Confused re attitude to benefits and work experience

Catontheroof, I can't help feeling that you think you are better than others because you earn a good wage.

Meant to add since redundancy we have spent money selfishly on rent, CT, food, nappies and fuel bills over and above the bb. Therefore I really must apologise to miss high and mighty OP.

POVERTY IS RELATIVE

POVERTY IS RELATIVE!

All the thickos not realising this need to take note!

My DH was only made redundant 15 weeks ago the computer was bought over a year ago with DH's wages. I wasn't aware we had to ask your permission before we bought anything, I'll try and remember in future. Broadband. we got a good deal and pay less than a fiver a month. It is not only used for MN but more importantly Job applications. Is that OK for you?

The only benefits we are getting are Child Benefit and Contribution based JSA which will stop in June. FYI I do pay tax and up until December DH had paid taxes for 17 years.

Pretty damn hard to look for a job these days without internet access..

I have just stopped work to concentrate on caring for my autistic child. I will be claiming housing benefit, council tax benefit, income support and carers allowance ....all for the first time since I left school in 1982.

Don't know how hard it will be but am dreading it tbh. My son is awake half the night leaving me exhausted in work and prone to errors - as a nurse this is obviously not ideal.

So - a period of time on benefits it is - at least until I can find work where somebody's life is not potentially in my hands.

So workfare - I will NOT be doing.

And poverty is relative folks - we are rich by the level of poverty in the Third World but poverty in the UK is still poverty, Internet access or not.

You sound like you would like it much better here if people really were living in Dickensian squalor catontheroof.
What you dont realise is that as the cuts start to bite thousands of families will be living in B and Bs, in one room, and thousands more people will be on the streets.
That harsh enough for you? Will that satisfy whatever craving it is that you have to see people as humiliated as possible?

Oh and about Pret-
The majority of foreign people working at Pret are young, with no kids, and are here living in shared houses to make a bit of cash before they go home to Poland/Turkey/wherever.
They can work crazy shifts that I , for example, can't, and they can live 3 to a room, because it is a temporary situation for them.
I know, I did it too when I was young.

I have applied for so many jobs that are well below my education level, but I can't work evenings and weekends, so I cant take them. And companies wont be flexible anymore because they don't need to be.

And my point is that we are not in poverty because we get tax credits. If we couldn't claim such financial support then we certainly would be living in poverty despite working hard.

So the 1,900 people who were admitted to hospital with hypothermia last winter, some of whom died, were they not poor then? Were they just too thick to turn the heating on?

don't be so ridiculous catontheroof

"the whole point of the economic crisis is that NI no where nears covers the amount we are now paying out. That is what "deficit" means."

People who work pay TAX in addition to NI. The very point of the welfare state, as brought in after the 2nd world war was to give people a better standard of living, based on NI and tax contributions.
Because in those days, and after the horror of the great depression, most right thinking people could see the need for a fairer system where the poor could still have a decent life.
Because they had seen the alternative.

Pendeen-yes, housing costs were allowed to get so insanely high.
What I mean by this is that interest rates were kept low, banks were lending irresponsibly, thus pushing up house prices massively.
Add to that the buy to let frenzy, and the total absence of any fair rent legislation and you have an artificially overheated housing market.

I wouldn't panic about state intervention. The state has been intervening pretty heavily lately bailing out the fuckers that go us into this mess in the first place.
And as for fair rent-New York has way more laws to protect tenants than the UK does, and that is a pretty capitalist place.
Here, people who couldnt get on the housing ladder are essentially fucked.

What is obsession with benefit claimants not working, or at least not working full time?

Tax credits are designed to support people who do work but for a low income.

My DH and I rely on tax credits to keep our heads above water, we both work bloody hard. He does 40-45 hours per week and I do 20 whilst my kids are at school.

Why should we have to live in poverty when we work so hard? Not everybody is able to have a top job with a top wage but the jobs we do are still valuable.

Yeah Serial.

knows

Dunno why I'm bothering really, it's all very provocative and without very much sense behind it.

Except the "giving it to the poorest people in the developing world bit", Shirl.

They're there for window dressing, they don't actually get anything.

there are hardlyany low paid jobs available, that's the bloody problem. Some of you haven't got a clue

Cat, couldn't your family live in a hostel on food stamps, then all the extra money you earn and spend on computers etc could be sent to Africa to pay for vaccinations and clean drinking water.

This would save a lot more money than your proposal to put disabled people on ESA into hostels, as it costs a lot more to equip hostels for disabled people.

Aw, you're all heart OP. It's all sounds a bit like Communism to me, but without any of the taxation of the richest. ..

so let me understand this...

Everyone in the UK gets a job, and the 2.2M who are adrift without a job live in a hostel - or something and forrage for food?

and then with the tax we save as a country in benefits we can give that to the poorest people in the developing world. Is that correct?

Haha, change of subject? You really are only here for the larfs, aintchoo?

Actually insisting people work ft would make things worse. If everyone worked pt then there would be lots of job shares and therefore lots of jobs. Apparently, though, most jobs are impossible to job share thus keeping unemployment high and some people's pockets full while others' pockets are empty.

Not that ft working has anyng to do with wanting more, of course, it's all to do with need.

Dear old Wilson started building all those leisure in the 70s so that we'd all have other things to do than work, as he knew we'd never see full employment again. He expected to get everyone on a 3 or 4 day weel eventually, giving us all a much better work/life balance. Of course, everyone objected massively to his plans, and voted him out. Heralding the, er, delightful Thatcher and all that went with her.