Iain Duncan Smith's new challenge - £53 a week

[aces_up1504]

Do the mans claims live up to any scrutiny or is it typical jump on the band wag on moment?

 

[aces_up1504]

I just read an article in the telegraph. It was was mentioned that the £53 was after housing and bills etc. Paints a different story now.

While its still not a lot. I believe IDS is correct

 

[MossCommuter]

I generally spend about £15 a week on groceries. £20 if NT and I are eating well at the weekend (IE, not just pasta!). If that leaves £33 a week to cover everything else, that's £132 a quarter...

In a warm summer quarter, my leccy bill comes in around £40. But in a winter quarter, it could be nearly all that £132. And that's only a little flat (albeit with inefficient heating).

Where do I sign up for this free internet you make so much use of?

 

[mickle]

A fair number could even try working for money.

Doesn't this rather depend on there being some jobs available?

 

[djb1971]

Doesn't this rather depend on there being some jobs available?

The people who don't want to work (not those who can't) have never bothered, even when jobs were readily available. I'd shovel shoot to put food on the table, spongers won't and don't if money is given too easily. If they're working and money is tight they should be given help, not taxpayers money to sit at home smoking and watching the TV all day. If you think this doesn't happen I can happily walk you around a local estate that's full of 'this type'.

Something needed to be done about giving money out to anyone, unfortunately it'll hit a few deserving ones too and its gone a bit tits up. But for every deserving benefit there's a hundred scammers.

Still on the bright side every claiming household will be limited to £26,000 per year!

 

[aces_up1504]

I have done and survived the challenge.

It was as a student, but many times I have had less than £50 to live on.

Benefits have come all to easy for to long and have created a culture of entitlement. That is not what the benefit system was created for.

We have 10's of thousand migrant workers from the poorer parts of the EU working in a country cleaning our offices, packing are vegetables, plucking chickens etc. What has created this vacuum of jobs for migrants to fill?

 

[ColinJ]

an i move to where you live ? my council tax is £28 a week for band b in a relativley cheap area.

My £16 includes a 25% single person discount, so it would be more like £21 if I had company. My house is only in band A.

Hebden Bridge is a popular town, but I live in a small 2-bedroom terraced former mill-worker's house with a front door that opens onto a cobbled street (Corrie-stylee), and at the back just a small yard where the outside toilet used to be.

 

[zizou]

Something needed to be done about giving money out to anyone, unfortunately it'll hit a few deserving ones too and its gone a bit tits up. But for every deserving benefit there's a hundred scammers.

The majority of people on benefits have jobs, the issues with low pay, unemployment and underemployment are far greater than a small minority who abuse the system

 

[deptfordmarmoset]

The majority of people on benefits have jobs, the issues with low pay, unemployment and underemployment are far greater than a small minority who abuse the system

Mere facts will not reduce the empathy deficit.

 

[Canrider]

Something needed to be done about giving money out to anyone, unfortunately it'll hit a few deserving ones too and its gone a bit tits up. But for every deserving benefit there's a hundred scammers.

Prove it, or change your username to LIAR.

 

[mcshroom]

Something needed to be done about giving money out to anyone, unfortunately it'll hit a few deserving ones too and its gone a bit tits up. But for every deserving benefit there's a hundred scammers.

According to the DWP: -

For 2011/12 it is estimated that 2.1 per cent of total benefit expenditure was overpaid due to fraud and error, the same as the 2010/11 estimate.

So your 100 scammers for every genuine claimant is at worst 1 for every 50. With the payment errors removed, the number is usually quotede as less than 1% so a reversal of your statement. Also 60% of people in receipt of benefits are actually in work.

Don't let the facts get in the way of hateful ranting though

 

[screenman]

Trying to get my head around some posts here, do some think if we make the dole bigger say £250 per person that these people on the dole would be able and willing to look harder for work.

 

[Shut Up Legs]

I don't know how much I could live on per week as a minimum, but the important question is: how much per week could my bicycles live on?

 

[screenman]

Maybe being a market trader allows for creative accounting, having said that I deal daily with businesses that for the last couple of years have done worse than that guy.

Adrian I was not talking benefits for those at work but for those who do not work, maybe we are not giving them enough.

 

[djb1971]

If people can't live on £53 per week and 'don't' work NOT 'can't' work they should get a job and earn the extra money needed to live and pay bills. They shouldn't expect freebie handouts to help them with their choice of lifestyle.

If you read my above post I do say that if people work and struggle then they deserve help, that seems to be lost by a few above. I think some of you need to get your heads from the clouds and see what state the country is in with spongers on society.

Also as mentioned above, Polish and Bulgarian workers are over here working for a minimum wage doing low paid work that idle English won't get out of bed for. I see this everyday at work. The English start working as say a car valeter and can't stick it because the pay is too low and its easier sat at home, Mr. Bulgarian come over here and works his fingers to the bone for the same money.

It's useless trying to put the argument over when some people are blinded by trying to be a good person. Work hard get money, don't work don't expect my sympathy.