Ditto.

Pensioners on a State Pension of £140 a week, after probably contributing and working for 50 working years. A non-working person on £520 a week - there's got to be something wrong somewhere!!

I wonder just how much this person has contributed during the years they have worked (or not as the case may be)?

Correct. and my first question to that woman would be to ask her how much maintenance for those children her ex pays on top of her state benfits.

When I hear this I worry and think of my own hardworking children on a mortgage treadmill to obtain the same as those who do nothing.

People who live in London, had a good job, and were made redundant. London rents are so high there is no way they can live on £26,000 with children. Doesn't apply elsewhere in the country; its a London only problem. Do we want to end up with only the rich living in our capital? With all medium income people shunted out.

So should people who have to travel a long way commuting into London have to subsidize those who are living there in expensive areas on longterm benefits?

The advisers on the levels set are a company called Unum. They sell income protection insurance. Multiple convictions for Fraud in the states and banned from selling in many of them for a prolonged period.

Part of the problem is more about the level of pay for those working, with a race for the bottom going on. The actual number involved with getting this level are small and it keeps on being pointed out that this is an infinitesimally small part of the budget.
No I don't like the idea of such high benefits being paid but each case is separate.
I don't like the idea of a family losing a job in London meaning losing their home as will be case. Far more expensive in the long run when that happens.

Benefits !!!! what about all the jobs that are out there, 1000s of them available. The largest percentage of people out of work do not want to work, they are quite happy to sit back and pick up the benefit each week.
pay an unemployment benefit as now per person and a benefit for the first two children . Another thing, i wonder just how much child benefit is actually being spent on the children. The whole benefit system stinks, but no Government has the courage to really change it.

Ditto.

Is there not a shortage of social housing. Where can these people move to? It seems that this is the reason why one hears of families being housed in enormous houses in boroughs in London ( out of normal reach for the avwrage person ) due to the lack of social housing-now Council houses do not seem to exist.