Benefits Street is a documentary series on the British television channel Channel 4. It started on 6 January 2014. Five episodes will be shown. It is about some of the people who live on James Turner Street in Birmingham. 90% of the people on the street claim benefits. 4.3 million people watched the first episode. It was Channel 4's most-watched shown in more than a year. It shows some people who claim benefits (claimants) doing crimes.
Almost 300 complaints were made to Ofcom after the first episode was shown. Dee Roberts complained that she had been tricked into being on the programme. She said that the people on the programme thought the show was about a working class community, but that instead they had been portrayed as "complete scum". Almost 10,000 people signed a petition asking Channel 4 to show no more episodes of the show. Steve Haywood, a friend of an alcoholic in the programme known as Fungi, said that Channel 4 gave Fungi beer so that he would be on the show.