[Closed] How do they do it? Benefits/Life of Riley Content.

Firstly median income is £21k. Secondly you're missing either childcare costs or one person staying at home to look after the cherubs. Thirdly I think you're missing tax.

At least one of my neighbours assumed that I didn't have a job. I work from home, come and go at irregular hours and don't have a works van outside so there's no outwards signs of employment.

Same here.

same here and strangely they dont go out to work but seem to know or IMAGINE the non work a lot of us do.

and to the o/p get a bloody life, other peoples lives are best left to itv to examine in detail, perhaps next time spend effort on working out how cameroon and the royal family still get many thousands each year for doing sod all

Firstly median income is £21k

Equates to about £2900 (£1450 x 2) per month take home after tax and NI.

Or if one stays at home to look after the children £17,400 net per year. About the same as the income on benefits.

OP - do you know for a fact they're on benefits? And how do you know there are no disabilities?

He's counted their legs and they're in even numbers.

OP - do you know for a fact they're on benefits? And how do you know there are no disabilities?

It's your civic duty, as a young conservative, to turn up at their front door with a sharpened pitch fork and demand evidence of game full employment. If they can't prove it then you should lynch them immediately, as an example to all the hard working families on the estate.

and to the o/p get a bloody life, other peoples lives are best left to itv to examine in detail, perhaps next time spend effort on working out how cameroon and the royal family still get many thousands each year for doing sod all

And as for Cameron, there is no way on **** earth I'd do that job for £100-oddK.

Pfft! The £100-odd K is only his trainee salary - think of it like a YTS - till he does a Blair and earns 700 squillion quid a year doing the PR for dictators

Can't you just skip the whole PM thing and go straight to the highly paid dictators bitch position?

there is no way on **** earth I'd do that job for £100-oddK.

Cameroon doesn't need the 100k a year. He's a multi millionaire. It's all about the POWA!

re: the OP, I've got no idea, however, I have learnt that things are rarely as straightforward as they may seem.

Anecdotal (we love em.) Friend of mine is a teacher at a junior school and they have a proper mix of kids from different backgrounds. She ran a careers session to get the kids thinking about what they'd like to do when they were older. A couple of the lads ventured the idea they'd be quite happy on the government's handouts. My friend asked them if they wouldn't prefer to maybe achieve better than that so they could have a nice car? "What, like you miss? nah, I'll leave it, my Dad's got a warrior truck."

I currently work for social housing so get to see lots of people on benefits, lots of them with obvious mental health issues or addiction issues. They all manage to get by if all you want to do is sit and watch telly and have no real control over your life. If they have a new VW that's not mobility they have alternative incomes. Illegal possibly or just easier and better than us and if that's the case good luck to them.

for balance I dealt with a man today who has not eaten for three days and has no gas an electricity
When he left he said back to my house on my own to sit in the dark and cold
I am sure this lesson from IDS will be helping his mental health condition no end

As others note they either have other money, work or they are breaking the law as we all know the OP would never make things up on the internet

Football pools/lottery/gambling/inheritance?

other peoples lives are best left to itv to examine in detail

Agreed. I've lived a much calmer life since I stopped frothing about other peoples material lives, and focused on my own circumstances.

Surfmat just flounced again from the SSB yesterday 😆

Couple of doors down from me there is a family of 6. Four kids between 7 and 17, neither of the parents work, nor have they in the 5 years they've been here. They have just bought a reasonably high spec 15 plate VW Transporter Shuttle.

How do you know the VW is their property? How do you know they actually paid for it themselves? How do you know they receive benefits (beyond non-means tested benefits)? Specifically what benefits do you know them to be on? How do you know they don't work?

I so want this to be true, ideally with a animated GIF.

A surfing polar bear.

Surfmat just flounced again from the SSB yesterday

I'm amazed it's still going. Link?

2 people on [b]minimum wage after tax[/b] = £11,055.96 x 2 = £22111.92
They could claim working tax credit of around £4000+ [b] childcare costs[/b]
=£26111
minus off the rent as the other 2 get housing benefit
=20k?

You forgot to take the income tax and Ni off the earners stu.

Secondly you're missing either childcare

working tax credit was £7000 or something when I filled in the calculator I minus'd the childcare back off.

Why do some people want to see people actively punished? I'll never understand why people will happily ignore the rich getting rich but actively hate someone for possibly not doing much work and getting a few quid for having a child with disabilities. Truly an odd bunch.

At least the OP's neighbours aren't out taking jobs from more deserving people.

wanmankylung is George Osborne and I claim my £5?

