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

If a life of benefits is so easy why don’t you give it a go?

You would need to **** away your assets first, assuming you had more than £16k of them.

Actually, that sounds like a win-win.

4 x child tax credits, income & housing support, motability (probably), child support, job seekers allowance x 2. No tax, no NI, Tesco’s value food, etc.

Child tax credit = £50pw x 4 = £10400
JSA = £73.80pw x 2 x 52 = £7529pa
Total = £18k

How much is child benefit on top of that?

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

UK average salary is £26,500 x 2
£43k so a fair bit more..

I’d say it doesn’t really add up and those saying that they are probably better off than them are full of shit.

surfmat has a business card? what did it say on it?

“I’m more awesomer than you, deal with it”

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

minus off the rent as the other 2 get housing benefit
=20k?

UK average salary is £26,500 x 2
£43k so a fair bit more..

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

And if we were both to work, the cost of the kids nursery, school meals, breakfast / afternoon clubs, travel…

Work that out, and I think you find disposable income is much different between them and us.

So far you’ve calculated them on a £1600 monthly disposable income, lovely.

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

Eh? He can ask about what he likes, he hasn’t named anyone. And as for Cameron, there is no way on **** earth I’d do that job for £100-oddK.

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 minimum wage after tax = £11,055.96 x 2 = £22111.92
They could claim working tax credit of around £4000+ childcare costs
=£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 Benefits Cap. 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 genuine 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.

This could also apply to the rich.

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.

Corporate Welfare costs £95 billion a year

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….