Do people on here wonder how someone like me copes? I earn £12K/year.

[hekissedmybottom]

I grew up poor, single parent on benefits, partied through uni, worked all my life but never got paid much. My highest salary was 28K/year in London as a single woman. Felt absolutely minted.

Now I'm on benefits with a child as a single parent and still feel well off compared to how I grew up.

I think this kind of life is unfathomable to some people on here.

I'm not sure if it's still the same with UC but years ago under the old benefits it's because "full time hours" was only 16hrs per week if you were disabled or had a child. Disabled equals successfully claiming PIP/DLA as it was then. If you're disabled but not claiming it you don't count. So non disabled and child free people, full time was 30hrs. If you worked full time but had a low wage you'd receive top up benefits. Plenty with DC chose to work 16hrs and not a minute more, in order to do minimum work for maximum benefits. They were better off, or no worse off, than if they worked 35+ hours per week on the minimum wage. I suspect it's similar under UC.

The cap on housing costs hasn't kept rate with inflation so that most people on benefits can't afford to live anywhere that's decent and/or in their area and/or big enough and the cap on childcare costs means that most people can't afford to work more hours even if they want to

And what about those people who are working and aren't on benefits like @Rebellious23 and other posters?

Luckily I have a mortgage but it's a struggle to afford
Mortgage
Council tax
Energy
Food
Car

On 20k ish a year (I do sometimes take home up to the equivalent of 25k as my wage varies month to month)

I’ve done a benefit calculator for my circumstances if I wasn’t working.

I’d receive a total of £1142 a month.
Which includes child benefit, housing benefit etc.

Which is equal to just over £13,000

Chronic fatigue syndrome, the name makes it sound so mild but it can be completely disabling in severe cases. I’m hopeful there’ll be a cure for it soon thanks to all the Covid induced cases accelerating the clinical trials🤞🏼

Not aimed at you @Cuppasoupmonster, but I’m surprised I’m getting so many questions when it’s not my thread😅Here’s the link to the benefits rates page if anyone else is curious:

www.gov.uk/government/publications/benefit-and-pension-rates-2022-to-2023/proposed-benefit-and-pension-rates-2022-to-2023

No. Because people on very low salaries are topped up by benefits.

Presumably your £28K in benefits is because your disability prevents you from working at all - it's not this UC that the OP seems to get?

Why do people assume if you get UC or WTC your full rent is automatically paid?,it's not!.
I,single parent,dd10 earn £886 per month,recieve WTC and CB.I get HB of £105 per month,the rest of my rent (£515) I pay from my wages.I get the 25% single person council tax deduction,no council tax award.
Just because someone is on UC or WTC doesn't mean they live rent free!.

@hekissedmybottom If your salary of £12k constitutes the ONLY income coming into your household - no UC, no subsidised rent or any other benefits (save Child Benefit), then HELL YEAH, I want to know how you manage and encourage you to hasten back to this thread.

Okay, so:

I get around £930 a month in universal credit, which is around £330 for standard rate, £240 child element and the rest is for ‘limited capability for work’.
Then I think it’s £85 a month for child benefit.
£630 for PIP.
£100 of my council tax paid for me.
I also get my rent paid for me and a much cheaper subsidised water tariff.
I believe I could also get financial help from social services if I asked, called direct payments. I also believe there’s a further £70pw boost for those in my situation but on legacy benefits.

I’ve always worked so was shocked myself at how generous benefits can be, I’m well aware that I’m better off than many of those in work and the wage issues really need sorting. I’d choose health>money though, every time.

So £11,880 pa is due to your disability. Fine.

So if we take that out, your annual income is about £16k, plus rent paid in full.

That makes a lot more sense now.

That can't possibly be your take home as benefits is more than that. I have a grand total of 1500 quid coming in atm. Mostly benefits. It's not ideal but it's survivable primarily because my rent is only 450.

I'm on pension credits, my flat and council tax and water are paid for and I have £500 a month for everything else. I was getting by OK until recently when utility charges rocketed, now I only use gas for washing, my cooker is turned off and I use my microwave for anything needing to be cooked.

@Elden I think bringing disabled benefits into this, so that people have another stick to beat us with, is misguided at best and goady at worst.

This whole thread was set up to encourage benefit bashing, and giving posters the opportunity to include disabled people in that really isn’t on.

