What would happen to you/your family if there were NO benefits/welfare system?

[Mamajoycewig]

As there's been a lot of talk around benefits in the news and a lot of strong opinions on it I was interested to know what would happen to most people if there were no welfare system in place?

Would your family suffer? Would you be on the streets?

Would you have still had kids knowing if you couldn't work there'd be no government backup?

Would you have made different life choices?

Personally, if all benefits were to be removed tomorrow then we'd be the same financially other than losing child benefit which we use for nappies/wipes etc.

My mum and brother would be screwed as he's disabled. Although if I'm honest I don't think she'd have had as many kids as she did without any top ups (4 kids). She's always worked but needed top ups.

It would not impact my family directly but I suspect it would impact services that we use.

For example, I'm not sure how many of the TAs would be able to continue to work in DDs school if they didn't have access to funded childcare and top up UC, I imagine they'd need to move to something like retail or warehouse work doing opposite shifts to partners and managing without childcare until kids were old enough to not need it. Lack of affordability of childcare would be a huge issue for workers, it's bad enough now with the funded hours, tax free childcare scheme and UC reimbursing some of the costs where eligible.

It's not just about circumstances changing though is it. It's about choosing to have a child, or more children, when already without means to support them other than public assistance. Young people in work, or out, around the world are looking at the numbers and deciding they just don't add up and choosing not to have children at all.
Like the pp, I wouldn't choose to have children while on benefits, or in a precarious financial position. I was lucky, I was in a good position. Others would decide they want children anyway, that's up to them and whatever they think best. We've created a society where having a child, housing them, and providing for them without public support is virtually impossible for a big percentage of our young people.

Do you mind me asking - I assume you currently rent and earn sufficient to pay the rent yourself but you won't be able to on a state pension?

@Kendodd id say that most of the parents in receipt of benefits are single parents. The vast majority will be mothers. Do you honestly think that most single mothers expect to be single mothers when they plan their families? I didn’t (though I only ever had CB). That’s an incredibly simplistic view of family and financial planning.

No I don't think most mothers plan to be single. It's none of my business if they do plan that though.

Nothing as I don't claim benefits. (Except CB)

However the wider impact would be felt by everyone. Crime, looting would sky rocket

Wouldn't effect us now as we managed to crawl back out of the system. However, a few years ago when my partner lost his job and the kids were little, we would never have pulled ourselves back of poverty, and I would have been unable to effectively raise my kids without severe trauma from being destitute. The system is there for a reason, no child deserves to suffer.

If there was no safety net we'd all be tripping over people sleeping on the streets, I might well be one of them!

There are already too many people sleeping on the streets.

I'm curious about comments that say mother's of young children should just work more hours/both parent should work. It's not always that simple not everyone has family/friends willing to look after their children while they work a full time job. As for paying a nanny/ using childcare that's only really financially viable if you have a good job not an ordinary one. As for nurseries and pre schools their hours don't work around many jobs.

I'm not making excuses but just curious about how you expect those people to work more hours?

A lot would be very unwell too.

If we had to pay medical bills, my DH and 2 kids would be dead.

Flouncing off from your family and going "NC" is such a western thing. You can only do it here because of the vast financial welfare system. At home social security means the people around you. If not your family, then the family you make yourself. Humans are tribal animals. Very few people are too ill to do anything. We always had elderly relatives living with us and often other people too, sometimes sharing costs and sometimes contributing to the household in a non-monetary way. Seriously mentally-ill people would live in a hospital, but anxiety and depression are not the issues they are here. If you have to crack on, you invariably crack on. And action is a great cure for many ailments.

I was discussing this with a friend whose family are from Pakistan and he made the interesting point that’s it’s Western habits that usually lead to the ‘NC’ - excess drinking, step parents in and out, problems stemming from a kind of individualism that doesn’t flourish over there.

But I also agree about very very few people being too mentally ill to do anything.

Oh, here we go...
The issue is not with the mentally ill not being able to work "any job"... it is finding employers willing to take them on.

Societies where "individualism" is frowned upon often rely on the exploitation of usually female family unpaid labour so I'm not sure I'd want to go down that route.

I understand that but if we could get the balance right it could be a very good thing, the best of both worlds. I think the vikings lived like this!

Men are by and large too selfish and entitled to do their fair share of unpaid, unrecognised, infected work.

Ah well just give up trying to make them do anything then

It would greatly impact us, shop workers, cleaners, carers and other staff who receive topup benefits would risk losing their home, not having the money to get to work, to feed themselves. So the services we use would suffer and hugely decline.

No impact here

No, but acknowledge that they have zero entitlement to unpaid, mostly female-provided care.

There are countries without such a culture. Both my parents worked. Not saying it was a gender-equality paradise by any means. But not everywhere has the indentured-servitude of women as a default.

But there is a definite correlation between unpaid care provided within families and having women around with few economic options onto whom that care can be shoved.