Could your family survive on 26k a year?

[Detector]

i personally think the whole benefit system needs a massive overhaul and ALL benefits reduced even further to encourage a working family life.
i have worked for years and at one point was doing a 7 day a week, 5 days in a normal job and 2 days running my own business. paid all my taxes etc. then theres our gert - shes worked all her life in very hard demanding jobs and because of it her knees/joints are swolen and arthritic and she is doubled up with pain. i had an accident a few years ago and broke my leg and damaged my back which meant i had to stop running my own business. we have tried to get help in the past because we both worked in low income jobs but we seem to get fuck all and struggle. we now have around £400 a month left after the main bills to live on for 4 weeks.

yet our gerts neice gets a fucking fortune, her husband/chap claims all sorts for mental problems and drinking issues and gets around £400 a month on top of everything else. its wrong.

26k is a lot to some

[Zoots]

26k is a lot to some

Damn straight. There's four of us - me and the mrs and two sprogs. Our annual income is 23k before tax. We really struggle some months. Apart from working tax and child benefit which is pants, we get fuck all help. We starve the kids every other day which helps.

[ilscuro]

I agree with Detector, the whole system needs a massive overhaul, of course there are genuine people who need help, but there are far far more playing the system.

When i was younger i held down 3 jobs, working 7 days a week, and getting nowhere near 26k a year, but it was enough to keep me and my daughters.

[Over Carl]

I used to work full time a few years back for the paltry sum of £13,500 before tax. I don't see why any layabout should be entitled to a penny more than if they worked for minimum wage (minus say 25-33% as the fuckers aren't working for it and need an actual incentive to get back to work).

Genuinely disabled - gets tricky. I can see for and against the sums they receive.

Ok, while it maybe each adult's human right to bear children, it also is each child's human right to be raised adequately. If a parent fails to do this we already have laws concerning neglect and abuse. This would be very harsh though on a person made unemployed. Just for example a fair test could be that the parent should show a well founded plan to support the child that was changed by unforseen events.

Personally I don't see them ever really fixing this - why has the whole country allowed the bankers to rob the whole country and the policitians to get away with blatant theft without any real noise? My theory is we are all comfy with too much to loose.

[flumperino]

I don't buy the 'human right' argument.

To me the notion of it being our human right to reproduce is a direct extension of the fact that we are animals and it is built into us to be born, reproduce, and then die. So with regards to the Darwin model, we are genetically inclined to reproduce, and we should be allowed to do so as much as we want without interference from others.

If that is the case though, then according to survival of the fittest, if we have more kids than we can suitably look after ourselves, then some of them will die. Back in caveman days no other fooker is going to look after your offspring or bring you food because you don't have enough. You don't provide enough food and water, your kids die.

A stupid analogy, I know; but no more stupid than claiming that having x kids that you can't afford is your 'human right'.

[flumperino]

Oh, and while I hate to be the perennial fence-sitter, I do think that the welfare system in this country is bloody amazing, and is a great help to those people that genuinely need it.

It is a (probably smaller than the papers would like us to believe) minority that spoil it for everyone else, by taking advantage of it for their won gain.

[kracken]

The problem these days , is that people who cant be bothered to get a job , know how to milk the system.
Get off your fucking fat lazy arses and get a job , if you cant get a job then fucking starve , sell your flash car , sell your big plasma tv and sky box , dont go on holiday and welcome to the real world of decent hard working people.

And 26k is far too much , it should be less than the minimum wage otherwise , whats the point ??

If your genuinely ill and unable to work , thats a different story and its people like you who need all the help they can get

[SiE]

The problem is that people get locked into the benefit system. I have a friend who cannot work as the only job he would be even considered for would not pay the bills and wouldn't be as much as the benefit he receives. It's wrong but a fact unfortunately.

I have also had experience of students going on to get a first degree and go straight on the dole and have no intention of doing anything else just because that's what their family does which infuriates me. It's a culture that has to be tackled.

