Need salary of £36,000 to take home more than benefits cap

Maybe they did have a job - but it was just shocking that they could afford all that stuff while my mother has a full time job and struggles to buy me a video game once a year, if I'm lucky.

My other half worked for Vauxhall. As part of her job she "sold" motab cars... basically disabled people can trade in their higher rate disability allowance for a free car / insurance / tax / servicing with up to 5 people named on the insurance.

One tab car was given to a woman who managed to blag her way on to higher rate disability because she had a "speech impediment".

Disgusting isn't it?

I find it hard to believe this actually happened.

Motability cars are available only to those who have been assessed as having a higher rate mobility entitlement.

This means that they either cannot walk, virtually cannot walk, have no feet or legs, are both deaf and blind. Basically they can't mobilise.

A person would not be entitled to this rate of entitlement if they just had a speech impediment. There are people with actual mobility issues who struggled to, or were refused, placement on the higher rate entitlement.

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How bad was the speech impediment? She would have to have had some pretty marked disability to qualify for DLA or PIP, especially in the current climate. Unless of course she is a war veteran/pensioner.

I'm sure that's an artificial restriction. My parents are pretty well off but we never had fancy holidays and I certainly didn't have presents bought except birthday/Christmas. People plough a lot into their mortgage and pensions but that is an investment choice, in both cases they have a reasonable expectation of getting the money back with considerable interest at the end and/or of passing it on to their children.

However those on a small income have little hope of ever owning a house and when you only have a few hundred quid left over each year it's pretty pointless saving it, you might as well spend it now and enjoy your life a bit. This is why when hopefully we move away from conditional benefits and towards a universal basic income we recognise that giving people subsistence plus a small extra ploughs all that money straight into the economy. This is in contrast to quantitative easing which is hoarded by banks and could otherwise have been used to hand every man, woman and child in the country £11,000 per year over the past five years.

I can assure you that people on benefits are always better off if they get a job, though the tax credit regime badly needs to be expanded to those on part-time or unstable-hours contracts. The only people who seem to make much of a livable income from benefits are significantly disabled people/carer households, and they insist on raising barriers to getting disability benefit despite the fact that it is only a very small proportion of benefit spending. I would begrudge these groups little and also their lives cost more, just to go to town and back they may pay the equivalent of five trips on the bus or more and that's without getting into the area of all the disability support equipment and the interminable hospital appointments.

The highest proportion of benefit spending (leaving aside pensions) is housing benefit, and that goes directly into the landlord's pockets (and doesn't cover the whole of the rent unless you want to live somewhere with mould all up the walls exposed wires and no appliances). Therefore the best way to reduce benefit spending is to cease this pathetic, extractive obsession with selling each other the same houses over and over again at ever-increasing profit and build an economy that actually revolves around producing something useful.

Bull**** I was on benefits and got £200 a month.
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Not that bad.

The benefits system is FULL of scroungers trying it on.

I bet your the sort of person that believes that there's only 1% claiming fraudulently too!

In terms of housing benefit not covering the full rent unless it's ****ty, not exactly true. I live in a decent two bedroom apartment with my mother, in a decent and safe area with appliances (and the rent is fully covered by the benefit). The only sting in the tail? You have to take a bus 5-10 minutes just to get to the closest station. And a similar priced apartment downstairs has been left vacant for years. But yet we have complaints of everything in London being too expensive.

For a single person under 35 years of age, living alone, it may well be the case though. A person under 35 is only entitled to the shared accommodation rate. If they don't (or can't) share with others they'll struggle to find a place that is covered by housing benefit. There's such a shortage of one bedroom properties and the housing benefit wouldn't cover many larger properties.

Something tells me you're the sort of person who makes up wildly improbable stories to try and prove right-wing knee jerk points on public web forums.

I'm under 35 and live with my mother.

I'm a student and don't have a job yet. I figured that single people would want to room/flat-share with someone else (that's what I would do) but maybe it's easier said than done.

Yes, but that's the point. You're living with your mother rather than alone (and, as you're a student, I'm assuming you're not in receipt of Housing Benefit yourself)?



I'd say a good many, especially those in their mid and late 20s, don't want to share. House sharing can start to grate once you're approaching 30. Some people with health conditions may also need to live alone. But even those in shared accommodation may not have their entire rent covered. When a student, if reliant on housing benefit, I wouldn't have been able to have my rent (for one room) entirely covered by rent in most shard properties in my (outside a couple of areas).

In my final year I did take on a two bedroom house. This was the best I could get and it still had a terrible damp problem, was small, desperate need of a new kitchen and bathroom, and just generally uncosy and cold. If I was entitled to two bedroom rate I could have had almost all the rent paid. As I was only entitled to Shared Accommodation rate I only had two thirds of the rent paid by HB.

Did you read the post? she already had 6 kids before she made the brave decision to leave her abusive husband and was forced to claim benefit.

I bet your the sort of person that believes that there's only 1% claiming fraudulently too!

Anyway, I am sure whoever told you this story will have reported the matter to the relevant officials. So all's well, eh?

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Yes, but that's the point. You're living with your mother rather than alone (and, as you're a student, I'm assuming you're not in receipt of Housing Benefit yourself)?



I'd say a good many, especially those in their mid and late 20s, don't want to share. House sharing can start to grate once you're approaching 30. Some people with health conditions may also need to live alone. But even those in shared accommodation may not have their entire rent covered. When a student, if reliant on housing benefit, I wouldn't have been able to have my rent (for one room) entirely covered by rent in most shard properties in my (outside a couple of areas).

In my final year I did take on a two bedroom house. This was the best I could get and it still had a terrible damp problem, was small, desperate need of a new kitchen and bathroom, and just generally uncosy and cold. If I was entitled to two bedroom rate I could have had almost all the rent paid. As I was only entitled to Shared Accommodation rate I only had two thirds of the rent paid by HB.

Out of interest do you know how they calculate the average cost of property in your local area? The housing benefit rate in my area (for 2 bed properties) is much lower than almost any available properties, and the ones that do come up are complete dives. They say that it is the average that properties have become available for rent at in the 6months (I think) but do they include social housing in this? Social housing in my area is circa 50% of private rent.

If she was stupid enough to have six kids I would question how smart she is to be a mother. Personally I would have social services intervene. Talking of this- I think I heard something last week about some sort of new law which changes "child abuse" to take in to account a parent's inability to provide for their children.

Put it this way- I do not think throwing money at people making mistakes is the solution because otherwise what is the deterrent? Have you heard of the term "moral hazard"? It means that if people make a mistake and they are bailed out- they go and do that mistake again and again because they were never held accountable. The last Labour Government effectively removed responsibility from the underclass in this country with the stupid benefits culture which made them all think they were owed a 4-bedroomed house whilst not working.

Local Housing Allowance will be based on rents in the private sector only, as it's a way of calculating housing benefit for private tennants only. Housing Benefit for social tennants is calculated differently.

Apart from that I can't really offer much more. I'm not an expert.