I'm not sure anyone above has mentioned the [url= https://www.gov.uk/benefit-cap ]Benefits Cap[/url]. Although that doesn't seem to apply to the Motability scheme, which does seem to be quite a significant perk.

I'll never understand why people will happily ignore the rich getting rich but actively hate someone for possibly not doing much work and getting a few quid for having a child with disabilities. Truly an odd bunch.

As a 25 year taxpayer, those people to whom you refer are being funded by people like me and presumably you. Taxes increase (in part) to fund them.

Do you think its fair that good, honest workers fund work shy, lazy bastards* that play the state taxation system aka some of my/your wages to fund their lifestyles? Having said that, that's the life we lead not much can be done about it I suppose.

FWIW I'm all for helping those with [i]genuine [/i]disadvantages.

* I don't know the family in questions so this is a deliberate emotive genericism rather than a judgement of them.

Do you think its fair that good, honest workers fund work shy, lazy bastards* that play the state taxation system aka some of my/your wages to fund their lifestyles?

You know what if it means their kids have a decent start in life then yeah I'm happy with my tax money to be spent on them, if I had more cash I'd only blow it on bike bits and black friday gadgets made in china for pennies and sold here for £hundreds

I'm all for a welfare state, I only had to really make use of it for a few months after dropping out of Uni (a long time ago...) but I'm glad it's there and don't begrudge paying my taxes to help fund it. However it's way too open to abuse - personally I'd implement food stamps instead of handing out cash. Does it really need to be a human right to allow people to do whatever they want with their benefit money (smoke, get drunk, take drugs, go on foreign holidays, have the latest smartphones etc.)? I personally know several people that do some or all of those on benefits, I'm not a raving Daily Mail subscriber...
Food and shelter is what benefits should provide and then invest the savings into getting people into work, building affordable housing, improving mental health care and the NHS in general.

As a 25 year taxpayer, those people to whom you refer are being funded by people like me and presumably you. Taxes increase (in part) to fund them.

Do you think its fair that good, honest workers fund work shy, lazy bastards* that play the state taxation system aka some of my/your wages to fund their lifestyles? Having said that, that's the life we lead not much can be done about it I suppose.

We subsidise the rich far more than the poor, through taxation.

Tax credits allow the rich to employ people on poverty wages who don't starve only because we subsidise their poverty through taxation.

We turn a blind eye / condone massive tax avoidance from multinationals, costing trillions every year - which saves the owners / shareholders from paying their fair share of tax.

This could also apply to the rich

I'm so "squeezed middle" its unbelievable. Workers rise up I say, rise up and unite, RISE UP AND DEMONSTRATE AGAINST THE POWERS THAT SUBDUE US AND LIVE IN FAKE IGNORANCE OF OUR PLIGHT, RISE, RISE AND...

Anyway, back to my nespresso.

We subsidise the rich far more than the poor, through taxation.

Tax credits allow the rich to employ people on poverty wages who don't starve only because we subsidise their poverty through taxation.

We turn a blind eye / condone massive tax avoidance from multinationals, costing trillions every year - which saves the owners / shareholders from paying their fair share of tax.

In a nutshell, this. Of course the largely right-wing media are doing an awesome job of demonising those at the bottom whilst those at the top get away with more and more.

[url= http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/jul/07/corporate-welfare-a-93bn-handshake ]Corporate Welfare costs £95 billion a year[/url]

[quote="Kryton57"]]Do you think its fair that good, honest workers fund work shy, lazy bastards* that play the state taxation system aka some of my/your wages to fund [i]their lifestyles?[/i]MPs? Or am i on the wrong thread?

And as pointed out on here earlier, the lazy workshy dole scrounger could be a remote worker on 100 grand a year.

Yes I acknowledged that by implication a few posts up.

I havta say, having spent a few years on benefits at various stages in my life (me brain injury, my partner cancer) even disregarding the interminable hoops you have to jump through, it's certainly not the fantasy that some of the deluded, envious malcontents imagine..

Simply running a car and paying bills is enough of a drain, never mind luxury goods, holidays and nice vehicles.. It would have certainly turned us to fags and booze if there was no light at the end of the tunnel

Don't buy into the right wing propaganda, you're honestly only making fools of yourselves, and making life unbearable for people already struggling

Don't buy into the right wing propaganda, you're honestly only making fools of yourselves, and making life unbearable for people already struggling

^ this - repeat, repeat, repeat, it might sink in eventually

The people 'gaming the system and living a life of riley' (if they even really exist to the degree implied) are vanishingly small and dwarfed by the transgressions of business and the super wealthy.

