This is not a mistake, this is by design

So you can get more by not working than by working:

Unemployed people on sickness benefits will soon receive £2,500 more a year than a minimum wage worker, figures have revealed.

The Centre for Social Justice (CSJ) think tank found that a non-working Universal Credit (UC) claimant receiving the average housing benefit and personal independence payment (Pip) for ill health would have an income of £25,000 in 2026-27.

A full-time worker paid the national living wage will earn about £22,500 after income tax and National Insurance.

Or another description:

The Centre for Social Justice (CSJ) think tank calculated that a claimant on universal credit incapacity benefits who was claiming personal independence payments (PIP) for disability and housing benefit would have an ­income of £25,000, more than the £22,500 post-tax income of almost two million workers on the national living wage.

As we say this is not a mistake, this is all by design.

If we insist that poverty is less than 60% of median income and therefore benefits must top up to 60% of median….then we also say that the minimum wage should be 60% or so of median income….then we’re going to have some subset of those getting benefits gaining more than those working. Those who get that little top up to the benefits that is.

That insistence that less than 60% is poverty - and that no one, even the unemployed, should be in poverty - just means that compression of incomes. Which is the aim of course. We must all be more equal. That we cannot afford to be all more equal doesn’t change the minds of those who insist we must be. This is all planned, meant, it’s the aim.

Tim Worstall