to think that there are people who choose to live a life on benefits?

[autumnlights12]

the recent threads about George Osbourne made me wonder..
A high number of posters say that people don't choose to live like that, they stumble into it, hate it, what a miserable existence it is, nobody would ever choose it etc..
but if you have two or three children through choice, whilst at the same time having no job to provide for them, or if you turn down the job at the local factory (as I know someone who did) because it pays £7.50 an hour and a full time job there doesn't give you the same unemployment rights and benefits, isn't that choosing to live a life on benefits? Or being trapped on benefits? I'm not talking about people who can't work, disabled people, ill people, women dumped by feckless ex and left to fend for herself etc.. of course they should be protected.
I was watching 999 What's Your Emergency and I know that area. And I know people like that exist. And it's often a second, third generation who have never worked a day in their life, even during times when work was freely available. In the town I live, we have numerous Eastern European immigrants who all seem to be working, but mostly in low paid work the locals wont do
What say you?

The rank and file Lib Dems do not agree with current policy. But they are a tiny minority in the country. I know party policies are really dull but they've got a lot of good ones.

I blame the leadership but they had little choice at the beginning. They should get Vince in, he's cuddly, or bring back Charlie or Ming.

Loads of info about the new liberal left here www.guardian.co.uk/profile/richard-grayson

I don't think they do, Usual. But we can't afford to indulge mickey-taking and fraud any more, where as before we thought we could. We were wrong, but there we are - lessons learned.

Do you think the party will hold together, LFC? Genuine question.

The best bit on that article is the historical one at the bottom - the bit where we could have had a Lib Lab pact and the world wouldn't be fucked.

Nope Communist, another split is due.

Unless we replace the leader and there might be opportunity for cohesion - though I think they should leave the Coalition and force an election (not right this second after blubbering Cam and Sam Cam today as they're riding high)

How were mickey-taking and fraud indulged in the past? There have always been fraud officers working for the DSS and various triggers that have alerted them to fraud taking place. In fact, back in the old days when you got a mandatory home visit from an EO before your claim was started, and at various intervals throughout your claim, you could say that fraud was treated more seriously then. It is not even as massive a problem as the tabs say either - only something like 1% of claims are fraudulent. The rest of the overpayments (about another 5% I think) are due to clerical error.

A LibDem/Lab coalition would probably have been a lot better. Personally, though I don't know a lot about politics, I think the Lib Dems will have to reform and rename themselves before they have a hope of being credible again. And I do appreciate that most Lib Dems will be not agree with the things that are being pushed through. Why don't they just say no to all these cuts.

The same way they are indulged now. Much of the mickey-taking is perfectly legal, the type I'm talking about is described in some detail on the thread.

Why is all the focus and blame on benefit fraud and not on the mess the bankers caused. They are still getting paid huge bonuses while claimants are being demonised.

I agree with you about bankers. But the financial services industry is a money-spinner for Britain, so there's more caution. I don't think the focus is solely on fraud any more - in fact I'm sure it's not. People are concerned about what's totally legal, but basically taking the mickey.

Sorry, I haven't read the thread so I don't know what you mean by 'mickey-taking' but really fraud is not a big problem and it has always been taken seriously and as I say I think it was taken more seriously when there were more robust procedures in place at the start of and throughout claims.

Fair enough. I mean people who opt to live on welfare. It's legal, of course!

Wallison it might help if you did read some of the examples on the thread, if you did want to understand more what I'm talking about. It's very long though!

It may be taking the mickey. But if its legal...

Can you honestly say that you wouldnt do all you could to provide a roof over your families head and food on the table if you lost your job?

The people who take the piss with benefits and spend the money on crap instead of their kids will do that regardless. But the honest claimants are being penalised.

But yet again. It all comes back to money spinners and more gains for the wealthy. Aslong as they are stinking rich the poor can go and die in the gutter.

I've had a skim through now and most of the examples seem to be, as you say, 'people who opt to live on welfare'. As I said above, there are very very few people who do so. And even when people go out looking for these supposed generations of families who have never worked, they can't find them. They are a myth; a creation of the tabloid press much in the same vein as stories of the people who live the life of Riley on benefits.

Wannabe: I'm sorry but the way you spin it doesn't match what is often happening.

Wallison: you're in good company, there are many denialists here.

They want you to hate benefit scroungers. They are actually laughing at you you know.

'what is often happening', eh? Nothing like hard facts and statistics to back up an argument, as ever.

What is often happening then?

Sorry wannabe, I think it's something to do with loads of people choosing to live in the lap of luxury on £71 p.w. or something, according to a deluded poster above.

Growlithe: I don't think so

Communistmoon: only one person on this thread has said at any point - I don't believe you, ie you are lying or mistaken. Have you got the guts to say that to all the posters on the thread?

Wannebe: I thought you were on the thread all the way through?

Yes. I was.

As I said, the genuine claimants are being penalised because of the actions of some who take the mickey.

That is whats happening.

Why am I a 'denialist' for quoting what the JRF says? As I set out, they went specifically looking for these generationally unemployed families and they couldn't even get enough of them to do a proper study. It was reported throughout the press at the time (although admittedly I don't think the Daily Mail ran with it). What they did find, which is much more worrying then the scare-mongering about people who have never worked, is that there is a fairly large sub-set of the population who drift from one badly-paid insecure zero-hours contract job to another, interspersed with periods of time claiming benefits, with no hope of getting out of the cycle because of the need for employers to have this much-vaunted 'flexible workforce' that the CBI are always banging on about.

Working under these conditions, and particularly trying to raise a family while working under these conditions, makes for an extremely precarious and stressful existence. Much more stressful than not knowing where your next £100k deal is coming from on top of your annual salary of £500k. And yet people still do it, because they want to work and provide for their families. This pattern accounts for the vast vast majority of benefit claimants.

What do you mean Brycie by 'I don't think so'?

I spend a lot of time working with people who have lost their jobs or are long-term sick, disabled or carers for the disabled. I go through budgets with them and know what they are living on. Benefits aren't a lifestyle choice for loads of people, and those who think they are need to get a grip.