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?

I certainly don't read the Fail or suffer from claimantophobia- I'm on benefits myself.

I just don't understand how or why someone would make excuses for a long-term JSA recipient.

How about you stop calling people names and debate the OP intelligently?

Your figure refers ONLY to those claiming jsa for more than 5 years. Others wrongly/fradulently claim other benefits.

Thank you spike BTW we are on benefits atm as DH was made redundant Christmas week.

I have a 2nd cousin like this. 30+ years have fried his brain. He's totally unemployable, makes Ozzy Osbourne look really smart and alert. Sadly the drugs have caused irreperable brain damage. He's no use to anyone and has one child who went into care, her widowed Gran saves hard to help her.

Luckily lives as sad as his are few and far between. I want to cry whenever I bump into him in the street as he was a lovely bright child and it's such an awful waste of a life. He only gets dole, no additional disability benefits and exists in a council bedsit.

His only use is as a scary warning to the teens in the extended informal family and friends network for the "just say no to drugs" campaign. (Result = very anti substance abuse youngsters in my family). I'll consider it a failure if my son ever needs an introduction.

He's one rare individual, however I know far, far more struggling with ill-health/disability/age etc to be productive in some capacity.

The single Mum who earns an extra tenner cleaning on top of her benefits to save up for a computer to help her dyslexic kids with their school work or the redundant Dad who paces the west end every day looking for work for over a year before getting something minimum wage. Despite that on my inner city estate everyone helps their ill or elderly neighbors and helps out if a family has no food left in the cupboard. That's my day to day reality.

Lack of opportunity is a far more common scenario around me. Daily I see people who are TRYING so fooking hard, and not getting very far. Training and educational opportunities have been drastically slashed so the builder whose back can't cope anymore with site work CAN'T financially afford to retrain into office or nursery work, even though they desperately want to.

We need lifelong affordable retraining opportunities desperately, we need better funding for sme start ups. The will is there but the chances aren't for so many. Since 2007 many friends have had a rude awakening on experiencing the joys of a job centre for the first time. It's suprising how many middle-class families are only one paycheck from real problems financially.

Part-time/occasional agency work is harshly punished by the current benefits system and it shouldn't be as it's often the only way to get a leg into full-time work.

The over 50's and the young are having a tough time right now jobwise. Disability happens to us all eventually as a result of old age. I'm a firm believer that the measure of a society is how it treats it's most vulnerable & right now we in the UK aren't doing too well.

Lesley - why do you assume that it is inherently "wrong" to be a long term claimant? or a claimant at all?

I can think of a multitude of reasons why a person may be a long term benefit claimant. And to be honest the luxury and high society lifestyle really isn't one that fits

Excellent post Bochead

perhaps they are used to people analysing everything they have and do and reporting them / questioning them / posting about them on mn etc littlemiss?

very sad. i agree - people should just not be that interested in others peoples finances. it seems very odd to me that some people are.

thepeoplesprincess Who was your post directed at?

I don't know what to make of the stats, but I am one of those who does know several 'life long benefits claimants'. This is perhaps because I grew up on one of the most deprived (educationally and career-wise) estates in my home town. There are two families still living there that are definitely on their third generation of not working, and another couple who are quite open about the fact that they had their second child primarily because their first was about to turn seven (IS to JSA benefit cut off). My cousin, who I have previously posted about, has not worked legitimately for about eight years, claims full benefits and sometimes does cash in hand.

I don't believe that life on JSA is luxury either, I think it's utterly shite. But the families I am talking about are those that claim so much they actually get more in benefits than a two-parent working family get. There is a massive element involved of them not having an incentive to work now, but it depresses me even more that there are certainly those that see a life on benefits as something to aspire to.

Good post Bochead.

Sorry littlemiss- it was worriedbetty.

agree. those who work and pay taxes do seem to think that they directly place their wages into the pockets of those on benefits.
It makes them feel entitled to question and become judgemental of how someone claiming benefits spends their money.

As a result those on benefits feel compelled to justify their existence. That they should make excuses or even apologise for the fact that they have bought anything other than plain rice and dry bread.

I don't assume anything. I questioned your statement as people post on mumsnet about people on lots of different benefits NOT just jsa.

