If you rely on state support , you should have a great quality of life, not the breadline

I agree that 'work should pay',i.e. you should be better off working than claiming benefits. But if the disability/sickness benefits cuts are going to be as bad as threatened later this month, people on these benefits will really be struggling. Punish people for being sick or disabled. What a great idea.

This....

The promise of a government pension for those who paid into it was made to provide a guaranteed income source for people in retirement is a paragraph from a social agreement by the government.

Way back when I was 16 and started work the government, by subtracting money I'd earned, handed me a social contract as a tax payers that at 60 I would get a state pension if I'd paid in..

Now in my mid 60's having stuck to, and still continue to pay my tax feel I've fulfilled my half of the 'social contract' yet the government feel its acceptable to move the goal posts.

I suspect this will be moved again within the next few years affectively stealing more of my pension from me...

Odd how it was a crime when Maxwell done pretty much the same thing.

I'm pointing out your inconsistent views on benefits. You don't agree with paying taxes for benefits. State pension is a benefit, so presumably you disagree with paying for that too.

Yes ok then it’s a benefit, I’m wrong. A benefit that has been CONTRIBUTED TOWARDS.

If you genuinely can’t see a difference there then I don’t think anything I can say will make you see it!

Furlough was to protect jobs and to prevent a huge rise in unemployment during an unprecedented time- it was also for a short period of time, not someone’s entire life, and it kept businesses afloat which again- prevented huge unemployment.

You get your state pension because you’ve paid the NI contributions for it.

You actually did say a word about the state pension. You wrote "I don’t regard the state pension as a benefit, no. Do you?" To which @Whatafustercluck pointed out to you that the SP is a benefit as it comes out of the DWP's budget (i.e. the Dept for Work and PENSIONS) and is, in fact, the single largest expense from the dept's budget.

I don't quite understand this either.

She talks about having a Tesla car.
Her husband earns over £100k.

Husband has an additional rental property.
On another thread she's looking for a holiday for £5k
She spends £2k a month on private meds

At one point on this thread she suggested that welfare support should be x 5 times a person's rent or mortgage per month.

I'm sorry but when somebody puts up posts like this others, like me, often look at other relevant threads that have been posted to try and gain some form of insight into the lifestyle of the person.

I whole heartedly believe that people with genuine disabilities should receive decent support and those caring for those with disabilities the same.
But 5 times their rent/mortgage is just laughable.

Incidentally OP, @Commonsense22 and @Badbadbunny are wrong about savings wrt benefits. As I replied to @Commonsense22 but you may have missed it:
AngelicKaty · Today 14:43
They're not. Contribution-based benefits aren't affected by savings at all. Even means-tested benefits allow claimants to have up to £6k of savings without any loss of benefits and you only lose your eligibility to means-tested benefits when your savings exceed £16k (between £6k and £16k you lose a proportionate amount of benefit to the level of savings you have on a sliding scale).

People should also remember, when the UK Welfare State was created in the early to mid 20th Century, it was only ever meant to be a safety net. Sadly, many people (particularly those where they and previous generations have lived entirely on benefits and this is the only lifestyle they've ever known) see it as an entitlement. To give you an example of this, I remember a client who had been on means-tested benefits most of their adult life and then, unexpectedly, came into a decent chunk of money - £200k. Obviously they were notified by the DWP that their benefits would cease as their savings were now above the £16k threshold and they came to us for advice. We confirmed to them this was correct and they were absolutely furious and stormed out. No amount of pointing out to them that now they had their own resources, they no longer needed the safety net of benefits, got through to them. They'd always lived on benefits and didn't see why this should stop just because they'd come into a large sum of money. 🙄

I agree. OP is not sticking to the issue and throwing up all kinds of distractions and smokescreens to bambozzle us.

It really isn't helping her argument and very little point to engaging.

I agree.

My general view is that people on state support should have enough to live on - 'breadline' if that is what it is - but not enough for luxuries.

That is a baseline which they can keep and add to if they get a job, so that there is an incentive to work and not an incentive to stay on state support.

As for the OP's posts, I find it quite a difficult read to be drawn into the minutiae of her life to justify her position.

Gawd this is such a selfish rant, OP. You are all over the place with what’s not fair for you, what you want & not even sure what of what you say is true or if it’s a purely hypothetical rant.
Blaming the same old trope about offshore, the 1% hiding money etc etc what ARE you seeking from this rant.

I regret trying to help you

No one had "paid in". NIC is just another tax. It's not a savings scheme nor an insurance scheme.

So why did millions of people who had savings get furlough during Covid? Why do pensioners with lots of savings or other income get state pension?

@confidenceboost The average salary in Switzerland in 2024 was around 6,665 CHF gross pm. (I think you mentioned you live in Switzerland?)

No, not most, because the median UK wage (around £37k) is well above the poverty thresholds (although that's before housing costs are considered). In 2022/23, 21% of the UK population (14.3m people) were living in relative poverty after housing costs (this is equivalent to around 2 in 10 adults and 3 in 10 children). Of course, what these statistics don't tell us is how many people are living just above the poverty thresholds. I think we can certainly why a lot of people are struggling financially though.

This.

Life isn't fair, and we can't have everything we want. That's what it all boils down to, I'm afraid. There isn't unlimited funding, but there's a bottomless pit of need (or want). Can you honestly blame people for not wanting to pay still more to support others, especially when the government mismanages what they already take?

But so what? Your dad can't work. Your friends have the options to get better paid jobs and/or increase their hours to increase their income - your dad doesn't have this option (given that he's in receipt of £737pm PIP he must be on the higher rate for Daily Living and Mobility, which suggests he's rather poorly and/or disabled).
It's really scraping the bottom of the barrel when people make comparisons like this and instead of complaining about employers paying low wages and having their wage bills subsidised by the state (40% of people claiming UC are also working) they complain about very sick or disabled people getting income-replacement benefits. Talk about punching down. 🙄

I think she is !!!

Sorry not sure what point you’re making to me? I haven’t said a word about the state pension, of course it’s absolutely an entitlement for everybody that has paid in over the years (like me). I know I exactly what it is and about it not being mean tested thanks. Don’t know why you would think I need educating about it.

Because if they have savings then they can afford to support themselves… an obvious answer?