You can only get housing benefit if you rent, you cannot get HB if you own your home

Nor if you are in shared ownership situation.

When I was on £7.20 in my old job, I wasn't allowed housing benefits and they scrapped the single person discount for council tax too. As a result, I had to leave my job because after bills and travel into London, I was left with £40 a month for food and was only having a sandwich a day at lunchtime, so my colleagues (who were probably in the same boat) couldn't see how starving I was.

No, I am saying that I don't get any benefits for anything.

Should I have just rented and dropped out kids to get all the handouts then?

For a considered lifestyle, I get no rewards. I think I have done life all wrong.

Indeed and successive governments have said that they are making it to be better off in work and I agree that's how it should be. However, it's all hot air and you are often not.

If they want to get unemployment and benefits down then they should make it miles better off to work than sit at home on benefits. Often it's so little more that the working isn't worth it and in a lot of cases it actually works out that you are much worse off than you were before you got the job.

As usual, governments have no solutions and its always Joe public that are the ones who suffer.

The secret is to dropped out loads of kids and then use them as blackmail tools as no government is going to let children starve. (Not good for their image!). You then get all the benefits and moved to the top of all lists: Above all those people who have tried to have a sensible lifestyle they can afford.

The Tories slogan of 'Making work pay' has always really meant 'Making Benefits Not Pay'.

Until Tax payers started complaining because they willingly fell for the Tories anti benefits propaganda, benefits were there for you if you ever fell on hard times.

They are still there should you lose your job or become homeless, but to a lesser amount because the Tories have cut them even for workers.

Lovely to have a nice balanced political view on DS.

That may not be for a full calendar month. It depends on when the change occurred and what his personal assessment period is. For UC, the change affects the whole month, regardless of when it occurs. If you have a change that reduces your UC entitlement towards the end of your assessment period, you'll lose out, as it will be applied to the whole period.

In shared ownership properties, you can get HB for the portion you rent and help with mortgage interest for the portion you're buying, if you're on a means tested benefit.

You're also exempt from the bedroom tax, which makes it a very good deal. If I have clients on long-term benefits who are about to come into money, it's what I advise them to do. It gives them a secure home, they don't lose their ESA or whatever and they don't fall foul of the rules on intentional disposal of capital, like they would if they spent their money on fast cars and high living.

Or, to look at it another way, you don't get any benefits because you're not in need.

If you were

- over working age and didn't have enough money to live on

or, working age and

- unable to find work
- unable to work because you care for someone who is unable to care for themselves, including young children
- unable to work because of illness/disability
- on a low income that was insufficient to meet your needs, including rent if you pay it -

you would be entitled to benefits. That seems fair to me.

If you live alone in your property, you should still get 25% reduction in your council tax liability though, that hasn't been abolished.

You sound very bitter, Brian. And also rather out of date.

Benefits for families are capped now, except where someone has a disability. This means that a single parent with 3 children, outside London, on basic IS/ESA/JSA, now gets only £96 pw towards their rent, regardless of how much it is. In many parts of the country, that isn't enough to rent a bedsit.

And from April this year, child tax credit or universal credit will not be increased for any children after the first 2. Tough on people who have 3 or more children they can afford, then a change in circumstances that leaves them skint.