The Benefits Trap. A first hand experience.

From Hektor Reborn, also up at Old Holborn:

And now, the best part. Hammersmith & Fulham is my council. They have an eight year waiting list for council housing, but those on JSA can claim housing benefits. I would be eligible for around £150 per week renting a private flat and £15 per week council tax benefit. All of this is income dependent so if you are earning money you get less benefit. So let's add this up. £64 JSA + £150 Housing Benefit + £15 Council Tax Benefit = £229 per week. Let's call it £230 for simplicity. That works out at £11,960 per year. Not a bad wage (starting salary as a squaddie is around £15,000) for doing 5 minutes work per week.

So, how much would you have to earn to take home £11,960 after paying council tax at £15 per week? About £15,675 by my calculations. The State has decided that there is an income that people need to survive but they still tax you if you earn that much. How does that make sense?

So you have a choice when offered a job worth around £15,500 or less: take it, work hard, earn your own money or do nothing and get the same amount of money. What if you are offered a job for £16,000? You would be better off by £6.63 per week, not £9.61, due to tax. That's not a lot of money for a lot more work. £17,000 makes you £19.90 better off per week instead of £28.85 because of tax.

The State seemingly doesn't want people at the job centre to get jobs (or it would be making them do a lot more), and even if they are offered a job, unless they are offered a good wage (average in the UK is about £25,000)* there is little incentive to take it.

If I decide to move into a flat on housing benefit, I will have a large incentive not to take a job unless it comes with a good [wage]. So, no bar jobs, no part time waiter work, etc. It just doesn't pay. The same goes for the other 2.38 million people.

* The link in the original article didn't seem to work. According to this article:

According to ASHE, "mean" gross annual earnings across all employee jobs in 2008 came to £26,020. You may think that's rather a high "average" salary. And if you look just at the figures for full-time employees, that figure rises to £31,323.

Another way of measuring it is "median" gross annual earnings. According to ASHE, this was the more modest figure of £20,801, across all employee jobs. If you are earning that sum a year, you are "Mr or Mrs [or Ms] Mid-Point" - precisely half the surveyed working population earns less than you and half more. For just full-time employees, the median rises to £25,123.