exactly niceguy. There was a thread recently where someone got flamed for suggesting £40k wasn't a high wage! All that is happening is that people on benefits are now having to make the same decisions as working people. Eg, can't afford to live where they do so downsize, limit the number of kids they have etc.

But the people 'on benefits' that will be affected by the cap - 80% of them will be IN EMPLOYMENT. Just for shitty wages. And what are they meant to do with the dc that ALREADY EXIST??