To wonder how so many of you can know some lifelong dole scrounger when the official figures are so low?

[ValarMorghulis]

I am forever seeing ignorant rants posts on here from people who are appalled that Bob down the road has never worked a day in his life, that their relative is a career claimant or that Sue next door is knocking out child afyer child with different men and not one of them funding their children.

yet the statistics state, and there is no reason to believe them to be false, that the numbers of long term claimants ( 5 years or more) is actually 0.3%

This raises two questions for me.
Firstly, why are we all so convinced that half the world is a lazy feckless scrounger satisfied to sit back and have us taxpayers pay their way. It clearly isn't the case at all.
And secondly, if the numbers are so small how come they all manage to live within close proximity to a Mumsnetter?

Well, my uncle has virtually never worked in all the time I've known him. He was made redundant from a job about 40 years ago. Since then, he has had a couple of jobs (under duress)- he worked as a postman for a few weeks, but said the sack hurt his back, then my dad got him a job in his company and he lasted 2 weeks, because he had to get a bus and then walk for 10 minutes, and he "wasn't prepared" to do that

I think eventually he convinced them that he had a "bad back", so is probably on a different benefit. Meanwhile he spent all his days in the bookies, pub and snooker hall. People who don't want to work full stop do exist, unfortunately, although I don't believe they are the majority.

why do you need evidence to report someone?
You are not the person paid to investigate, it is not your job to decide their innocence or guilt.

you are merely asked to provide details of why you suspect someone is claiming fraudulently.

To me personally, if you know that someone is claiming something they shouldn't and you do not report them then you are complicit to their fraud.

if my neighbour told me she had shot someone, if the police later found out i knew and didn't say then i could also be prosecuted.

It is not ok to sit in judgement of people on benefits when you have the opportunity to prevent such fraud from continuing bt don't.

I've seen it too, and most of my friends are nothing like that. I have the misfortune to know people that know/are related to that kind of idiot. It is crystal clear which way their kid are going too.

Tax avoidance is one thing, tax officials letting vodaphone, tescos, walmart et al to get away with NOT PAYING TAXES THEY ARE LEGALLY REQUIRED TO PAY is another. It is absolutely outrageous that businesses are able to pay wages that are too low to live on that require government subsidy in the form of working tax credits AND subsidy in the form of borrowing, so that companies can make bigger profits that they give to themselves - its digusting.

I HATE the fact that we are going backwards like this. We are getting victorian, condemnation of the poor, charities and the state giving handouts to large proportions of the everyday working population so that they can survive, and 10% of the population making money hand over fist from their spare money, and 1% of the population paying less tax than the rest.

Average FTSE director pay DOUBLED last year - I am ready for the revolution, these utter scum should vilified.

um that 1% is the top 1%...

I've got someone very close in my family, not worked for about 7 years, is an addict, been in rehab 3 times, each time he has given up rehab. even if he stops taking and becomes clean I don't think he would be employable any more because he has such a gap in his c.v. He's 35. He doesn't get JSA because he's not fit for work because of the drugs, so gets a slightly higher rate on incapacity benefit.

I often wonder if being on benefit has made it a bit easier for him to take hard drugs as he knows there is a system there to suport him.He's been an addict for years but did hold done a good job because he had the responsiblity of needing to earn to support his family. As soon as he went on benefit he lost that responsibity and now takes more and more drugs.

WorriedBetty It's not an either/or thing when it comes to condemning CEOs and dole scum. It's perfectly possible to disapprove of both.

Surely even the leftiest of lefties would struggle to excuse those who simply do not and will not work from one year to the next for absolutely no reason other than sheer laziness?

I am not saying that to be an actual long term claimant is ok. I would however say that most are one income support as they are raising children. And I would hope that we all understand how difficult that alone can be.

But i just don't believe it is as prevalent as the media/government would have us believe. BUt because they keep telling us that everyone is somehow abusing the system we are maybe seeing things that aren't there.

