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

Do they have Sky tv?

15 pages..2 bans and a flounce

as an opener

Yip, and a huge TV and they have a couple of holidays abroad each year.

This is not a complaint about them. Think of it as a request for a how to guide.

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.

Even with my lack of knowledge regarding the current income support system, they are probably better off than you and me.

[i]they have a couple of holidays abroad each year.[/i]

Term time?

Could they be former oil execs who no longer have to work for a living and can dedicate their lives to procreation and leisure?

Term time?

Nope.

Is it this pair of chancers?

[img] [/img]

Are they keen horticulturists?

Are they slightly rotund too?

They probably pimp their kids ooot to politicians.

Lottery winners, but because they've given nearly all of it away to charity they have to slum it in your neck of the woods. The VW camper is the one extravagance they've allowed themselves.

Must be plenty of child benefit involved...

[img] [/img]

They have just bought a reasonably high spec 15 plate VW Transporter Shuttle.

Pfff, amateurs

[url= http://www.newsy.com/videos/prince-william-gets-helicopter-from-queen-for-birthday/ ]
Prince William gets helicopter from Queen for his Birthday[/url]

Bloody immigrants!!

Maybe they don't work because they don't need to? big inheritance, rich parents, clever investments?

or they could be the dreaded SCROUNGER

15 pages..2 bans and a flounce

as an opener

We've not had a good flounce for ages.....

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.

Even with my lack of knowledge regarding the current income support system, they are probably better off than you and me.

^^This.
I'm not sure it is as difficult as you think - chuck in a bit of cash-in-hand work and a few ebay wins/boot fairs and they're certainly better off than lots of working folk.

There is a kid in my daughters class, who live a few doors down from us. His folks have never worked, apparently the Dad has stress/anxiety issues, and the Mum has to stay home to look after him.
Which does make you wonder why they need a Mitsubishi pick up and nearly new Astra (Motability car)

My wife has taught dozens of kids over the years who are destined to be the third generation of their families who've never worked.
They often have no interest in achieving anything as they have no intention of working - as others have mentioned - they don't seem to go short of holidays, etc.

If it is purely benefits then it's a great example of how the system is simply not fit for purpose and makes a mockery out of the majority of hard working people.

how do you know they don't work?

mate of mine never appears to work. always out riding with a lot of disposable income.

he remotely manages online casino's for a vast sum of money. mostly in the middle of the night it would seem.

edit cant be bothered

majority of hard working people.

[i]They have just bought a reasonably high spec 15 plate VW Transporter Shuttle.[/i]

Sold one of their buy to lets maybe, cashed in a stocks and shares ISA, lots of other reasons other than you paying for it.

[i]makes a mockery out of the majority of hard working people.[/i] Oh the irony.

theres plenty around like this sadly

No there really isn't.

What we need is more austerity!!

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MSP - Member

theres plenty around like this sadly

No there really isn't

😆 maybe not in STW middle class towers no

jam bo

how do you know they don't work?
mate of mine never appears to work. always out riding with a lot of disposable income.
he remotely manages online casino's for a vast sum of money. mostly in the middle of the night it would seem.

At a casual glance I don't appear to work. My car is outside the house 6 out of 8 days. But I work continental shifts. 2 days, up and gone before 6am not back until 8pm, then 2 night shifts, so the car is outside when "normal people" are at work.

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

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.

At a casual glance I don't work.

Oh hang on, I don't work - not in a paid sense, though I've spent a lot of hours on a project which might result in me and my partner becoming very rich if we can sell it properly.

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.

We've not had a good flounce for ages..

I know, seemed like we had a run of them a while back, nothing for ages.

Needs more surfmat

Needs more surfmat

guess who's business card landed on my desk the other day...

Oh hang on, I don't work - not in a paid sense, though I've spent a lot of hours on a project which might result in me and my partner becoming very rich if we can sell it properly.

Hoverboards?

Finally!!!

My wife has taught dozens of kids over the years who are destined to be the third generation of their families who've never worked

Dozens encountered by one teacher? I guess your wife could be in at the start of a new cultural phenomenom but that whole [url= https://www.jrf.org.uk/report/are-cultures-worklessness-passed-down-generations ]worklessness passed down generations[/url] myth has been debunked so it seems a bit unlikely.

guess who's business card landed on my desk the other day...

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

"I'm more awesomer than you, deal with it"

My wife has taught dozens of kids over the years who are destined to be the third generation of their families who've never worked

Wasn't the "three generations who've never worked" claim made during the last election campaign? And didn't it turn out to be rubbish?

https://www.jrf.org.uk/report/are-cultures-worklessness-passed-down-generations

Key points

The idea of 'three generations of the same family who have never worked' appeals to many, including politicians and policy-makers, as an explanation of entrenched worklessness in the UK.

[b]Despite strenuous efforts, the researchers were unable to locate any such families. Even two generations of complete worklessness in the same family was a very rare phenomenon,[/b] which is consistent with recent quantitative surveys of this issue.

Families experiencing long-term worklessness remained committed to the value of work and preferred to be in jobs rather than on benefits.

There was no evidence of 'a culture of worklessness' – values, attitudes and behaviours discouraging employment and encouraging welfare dependency – in the families.

Workless parents were keen for their children to do better than they had, and actively tried to help them find jobs. Working-age offspring remained strongly committed to conventional values about work as part of a normal transition to adulthood. They were keen to avoid the poverty, worklessness and other problems experienced by their parents.

The long-term worklessness of parents in these families was a result of the impact of complex, multiple problems associated with living in deep poverty over years.

Policy-makers and politicians need to abandon theories – and resulting policies – that see worklessness as primarily the outcome of a culture of worklessness, held in families and passed down the generations.

Same here.

How is the Paper clip speciality web cam service franchise working out?

DLA/Mobility can be a huge earner , we recieve just over £800 a month for my son who has epilepsy and autism.
we both work as well.

Does one of them have a wheelchair? as the only transporters available on the Motability scheme are WAV's

No wheelchair or disabilities.

DLA/Mobility can be a huge earner , we recieve just over £800 a month for my son who has epilepsy and autism.

https://www.gov.uk/dla-disability-living-allowance-benefit/what-youll-get

2. DLA rates
The rate you get is made up of 2 components (parts). How much you get depends on how your disability or health condition affects you.

Care component
Lowest - £21.80 -Help for some of the day or with preparing cooked meals
Middle - £55.10 - Frequent help or constant supervision during the day, supervision at night or someone to help you while on dialysis
Highest - £82.30 - Help or supervision throughout both day and night, or you’re terminally ill

Mobility component
Lower £21.80 Guidance or supervision outdoors
Higher £57.45 You have any other, more severe, walking difficulty

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.

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..

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

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 [b]minimum wage after tax[/b] = £11,055.96 x 2 = £22111.92
They could claim working tax credit of around £4000+ [b] childcare costs[/b]
=£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 [url= https://www.gov.uk/benefit-cap ]Benefits Cap[/url]. 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 [i]genuine [/i]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.

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.

[url= http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/jul/07/corporate-welfare-a-93bn-handshake ]Corporate Welfare costs £95 billion a year[/url]

[quote="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 [i]their lifestyles?[/i]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....