Benefit cuts will cost the economy.

It really is. I guess some people have such sad lives it makes them feel better to try to lord it over people more vulnerable than they are, even if it means lying and obfuscating.

Despite all the difficulties and challenges, my DH and I have a nice life and are happy enough. I wouldn't want to switch with the haters. I feel sorry for them, being so full of toxicity.

@Octavia64 you have done some sterling work on this thread. Thank you 💐

Perfect response, 10/10 👏👏👏

This is your choice:

Genuine claimants get what they need - but there will be some fraud.

OR

Genuine claimants will NOT all get what they need - but fraud is reduced.

There isn't a system that ensures everyone who is genuine, gets, and no one who is not, doesn't.

The current media barrage of benefits bashing is trying to ensure that when genuine claimants start to suffer, claims fail, people are starving/freezing to death, committing suicide... you don't feel bad. You can say 'well they obviously weren't a genuine claimant, it's their own fault for being too lazy to get a job'.

Before you make that choice though - consider this.

Reducing the benefits claims is not going to reduce your tax.
It is not going to decrease your outgoings.
It is not going to increase your wage.
It is going to put a higher burden on services, many of which your tax pays for.

So will knowing that a handful of fraudulent claimants are no longer getting away with it keep you warm and cosy and put food on your table? Will that make up for the genuine claimants suffering more?

And keep in mind - you're not 'not disabled'. You're simply 'not disabled yet'. Able bodied, fit, and healthy is temporary.

Yes, those foods aren't good to eat long term. And they're in no way affordable.

Maybe people are imagining they'll live off what's in their larder instead. Except after a few years of poverty, they won't have anything in their larder.

After a few years of this, I start feeling panicky and guilty every single time I have to buy food. A friend of mine took me to Costco recently because they thought it would be a nice trip out for us. I got so overwhelmed by the huge piles of food that I got shaky, burst into tears and had to leave.

That's reality. That's what the apparent privilege of being disabled and on benefits looks like.

Ah really? I need to revise. It’s still suggesting that microwaving is a regular answer to getting a hot nutritious meal, though isn’t it? If I’m here on my own and struggling, one pot recipes are the kind of thing I can just about do unaided and I sit down to chop.

Similarly, in social care now, a client who is only ever able to to access a strip wash is considered to have adequate access to bathing.

These kind of precedents have built up over time and they’re not really good enough. Mostyn is would want better for ourselves and our loved ones.

Well said @Octavia64

The misinformation is thigh deep on this thread alone.

You score 2 points on PIP for cooking activity if you can only use a microwave for microwavable meals, instead of an oven. And it also still has to take into account whether you can cut vegetables, open tins and cans, etc.

You are completely correct as to why the number of taxpayers is going up.

i was posting in response to the statement
“the ever shrinking Uk taxpayers” (or similar, I forget exact quote,) which isn’t true and hasn’t been for a couple of years.

i’m posting these stats because I’m disabled and I’m bloody fed up of people posting factually untrue things about disability benefits.

i have (personal) opinions on benefits in general and the welfare state but those are opinions not facts.

when people post things like “the majority of pip claims are not for a physical disability” and similar these are factual statements which can be checked and a lot of the time they’re just not true.

now if they wanted to post “I think there should be no disabled benefits” fine. That’s an opinion. I don’t agree with you but you’ve the right to say it and hold it.

but if you’re going to go around lying in such a way that makes people both believe lies and encourages them to hate disabled people then yeah I’m going to pick you up on it.

even the government usually word their attacks on disabled people very carefully so that they are literally true if somewhat misleading.

Criterion, I mean.

I always wonder that about the PIP criteria that posits that if you can microwave a meal unaided, then you can feed yourself.

Has anyone actually looked at the nutritional content and cost of possible microwave-only diets? Doesn’t sound very affordable or healthy to me as a daily solution.

Im sorry you’re in such a tough situation.

Some people will never understand, unless it is their reality, or someone very close to them, so that they can see for themselves, the challenges that they face.

We either have a tax, benefit and pension system that’s built on rules and entitlements. Or we have a discretionary system based on tummy feelings. Do you honestly think tummy feelings wood work better?

I didn't want disabled people to starve when I was working. Why would I want other people's blood on my hands so I could pay a little bit less tax?

Also, I wasn't planning on becoming disabled myself. I had this disease waiting in my genetics since birth - I wouldn't have known that when I was meant to be making sure I'd badly suffer when it happened to me.

No one's health is going to last. It could be tomorrow that you're in the same position as me.

CAMHS, special education, large chunks of the NHS, affordable housing, social services….

Typical Guardian drivel. They’re always squealing for more benefits to be dished out. Most working people don’t agree with them, hence the small readership.

All of them.

Mental health services and early intervention are all but extinct, especially for young people.

Affordable housing has waiting lists of over 10 years in many areas, and the NHS is on its knees.

Probably started by trolls wanting to make out that there are PIP claimants rolling around in piles of cash that they don’t know how to spend in order to fit their agenda. Meanwhile
back in the real world of actual claimants there are individuals and families scraping by a they are having to access private treatments and therapies as the nhs waiting lists are months if not years.

Well it hasn’t, we’ve just about reached 2006 levels recently.

It would be helpful to apply some basic analytics before posting - the number of taxpayers and higher rate taxpayers is increasing because of tax bands freezes whilst wages are growing, not because of more people being employed.

Can you post equivalent stats on number of people on benefits over time and value of welfare bill? this will show you rather different picture, very shocking one

Which service is underfunded?

What kind of support would’ve changed the outcome?

What do you expect me to eat? I'm on an incredibly low budget for food. It sounds like an obvious solution that I should eat food that requires little preparation. I've already explained that those foods aren't in my budget. One single takeaway at the cheapest price I can find wipes out my entire food budget for a week. Ready meals are too expensive too, especially three ready meals a day!

I can't just have dozens and dozens of punnets of grapes delivered and live off those, even if I could afford that many grapes. Could you?

And these threads always lead to a certain coterie of posters drawing all the focus to the extreme cases of people with multiple disabilities rather than the ones who could work and don’t. I know three women who play the system to get ‘benefits’ - ‘justifying’ it by the fact that they are 60 and ‘should be getting a pension’. One of them managed to keep that going till she did actually get her pension, having claimed benefits most of her life. None of those have any disability. They could work but choose not to.

What is wrong with the word 'entitled'? What else do you think it should be called?
I am on benefits I am entitled to.

Yes. They’ve gone from money for those in desperate and unavoidable need, so a constant fallback that is there to right every unfairness in life.