I’d be better off on the dole

DAVID still thinks he would be much better off if he was unemployed.

He guessed that there would be little or nothing for him in the budget and he was right.

Every morning he wakes up and thinks that he would be much better off on the dole.

“I would get rent allowance and all kinds of benefits. There is really no incentive for me to work,” he said. Married to Jane, they have four children aged eight to 25, plus two grandchildren, aged two and five. They all share a four-bed council house.

David is 47 and a van driver. He takes home 312 after tax, but that is supplemented by the Back to Work Scheme His cheapest weekly grocery bill would be 170. “There is nothing in the Budget for me as a lowly-paid PAYE worker.”