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.

Wouldn't affect us.

No impact.

Zero impact.

If the savings were passed back to tax payers via lower taxation then we'd probably be considerably better off

I would still have had the same number of children as l never factored in benefits as an option.

Wouldn't change anything for me.

It would have done a few years ago when my dh left me with two DC’s under the age of three and my wage alone couldn't support us.

I do think my ex should have been made to pay our childcare fees, rather than the state though. I didn't see why we should be supported by the tax payer, when my DH got to keep his money.

No impact, none on my siblings, wouldn’t have impacted my parents either.

I’ve never qualified for anything, ever so zero impact. .

No impact here. Single parent/2 kids. Earn too much for benefits but live in London so still skint 😁. I do use the NHS for the kids - GP, dentist, free prescriptions, so that would impact if removed. Also kids are at state school so glad I dont have to pay for that. In fact I couldn't afford private education or healthcare so if that were removed I'd be fucked, or have to at up an Only Fans account 😁

In the short term my income would be OK … at least until the economy collapsed.

I wouldn’t be able to access any services though, or even pop to the shops, because most of the people keeping necessary services running wouldn’t be able to afford to survive, so I don’t imagine that would still be working.

Me and my dc would have been absolutely screwed! I’d have probably been stuck in an unhealthy relationship, rather than being able to safely leave with support for housing and disability benefits. We'd still have been in poverty as my ex H was not on a high wage and also financially abusive. Maybe eventually the dc would have been removed if we couldn’t afford to feed them? Or my parents might have stepped in.
I’m now working and studying and no longer receiving any benefits, but I am grateful every day for what I received and how I was able to get back on my feet.

At this point it wouldn't affect my immediate family or either set of in-laws. Nobody claims anything. Because my Mum gets about 5p a month in a private pension she's entitled to bugger all help anyway and has to rely on her savings every month. I think I will need some kind of help when I retire and it worries me there will be crap all available despite paying for myself my whole life.

It’s AFFECT.

It’s a pointless debate, as we will always have monetary social help for those in the most need. What we should be doing is keeping them for the most needy, severely disabled children and adults, helping people to work more hours, encouraging people to not have more people than they can afford.

We also need more preventative health measures, especially identifying people at risk of long term physical and mental health problems and treating them before their health irreversibly declines.

I'd have had a really difficult childhood as I think my parents would have had to support my aunt and her four children, who were reliant on benefits most of my childhood. We had a fairly big house but add in five extra people and it would have been crowded and chaotic, with not much money to go around. I cant imagine my parents would have left them on the streets though. Whether I'd have got my school work and had the life chances I did is pretty doubtful.

We would be absolutely ruined !

I can’t work due to ASD, ADHD and medical issues, SEN dc (large family) single parent .

Very grateful for the benefits system

My life would be changed out of all recognition. I don't receive benefits.

I would be forced to refuse help to hundreds of people I support through work because there would be no way to fund what we do. I'd be making people homeless. I'd also live in a dreadful place I would hate because of all the homeless, disabled, desperate people I would have to step over to go about my day. I would live in a place with a rising crime rate, making my life worse, because of the desperate people trying to feed themselves and their families with no support. I'd have to feed, cloth and house people myself because my conscience wouldn't allow anything else.

Thank goodness all I actually have to do IRL is pay taxes and relax.

Are you including housing benefit and unemployment benefit in your use of
benefits ?

Neither of us have any entitlement to benefits: childfree, homeowners. I think we’d get whatever pittance JSA is for a short period but that’s about it. It’s a pretty shit system, really, even if you pay in tens of thousands a year for decades as we both do, you aren’t guaranteed to actually get a proper security net if you lose your job.

Id be screwed. I work but receive benefits as im disabled . Im a single parent and without government help id be on streets. I do work very very hard as a carer and dont sit at home. I hate how we all get labelled as benefit scroungers who don't work

Right now? No impact at all.

But when I was growing up, we would have been homeless. Can't imagine the stress on my poor mother. I don't know what would have happened to us honestly, she wouldn't have coped.

And I wouldn't have been able to leave my abusive ex with a one year old baby as I did. Or pursue university education after doing that.

I think a functioning benefits system is an absolute essential. We MUST protect the most vulnerable with that safety net. If people think it is used too easily there are other ways around that - at the very least, incentives not punishment.

Oh and i live in a beautiful rural village. Not as a previous poster said a horrible council estate. Not all people who receive benefits live in bad areas !

State pensions are part of the welfare system so your mother couldn't survive on her private pension alone, she would be directly impacted.

Don't think anyone in my family wouldn't be affected, between disabilities, pensioners, single mums, orphans with kinship and looked after children there would be an impact on most of us.

Never been on benefits so no effect .

It would impact the check out lady who works part time in Aldi, she works part time, so that she can get the top ups. I see her almost every weekend in Starbucks when I do my shopping in the adjacent supermarket. She has 3 kids, Starbucks coffee is one of the most expensive coffees you can get, I hesitate to go there and I work full time and earn over average, I have never used benefits.
Until we close the loopholes in the system, there will always be people gaming the system.

I only get child benefit but i would definitely miss that! Living to the last penny over here!

We'd lose DH state pension which is not huge compared to his work pension but not to be sneezed at.
We'd also lose DLA which we would REALLY feel.
Because I work in a fairly high paid role and DH is retired we aren't on a massive income but we don't get full child benefit.
We've had winter fuel before (for DH and DS who is the one that gets DLA, but that was a one off).

Are you counting bus passes? Both DH and DS have these (DS has epilepsy but is 12 but anyone who's unable to drive gets a bus pass - even if they are also unable to drive due to being, er, a child!)

What else are you counting?