AIBU to be angry about the benefits system

I was a benefit adviser in a former life and l lost count of the number of times l came across attitudes like this. Some people sit in judgement believing that they know all the circumstances of someone’s life. Unfortunately l’ve been involved in some very sad cases where claimants have been reported and are actually doing nothing wrong - but have had benefit suspended while they are investigated. It causes a lot of hardship.

The lady you mention in your last paragraph? Does her partner live with her? If so, she is committing fraud. If not, his income is not taken into account, and neither are all the things he treats to her to.
It would be fucking weird to take into the account the finances of people you do not live with when applying for benefits.

I get it. My youngest will probably never leave home. It's why we work different hours so someone can be home with him.

100% agree.. which is why it has sickened me deeply to know of a local family who squandered their disabled child's money on drugs, alcohol, cigarettes, fast food, take aways. You name it. 5 children were in that household and the parents spent their waking time getting fat, noisy and wasted.
Those poor, poor children.

Yes i get the disabled children bit
but the OP is clearly talking about children with no additional needs
I put in various numbers for mortgage and it still came up with nothing
think the only way we'd have got anything was to lie and say my partner was a solo parent to be honest
I certainly don't bregrudge anyone getting what they're entitled to per say but do think there are a few in society who take the piss a bit
I don't necessarily see why someone on 4K a month (the take home I get now in a new job on 75k ) needs extra financial support other than DLA to be frank 🤷‍♀️but I also don't think that's where our financial system fails us
when the Duke of Westminster and holly willoughby pays less tax than me that's where the issue lies

Yes, but the amount they get is less than the amount we get when they are children, and the amount we get will then also go down by £200pm because we'll lose the work allowance.

Fine and completely understandable if we were free to take paid work, but at the very least, DD1 is likely to live with us and I will have to be available to care for her.

But they can claim in their own right then.

That's wrong @Lougle 🥲

When those disabled children become adults, we lose the work allowance even though we're still caring for them.

In actual fact a couple of benefits are backdated if it’s clear you would have qualified - only for a limited amount of weeks though.

Anyone with disabled children deserves the extra money as can really help with costs

I'm guessing someone with one child with no sn - mortgage and no childcare costs wouldn't get much uc

It still doesn’t change the fact that unclaimed benefit doesn’t go back into the ‘pot’ as a pp put it. The benefits budget is regularly reviewed and allocated accordingly. And as a benefit adviser I rarely, if ever, came across claimants who were ‘spending beyond their income’. Most of them were on the bones of their arse and not fully aware of the benefits they could have been claiming to help their circumstances.

Depends what you mean by ‘temporary dire need’. The benefits system was set up as a safety net to be contributed to when able, and taken from when needed. You haven’t included child benefit in your ‘overhaul’. But you say nothing about disability benefits - so what about disabled people who can’t work, or need benefits like DLA or AA to be able to afford to live with the cost of their disability ? How is their need any different to those of families bringing up children ?

And ‘The rest’ includes stopping the claimants’ benefit while they investigate, so it’s important that you’re sure of your facts and not just what you think is happening, because even if the claimant is doing nothing wrong, the consequences could be awful for them. Also important to note is that although you can report anonymously, DWP will ask for your details and they do prosecute malicious reporting. I worked for DWP years ago, and if I had a penny for every time a genuine claimant was reported for ‘not looking disabled enough’……………………

I couldn’t do it .

I feel angry . I work and miss out on time with my children due to this . I haven’t been on a holiday for 3 years aside from a 5 day caravan trip ( I know some don’t have that ) , my children aren’t dressed in designer clothes , I get the bus to work in all weather as we can’t afford to run 2 cars …. I’m not in poverty and that is not really an issue compared to what others face but it still makes me angry.

However , I still couldn’t do it. I would think - would the children suffer in some way if she went from having loads to having nothing . I don’t know enough about her full situation and … I just couldn’t bring myself to

https://www.gov.uk/national-benefit-fraud-hotline You only have to believe, not prove, and they do the rest.

