to think its not that benefits are too HIGH, its that the minimum / average wage is too LOW.

[MistyMountainHop]

inspired by a load of recent threads about benefits (which may or may not be bullshit a bit of a stretching of the truth) and lots of mnetters (and a lot of the general public) up in arms about people choosing to be on benefits rather than work and that benefits are too high

well i think that the average wage is too LOW and vastly disproportionate to the cost of living. when people can "earn" more for NOT going to work than they can working then something is badly wrong. and i have been on benefits (single parent) abou 5 years ago and its SHIT. me and dc were POOR. i certainly didnt have this fictitious daily-mail benefits lifestyle with lots of spare cash, luxuries etc. hell no. i had enough to cover my rent and bills with a bit of change to feed me and dc. but if i had have worked at that time i would have probably only managed to get a minimum wage job which would have been pretty much the same as what i was receiving anyway. so shoot me, i decided i didn't want to work because it just wasnt worth it. (disclaimer for any dm readers: i do work now and have done for a while and now married and dh works too so no benefits apart from a little bit of tcs)

i know people on min or very low wage get "topped up" with tax credits and all that shit etc but IMO there is something really wrong with the world when people can work full time and still need financial help from the government to pay their rent and bills.

so surely in the final analysis its not that benefits pay too much, its that employment pays too little?

i am not very good at getting my point across so i hope this makes sense! but this was just something me and my friends were having a drunken conversation about at the weekend. and thought i would put it to the aibu jury :o

Hunty, you are in a completely different situation to the ones that have been discussed on this thread.

It was quite refreshing to have a thread about benefits that didn't end up being about disability/carers benefits. That is different thing altogether.

Actually KitchenRoll, I think that there are basic principles that are common to most of these threads.

The first is that the commitment of both parents should be proportionately equal where all other things are equal, if there is not to be an almost default dependancy by the lone parent on tax credits or other benefits.

The second is that laying into people whoe life plan has gone awry through no fault of their own is pointless and actually quite unpleasant.

Well just maybe you need to take a good look at your posts. Does it surprise you that people on benefit are human and have feelings?

But KitchenRoll, the Minimum wage/high childcare/high rents thing DOES affect me. It is what makes going back to work not just bloody difficult, but totally effing impossible.

And HOW am I in a totally different situation? As the DWP refuses to accept our various medical Consultants opinions on both my disability and my dc's disabilities, I am lumped in with those that are classed as 'feckless scroungers', simply by dint of being an unemployed Lone Parent who does not receive any disability benefits, and is also a Carer, who doesn't receive any benefits or protection for that either.

And most (not all, mind you) of the people that are looked at as 'feckless scroungers' may have one or more of the difficulties experienced by myself. They may have a fluctuating health condition that is unpredictable and makes it very difficult to find AND KEEP paid employment, yet be classed by the DWP as too 'well' for ESA, and therefore lumped into the same 'pot' as all those other 'feckless scroungers'.

Minimum wage IS far too low. Housing costs ARE far too high. Childcare costs ARE also far too high. And if you need Special Needs Childcare (even if your child's SN aren't recognised by the DWP, doesn't mean they aren't recognised MEDICALLY), well, if you can even find it, it IS criminally, extortionately, far and away too high - often between 3 and 5 times the cost of a standard private Nursery. I agree on all these points.

Froggy, I have just looked back at all my posts. I can't see anything that is that bad, and I have definatly not written anything as insulting to you as you have to me.

Your child can be under (counts DD's different consultants) 8/9/10 different Consultants, have many and varied diagnoses, some of which are life-threatening, be developmentally 4 years or more behind their chronological age, be unsafe to be left alone despite being a teenager and STILL GET NO DISABILITY BENEFITS. Which would mean that if their parent was a Lone Parent - their parent would get NO protection from being lumped together in the same pot as the so-called 'feckless scroungers'.

Hunty, it's different because the problem you seem to face is that the conditions your family live with aren't recognised. Clearly you should be recieving more, because your cost of living will be significantly higher. As you say, the fact that some morons behind desks don't recognise that doesn't mean they are not there.

If there were no epilepsy in your life, if there were no autism or other SN, then you would have a good chance of being able to find work and suitable childcare. You also wouldn't face the extra costs of living to a basic standard that many others can't even begin to comprehend.

I'm not sure if you meant you were agreeing with my previous posts with your last paragraph or just that you agree in general. Either way, I agree with all of that too.

And it's not easy for a Lone Parent to get employment in my town - 40,000 SEPARATE PEOPLE appliying for 300 jobs in a supermarket that opened is just ONE example of how desperate people are to find work.