I don't know anyone on benefits, unless you count OAPs - and obviously they will be claiming for the rest of their lives, and not working.

there is a huge problem with the welfare system,and i think maybe it is being tackled,but i also feel they tackle the wrong people rather than the hard core abusers

The jobless figures only include people claiming JSA AFAIK.

Anyone claiming Income support/Sick Benefits/Carers Allowance/ESA is not included in the jobless figures, and therefore based on the people who are claiming JSA, maybe the OP's figures are correct.

Personally, I know quite a few people who have barely worked, if at all for a long time, but because they have not been claiming JSA for the amount of time they have not been working, they will not be included in the jobless figures.

With the introduction of many more people being moved onto JSA, I expect in the next 5 years, a lot of those people who were previously not included in the jobless figures will now be included and we will imo see the jobless figures rise like we have not seen them rise in quite some time.

It has only been since December 2009 iirc that single parents who had been on IS were changed over to JSA. That is not even 5 years ago, so of course, whilst they may have been on income support up until then, they would not have been included in the jobless figures.

Since the criteria for claiming IS has meant that the eligible single parents have had to have children who were younger and younger to be able to continue claiming IS, I think in the next 5 years, we will see the jobless figures rising and rising. That is my opinion anyway.

I don't know anyone on benefits. Ihave never knowingly met someone "on the dole".

But then to be fair I don't discuss the financial situations of people I meet. Am always amazed at the detail some people claim to "know" about the financial affairs of others.

KidsRule - i agree. And if those who commited benefit fraud were reported and subsequently stopped, then the disabled wouldn't need to face a life on the breadline and carers wouldn't face the option of having to put their relative into residential care as they can no longer afford to care for them.

Also, my lone parent advisor once told me that statistics clearly show that the longer someone is out of work, the harder it is for a person in that situation to remain employed for a minimum of a year. I do not know where she got her statistics from though.

I know someone who I would consider long term on benefits but he wouldn't show in the stats as claiming for over 5 years. He claims for a while, is forced into taking a job, makes sure he is sacked asap so the whole process starts again.

Although he has worked for less than a year in total since he left school 20 years ago he has never claimed benefits for 5 years consecutively IYSWIM.

no exscuse but some people feel there is no work future for them,their families lost jobs in industry etc and there grandparents/parents havent worked since,there are swathes of communitys over the last 30yrs that have had core employers shut down / moved.what hope do these people see,it must be very depressing living in these areas,

goverments caused alot of these problems,but dont seem to take much blame for the benefit culture,both goverments

i dont support either

I'm sorry but I don't think life on benefit is luxury its depressing and soul destroying - I don't agree with the fact that my life would be better financially if I had my family on the dole (bigger house, better take-home income), but benefit isn't the problem - the JSA benefit bill is half the banker's bonuses and a tenth of the tax money not paid by vodaphone alone.

If that money was in the system and in jobs then we wouldn't have so many unemployed - for many in this country work does not pay more than 'the minimum the government says you need to live on' that is DISGUSTING.

Oh and stop reading the Daily Fail for cripes sake - no wonder so many of you have pictures of hoards of benefit cheats roaming the countryside like it was 28 days later...

LIES re hecubasdaughter - getting fired means a six month exclusion - stop gossiping and bitching you are making it up.

WorriedBetty - i think i may love you

I'm not lying I don't know how he survives but he has barely worked and boasts about it.

catgirl Ime, people who are living on benefits, whether that be JSA/IS/ESA/Sickness benefits/Carers Allowance are quite defensive about their right to claim, and are openly vocal about their entitlement, they will talk about it even if it is just to defend their reasons why they are claiming.

That's not to say they should defend their right to claim, just that they do ime.

I have seen people getting very aggressive/sarcastic/open about being on benefits, regardless of which benefits these are.

I have even seen it on here. If a thread comes up about benefits, it quite often turns into a benefit bashing thread, and the people on benefits will agressively defend their right to claim whichever benefits they are claiming, albeit making it obvious which benefits they are on and how much they are paid. It's not difficult to work out how much most means tested benefits are. It's plastered all over t'internet!!

It is the same in RL.

If only people didn't discuss or ponder on other people's finances and concentrated on their own. . . . . . . . .