Nobody is allowed to choose not to work. Fed up of hearing this expression.

Well my ExH chooses not to work. His mum lets him live with her rent free and doesn’t expect him to do anything and gives him a small amount of ‘fun money’ each month. He chooses not to work so that he doesn’t need to pay me maintenance. He did work for a while when we were together FYI but got bored of it and quit one day, hasn’t worked since. In hindsight it’s very clear that EXH has some undiagnosed mental health problems or disabilities.

Oh and my lodger and others I know have certainly never spent 35 hours a week looking for work or gone on courses, they’ve sat around and done nothing.

Not every terminal condition or set of conditions can be quantified to the point of qualifying for that. Doctors don't like to be pinned down like that when it comes to unpredictable endpoints. Besides, it's difficult to get a time remaining projection from a very occasional 2 minute GP phone call and the odd text message saying your prescriptions are ready for DH to pick up. Lost and ignored hospital referrals don't lead to much written evidence. Plenty of verbal warnings of imminent doom from emergency trips to a
A and E leave you with the knowledge though. Seeing several different doctors in a day, who you never see again and don't know the name of, leaves you with plenty of information about how deep in the shit you really are but with no evidence with which to make any claims of or for anything.

And I'm not fragile. I'm angry. Angry at being tarred with the same brush as benefit cheats, while they're laughing and I'm lying here with my bloody heart jumping about in my chest like a coked up frog on top of my swollen liver and shrivelled kidneys.

Carry on though. Pick at me some more and, apparently, the societal drains that are other people earning under £35,000 p.a according to your calculations.

Is it actually possible to spend 35 hours a week searching for jobs? There aren't that many jobs out there, and once you have composed a CV and evidence of your competencies/experience, it doesn't take that long to tailor them to different applications; these days you would be submitting the applications online which takes seconds, you wouldn't be trotting out to post them. Yes, you could also also apply speculatively by sending your CV out, but could you fill 35 hours, week in, week out doing that?

When I was involved in hiring, we used to get CVs that told us to throw them away when we received them as they didn’t actually want the job. You mean that kind of job search?

nobody should be forced to become a carer,
for the sake of the elderly, they deserve carers who want to be carers

actually this is not true for vast swathes of people. Tax payers are completely within their rights to resent supporting people who can work but do everything they can to avoid doing so

People do choose not to work though. A friend’s son signed up for benefits straight out of university. He wanted a job in his (niche) field and didn’t want to do any other work to support himself while searching. I suppose he wasn’t getting a huge amount, but I don’t think an able bodied young man should go on benefits at all if there’s an alternative. His mum didn’t see anything wrong with it, her reasoning was that she’d paid enough tax to justify her son doing this. This is a middle class family from an affluent area, not some
poor boy from the sticks trying to catch a break. I was appalled when she told me.

I worked part time throughout university and worked nights in a takeaway restaurant while doing a full time internship. Not once did it occur to me that I should sign up for benefits while searching for a job in my field.

I know plenty of people that don’t want to work. I also know people that choose to work the bare minimum of hours so they get benefits still.

My lodger barely works, his view is why should he when doesn’t need to as he gets money from the state. He’s not sanctioned.

We massively need an overhaul of the system and anyone that is capable of working fulltime should be and not just sitting on their arse.

If you can work you should. Why would anyone choose to sit around on UC doing nothing with their lives.
I am currently bed bound with carers coming in, I work full time from home earning 50k. I went to uni and got good qualifications.
It's the only thing that keeps me sane.
Hopefully I should be able to go in to work again after a planned big operation but it's not guaranteed.

Everyone 'who knows soneone' always sing from the same hymn sheet and all it does is make people with disabilities lives harder and harder, online and in real life because each new hoop put in place to satiate those who have held onto their biases against disabled people from outdated knowledge of the benefits system and then self sooth themselves with the phrase 'I support genuinely disabled people'

‘Search for jobs for 35 hours a week’ - oh dear how sad, so the same hours spent as someone who is actually in work?! 🙄 why should they spend any less than 35 hours?!

People don’t spend 35 hours a week looking for a job because if they did, they would get a job. It’s harder to get a job but with the right support can be done. For many years now people have just taken the benefits and let others work for them. I have a friend who claims she can’t work but she has never applied for a supermarket or care job.