I have been for the majority of life in a position were I have worked and paid my dues but for a 6 month period claimed job seekers. Boy was I glad of it at the time but I was proud to get off it as soon as I could. People don't see any shame in living on benefit even if they are fully capable of working which must be punished otherwise we are giving out more than we are taking in.

[Hangman]

I agree with many of the posters on here. £26k is way too high, I would set it at £15k max and if they want more then go get a fucking job. This country has major problems but the biggest is welfare. The whole idea of welfare is great, we help people who can't help themselves however the chav's ruin the system by expectying us to pay for them instead of working.

In fact fuck the £15k, just send round a van once a week with enough food for the number of people in the family, put a roof over there head and give some tokens for gas and electric and nothing else. If they want anything else then go get a job. I obviously exclude people who are really unable to work as that is what welfare is really for.

Also if someone is on the dole for 6 months they need to work for the dole, picking litter or cleaning graffiti, maybe if they realised that they have to work and they don't acctually get any cash then they might get a job. All the money saved can go towards providing free child care so people can work, the NHS and police etc with still loads left over to reduce tax.

I'm probably considered lucky as a family we have an income of around £75k pa but I work bloody hard for it, we have 3 kids and a nice house but paying £20k pa in tax is a joke. If we don't sort out welfare we will never have the money as a country to really invest in the areas that need it.

[bigtrevster]

where are the figures coming from? where do you get 26k being unemployed? i know it might mean housing benefit and jsa all combined,but as far as i know you get 90 odd quid per fortnight? and maybe a few hundred per month for housing benefit.

as i said before it's a lottery, average wage in different part's off the uk are so different,we had a debate on another forum about it and there was a crazy difference,people were working it out quite well,working in a neighbouring town/city and having a reduced cost off living when they got home...hell 1 off my mates goes to London 1 week per month and makes the same money as working the other 3 weeks here in sunny N.I,he used to live there and knows everyone,and also has a lot of contracts ongoing,he said he would never move back there tho as he would be skint yet over here he has a nice house and untill recently had a very nice 1 year old a4 sline

[Zoots]

The problem these days , is that people who cant be bothered to get a job , know how to milk the system.
Get off your fucking fat lazy arses and get a job , if you cant get a job then fucking starve , sell your flash car , sell your big plasma tv and sky box , dont go on holiday and welcome to the real world of decent hard working people.

Jesus. I can't agree more. And I see this every day. Mentioned before what we earn so it doesn't take a genius to work out we don't live in a particularly affluent area. Now, I see this shit every day and it's sickening to see women popping kids out one after another, I mean literally - some of them have 5 or six kids round here, no job, no bloke, big house, car and all the trimmings. Come Christmas and it's a like a big competition to spend the most. A girl in my kids' class had over a thousand quid spent on her and she made sure everyone knew about it. No, not all of them are like that but they're mostly desperate to catch up and the stragglers chase around the ring leaders like little lap dogs hoping for a crumb. You see them in the morning - fat, scraped back hair, baggy jogging bottoms and orange faces, dripping in cheap gold with the double buggies and the rest running round their ankles. Drop the relevant ones off at school then taxi at the gates into town to Greggs and peeling off twenty pound notes at Elizabeth Dukes. It's like a fucking chav club. If there's a bloke snared he's usually a full on wigger, love bite on the neck and spliff in the gob in a Nova or MkII Golf with a baked bean tin sized exhaust and LED windscreen washers. These twats have NO intention of EVER working for a living. My parents always worked - my Mum had three jobs while bringing us lot up - as soon as I left school I was straight on a YTS, college, apprentice then trade. Never been on the dole in my chuff and I'm in my 40's now. I know, I know not everyone is like this but there's a fucking lot of them. And when Harrison, Breeze and Aaliyah leave school you think they'll want to knuckle down and WORK to get all that free time and pots of cash? Will they fuck, coz they'll already have been desensitised to any notion of self respect.
They all slag off the Polish here for 'taking all our jobs'. Yeah, like they'd ever be your jobs. The immigrants work because someone needs to do the jobs and NONE of you cunts want to.

