"Jobs needed for 'sick' Britain"

The killer fact in this article is as follows:

However, some claimants have high expectations of what they might earn should they return to work. Of the minority who said they would like a job, about a third of men and one in six women said they would need at least £300 a week after tax to make it worthwhile coming off benefits and going in to work. That would mean a job paying around £20,000 a year.

There's a sore misunderstanding on the part of the BBC. These people do not have "high expectations", what the claimants are referring to is the fact that the welfare payments they receive are so generous and the withdrawal rate is so high, that mathematically they would indeed need to earn a gross salary of £20,000 to be significantly better off.

You can check this for yourself using DWP's Tax Benefit Model Tables. Long term IB is about £20 per week more than Income Support, so a single person over 25 on IB living in council housing has net out-of-work income of around £80 after housing costs (Table 2.1a). Assuming travel and work-related costs of £20 per week, to achieve the same level of net income when in work, they would need a gross income of £190 (Table 1.1a).

Does this make work worthwhile? Nope. Could this be fixed at the stroke of a pen? Yes - just reduce the generosity of out-of-work benefits a bit and reduce the marginal withdrawal rate a lot, and Bob's your uncle!