How little money can a person live on?

[IF]

There's been weeks of debate over how much money benefits claimants should receive. But just how little money can someone realistically get by on?
The government says no family on benefits should receive more than the £26,000 - after tax - the average family earns.
A benefits cap estimated at £350 a week for a single adult and £500 a week for a couple or single parent - regardless of how many children they have - is being piloted in four areas of London. From July it will be rolled out across England, Scotland and Wales.

Read more -- > BBC News - How little money can a person live on?

[ken100464]

Re: How little money can a person live on?

Think the reality of being poor is pretty neatly summed up in this article.

However the thing that I think most people in work will have trouble with is the last bit. The discretionary spending.

While benifits are there for helping people down on their luck and I doubt many actually begrudge them, I suspect many low income families cant afford a holiday and cut back on all the treats just to make ends meet.

Yes life sucks on benifits and yes some people cant make the leap back into employment.

However many many can and should.

The sort of person who shouldnt is this person seen in Southport last weekend.

Drives up in a brand new spanking van and parks in a disabled bay. The van is a locksmiths van and this years plate. So a month old?

Puts a disabled disc in his van and jumps out with his wife and jogs round to her side. They go to the shops but only when he remembers to limp after the run round the van. Joke.

Yes on us workers and sadly on the ones who truely need state help. People like that should look at themselves and think. Do I really need this or am I being selfish.

[PriorityOne]

Re: How little money can a person live on?

£26K is seen as a very generous Benefits package to many working people who get a lot less than this to support themselves and their families.

IMO, the real unfairness is that work simply doesn't "pay" for everyone and until the Gov. can sort this out by bringing back the living wage, this country will not move forward.

[vasarely]

Re: How little money can a person live on?

It all depends on where you live, in London £26k wouldn't be enough to support a family. Housing and transport alone would be more than that. Yet all the big chains pay much the same in London as they would in, say, South Wales. This means the only people to work for those places in the capital are young people/students/working holidaymakers/recent immigrants, etc. The reality is, if someone on JSA took on one of them jobs, they'd still have to rely on benefits to pay the rent, etc. - in effect the government would be subsidising those businesses.

[PriorityOne]

Re: How little money can a person live on?

It all depends on where you live, in London £26k wouldn't be enough to support a family. Housing and transport alone would be more than that. Yet all the big chains pay much the same in London as they would in, say, South Wales. This means the only people to work for those places in the capital are young people/students/working holidaymakers/recent immigrants, etc. The reality is, if someone on JSA took on one of them jobs, they'd still have to rely on benefits to pay the rent, etc. - in effect the government would be subsidising those businesses.

Yes.... the Government seemed to have cottoned on to the high cost of living in London and now seem to be doing a huge social cleanse there. In fact, London boroughs are helping some of their more feral families to move into seaside towns, where accommodation is a lot cheaper but seem to have forgotten about the extra public resources needed to cater for their "needs".

In my area, there have been huge attempts to hush this up but 22 Freedom of information Requests were sent out to different London boroughs in recent months to try and get an idea about numbers. I know this for a fact.... but am not supposed to. The only reason I know is because I had feral neighbours from Hell rent a property near me as private tenants and it took 9 months of investigative hard work to get them out.

[pompeyfaith]

Re: How little money can a person live on?

Only Just the other day I listened to cameron spout his baloney again sighting the families on 100k HB very few get this amount and is all based around one large family being housed in a private rented property in london due to there being no council/HA properties available.

This is how legit this coalition is:

http://www.publications.parliament.u.../15707.htm#a12

[PriorityOne]

Re: How little money can a person live on?

Only Just the other day I listened to cameron spout his baloney again sighting the families on 100k HB very few get this amount and is all based around one large family being housed in a private rented property in london due to there being no council/HA properties available.

This is how legit this coalition is:

http://www.publications.parliament.u.../15707.htm#a12

That's 'coz Thatcher sold off all the social housing stocks.....

[pompeyfaith]

Re: How little money can a person live on?

That's 'coz Thatcher sold off all the social housing stocks.....

Indeed but that does not give Cameron and his merry men the right to deceive the public with Baloney.

[pompeyfaith]

Re: How little money can a person live on?

Looks like the ECHR will soon be on the backs of ATOS, DWP and no doubt Government too.

IHRC - UK Appointed Disabilities & Claimants Anti Discrimination Task Force

https://www.facebook.com/ukhealthassessments

My Post:

Thank you for this page because the ECHR certainly need to get there act together because the human rights of the long term ill and disabled is being evaded left right and centre by the coalition even Parliament due process is not being followed and various legislation is being rushed through parliament aswell as as our right to justice being taken away under the LASPO ACT indeed many many are truly worried with stress and anxiety which is costing needless lives.

[PriorityOne]

Re: How little money can a person live on?

It's a very difficult area Pompey.... and the trouble is, various Governments have let Benefit entitlement get so out of control now that there's no easy way forward.

