A worker on £40k per year is £39 pw better off than his unemployed counterpart.

[orwellian]

I find this astounding.

A nuclear family in one of the outer London boroughs (2 parents, 2 kids) with husband sole breadwinner will have an income of £30,007 (£577 per week) on a £40k wage plus child benefit of £1,750 per year or £33 per week. Council tax is approx £30 pw. A travelcard from zone 4 into town is £43.60 per week.
Pay in full for school meals.
Pay in full for prescriptions.

Weekly total (minus council tax and travelcard) of: £536.

A nuclear family where both parents are unemployed in London would get;

child benefit x 2: £33
child tax credits x 2: £115
2 bedroom LHA allowance (outer London) of: £236 or 3 bed if children are different sexes and over a certain age: £300
income support/jobseekers allowance: £112.55.
No or little council tax to pay.
Free school meals.
Free prescriptions.

Weekly total of: £497 (2 children both same sex) or £560 (if different sexes or one over ten).

So, the household with one earner on £40k per week is at the most £39 a week better off than their unemployed counterpart and the unemployed family is not affected by the benefit cap unless they claim the 3 bedroom rate of LHA.

Work really doesn't pay does it.

This really is depressing as it appears from this that there are a huge raft of workers on the upper limit of working tax credits or on £38k or so that are worse off than being on benefits assuming they are two adult, two children households (but one income) ????

What is more depressing is that I truly feel that benefits are not too high so that means that wages are even more crappy than I thought.

I do not want benefits cut. But I think the fact that so many people are on low wages, means that they take out their resentment at this, on those on benefits.

I remember when I was really low waged, DP and I lived in a pretty rough area. I remember a neighbour who worked in a low paying job, ranting about a really nice family with 2 kids in the same street, who openly said, it didn't pay for them to get a job.

They blame the wrong people. But yes, wages are too low in the UK.

the op hasn't done a true comparison like for like

also has fucked off

Why is it not a true comparison Custardo?

Wages compared to housing costs in London are the problem.

But in work you have the potential to progress - to a pay rise or to promotion. Training courses. Your employer may be paying into a pension scheme for you. There is the potential for the other partner to begin work and increase the overall income.

On benefits you are treading water.

The cash benefits of being in work are only part of the story.

try getting the big companies to pay more in tax

the tax that big companies are avoiding paying in the uk is more than triple the benefits budget.

this is not about saving the fucking country like some war time spirit bullshit we're all in this together my fucking arse you cockweasal privatly educated never done a proper days work in your life cameron prick.

this is about ideology

the ideology that you're all mangy fucking plebs who didn't work hard enough to succeed so deserve to fail.

if money in an age of austerity were the issue - they would be chasing the tax dodgers down like motherfuckers .

if money were an issue in an age of austerity there wouldn't be suddenly money found for free school meals for ALL children whilst other benefits are being fucking meanstested

if money and not ideology were an issue in an age of austerity - there wouldn't be some small arse fucking token dipshit £230 PA £4 a week for fucks sake - what the fuck is that if not a royal fuck you to those who arn't married

i blame the plebs they don't vote

fucking foodbank use tripled from 2008 to now

this is your country OP

YOURS

where people have to go and line up for food becuase they can't fucking afford it

in THIS Country

so take your fucking benefit bashing rhetoric and go somewhere else with it

Yes high housing costs are the problem. But many workers never get much promotion. Low paid jobs very rarely offer non contributory pension schemes.

We know that people in work tend to be healthier. Work gives people companionship and a sense of achievement.

But if you are in London, or anywhere else with high housing costs, you have to be pretty well paid relatively, to be better off financially.

Custardo - This isn't benefit bashing. Lots of people including me have said we don't want benefits to be less. We want wages to be higher.

middleagedwoman - the theoretical person in the OP could well be a teacher. A teacher in outer London could be on £25k or £27k.

i was addressing orwellians post - and that's how i read it.

maybe public sector workers, nhs, teachers could get paid more if they collected taxes form their good chums the tax evaders / party donators

Well off is such a subjective term. I might start a thread on it in actual fact.

I know objectively I'm not badly off (I'm one of those £50k plus higher rate taxpayers) but city must come into it (3rd most expensive city in UK) as well as surely household income. I happen to have a boss who is on about 70k, which I'm sure sounds fab, but in the south east, wife doesn't work...guess which off us turns up in the office in the designer shoes.

Point being, it's not just benefits, it's location. And I agree that for a very small number of people, benefits have allowed them to access living locations that aren't available to the rest of us. However you square that it's unfair and needs addressing.

Posy, if you don't have poorer people living in London, then those who are better off will suffer. Who will be the nursery workers, staff the coffee shops, clean the offices, be the TA's, healthcare assistants? If you are low waged, travel costs mean there is no point paying tarvel costs for a long distance.

There are not 'several' cities that rival London in terms of house prices. Average price is now £500k

And I am laughing at the comment about a family earning £40k will likely be paying a mortgage - plenty earning double that for whole home ownership is a ridiculous dream.

drawofdrawers on 40k many could get a flat so why not just live in that? At least then you own something.

I just searched for flats with 2 bedrooms for 150k and found 127 properties so there are some very cheap places in London. You could easily move your kids in there.

I bought a place nearly as expensive as that when me and dh were on an income of 13k and 4k + student loan in 2006 and afforded the payments.

127 properties. In the whole of London. A city with about, I have no idea really - 2 million residents?

And even if you could afford one of those properties, there's no saying living there would be in any way practical from the POV of where work is, where school is, where family are.

But jolly good. Crisis, what crisis?

Im just saying home ownership can happen on a very cheap price in London if you look at that. There are way more on 200k which is easily affordable on a 40k wage.

Go on rightmove there are some nice places for 200k you could easily have 2 or 3 kids in.

Erm... What about the deposit? That would be at least 20k (if you're lucky) on a £200k property. Where's that supposed to come from when you're paying out all your earnings every month on rent and bills?

Also on 40k you would get a mortgage of a maximum £160k (probably less these days) - that's not going to go far in most cities. Most likely you'd get a 1-bed flat for that price, not really practical if you already have two kids for example.

We are in our 20s and did that on a lot less of a wage. Nothing wrong with living in a 1/2 bed flat with 2/3 kids just partition bits off.

You're either being deliberately obtuse or a bit dense.

No one will lend 200k to a household with an income of 40k now. 2006 was prime housing bubble territory. Lenses were offering 110% LTV mortgages. That is impossible now. Most firms of benefits are ignored as income for the purpose of calculating mortgage affordability.

So whst you were able to do in 2006 is frankly irrelevant.

We have been offered more recently to move to somewhere bigger. Have you actually spoke to lenders we are on a joint wage of 32-34k and we have been offered 160k but I dont wabt to move for a couple more years as am doing a masters. Just ask your mortgafe broker in the estate agents. Thats who we have recently seen.

Partition bits off? You obviously haven't house hunted where I live - every square inch would already have been taken into account and made into an extra bedroom/ bathroom if possible to make a bigger profit. The reality is that money wouldn't even buy a small one bed in many locations in the UK.

On these threads there are always people who come on with their own situation/ story - saying I did X, I live on X amount and it's fine, failing to mention that they bought 10/20/30 years ago and are paying peanuts for housing costs compared to now, or they bought during the boom years with a big mortgage etc. The reality is lots of people are tied into very high housing costs because either a) they bought recently or b) they have no hope of buying as the rental costs are too high to be able to save anything. Saying you can easily live on much less than 40k/ can buy on less than 40k isn't true for many people through no fault of their own.

Chubfuddler: the population of London is over 8m!