"This is how much the law says you need to live on"

MissSarah1972

GotNoMoney wrote: »

Thanks for all the replies, but not a single one shows any actual numbers. I want to see how they arrive at the figure of £67.50 a week.

Comments like "If you looked this hard for a job" are a good way of avoiding the subject.

All I want to see is something like:

Gas bill: £10
Electric bill: £25
Food expenses: £27.50
Travel: £5.00
TOTAL: £67.50

I don't understand why asking such a question should be such a shock to people. I am not the one that said "this is how much the law says you need to live on".

Its like me conning someone into paying me £50 a week then when they come around to asking me why they are paying me this money, I say "because the law says". The first thing they will say is show me which law or where "the" law says that.

What if someone worked out these figures properly? We all know the sum would exceed £67.50 by quite a long way once you start bringing clothes and other such items (only ones that are needed) into account.

It would be interesting to see what figure it really amounts to, just out of interest.

Of course no one thinks about how much job searching costs you. You have no mentioned phone line? Internet? Rent that may be paid to a family memeber etc

LittleVoice

THEking wrote: »

How much money the law says you need to live on each week
£102 75

we take away £81 because you have £5,000 savings in the bank and £250 in a joint account


we paying you £21 62 per week


The £250 is in a joint account pays our Direct Debit two water bills fluctuates sometimes down to just £5 and we feed it with money from the other account

The £5000 constantly changes because one my partner has her 16 hours shop assistant wage paid into the account £386 pm

That account has direct Debit outage of £1000 a month taken out that we need to live , rent council tax and our £30 a month £30 every week in the winter electric meter heating bill TV and £60 a month food bill comes out of.

If we had a car everyday running cost looking for work would add to the mayhem they say get rid of the car.
Bus fares to work cost you more than running a car


If the law says two people can live on £102 75 why don't they take a wage cut and try and live on it To sort the mess they got us in . It was not all our doing.

Just think those politicians are going to announce there wage rise of 13 percent they say they need to carry out there duties soon while saying we can only have 2%

BTW were both not young Both got heart disease loads of medication. So my partner lucky she has a job and why would anyone want to employ me a 60 year old in my condition when there are bright young guys leaving college and school looking for work . Who are going to give them greater work longevity.

Do you know to add to all this the tax people have told us to repay £6,500 tax credits. my partner only ears £4,800 a year so if we have to pay this back, we going to pay it back 50p a week we going to be dead before they get it all.

I wonder what you were searching for that led you to resurrect this thread where the previous post was more than 16 months ago.

debrag

dawyldthing wrote: »

On a basic budget I recogn (even sharing) you could get away with
£15 - electric a week - £30 a month
£2 - pre-payment certificate for medicines (if needed) - don't have
£15 - food a week -£25 a week (for 2)
£4 - water rates a week - £23 a month
£10 - gas a week - £20 a month
£5 - healthcare plan (if needed) a week - don't have
£5 - household insurance - £8 a month

= £56 - leaving £11.50 surplus, or £598 to do as you please (which isn't bad really)

The comments are what we pay a month. What about travel costs?

govhater

GotNoMoney wrote: »

_____________________________________________________

Main question:

When the Department for Work and Pensions send you a letter and it says (actual quote, verbatim) ...

"This is how much the law says you need to live on"

... can anyone point me to this "law" please?

Which Act?


Which sub-section?

I want to see a breakdown of what is allocated for say, the gas bill, electric bill, water rates and so on, including food.

_____________________________________________________

Second question:

You can get "hardship" payments whilst you are not seeking work, so then aren't there people just continually claiming hardship payments and never looking for work? Hardship payments are only £10 a week less than normal Jobseeker's Allowance payments.

How many hardship payments can you claim? An unlimited amount for an unlimited time?

I would look myself, but I am not looking through fifty thousand billion trillion pages of laws that were designed from the outset to make it nearly impossible to clarify anything you have a question about, I wondered if anyone here might know the answers?

THERE IS NO LAW that says this, it is decided by the Government, its a big stick to shut most people up, like everything they do to the POOR.:T
I asked the same question , and was told there is no actual law.

ohreally

http://www.jrf.org.uk/publications/MIS-2012

gittel

I've heard reports that the rules for this are changing along with many other aspects of the benefits system. Has anyone heard anything about this and what this might be? Thanks

AP007

teabelly wrote: »

Benefits aren't supposed to be easy to live on. We as a nation do not need people living comfortably on benefits. We want people earning their own money. If you are a single person on benefits the idea is that you would be living with someone else: parents, friends etc rather than being independent. Then you can survive on £67 a week plus housing benefit + lha and whatever else. You aren't expected to have a life, run a car or do anything but look for work and live on soup and noodles.

If you did have £5999 in savings the moment your benefit was in your hand then you'd be over the threshold so you need to have less in the bank....

You do not get housing benefit if you live with family

Edit - good god just seen how old this thread is!!!

InA

mizzbiz wrote: »

I happen to unfortunately work slap bang in the middle of a council estate. It's not that I'm stereotyping, but I find it hard to believe my eyes when I go for lunch (at 1:30 pm) to see people hanging around in dressing gowns, people sunbathing in their gardens, kids (post school age) just 'knocking about'.

I get the impression that people can live comfortably on benefits if they know what they're doing!! When I was unemployed for 1 month I got JSA only - no sunbathing or midday tea for me on that amount. I had to find work.

I wonder though if this lifestyle is really indicative of reduced aspirations and one of the reasons people become "trapped" on benefits? People living cheaply within their (reduced) means, with "hobbies" that have no cost associated with them (i.e. just lounging around).

No theatre, no holidays, no travel beyond the town or region you live in, no treating yourself to nice / expensive things (clothes, perfume, getting your hair done) when you're out shopping just because you want to and can afford it etc. When you have all these things and are used to getting them, then of course you will be longing to get back to earning the sort of money you used to earn when you suddenly lose your job. However, people who don't have this experience don't know what they're missing.

Just as an aside, we can't assume that people in their dressing gowns at lunchtime are all lazy bums, not everyone works 9 to 5.

Also, kids (post school age) who have been brought up on a council estate probably didn't go to the best schools and may not have had the best experience at school or the best attitude as a result; I wonder how many rejections they faced before they gave up completely - even "losers" want to have more money to spend, but perhaps they start putting on a front of not caring when everyone else has already written them off? After all, it hurts the ego less to say you didn't get the job because you didn't give a damn and didn't want it anyway (which can become a self-fulfilling prophecy if it happens enough times).

Yes individuals are ultimately responsible for themselves, but sometimes it's society that shapes an individual's chances in life. Unfortunately, we are not all born equal (whether we like to admit that or not).

Edit: Didn't realise this was an old thread.