We'd love another kid but we know if we have another, the other two will suffer somewhere down the line. We already see that happening with the two we have. That said, we're happy with our lot and at least we can all hold our head up high, safe in the knowledge our kids will never be scroungers.

[liveseytowers]

And 26k is far too much , it should be less than the minimum wage otherwise , whats the point ??

I think this is the key point. You can get more legally from the state in benefits that you can by working on the minimum wage. For this to change the minimum wage needs to increase and the benefits need be reduced.

[DavidF]

Right I am going to go against the "Mob" here lol. The government and the Media have done their job so well here. What we have is the working man turning their against the sick and needy. Do you lot really think that your tax bill per year will reduce even if we had 0% unemployment ? (Impossible BTW) The government of the day would just find something else to spend it on. Think back (If you are old enough to go back that far) to when unemployment was way lower as a % than it is today. Was the tax bill lower ? Was it fook. Was the tax bill any higher when the unemployment figures soared ? Nope not really (IMHO).
A few things get my goat about the way todays britain gets so easily led by the media and it stinks imho. They tell you that we are wasting billions on welfare cheats, then bury way deep inside the figures that when checked and after spending many many millions chasing these cheats it turns out that they amount for 0.5% of the welfare bill.
So they move the goal post from "cheats" to long term unemployed - Lets look at some of them - A lot of them come from deprived area's where there literally is NO JOBS especially no jobs for the unemployed. I am all for cash injections into these areas to promote buisness start ups and incentives for buisness to locate in these areas Then we can look at who isn't willing to "Get off their fat arses"
Then they tell us that we are wasting billions on local government and council services (Quangos was a favourite word of theirs) So we sack 000's of them and where do they end up ? That's right the fooking dole queue along side the long term unemployed lmfao. Then in the next breath we are all moaning that our bins only get emptied once a fortnight lol. Wonder why that is ? God help you if you have special needs kids that need help as these services are under attack (I know as my brother works directly with these services). The fact is a lot of local government and local council services are stretched to breaking point. So under-funded that it's not even funny.
Yes let them work for their dole money - Doing what exactly ? Sweep the streets ? So shall we sack the road sweepers now and get the unemployed to do it for free ?
I could go on but i am getting into a rant mode now and I really dont want to lol.
Yes there are spongers out there, Yes it would be good to "sort" them out ect. But IMHO its got to the stage where everyone who is receiving any type of benefit is looked down at and sneered at. I ask any of you complaining about these "spongers" would you like to swap places with them ? Really ? At home all fooking day no holidays, No nice cars, No socialisation, Looked at as scum, No prospects, No hope, No aspirations all for £45 per week. How many packs of fags can you get for that ?
All the while the big business are laughing all the way to the corrupt bank. Negotiating their tax bills ffs ?(How many of you get the chance to negotiate how much tax you pay lmao) Banks gambling with YOUR money and when they loose YOU have to pay. Their pay stays the same the regulations stay the same and their bonus remains unaffected. Plenty of sound-bites stating about how they will fix it,regulate it make sure lessons are learned ect ect....but it's all nearly forgotten now, back to the next target. You watch it will be the pensioners next. They get too much £££ too many benefits they are a drain on resources ect ect ect.

[Zoots]

I ask any of you complaining about these "spongers" would you like to swap places with them ? Really ? At home all fooking day no holidays, No nice cars, No socialisation, Looked at as scum, No prospects, No hope, No aspirations all for £45 per week.

And the rest.
I'm (personally) not talking about the unemployed solely - I'm talking about those that play the game and come on, you're not telling me that this doesn't go on. No cars/holidays/socialising? Erm, not quite. Subsidised rent/council tax/free prescriptions, God knows what else - I'm not pretending I know how they do it but it adds up. It MUST do because the fuckers are there doing it for everyone to see. This is no Daily Mail inspired brainwashing mate, or some bandwagon I'm hitching a ride with, this is my neighbourhood and people I rub shoulders with every day.
But no, I wouldn't swap places as I like my self respect, but I can't deny me and the missus haven't said know what - it'd be nice to have some of that once in a while when we're feeling the pinch and paying for everything as we're just that bit above any ceiling set for help.

