Attitudes toward those on benefits disheartening.

[AWizardsSleeve]

I am chronically ill; I worked and paid in to the system for years before becoming too poorly to work. The condition I have causes crippling fatigue; it’s not tiredness, it’s debilitating, life limiting fatigue.

The recent announcement of the cost of living help for low income families has brought out the worst in people and frankly, makes me feel worthless. I’ve stopped reading the comments sections in the media as it makes me feel like trash.

From family and friends, I’ve had remarks such as: “I work hard for what I’ve got and there’s you being paid to watch TV”. Said in a lighthearted way of course

“It’s wrong how hard working people get nothing and those that don’t, get it all handed to them. Oh but I’m not talking about you.” Yes, you are.

“I know someone who has 4 missing limbs and they still have a job, why can’t you work?”. When I’ve tried to explain that fatigue can be a huge barrier to work, I get told about another inspirational person and if I really wanted to, I could.

My own sister threatened to report me for benefit fraud (jokingly of course) . I told her to go ahead as I have nothing to hide.

Family call me the ‘benefit expert’ and it’s so hurtful. I have never told them that I receive benefits but they assume and bring it up every time I see them.

I’ve lost any chance of a career and I spend my days in pain and exhausted. I dread the week as I’m so bored being stuck at home. I do also try to live life as I have children but heaven forbid if I take them on a day out, because it means I’m not truly unwell (they don’t understand the suffering I go through after).

I told my other sister I was being referred for more testing and she rolled her eyes and said “what’s wrong with you now?”. I rarely talk about my illness because family don’t understand it and are very unsupportive. I had to hold back tears and make an excuse to leave.

I cringe when doctors ask me about my occupation and I’m so embarrassed to say I don’t work. I hate this. I hate every second of it and the attitudes of people make it worse.

I’ve had to fight the system repeatedly in spite of medical evidence to get financial support. The fear of it being removed every few years and wondering how I will survive in old age keeps me awake at night.

Do people really believe people choose to live with this worry and the shame that comes with it? I feel so disheartened and upset today.

It’s the system that lets people down.
There are many many people who are quite rightly entitled and claim legitimately.

6.3bn in one year is a significant amount of money.

Oh op your post resonates with me so much. I have fibromyalgia, chronic insomnia, OCD, anxiety, depression and recently diagnosed at the age of 44 with ADHD. Also being assessed for ASD.

I am constantly in pain. I take far too many tablets. I have no life. I hate that I’m so capable in my head but my body just can’t do it. My dad is lovely but just doesn’t “get” it and when he rings he will tell me I need a job because we’re really really struggling financially. I wish I could work. I have yet to claim PIP as I put everything off but I’ve promised myself i will.

If you ever need to talk then I’m here. I know how you feel. Others make the right noises and are sympathetic but nobody knows how horrific it is to live like this.

My 2 dc are both autistic ( high functioning) and are 11 and 19 so not little but hard work in their own way 😊 I dream of one night alone in a hotel!

Solidarity to you and everyone else suffering xx

That 6.3 bin is fraud and ERROR. It also includes various pensions as well as the benefits people generally speak of.

No. Just Fraud.
I posted this above.

The rate of Fraud overpayments was 3.0%, an increase from 1.4% in FYE 2020, and the monetary value of Fraud overpayments increased from £2.8bn to £6.3bn. The rise was primarily due to an increase in Fraud overpayments on UC.

Gilead

I genuinely don’t understand why anyone would want to minimise the impact fraud has on the benefit system.

If I was a person legitimately claiming disability benefit, UC etc. I would be just as furious that there are people out there cheating the system as I am now.

I’m not sure why anyone would seek to play it down and say ‘only’ 3%, ‘only’ 6.3bn!

I was a DWP Civil Servant. In 2007 I found out my childhood CSA abuser was living with 2 young girls. I went to the police, a 3 year investigation commenced. He finally got 22 years in prison. Tried to cling on to the career and life I had built from feck all & was offered no support or meds despite numerous GP visits.