I agree catgirl1976.

thepeoplesprincess 'I just don't understand how or why someone would make excuses for a long-term JSA recipient.'

If you were to ask a long term recipient of JSA why they had been claiming for so long, I'm quite sure they wouldn't say 'I don't know really'. Isn't it more likely that they would have an explanation, if they felt like sharing it?

I think there are different reasons for people on jsa long term - so very valid some not so valid.

I am a big defender of claiments and the disabled on here. However, i know lots and have seen the same families for 20 years (in my career), that live their life on benefits, as a choice. I think there tends to be pockets of this, around the country, rather than one in every area. They move between different benefits and this is why the statisics can be manipulated. I don't or never have considered long term claiments to be a proplem, or a disgrace, the way they are portrayed to be.

TinyDancer - i think in the cases you speak of it is less about them feeling they are better off or that they have a good life on benefits, and more to do with knowing no better.

They have only ever "got by" and so they do not aspire to anything better.

For me i wanted more from my life so i have tried to improve my career prospects, find higher paid jobs etc.

But if you are the third generation of a family firm, then you reside yourself to the fact that you will inevitably end up in the same field. When that "business" is claiming benefits then as sad as it sounds, they simply fail to realise there is more to life than what they have.
I also feel that they have believed that societal myths that they are simply not worthy of bettering themselves, They feel that no one would want to employ them or that the best they could hope for would be to get a minimum wage job cleaning toilets or whatever. If such a job brings them out no better off financially and yet takes up 40 hours of their week, well, i think i can sympathise with them saying they would rather stay home with their kids.

that is not to say that i think they are right to do so or that i think that is ok. Just that i can see why they would think that.

*thepeoplesprincess 'I just don't understand how or why someone would make excuses for a long-term JSA recipient.'

If you were to ask a long term recipient of JSA why they had been claiming for so long, I'm quite sure they wouldn't say 'I don't know really'. Isn't it more likely that they would have an explanation, if they felt like sharing it*

You misunderstood me. I wasn't talking about the excuses the claimants themselves would give- I'm sure they themselves would have plenty to say about the dreadful unfairness of it all and why they couldn't possibly be expected to pay their own way in life yadda yadda.

I'm talking about the extreme far left who pop up on these threads and seem determined to excuse other people behaviour, far far beyond the p;oint where any reasonable person would just think "Quit whinging and get a job"

The trouble is that because of low wages, life on benefits is becomingly an economically attractive and sensible aspiration - wages that are lower than subsistence levels so that managers and directors and shareholders can get disproportionate and unfair continuous wage rises is shameful and those people should be treated as the exploititave bastards that they are.

Those same people are the same sort who blame the poor for being poor and think that choosing a rubbish house and crap holidays is by virtue of the stupidity of the poor, rather than the fact their companies are underpaying them.

It is SHOCKING that so few of you can grasp this.

Of course a life on benefits is not a life of luxury. But for some on nmw, benefits can seem a reasonable alternative.

IN fact I would go so far as to advocate that everyone on wages that are lower than benefits should refuse to work so that we can see how bad the problems really are rather than hiding them behind a status-quo serving idea of duty.

Ahh ok, my mistake thepeoplesprincess Apologies.

I'm not sure, Valar. The sad fact is that there really are workshy people out there, who would rather take whatever they can get from the state (however big or small that amount is) than get a job. Any job. It would be a mistake to think those people do not exist.

It's possible that some of the families I know are 'stuck in a rut' and don't know that there is an alternative, either because they've never known any different, or because it's just been (unintentionally perhaps) drilled into them that they won't get anywhere even if they try.

I do know it's a fucking tragedy when your motivation for bringing another life into the world is so you can claim more benefits and you won't have to get a job.

I too have come across teenagers who because they grew up in a household where no-one works doesn't believe they will ever work and assume they will be on benefits for life.

Am a bit aghast at poster who says they have never met anyone on the dole! You must be well off.

And its not about discussing finances in detail. I have of course known when friends or family have been made redundant and so of course been unemployed. They have all uniformly been very worried about being made redundant - so of course they have talked about it. And they have talked about whether they have had very small redundancy pay out or not and thus their natural worries about paying rent/mortgage.

But I think as someone else said it probably does depend where you live. I live in an area of very high unemployment and worklessness.