Jaffa Cake's girlfriend said:
A chav with one child, working 16 hours a week earning the national minimum wage will earn about £6,000 in wages and £9,000 in benefits.
I work now, but I used to be on benefits, and I think your numbers are seriously wrong.
£6000 per year, 16 hours per week x 52 weeks (no holidays!) comes out to about 7.20 per hour, which is well above minimum wage.
http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/nmw/nmw_abou.htm
gives minimum wage for over 22s as £5.05 per hour. For teenage chavs, it's £3 per hour for under 18s, and £4.25 for 18-21yo.
Let's say she's over 22 and dedicated enough to work with no holidays and look after a screaming nipper while arranging childcare.
16 x 5.05 = £80.80 per week
x 52 = about £4200 per year.
Then she has to pay tax on that. According to
http://www.finance-glossary.com/terms/tax-brackets.htm
it's 10% on the 1st £2000 and 22% on the rest of her income. (about £1000 gone in tax)
Yes, she has a personal allowance that exceeds her income, but most employers will take tax off before paying - it's up to you to either sort out the labrythine paperwork to get it back or pay an accountant to do it.
I completely failed to sort it out for myself when I was on benefits - it's made hard on purpose.
So all in all, her
work income after tax is more like something like £3000 or £60 per week.
Then there's benefits. According to your numbers, her benefits are £9000 or £172 a week. Again, that's a bit dody.
She won't get Jobseekers allowance cos she has a job.
She won't get Income Support cos she works 16 or more hours a week (according to
http://www.jobcentreplus.gov.uk/JCP/Customers/WorkingAgeBenefits/Incomesupport/index.html)
Housing benefit is capped at about £50 a week plus £20 extra for a kid.
So that's £70 /week to pay for a 2 bedroom flat when the average market rent outside london is £150 a week.
So she's pretty much stuck in a council flats at about £70 a week, most are really grotty with poor heating and insulation (so more expenses), with key meters for gas and leccy (which cost more per unit than dial meters).
Child benefit is £17 a week, which goes on buying food, clothes, shoes and stuff for the nipper.
Working Tax Credit (for low income working families), and Child Tax Credit together come to about £3200 a year, and are an absoutely fecking nightmare to apply for and the benefits agency keeps getting it wrong - I've just gone through an application myself.
Supposing your chav is a genuis and gets the forms right, then £3200/year = about £62/ week.
So all in all, that's £70 plus £17 plus £62 =
£149 per week in benefits.
Plus the £80 per week from the job.
Total income =
around £230 per week.
(I've missed out a few small things e.g. National Insurance which is deducted from all wages)
That has to pay for rent, leccy, gas, heating, food, transportation, dragging up a screaming nipper, sleepless nights, no social life, burberrys, booze, dope, fags, everything else etc.
While us privilged people on Macrumors have enough disposable income to be able to buy iPods and Macs.
I don't know why I bothered typing all this out.
I have a baby myself, and it's no ****** picnic, I'm just glad I earn enough to treat myself every now and then.
..RedTomato..
