It's all well and good shouting the odds about the cost of the benifit system but it is needed and until job vacancies outnumber people then it's here to stay.
2 points.
1) what about all the jobs that have been created in the last few years, but have been filled by immigrants?
2) the supply of jobs is neither finite, nor fixed, but depends upon the level of economic activity and productivity of everyone in society.
Imagine a completely empty country - plenty of natural resources, but no people. Then parachute in 100 people. There are no jobs, but 100 people - so they all have to go on benefits, right? Oh. Hang on. There are no productive, tax paying people to pay those benefits.
In the absence of the benefit options, the 100 people start to grow crops, or cut timber, or fish. For a while they exchange goods in barter economy, but eventually a money system arises. After a few generations, there are thousands of people, some specialising in building houses, others in food production, still others in brewing beer, or (eventually) even acting in plays, or playing professional sport.
So where have all these jobs come from? Who created them? The answer is that no one created them - human society naturally creates "employment" (ie doing something to assist survival) in the absence of any other option. As long as productivity is greater than is required for bare subsistence, everyone benefits, and since the industrial revolution, collective productivity has massively outstripped the requirements of subsistence - at least in the developed world.
So having a benefits system at a level above subsistence for people who COULD be productive (so I am excluding the geniunely disabled and the elderly) actually works against the interests of the whole in two different ways. It destroys the incentive for the "idle" to become economically active, and, by taxing the productive people to get the money to pay benefits, it reduces their incentive to continue working - thus making it more likely that they will join the ranks of the idle.
It is entirely different if we return to the old system where what you receive in benefits is tied to what you paid in by way of contributions. That is a simple insurance contract - no different in essence to any other insurance contract.