After the trial, and horrendous Court Experience, my CPTSD flashbacks got worse, extremely suicidal, I went to my GP for help, even took the newspaper article as proof, saw female GP's and IAPT, still no help. Apparently being a good parent was a protective factor.

I ended up caring for my abusive mother, my abuser then died in prison rang GP suicidal, reception asked me to ring back the next day for an emergency appointment. I rapidly gave up and declined, I got my medical records had been over 60 times to try and access help. Not screaming or dramatic just expecting help.

Also had an unusual breast condition, every single month. Extreme pain extra trauma.

Applied for pip a couple of times didn't get as far as the interview as to mentally tired.

A couple of years later reapplied, my nephew wrote everything including my GP records and how many times I've asked for help.

I don't know what the PIP lady did but she saved my life. The very next morning after the PIP interview, the GP rang asking what I wanted. I explained a mental health test and help that I had been asking for, for years and years. The treatment gate was opened I suddenly had a CPN, actually real help on the road to recovery.

I read the other day GP's can now sign people off their books who have unrealistic service expectations, which I'm sure I would of been one despite needing help. Which concerns me greatly. They did anything to fob me off because it was easier. It was like even though I was a civil servant, because I was a CSA survivor, I was trash who deserved no help or empathy.

To the PIP Doctor/Nurse who saved my life and gave me hope after years of the system grinding me down to a pulp of the fighter I am. I'm now have hope and that is truly priceless - thank you.

So no I don't give a poop about what people think about benefits, I've grafted harder than most people all my life to climb out of the shit hole I grew up in and live.

People really have no idea until misfortune hits.

*I now have hope (apologies).

It was in the news that the new anti fraud department’s priority is to stop Universal Credit fraud, not disability benefit fraud which is negligible. The biggest UC fraud is from: people living with partners and lying and saying they live alone. People claiming UC while they have hidden savings that put them over the limit. People working for cash in hand underreporting their self employment earnings do they can get a UC top up they’re not entitled to.

I do wonder what would happen if the types of people who hold the opinion that the benefits system is easy to game, or that a lazy person can just rock up and cash in, found themselves in that situation.

The hours/days/weeks spent on a DLA or PIP form (shouldn’t be called a form, we reached over 100 pages once), the research that goes in to doing it properly and the heart wrenching feeling when you realise the interviewer is sneering at you, deliberately twisting every single word that coming out if your mouth, and hasn’t even read your consultants reports.

The fear every time you see a brown envelope. That this is it, this is going to kick off a another round of forms, of not knowing whether you can afford your disabled dcs needs that month. Maybe a tribunal (quick note to anyone reading this fearing a tribunal, it’s not always bad. Dsis was awarded an indefinite care and mobility award after she was denied PIP when switching from DLA. They actually READ the medical evidence. But you still end up with no money for months on end).

That indignation that bubbles up (when you still have a bit of pride left) that some jumped up jobsworth has it in their mind that you are a ‘scrounger’ and talks to you like you are criminal five year old, even if you have a doctorate, and even if you were just going in to the job centre to pick up a letter.

I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy, but a part of me thinks the look on their face would be very satisfying for those ‘lazy feckless’ these types like to whine about.

@blindsinthecity
Many people have no choice but to work to survive and are struggling to make ends meet. To a certain extent, you live a privileged lifestyle if you don’t need to work to support yourself.

This is so wrong. Disabled cannot work, it’s not that we live a privileged lifestyle where we don’t need to work. This country has made damn sure that even the lowest income from the most unskilled work is higher than the benefits we receive and results in a better quality of life than the starvation benefits they force us to survive on. Through no fault of our own, we are pushed below the poverty line and because we cannot work, there is nothing we can do to better our living situation. Yes low income abled people are struggling, but they have more money to survive on than we do, so how can you even think to argue that they are struggling more? In fact the UN has written numerous reports on how the UKs current disability benefits system has repeatedly violated our human rights.

Sorry, did you REALLY just state that those claiming disability benefits should look at it as a privileged lifestyle?

Fuck you and the horse that you rode in on, to quote a popular phrase.

I can’t pick the quoted post apart any more, it speaks for itself.