IMO, single parents getting a Benefit hike for popping out children should have been dealt with years ago and maybe we wouldn't have the huge underclass problem that we have now. I saw that situation begin to boom for myself in the mid-80s when scores of people I'd known at school were given houses for life (so to speak) for doing no more that pop out kids to men who wanted nothing to do with them, while people like me were busting our guts to work and pay a mortgage.

Many of these people then cottoned on to how easy it was to get disability benefits for their kids, which it was back then if you knew how to work it.... and they soon learned. ADHD became rife among young children whose parent(s) claimed that their kids "suffered" from this "condition" (a social disorder) and I still come across parents now who've given instructions to their kid to play up in front of authorities who need to submit reports to DWP re. DLA for ADHD. I'm sure the Government know about this but as it's so very widespread now, there will be an absolute riot if/when they decide to tackle this particular one because it can be claimed per child, with Carer's Allowance on top if it's awarded at the mid-rate or above..... and as such, can be worth an absolute fortune in real terms.

In an ideal world, Governments would take responsibility for creating a system so open to abuse but of course, they don't. They have also chosen the very worst time to claw back money from people and IMO, should have made changes years earlier when the economy was healthier than it is now. The whole system has become an absolute farce and a lifestyle choice for many..... and unfortunately, the upshot is that thousands of genuine people are now left with nowhere to go and no-one to turn to for help. Either that, or they're sh*t scared of claiming in the first place in case they're seen as milking the system.

[Pixie]

Re: How little money can a person live on?

You've hit the nail on the head there P1 (though at one time I was a single mother of 4 on benefits )

[PriorityOne]

Re: How little money can a person live on?

You've hit the nail on the head there P1 (though at one time I was a single mother of 4 on benefits )

I've been a single mother as well Pix and was on Benefits for years for one reason or another. It's really hard to explain something like this without coming across as judgemental..... but there have been many over the years who've made a mockery of the whole system and the Government have either ignored it or been too bloody stupid to see it.

I was thankful that the Benefits system was there when my life fell apart and to be honest, would have found it very hard to cope if i'd been forced back to work when my daughter was 5; like it is now. The problem is that the life choices of many have now ruined a support network for everyone else that could have worked very well.

[ken100464]

Re: How little money can a person live on?

Think the thing that everyone is really missing is this government is dividing by envy.

Everyone seems to think the civil servants and local authority workers all had gold plated pensions and were paid an earth. So was quite right to take an axe to them. Wrong we aint

Now its the workshy and feckless and behind that the people who really do need help. But the public are being fed the £1000 housing scams etc but it will be the ones at the bottom who will really suffer. So wrong again

They are already lining up schools and the NHS and softening up public opinion.

When you are one of these groups it feels very unfair the public are holding you up as the reason why the country is a mess and therefore needs to have the cuts there.

Doubt the armed forces are happy but they been cut. Its across the board except where the regulation and cuts really should be. The fecking banks and the fecking politicians.

But by envy politics each vested interest group turns on the next just to avoid attention on itself.

But misses the real culprits.

[The Tech Clerk]

Re: How little money can a person live on?

Think the reality of being poor is pretty neatly summed up in this article.

However the thing that I think most people in work will have trouble with is the last bit. The discretionary spending.

While benifits are there for helping people down on their luck and I doubt many actually begrudge them, I suspect many low income families cant afford a holiday and cut back on all the treats just to make ends meet.

Yes life sucks on benifits and yes some people cant make the leap back into employment.

However many many can and should.

Seen that type of thing years ago outside a Bank and car pulls up driver on his own in the car jumps out and litterally

The sort of person who shouldnt is this person seen in Southport last weekend.

Drives up in a brand new spanking van and parks in a disabled bay. The van is a locksmiths van and this years plate. So a month old?

Puts a disabled disc in his van and jumps out with his wife and jogs round to her side. They go to the shops but only when he remembers to limp after the run round the van. Joke.

Yes on us workers and sadly on the ones who truely need state help. People like that should look at themselves and think. Do I really need this or am I being selfish.

:=

Seen this type of thing years ago, outside a bank: - car pulls up driver only in the car, gets out runs yes runs into Bank and I say to the Copper next to me see that he has a invalid Blue sticker in the car and is not for him, the copper said as long as one is displayed there is nothing that can be done,

[PriorityOne]

Re: How little money can a person live on?

Think the thing that everyone is really missing is this government is dividing by envy.

Envy is alive and well..... helped along by the celebrity culture of pointless people who've managed to get a lucrative income by doing little more than act like prize idiots in front of a camera. The likes of TOWIE and Geordie Shore are prime examples of this.... as is the X-Factor, Big Brother, etc. Programmes like this influence people to think it's easy to get a lifestyle like this and that they can do it too. Unfortunately, these are the role models of today....

The number of people on low income/Benefits near me who manage to find money for false nails, tattoos and piercings continues to amaze me; not because I'm surprised they have the money but because of what they choose to do with it and if they're on Benefits, the fact that they're even able to at the taxpayer's expense. These same people are quite happy to send their kids to school on an empty stomach with no coat and holes in his/her shoes though.