@AnonCoward:
Do you actually know how much people are paid on benefits? On average it is £70 per week for a single person over the age 25, living on their own.
This is £280 per month, utilities (gas & electric) will roughly be £20-£30 per week, so £80 - £120 per month, so for the sake of argument we will round utilities down to £100 per month.
You now have £180 per month to survive on, but you still have to pay some council tax, in my area it will roughly be £25 per month on average. So now your monthly figure has dropped to £155 to survive on, which gives you £38.75 per week.
You need to buy your food on this money, so usually cheap foods, beans, noodles, etc. Miss out breakfast, lunch and supper. 7 main meals a week and you may have £10-£20 left spare for yourself, if you're lucky.
Some of the money will be used to buy the cheapest clothes from charity shops, but usually you wear your clothes until they are threadbare. Other parts of the money is spent on public transport, to and from appointments.
Too skint, to have a telephone, internet, decent clothes (for interviews), and if you are lucky to be offered a job, you may have to wait up to 6 weeks before being paid, therefore that £20 has to be stretched to cover your daily transport costs, food, heating and other bills, just not possible, and in an area with mass deprivation, it is likely everybody is just as skint as you, so you cannot rely on friends or family financially to bail you out until the first pay packet.
Being on benefits is not an easy ride, as some think it is. Anyone who thinks living of the benefits system is easy, they should try it for a change, walk a mile in another persons shoes. I can guarantee you will not like it.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
