BITE SIZE: It's worse than I thought - why the single welfare claimant on £33k is really on £42k

Almost all benefits are paid tax free, meaning they equate to much higher salaries

Photo by jose pena on Unsplash

I WROTE last time out about the unjustifiable burden of benefits, particularly disability-related benefits, paid out to people who don’t work.

The article was based around a case study the BBC carried out of a non-binary person living on the south coast, alone in their own flat. They were on £33,000 a year in benefits made up of Personal Independence Payment, Housing Benefit and Employment & Support Allowance (with a disability premium). The claimant did not seem to be wheelchair-bound and the main disability stated was a problem with connective tissues around the joints. They had high-level computer skills.

I suggested this income was a good few grand more than the average salary for a working person in the UK of just under £30,000. But, as has been pointed out to me, this is a misleading comparison.

Because the claimant involved almost certainly won’t be having their benefits taxed. For a working person to take home £2,750 a month, comparable to the claimant, they would actually need to be on a salary of £42,000. That would easily be in the top 40 per cent of earners for people in their 40s (like the claimant is). Lower down the age ranges only very small percentages of workers earn that much.

Also, the claimant has no travel-to-work costs to pay, unlike their working peer group, which can reasonably be estimated to be another saving of a couple of thousand quid a year.

And of course, the claimant has the luxury of long hours of leisure time in which to seek out activities to raise their enjoyment of life. In some places, discounts are given to the “unwaged” too.

The welfare state is supposed to be a safety net, not a feather-bed. Britain cannot