Greg Clark: Any MP would struggle on £53-a-week because they are too comfortable on £65,000 salary Greg Clark says MPs earning more than £65,000 would find it hard to adapt Iain Duncan Smith was challenged to live on £53-a-week by benefits claimant David Bennett on Radio 4 A raft of benefits changes and reforms came into force on April 1 Government argues average families will be £300-a-year better off Downing Street insists David Cameron thinks the system is 'fair' By Matt Chorley, Mailonline Political Editor Treasury minister Greg Clark admitted MPs would struggle to get by on £53-a-week Any MP who has got comfortable earning more than £65,000-a-year would "certainly struggle" to live on just £53-a-week, a Treasury minister has admitted. Greg Clark blunt remarks appear to contradict Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith who claimed at the weekend he would be able to survive on £53 if he had to. Government ministers have become embroiled in a war of words with benefits claimants about whether they understand how it feels to have to survive on tight incomes. Chancellor George Osborne today side-stepped the £53-a-week question and Downing Street refused to say whether the Prime Minister could live on the sum. On Saturday, Mr Duncan Smith was challenged about living on benefits by David Bennett, 51, a gambler and self-confessed "ducker and diver." Mr Bennett told the BBC he was struggling to survive after his housing benefit was cut, despite working up to 70 hours a week. But Mr Clark today said it would be difficult for any politician to get by on the £53-a-week given to someone on Jobseeker's Allowance. He said: "Listen, I think it's an incredible struggle to do that and I think any MP, anyone earning the comfortable wage that an MP has would certainly struggle. "I think the context is this - we're all having to tighten our belts...right across the board there are difficult choices to be made, it is an incredibly difficult situation.," he told BBC Radio 5Live. An MP earns £65,738, while Mr Duncan Smith, as a Cabinet minister, receives a salary of £134,565. Mr Clark, a minister of state at the Treasury, earns £98,740. David Bennett, working on his market stall today, challenged Iain Duncan Smith to live on £53 Mr Clark added: "If you think that we've got over the years ahead to pay own the deficit, to reduce the deficit by £100bn, that's about £4,000 per household. All the decisions are incredibly difficult, so what the decision on welfare benefits was to do was to increase them by the same as public sector pay and more or less the same as private sector pay, so it's to put them in line with what else is happening in the economy. Chancellor George Osborne used a speech today to attack critics of the government's welfare reforms. The Chancellor insists the Government aims to "use every penny we can to back hard-working people who want to get on in life." But asked if he could live on £53-a-week, Mr Osborne said: 'I don't think it's sensible to reduce this debate to an argument about one individual's set of circumstances. We have a welfare system where there are lots of benefits to people on very low incomes. The average working family will be £300 a year better off after tax and benefit changes, according to government figures. The row over benefits has been dominated by claims that ministers cannot understand how little claimants receive. The exchange between Mr Duncan Smith and Mr Bennett prompted an online petition which has attracted more than 150,000 signatures calling for the Work and Pensions Secretary to forego his £134,565-a-year salary and live on Mr Bennett's income for at least a year. It states: 'This petition calls on Iain Duncan Smith to live on this budget for at least one year. This would help realise the Conservative Party's current mantra that "We are all in this together." This would mean a 97 per cent reduction in his current income, which is £1,581.02 a week or £225 a day after tax. David Cameron's official spokesman refused to be drawn on whether the Premier could cope with living on the low income. He told journalists: 'The point here is that benefits are not designed to be a way of life and they're not designed to be a long-term option. They are designed to support people as we help them move from benefits into work. The Prime Minister, like the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions feels that benefit levels are fair but that what we have to do is reform the wider welfare system to ensure work pays, to ensure we end the culture of dependency we have seen grow up in many of our communities where people are trapped by benefits.