Why are people on benefits allowed to live in London?!

EndAllBenefits

After a nasty turn of events this weekend, which led me to look at the housing benefit payment rates for people who live in London i am totally shocked and astounded!!
How on earth can people be allowed to go live in London then claim these amounts of money every month?? :mad:

Its just totally mind boggling and absurd that you can get 35k per year just for not working even if you're single with no kids, 42k per year if you have a kid, and then from 50k to over 200k per year if you have lots of kids!!
Yet even if you work hard at university and get a very highly regarded job you are lucky to earn 25-30k!!

Graham_Devon

Thank god, a benefits thread. Don't have to argue that houses are so affordable, but unaffordable for a while.

Cleaver

EndAllBenefits wrote: »

After a nasty turn of events this weekend, which led me to look at the housing benefit payment rates for people who live in London i am totally shocked and astounded!!
How on earth can people be allowed to go live in London then claim these amounts of money every month?? :mad:

Its just totally mind boggling and absurd that you can get 35k per year just for not working even if you're single with no kids, 42k per year if you have a kid, and then from 50k to over 200k per year if you have lots of kids!!

There's other discussions on here this week about benefit and I think many people agree that some benefits, to certain people, are excessive.

As you've already set your stall out with a username of 'EndAllBenefits' it seems a bit pointless entering to discussion with you on the subject though.

EndAllBenefits wrote: »

Yet even if you work hard at university and get a very highly regarded job you are lucky to earn 25-30k!!

I love the way a university education is seen as a golden ticket to glory wages nowadays. Aren't around 50% of early twenties going to Uni nowadays? They can't all earn massive wages.

globalds

If people really did start moving out of London because benefits would not cover rents,would that effect property value?






Just to get the thread back on track

vaporate

lol, where are you getting your figures from?

Housing benefit, council tax benefit and JSA is all you get as far as I know. For a single person.

ILW

EndAllBenefits wrote: »

After a nasty turn of events this weekend, which led me to look at the housing benefit payment rates for people who live in London i am totally shocked and astounded!!
How on earth can people be allowed to go live in London then claim these amounts of money every month?? :mad:

Its just totally mind boggling and absurd that you can get 35k per year just for not working even if you're single with no kids, 42k per year if you have a kid, and then from 50k to over 200k per year if you have lots of kids!!
Yet even if you work hard at university and get a very highly regarded job you are lucky to earn 25-30k!!

Got some news for you, employers couldn't give a toss how hard you worked at university, they are interested in what you are worth to them and the two are not necessarily connected.

kabayiri

Increasingly London has to be a seen as a centre for high value ; high skill professions. It needs to attract high wealth individuals who in turn will attract and pull in wealth.

It's hard to see people on long term benefits fitting in to such an environment going forward. All these low paid cleaners and road sweepers should be bussed in.

bristol_pilot

Where have you been? Didn't you watch the news during the recent election? This issue was a hot topic! Under Labour, working people taxed to death so that unemployed chavs can get £100k tax-free. Got me to vote Tory for the first time ever. I think its only chav families though, single people get diddly squat.

Jim_B_3

kabayiri wrote: »

Increasingly London has to be a seen as a centre for high value ; high skill professions. It needs to attract high wealth individuals who in turn will attract and pull in wealth.

It's hard to see people on long term benefits fitting in to such an environment going forward. All these low paid cleaners and road sweepers should be bussed in.

If the subsidy paid to the low-paid workers in London were withdrawn, presumably they would cease to live there, meaning that in London it would be very hard to hire people to do these jobs. Accordingly, the wages of these jobs would go up, so the prices would go up, so the higher paid professions there would themselves be paying the extra and London would become a less attractive place to live and work, so the London premium on everything would come down a bit. Surely, if we just removed the subsidy to low-paid workers, or capped it level with the rest of the UK, this would all sort itself out.

PasturesNew

I'm assuming the Queen lives in the posh bit, the most expensive - if I'm wrong, then say so ... but as I don't know London at all I figured she'd have a gaff in the posh bit.

So, if the Queen had a 1-bed flat for rent at Buck House, the LHA would be £350/week. That's £18,200 in LHA as a single person over 25's 'entitled to' (the words make me spit) a 1-bed self-contained place.

JSA is about £65/week, so £3380

Let's guess at the council tax band for that and assume it's top dollar, band H, at £1325, which seems bl00dy cheap to me! Then there's the 25% discount on that, so £994.

So, total benefits for a regular single person, aged 25 or over, living alone, just a regular person on the dole:

£18,200 rent
£994 council tax
£3,380 JSA
=====
£22,574 per year "in the hand" so to speak.

To earn that much takes a salary of £32,200 if you have a student loan and £30,000 if you don't.

PasturesNew

I then looked at all places ..... and what was a surprising find was the extra cost of a 5th bedroom. 4-beds £1000/week, 5-beds £2000/week.


Shared: £140.94
1-bed: £350.00
2-bed: £500.00
3-bed: £750.00
4-bed: £1,000.00
5-bed: £2,000.00