Then there is the sticky question of childcare for shiftwork. How many childminders will look after children until 2/3/4 am? And it's no good telling a lot of unemployed people to become childminders - they may well be living in sub-standard accommodation (which will be even more likely once the HB cap takes effect), which would NOT get passed as safe by Ofsted. And they wouldn't have the MONEY to adapt in order to pass as safe by Ofsted. And would Ofsted even LET you look after children overnight, as a CM, like that?

I insulted you? I cant see it, but please do feel free to copy and paste.

Well I have always worked since being dumped on by my DCs' father. We are swinging always around the poverty line.

Who is that fair to? Not me, not the DCs, not the state.

My ExH is doing very nicely, and still controlling everything.

Actually, I would like to see my ExH be responsible for explaining my family's financial situation, not me.

KitchenRoll, yes, admittedly, the DWP saying that neither me nor my dc have disabilities does not remove the disabilities that we do have. But what that means is that I am lumped into the same 'pot' as all the 'feckless scroungers' that DM readers people go on about. That even DWP STAFF treat me as.

So, in your eyes, I am not a scrounger. But in the eyes of Joe public, who hasn't spoken to me, that doesn't KNOW about these things in my life, I am a 'feckless scrounger'. And that is what I face, day in, day out, and you begin to feel very downtrodden when you are sitting there trying to make one chicken breast stretch to feed a family of 5. (Homemade Chicken pie, BTW, it's the only way to spread it that far!)

No, not in any major way Froggy, but you have told me to look back at my posts because people are human and have feelings, which implies I said something insulting. I did and I can't see what so bad. You also said that I have reduced you (or someone) to tears. I can't see how. Can't do C&P on this machine, and if I can, I haven't worked it out yet.

Well, like I said way up the thread, this stuff is personal, and if it is theoretical to some posters then they might perhaps simply have a care to those less fortunate.

Fair point Hunty. People judging you (wrongly) on your situation just shows ignorance. That is not the same as making a judgement about something you do know at least some hard facts about.

MN has taught me never to judge before you know the facts!

{sigh} never mind.

But you got the reaction you wanted. Be happy! It'll never happen to you, you are immune.

Peace, happiness, and good health to you.

Again, fair point LineRunner. But like I said before, there is a very clever hide function on this website. I don't go on threads that I know are likely to upset me, in fact I don't even go on one particular board unless I'm feeling very brave. We cannot be expected to censor our opinions on a site, board, or thread such as this just because someone somewhere might be feeling a little sensitive to it.

Night, froggy, keep that that tumbleweed under your bed.

{shoves it under bed} with stuff

placemark

I have a cat, she is 19 she eats a tin of cat food a day.... hardly breaks the bank does it.

Do you use so much kitchen roll because you are a wanker?? Just a thought :)

the benefits system is a bit like the NHS - its really easy to point out what is wrong with it, how is could be better...but on the other side it is great that we have the benefits system and the NHS.

i dont want our system to be like america's.

TheRealTillyMinto whilst the American social systems are far from perfect, I think we could still learn from elements of it.

A primary example based on where this thread has gone is their significantly increased stigmatisation of feckless fathers - where avoidance of maintenance is dealt with as seriously as tax evasion, and far more seriously handled (punished - jail terms) for non-compliance. When you compare the softly softly approach taken by this country's institutions, we're a laughing stock (and end up punishing resident parents along the way... I'm thinking of the proposals which are coming into force in the near future - or have they already - I'm slightly out of the loop these days!).

Other countries that we can learn from are:

• Sweden/nordic countries for their excellent childcare provision, amongst the best in the world, heavily funded by the government (cost is that taxes are very high and there's no such thing as having vast swathes of working age women staying at home "to raise the children" all day - SAHMs, from what I've seen, aren't anywhere near as common)

• Denmark - as I've already mentioned, their high earner to low earner ratios are much more favourable than ours, we should be ashamed by comparison - a good one to model ourselves against (I think they may have some legal requirement or cap on wages at the top of the pecking order? it's years since I was looking at this stuff but I don't think it's entirely voluntary, I'm not trying to suggest that Danish CEOs are generally just nicer than their British counterparts! )

kitchenroll!!!

The PDSA will treat your pets if you are on benefits so people don't have to pay pet insurance. Some of the benefits that qualify you are not out of work benefits either. Housing benefit qualifies and only 1 in 8 recipients are out of work.

Do they?

That's a good thing then.

But it's also just another reason why so many people are better off on benefits than they are working.