OK, so I'm actually on UK unemployment right now. It's $5000/year. And in return I have to go in and get shouted at by some entitled civil servant every week, and they're always sending me on useless courses, and for neither of those things do they pay my bus ticket expenses so subtract another $500 from that. That amount is not livable, even if that doesn't include your rent. Your rent won't be completely paid for you and you'll be living in a terrible area in the middle of nowhere with regards to access to jobs or services.
In order to actually get "lots" of money on welfare, you need to be on disability as well. And preferably those children you have need to be disabled. For the people you're talking about, this involves fraud.
The reality of people living on welfare long-term is that people on it are either a) doing cash-in-hand undeclared jobs to support themselves or b) committing fraud for disability payments