OP sounds very naive. It’s VERY easy to choose not to work should you choose not to. I know someone who did it for many years and other than the occasional interview and a bit of online research so that he could write a list of the jobs he “applied for” whenever required, really didn’t do much else and got away with it as long as he wanted to.

No I don't. Explain to me how you know for a fact I don't know for a fact that a particular person has claimed benefits they are not entitled to. Why is your truth more true than my truth?

There are people who game the system, I know because I grew up in a house with them. However, I hated growing up in a household like that - alcohol abuse, violence, being the cater for my younger sibling. I wanted out and somehow I managed to. I’m 46 now and been teaching since I was 21. My sibling is 44, was a school refuser and therefore has little qualifications, and has rarely worked - mainly cash in hand jobs and now he a wife and children and lives the life of our childhood. He obviously saw my parents “get by” - and likewise the rest of the folk in our estate - and that’s enough. People do game the system but it isn’t to live the life of riley. It’s a learned behaviour and people being okay with getting by. (I don’t believe the crap about multiple holidays, cars etc - that wasn’t my experience of growing up in benefits. I didn’t even see out of my area until in went to Uni interviews).

I know that I genuinely support benefits for those in need whilst at the same time knowing as a fact that certain people have played the system to their advantage.

See what I mean 🙄

I'm aware she can speak for herself. So what? Are you now trying to silence me, as well as her?

I think maybe you missed that she was raging at someone that suggested she and others like her face a panel of people drinking in the pub after work, in order to justify her disability money.

And your evidence for this statement is?

I know that I genuinely support benefits for those in need whilst at the same time knowing as a fact that certain people have played the system to their advantage.

I surely can't be the only person in this position so we do.exist believe it or not

OP doesn’t appear to know much about grifters 🤣

My arsehole of a brother (just turned 50) has only ever had one job which lasted 3 weeks. He’s a complete con man and has managed to con his way onto so many benefits over the years. He’s physically healthy (but ‘has had’ so many fake conditions over the years - things that ‘confound’ medical professionals as they can’t seem to find any medical reason for ‘his severe back issue’ or his ‘inability to stand upright without feeling dizzy’…and the list goes on! He’s a medical mystery I swear!! 🥴)

He is obnoxious and rude about anyone who works…calls them ‘sheep’ and laughs at the very idea that he ought to get a job.

He is utterly without morals and talks openly about ‘screwing the fucking hell out of the system’ (his actual words). And he doesn’t have to prove any of this by doing 35 hours a week jobseeking. He has one interview a year over the phone to ‘check in’ on his many ‘medical concerns’. It’s appalling that he’s got away with this for all of his adult life!!

There are many, many people like this OP…your naivety is astounding!

One situation that can mean you don't have to work on UC is it you have a partner in a joint claim who earns above the amount needed to mean you are not needed to look for work.

OP my sisters neighbours best friends hairdressers aunts next door neighbour knows how to play the system although she's meant to job search for 35 hours a week she just tells them she doesn't want to work and they all applaud her and tell her she's amazing, my uncles girlfriends dog walkers sisters boyfriends best mate says he has mental health issues and he goes parachuting, mountain climbing and is the lead singer of a very famous band so no way he has anxiety as he claims, he even brags about it, he gets £58483757483384737 a week on DISABILITY benefits and he gets a brand new ferrari every week on MOTABILITY, he has 900 flat screen tvs and 300 smart phones

The anecdata some of these melts will use to try and punish those with disabilities and in poverty knows no bounds because they'll all give it 'if they genuinely can't work then they should be supported' while knowing they don't believe anyone is genuine

Of course she can, she can also speak for herself.

I too would be angry and raging towards people who believe benefits for genuinely ill people should be cut or the people doing the cutting.

Raging against people who do not believe this is unproductive and potentially damaging to a persons mental health.

You are totally and utterly missing the point. If you are ill you need PIP and no one is arguing about that.

The point is there are lots of people taking the piss and that’s why the government is looking at this. It has to! Taking inflation out of the question the disability benefits bill is forecast to rise from £25bn (pre COVID) to £75bn in 2030. £50bn extra to fund! That’s a staggering amount of money!

People are angry at those taking the piss with PIP. You should be really angry with them too. THEY are the reason the government is having to look at your benefits again. It’s their fault!

Why not scrap all benefits and taxes.

That way an individual pays for the service they need whether that be education or medical or housing. Would this be fair and equal?