I think what people should really be angry about on this thread in regards to benefits is those who are playing the system and receiving money they shouldn’t .

If UC decide that someone on £4k needs more , due to their situation , then they probably do. UC is different to previous benefits and actually makes it beneficial to work ( no matter what - you are always better off working on UC because what ever you earn , your award is reduced by around half of that . So even if your award is reduced by say £300 - that means you are £150 better off as you have that from your wage . If you didn’t earn that £300 you would have £150 extra UC so less than you would when working if that makes sense ? ) so for me , the months I don’t get UC - the reason is we have had more income .

I know of - not personally as in she’s not a friend but I see her on fb and have a friend who is friends with her - a woman who has children and quite blatantly by the sounds of it , commits fraud. She says her partner does not live with her and claims benefits whilst her partner works full time in a high paid job . She gets all the benefits that someone who is on a low income would ( FSM etc ) . They have just came back from Disneyland ( Florida , not Paris ! ) , she has a brand new car , the children are in designer clothes as is she and her partner has a chunk of money saved up with the view to put it on a deposit to buy . These are the people we should be angry at .

It depends on a lot of things . Your LA rate if you rent , how many children you have , if any children , are any of those children disabled , do you have carers element etc .

I have an income ( if we both do full time hours ) of £4k monthly - but we have children on the award , disability elements , carers elements , a 4 bed LA rate … my husband has expenses claimed back on his wage .., so we can - dependant on how many payments in an assessment period- get a payment from them some months . I had been out of work a while and realised we could have got payments ( this was before we opened a claim ) but I didn’t think we would be entitled so I hadn’t bothered .

It all really depends on the individual situation .

It would also be easy to say that we have £4k a month how would we need any more - but then our outgoings are very high - due to children / disabilities/ high rent - so actually that extra really helps .

I'm genuinely amazed you are entitled to so much
I did the entitled thingy after I went back from mat leave on around 35k and my partner's on around 16k and we got nothing bar child benefit and the tax free childcare/ 15 hours at 3
so I would really like to know how some on a lot more get so much!?

It better advantages people if everyone eligible gets the benefit and can use it as they think fit to provide care for their children. The current system incentivises mothers (or fathers, but esp mothers) to leave their children to be brought up by others for profit, rather than bringing up their children themselves. This is unjust. Choosing to stay at home with one's children if one can should be encouraged. We are not all just economic units to add to the GDP. Countries such as Sweden include childrearing as part of their GDP because mothers/parents/grandparents nurturing their own children produces good outcomes - those societies also put in infrastructure to enable parents to be at home with their children e.g. activity centres etc. The UK system assumes staying at home with one's children is a waste of money. If the money was paid to do with as one chooses, e.g. pay grandparents, stay at home, use a childminder/nursery then that would be much, much better for society - and women, 60% of whom would prefer to spend more time with their children rather than go out to work full-time (survey last year). I am happy to pay taxes to provide childcare, but I would much prefer a system that worked in favour of women choosing to work or not.

When I was a single parent earning £34k a year and paying £800ish a month childminder, I got approx £540 a month towards childcare. The system incentivises people to work, because the big obstacle used to be childcare costs. Long term it probably works out better for society as a whole to incentivise work even if it means some people who think they don’t need it are eligible. It’s not about each individual case, it’s about the overall benefit to society. And I would rather pay my taxes into a system which might be flawed but at least exists. People should have a safety net.

Sorry haven't rtft, I don't understand, why are you angry that you didn't know you could claim uc ....but later on say you live comfortably and didn't need it anyway...so what is the issue? That you don't want other people to have had it?

Many working people have to claim because their wages aren't enough to live on. That's why they are entitled to them.

Just temporary dire need? What about people who are disabled?

The benefits system is broken. Needs a complete overhaul with the emphasis on people paying their own way if they can and benefits going to those who are in temporary dire need. That’s what it was supposed to be set up for. I don’t include child benefit in that because that was originally a tax allowance in the same way as we all get a tax free element to our income.