To see benefits as a safety net, not handouts?

This isnt a dig at you solely but I do think some people are totally misinformed how UC works and council housing works. This is not the 90s anymore. UC do have rules about looking for work and there is no way you can get away with not working for decades like you could in the 90s.

I live in a council house. I do not have money to buy a house and on my street where I live private rents cost £1500 per month. You are very delusional people simply cannot afford that!

Agreed. They even said themselves how hard it was to get volunteers, which is unsurprising given what they were researching!

The Joseph Roundtree survey I believe asked the question ‘have you ever worked’ so a very part time or even a job lasting a few weeks was counted.

Couldn’t agree more.

And I hate it when people like @pointythings mis-use and simplify ‘research’ to shut down conversations. Because this is a conversation that will have to be had at some point (preferably before Reform form a government).

I came from poverty, my point was it's sad to see children without aspirations beyond a life on benefits

It 100% should be a safety net. There should also be sanctions if you don't actively look for a suitable job or keep turning down job offers then after a certain time your benefits stop. Obviously that wouldn't apply to genuinely disabled people/carers of disabled people etc.

You’re not unreasonable @ForGreyStork except that, we are now seeing multi- generational families who have never (or rarely) worked, being supported on benefits as their main family income for 3 generations.

That is more than a safety net, and makes it more difficult to argue for a reliable and sufficient safety net.

We seem to have a situation where a lot of people work very hard, for more or less earned income, while a significant minority does not work at all. Something up to almost 15% of young people 18-24 are not in education, employment or training. That’s not acceptable or sustainable.

Tax credits back when my son was very little meant people stopped doing overtime. Ar that point poverty became inbuilt. Why work overtime if it means the government gives you less.

Because you have morals? Because you were brought up with a strong work ethic? I'd rather work myself to the bone than claim benefits.

That Joseph Rowntree research, @pointythings was qualitative (volunteer interviews), with 47 people in 20 families in precisely 2 locations. Hardly extensive. You are very patronising towards @TheCurious0range ,who, like me, has direct (if anecdotal) experience of families in exactly this situation. YOU ‘do better’.🙄

Would I be unreasonable to suggest that benefits should be a trampoline which help someone get back to where they have the ability to be self sustaining?
Rather than a safety net where the person can just relax and go "ok this is acceptable, I can deal with it as-is"
And yes, I have been on benefits in the past, and it was helpful to bridge a gap until I got back on my own two feet again.

To answer the original question - yes and no! For people with a life long disability which determines they will never be able to work, we should throw as much time and money behind them as possible.

For everyone else it should absolutely be a short term, catch you if you fall scenario. Choosing a life on benefits should not be feasible. Council houses should be temporary too (except for those with life-long conditions). It really pisses me off that we have people choosing (and on mumsnet, encouraged to choose) a council house instead of a private let. That's not what they should be for.

This is the crux of the matter. Fir 'in work' benefits it's the businesses benefitting, not the claimants.

They were supposed to be safety nets but in some cases, have become handouts.

The fact that for means-tested ones you can have several thousand pounds in savings means they're no longer a safety net.

For non-means tested ones, they can be hand-outs as you can be a millionaire and claim them.

Similar to @x2boys my adult son can’t walk or talk, fed through a tube, has oxygen and daily seizures. He lacks capacity but I’m hoping will outlive me. He still lives at home with us (husband is his full time carer while I work). Are you saying he shouldn’t be on benefits all of his life, because I have no idea how we’d support him otherwise?

Why do we need to 'encourage people to do minimum wage jobs'? Surely the objective is to encourage people to progress beyond minimum wage so that they stop relying on benefits whilst leaving the minimum wage jobs for young people or others starting at the bottom of the ladder?

It’s the way benefits are talked about.
What way?
By whom?

To me, they’re part of a social security system -a safety net that people may need at different points in life, rather than “gifts” or handouts.
Who is calling them gifts or handouts?

I also wonder whether increasing conditions and restrictions risk undermining that safety net over time
What increasing conditions and restrictions?

Super goady first post by OP.

Exactly. Except I live alone & thus have no one to get a carers benefit or 'split' the bills with. I can reassure @millymollymoomoo it's definitely a poverty level existence, & if I could go back to work I bloody would.

some people need to realise that not being disabled today, doesn't mean you won't be tomorrow.

Unfortunately there are more part time jobs than full time ones . In certain parts of the country rents are so high that people have to claim benefits to make ends meet . So I would say benefits are more of a safety net than a handout .

Not everyone needs benefits, child support, pension, winter fuel allowance etc but until it's all means tested which will never happen then the benefits bill will always be huge.

I remember during lockdown when my DDs were on their computers doing lessons. A teacher asked ‘how do we get money’. One kid piped up ‘the government gives it to us’. Poor bloody kid, no hope.

Universal Credit is there to give businesses a handout and keep wages artificially low so they can make more profit.

There, fixed it for you.

Those NMW jobs are essential and need doing. So what are you going to do about that?

The benefit system we have now is a direct result of decades of a low wage economy (topped up by uc) and destruction of the council house system.

If you’re better off on uc (with rent paid) rather than working for less than peanuts in a soul destroying job why wouldn’t you?

People keep quoting this statistic about so many families where 3 or 4 generations have never worked. Research by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation showed that such families were in fact extremely rare. Now that research dates back to 2012, but given the nature of time and generations passing, it it not possible for there to suddenly be an explosion over a period of 14 years. So while there may be a concentration of deprivation in your area, you can't extrapolate from this to the entire country, and it is stigmatising to do so. Do better if you really do work with deprived familes; your judgemental attitude will not help them.

I was super grateful for the safety net when I needed it, as a young mum who ended up single through no fault of my own. I claimed housing benefit and top up benefits, worked part time while doing an access course, then a degree and am now a higher rate tax payer so hope I am paying it back in.