A 24-year-old mum who earns £31,000 through tax payer benefits says she will not be joining the workplace any time soon.
Juliette Howard, boasts that she is “not lazy, just logical”, after ditching her previous job aged 19 to claim £1,600 a month from Universal Credit.
The mother of two is a proud NEET (Not in Education, Employment or Training), saying she would be “crazy to give up” her benefits.
Howard told The Sun: “What’s the point of going back to a minimum wage job where I’ll earn less than I would if I was on benefits? It’s not lazy, just logical. People say, ‘Your kids are older now - get a job’ but I’m only going back to work on my terms.”
The mother of two is a proud NEET (Not in Education, Employment or Training), saying she would be crazy to give up' her benefits
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She said that she refuses to be labelled as a “layabout”, stating that “people throw those words around without thinking”.
“If the government offers Universal Credit, I will claim it. I would be crazy to give up almost £31,000 a year in benefits, knowing my kids and I would be worse off with me working. The system’s broken. I am just brave enough to admit how I feel,” she said.
Howard had her first child at 20, and applied to her local council for housing. She continued to work casually part-time.
She later applied for Universal Credit, calling it the best decision she ever made, and has not been off it since.
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The 24-year-old said she laughs when people call her out for having to pay her bills, stating that being a single mum is the hardest mum imaginable.
New figures from the Office for National Statistics show 987,000 young people aged 16-24 were not in education, employment or training between October and December 2024.
The spike in youth unemployment shows Britain approaching 2020 levels when Covid ravaged the economy. It is not as high as after the 2008 financial crash however when it stood at around 20 per cent.
18.6 per cent more young people were unemployed in the three months from September to November 2024 than for the same period one year previously.
She later applied for Universal Credit, calling it 'the best decision I ever made', and has not been off it since
PAAs part of an overhaul to the Department for Work and Pension, Chancellor Rachel Reeves announced yesterday that Universal Credit payments are to be slashed.
Work and Pensions Secretary Liz Kendall unveiled the Labour Government's plan to get more Britons back into the workforce, tightening eligibility criteria for benefit support.
Currently, more than three million Universal Credit recipients have no requirement to find work, a figure that has risen sharply in recent years.
