I HAVE read that South Ribble Borough Council roughly calculates that it is losing nearly £1million a year in benefit fraud (Citizen, Jan 3).

What they are really saying is that they cannot believe that so many people are actually living off the abysmal income required to claim council tax benefit, and the level that their Government say that people need to live on.

This is £83.25 for a couple which includes gas, electric, mortgage and all the other expenses of running a home along with travel and food.

They then jump on to what has become a national sport called 'knock a benefit claimant' with all the propaganda from politicians who don't really know what they are talking about but just want to get their name in the papers, and the media follows it up with yards of newspaper space and television programmes alienating anyone claiming benefit.

It is about time the media spent some time looking into the other side of this low wage, part-time economy and published just how a large portion of the population really live.

F Markham, Greenfield, Lostock Hall, Preston.