I'm not sure that this is true. There was a thread on here a little while ago where single mums on benefits (not disabled) with 2 children discussed how much they got in benefits. People were genuinely shocked by how much they got, as it was more than many of the low earners, who work full time, were left with at the end of the month.

Even if that was the case, it is not the fault of the person claiming those benefits.
If you think it is easy to claim them, then go and do so.

The blooming money isn’t the point. It seems like loads are moaning re the money whilst not even considering what it’s like living your life with a disability.

Hold onto and appreciate your health - things turn on a sixpence.

Why are you comparing an abled working person to an abled person on UC and then thinking that has anything to do with a disabled persons benefits?

“Life costs you £583 more on average a month if you're disabled.

Families of disabled children on average, face extra costs of £581 a month

For almost a quarter (24%) of families with disabled children, extra costs amount to over £1,000 a month.” Scope www.scope.org.uk/media/disability-facts-figures/

“After housing costs, the proportion of working age disabled people living in poverty is 27%. Which is higher than the proportion of working age non-disabled people at 19%.” Scope www.scope.org.uk/media/disability-facts-figures/

The Independent also reported that disabled are more than twice as likely as abled to be in food poverty/unable to afford food.
www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/disabled-people-food-poverty-equality-and-human-rights-commission-disabilities-a7660846.html

My DH had his PIP taken away three months before he died of terminal cancer. Was he fit to work? Er, no. Whoops. That piled the pressure on at a truly hellish time.

I wonder if the amount saved from people wrongly being refused benefits is higher than the amount lost to benefit fraud

@XenoBitch I wouldn't do it because I have morals. But for plenty of people it's a generational thing. Their parents did it and now they see it as a valid lifestyle choice. For a brief time after I left university I had to sign on and the 'proof' I was job hunting was something as simple as telling the job centre clerk that I'd been looking online. Anyone can say that. It's probably more rigorous now but I'm sure there are ways around it still. I've also claimed UC/tax credits in my time when I was a single parent (I was working but not earning enough to get by) so it's not like I haven't used to system myself. I support it and I'm glad we live in a country where it's available for those in genuine need.
But it's foolish to say every case is genuine. It just isn't. And that culture makes it so much harder for those who need and deserve it.

@Discovereads
That’s right!
See the last line of the quote I posted:

The rate of Fraud overpayments was 3.0%, an increase from 1.4% in FYE 2020, and the monetary value of Fraud overpayments increased from £2.8bn to £6.3bn. The rise was primarily due to an increase in Fraud overpayments on UC.

If there are no disabilities involved then those single mums will be subject to the benefit cap. Unless they live somewhere cheap it's highly possible they are paying more than half of that income on rent.

A low earner who is also a single parent of 2 will also get top ups and therefore be better off than the unemployed parent.

If the low earner isn't a parent of 2 then it's not comparing like for like.

Totally agree, @XenoBitch anyone who uses the term "too lazy to work" and "ailments and injury" (talk about minimising people's suffering) is marking themselves out as having that same nasty inhumane streak as the people they accuse of being judgemental. Very passive aggressive, horrible.

Funny how those going on about fraud never mention the amount of unclaimed benefits.

I'm on benefits and would rather work. But how when I'm in and out of hospital because I can't get a proper diagnosis? I also have no idea how I'll be day to day.

I agree, I have unfollowed most news sites because I'm fed up of seeing these comments. My poor mum at the end of her life couldn't do a single thing for herself, not even talk and spent almost every day at home. She worked for over 30 years before her illness and I'm glad she can't read those comments now.

My BIL, seriously ill with life limiting disease, worked since the age of 16. Managed to claim a small amount of financial support that was stopped every single time he was admitted to hospital. The bills still had to be paid and his children still needed to eat, but apparently this isn't taken into account.
Yes, the amount of unclaimed benefits is very high.
So much time and resources spent on supposed "scroungers", while the rich evade tax and launder millions and the government share their fraudulent millions with their cronies.

To a certain extent, you live a privileged lifestyle if you don’t need to work to support yourself.

I guess my mum would have just starved years ago but even this government are above that.