I can’t work due to disabilities and I claim PIP and contribution based ESA. That’s all,I get though as my kids are adults. Sneery comments like the ones from @SirChenjins aren’t going to suddenly cure me so I can go back to work. I don’t enjoy being stuck at home, bringing in less than half of what I would make working full time on minimum wage. I didn’t expect to end up like this and it’s certainly put a huge dent in any retirement plans we had, as my husband will have to carry on working indefinitely to keep us. I’ve also lost out on years of pension contributions. I’d far rather be working!

Sorry, I’m confused about why you want to ‘take that out’. Are you trying to figure out the max allowance for a non disabled person? There’s some good benefits calculators available if you Google them.

What about them? I'm not sure what point you're making.

Alot of people who are on benefits are working. Those posters you are referring to are working. Having higher salaries would mean both that there'd be less reliance on benefits and those that aren't on benefits would be able to live better lives.

Having more social housing would mean that there'd be more affordable housing. Having restrictions on landlords raising rents would mean that there'd be more affordable housing. The answer isn't to reduce the amounts of benefits paid in order to make people who aren't on benefits feel better.

Because I'm trying to easily quantify what a basic benefit entitlement could look like without any other qualifying factors.

You dropped into the thread and proclaimed to receive 28k pa in benefits with no additional commentary on what makes up that (very exceptional) amount.

Therefore those reading after that have commented that that amount is way beyond what anyone would expect or should really get without extenuating circumstances.

As you have 11/12k coming in based on exceptional circumstances, then the extra info is needed to back up your drop in, no context claim that you get 28k pa benefits.

I don't need to use a benefit calculator because I don't need to claim any benefits. What I did with my post was attempt to better understand your post as you didn't give enough detail on the 28k.

Because I'm trying to easily quantify what a basic benefit entitlement could look like without any other qualifying factors.

@BernadetteRostankowskiWolowitz

I would get £1140 per month as a single parent with 1 child and not working but with no disability etc.

I think this is about average but you might get a bit more or less depending on how much your rent is, how many DCs you have, if you have a partner etc.

I was just answering OP that I don’t think less than £20k a year is manageable, I only mentioned that I was on benefits because I didn’t want it to sound goady and infer that I worked harder than OP. I’m really surprised at all the questions I’ve had about it actually, but I think it’s always better to answer to clear up any misconceptions that people may have. I think it’s really important to be upfront and open about money matters.

@BernadetteRostankowskiWolowitz basic amounts can be found here www.gov.uk/universal-credit/what-youll-get

The amount you get for housing depends on how many bedrooms you are "entitled" to and the average rent amount for your area.

If you're not working and not claiming any kind of disability/carers allowances then benefits are capped at £1600 every 4 weeks (slightly higher in London)

There are also some other things you can get, but a lot of the things people on here say benefit claimants get are wrong.

I was also dragged up in abject squalor and earn about 22k which is probably similar to your income after top ups. It is true that you appreciate every penny and the small things when you've had a difficult start in life.

I hate these threads because OP has just purposely, massively mislead. With the benefits, the free schools meals, the prescriptions etc etc it adds up to a completely different lifestyle than many people on significantly higher salaries can only dream of.

Assuming OP is on UC (rules are different on tax credits) and earns £12k per year (1k per month) she won't qualify for free school meals, and possibly not for free prescriptions either.

Because I'm trying to easily quantify what a basic benefit entitlement could look like without any other qualifying factors.

You need to run your hypothetical circumstances through a benefit calculator then. People claiming ESA aren't job seekers. They're ill people. It's possible to be accepted as too ill to work whilst not being accepted as disabled.

The basic benefits for someone who is child free, healthy but unemployed due eg to redundancy is very low.

Housing is such an issue. More social housing is needed for those on low incomes. Private rentals they set the limit based on how many bedrooms you're entitled to so if it's a single person, couple or people with a child under a certain age, that's one bedroom. It's also based on being able to afford 3 in 10 properties in the area. The area isn't the town, it's however the housing benefit people choose to divide up the locality, ie their definition of an area doesn't match most people's. Supposedly this gives the tenant choice but limits the cost to the local authorities. In reality those 3 affordable properties will be the ones unfit to live in. In bad areas maybe. The "bedrooms" where there's no room for a wardrobe as well as a bed. The "kitchen" that's a row of cupboards, worktop, sink and a cooker along one wall of the living room. The properties with very obvious damp problems eg a dehumidifier running in every room upon viewing or the smell of unseen mould in the air. No plumbing for a washing machine because there's a launderette nearby. Crappy electric storage heaters instead of GCH. Etc. And you'll be lucky if you can even get one, because there's plenty of poor people needing cheaper rent. So even if you get maximum housing benefit you'll likely still need to pay some rent from other income.

People surviving solely on benefits aren't raking it in living the life of riley