You're on the mark with LA/councils being under funded. I know that only too well. Organisation I'm involved with relies a lot on community volunteers to step up. These (in my experience) are usually retired or part-time workers.
Funnily enough, we never see the unemployed or the Greggs Brigade sacrifice their Jeremy Kyle* to help.


*deliberate Daily Mail cliche

[Over Carl]

If you rent you'll get housing benefits and council tax benefits on that wage. If you own a house then you won't get anything. How dare you own your own home tutut

Thing is owning a house is an asset and investment, not a human right. Why should others fund that investment when they may not even be in a position to make a similar investment for themselves?

The problem is that people get locked into the benefit system. I have a friend who cannot work as the only job he would be even considered for would not pay the bills and wouldn't be as much as the benefit he receives. It's wrong but a fact unfortunately.

I would suggest your friend is living beyond his means and therefore has no hope. I've downscaled to eating nothing but rice when times have called for it. If I wasn't prepared to sacrifice things in my life I would never be able to make progress in other areas.

Right I am going to go against the "Mob" here lol.... You watch it will be the pensioners next. They get too much £££ too many benefits they are a drain on resources ect ect ect.

They already have fucked loads of pensioners. My mum is going to have to work two extra years to fund some bankers bonus. I'm seriously considering next time anyone owns up to being a banker in my presence to just nut the fucker - as mentioned those at the top have made money out of all this and their crimes (whether you consider them crimes against humanity or actual criminal offences) are swept under the carpet and perversely the financial companies seem to be using Joe Public as their insurance without requesting consent.

Personally I would love to set up a company and make massive risks to hopefully make shitloads and if it all goes horriblly wrong to still demand my profits and just sting everyone else with the financial burden. Does anyone know the method by which the government will comply with this?

Would be interesting if we could see how much money is siphoned out of this country and handed out to people of the D/E classes versus money siphoned out to those of the A class.

[WRATH OF BOD]

same here, about 26k is about it,i work full time wife works part time due to knees & ankles being knackard.she was a dancer from age 3 till 21.hasent done her any favours health wise.
have 2 kids son 7 daughter 12.we do ok but not much cash to flash around.i have took 3 pay cuts in the last 3 years just to keep my job.thing is i love my job & cant see me feeling the same way about any other.i have work in same job for 21 years now.small company,i now run it & have for 8 years.but i dont work weekends which u used to6 & 7 Days A week a few years back.
i get some good perks out of the job & that helps.
the kids get what they want all year round or when we have some spare cash, we dont holiday abroad not for a long time, we do get to centre parks 1-2 times a year(infact we are of ther next week)
no help with council tax or anything like that, we do get child tax credits , own our home(550 a month mortgage),the wife deals with all the finances.
so with the tax credits we will be around the 26k.
i earn half what i did when i 1st started this job.(back in the early days i was on basic rate + commision & company car)once we started getting more staff & building the company up
i did most of the work from my desk, no more commision , put on salery.no car...
we have gone from me as the 1st one in upto 33 staff & 2 branches down to only 2 of us now & one shop/whearhouse how this industry has changed.

[blacksheep]

Right I am going to go against the "Mob" here lol. The government and the Media have done their job so well here. What we have is the working man turning their against the sick and needy. Do you lot really think that your tax bill per year will reduce even if we had 0% unemployment ? (Impossible BTW) The government of the day would just find something else to spend it on. Think back (If you are old enough to go back that far) to when unemployment was way lower as a % than it is today. Was the tax bill lower ? Was it fook. Was the tax bill any higher when the unemployment figures soared ? Nope not really (IMHO).

The tax bill might not be any lower but I might see more benefit from it in terms of better NHS, better police service, better roads, better services in the community (parks done up etc) and so on. Would you rather pay £500 a month tax and get a shitty service but someone doesn't have to work or £500 a month and have a nice leisure centre near by or not have to wait an hour at the doctors or actually be able to see an NHS dentist?