Kryton57 » ]Do you think its fair that good, honest workers fund work shy, lazy bastards* that play the state taxation system aka some of my/your wages to fund their lifestyles?

This argument is illogical, factually incorrect, hypocritical, unempathetc and ultimately oppressive....

I don't work.

I do alright 😀

Do you think its fair that good, honest workers fund work shy, lazy bastards* that play the state taxation system aka some of my/your wages to fund their lifestyles?

IIRC you have to be in the top 40% of household income to break even. Anyone who is "hard working" but whose income is under £40k is a net taker.

I could gloat and say that I earn plenty more than that. Or I could suggest that a fair welfare state is a jolly good idea and that the amount of benefits fraud (which is what the OP has implied) is tiny (and disprortionately reported on.

Or, in others words: check you're not in a glass house before throwing any stones....

edenvalleyboy - Member
Kryton57 » ]Do you think its fair that good, honest workers fund work shy, lazy bastards* that play the state taxation system aka some of my/your wages to fund their lifestyles?

This argument is illogical, factually incorrect, hypocritical, unempathetic and ultimately oppressive...

Is it? Care to explain?

illogical, factually incorrect

Its logical that there are good workers, and workshy people, both are factually correct.

hypocritical

Nope, I'm neither workshy nor claiming anything from the state

unempathetic

To people playing the taxation system to gain free/more more at the expense of the honest workers contribution? Ok yes I hold my hands up to that one.

ultimately oppressive

You may have to explain that to me, but although I promote the oppression of cheats, I don't believe I'd ultimate achieve it by posting on STW,

Kryton57 » ]Do you think its fair that good, honest workers fund work shy, lazy bastards* that play the state taxation system aka some of my/your wages to fund their lifestyles?

if we can afford to pay for the royal family we can damn well afford to give some poor people a few quid extra.

If I ever become a good honest worker I'll pop back and voice my opinion

but but but - anyone with a job is good and honest and hardworking. Anyone on benefits is lazy and ****less and morally deficient. It's a simple binary, just grab a pitchfork and stop confusing the issue!

@Kryton57 - my mistake - I should have disclaimed you - I was meaning the base of the argument I.e. what was written is general rhetoric from the media...its hypocritical because all sections of society sponge from the state, factually incorrect because the argument claims many people are living the high life when they are not (numerous stats out there to disprove the benfit fraud argument), illogical e.g. we know jobs are scarce but we bash people for not working, maybe they can't work etc...if I was to assume anything I'd guess OP's comments all based upon how the family 'look' and then OP made the assumption they are scrounging...that's the oppressive part...

My wife has taught dozens of kids over the years who are destined to be the third generation of their families who've never worked

johnners - Member
Dozens encountered by one teacher? I guess your wife could be in at the start of a new cultural phenomenom but that whole worklessness passed down generations myth has been debunked so it seems a bit unlikely.

Or maybe she's just spent the last 16 years teaching in tough comprehensive schools in fairly challenging areas (like New Addington/Erith/Ramsden/etc) with a high percentage of traveller families (who in essence don't work) and high percentage of families trapped in a cycle of poverty/illness/work refusal.
It is hardly surprising that some kids aren't too fussed about exams when they've got more pressing issues to deal with at home - like cooking dinner for their younger siblings due to their parents being either absent or wasted.

Or maybe she's just spent the last 16 years teaching in tough comprehensive schools in fairly challenging areas (like New Addington/Erith/Ramsden/etc) with a high percentage of traveller families (who in essence don't work) and high percentage of families trapped in a cycle of poverty/illness/work refusal.

Well, maybe so. I can accept the odd isolated instance exists and I'd be interested to see any evidence for the problem being endemic in whole communities as you seem to be suggesting, but I've seen no such evidence. For now I'm going to pass on the teacher anecdote in favour of [url= https://www.jrf.org.uk/report/are-cultures-worklessness-passed-down-generations ]the report I originally linked to[/url].

My wife has taught dozens of kids over the years who are destined to be the third generation of their families who've never worked

How big is the problem of families on benefits where generations have never worked?

Patterns of work in working-age households
Observer graphics
The Joseph Rowntree Foundation published a study in December testing whether there were three generations of the same family that had never worked.

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2013/apr/06/welfare-britain-facts-myths

The falsehoods that folk swallow and repeat on benefits is staggering. That some have degrees is shocking

the rest of your post was basically borderline racist as well as being a factually accurate as the first part.

 

with a high percentage of traveller families (who in essence don't work)

What?
Travellers do work. They may not declare all their income to the taxman but they do work.