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?

"going from my own personal experience, I turned down work when I was on benefits because, at the end of the day, I had to pay the rent."

Is this a lie?

I have no idea about her sister, or yours, or anyone else's. All I am saying is that anecdotes are pretty useless here because it's an anonymous talkboard. Now, if you want to just carry on with a little circle jerk about 'Ooh yes I know someone who's on the dole and s/he is really lazy' then that's fine, but it doesn't actually mean much in terms of finding out how many people live on benefits for their entire lives, which is what you purport to be talking about.

I'm going to stop, I'm being annoying and could go on for a long time. Sorry to be irritating. But if you could tell me honestly whether you think these stories are true or not I would be interested. I was haranguing you and that's not nice.

^"going from my own personal experience, I turned down work when I was on benefits because, at the end of the day, I had to pay the rent."

Is this a lie?^

Probably. Since tax credits came in, people on low incomes have been better off working. That's quite a long time - when was it, back around 2000 or something? Of course, as I say, this is all going to change with Universal Credit because people on low incomes will be worse off on that - and in fact are already worse off since the most recent changes to tax credits came in.

That's not enough Wallison. You deny there is a problem. People say - here is the problem. You can say we're talking about something different but so far as I can see, this whole thread has been about whether there's a problem or not. I think there is a problem - I don't know how big it is and yes that information would be useful. I can tell that you don't want to accept that any of it is true. That is a huge issue for me - because you can't even begin to address things if you don't believe they exist.

This is really pure denialism. You simply can't get anywhere at all if you pretend it isn't happening.

Wallison, this is from the World Health Organisation website:

"Like Hanlon, an author of the 2006 report, Burns believes that some communities where as many as four generations have been unemployed have never recovered from the dismantling of the city?s industrial base in the 1970s."

I don't suppose they'd be publishing it, if they thought it was lies.

Ok, I'm being deliberately combative as well and I apologise for that. As for whether there is a problem - I honestly don't know. I do know that we keep reading in the papers and seeing on the news that there is a problem, but nobody ever actually says how many people they are talking about. Not just on this thread, but anywhere. So there is all of this rhetoric about as you say addressing 'things', but nobody seems to know what exactly it is that we are supposed to be addressing. It's a false starting point. It stokes up anger and resentment and plays exactly into govt hands (and I include so-called Labour govts of recent years in this) by their whole 'divide and rule' thing.

Ofcourse its true.

I would also like to see the figures on it though. I think they would shock some people who expect them to be higher than they are.

Because, while I know a lot of long term unemployed who seem to choose a benefit lifestyle, theres only one of them who has never had a job. And shes severly epileptic so I suppose she doesnt count in the "could work but dont" category.

Bugsy thank you for being calm when I was being snarky. Wallison, thank you for not minding the snarkiness.

Burns believes

Again, no hard facts. Here's an editorial about a couple of surveys which directly contradicts that:

www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/feb/02/workless-families-convenient-truth-editorial

From the article:

But two-generational worklessness is far rarer ? workless parents and grown-up children are found together in only 0.9% of households. As for homes with two generations that have never worked, the fraction drops further, to less than 0.1% of the total.

And also:

As for the politicians' "third-generation" perma-idlers, these are on the critically endangered list ? if not entirely fictional. The Joseph Rowntree Foundation set out to identify and investigate 20 such "never-worked" families in deprived Glasgow and Teesside, but it found not a single one.

Wallison, I think the Chief Medical Officer from Scotland is unlikely to be spouting rubish.

This is from a report done in Hackney in 2009:

"The proportion of people who are economically inactive is far higher in Hackney than the London or national averages and more than a third of Hackney?s workless have never worked. 7. A culture of worklessness has developed in some areas such that some families have three generations unemployed. Research shows that after two years on incapacity benefit a person is more likely to die or retire than to find a new job. 8."

I didn't say that the Chief Medical Officer is spouting rubbish - all I am asking, and all that I would like to see every time this subject comes up in the news or whatever, is that we are given some facts and figures as to just how big a problem this is. We keep on getting told it's a problem, and that 'something must be done', so surely someone somewhere has some figures about it rather than rhetoric about 'alarm clock Britain' and people with their blinds closed etc.

Ok, so let's say that the proportion of adults in the UK who come from a family where no one has been in regular employment for 3 generations is 0.01% - how would that shape your views.
FWIW, I don't think the 3 generation thing is that important - 1 generation is what counts for me.

the blinds thing made me laugh, everyone on my MIL's council estate has nets and never closes their curtains

OK - back from work (mid day supervisor bit of my day..)

Brycie - you were right, my sister is obviously an "anecdote"... hey ho

Single generation unemployed though, my mum and dad both worked like mad to keep food on the table and clothes on our backs..

Grovel -it's a range of measures dismantling support in all aspects of disabled living. ESA is limited to 12 months. Councils have drastically cut support and increased charges - our council's proposals left us with £41 per week for all living expenses after rent. (Between two people, for all bills and food.) Means testing in all areas (disability support is a crazy paving, so you get little drips of money from about thirty different places) has been stepped up, and they suspend payments regularly even without any infraction. My paperwork load was about 16 hours per week before I escaped the LA to NHS funding, which is obviously impossible for people with cog/imp. The council tax benefit changes coming in mean we will lose another £1k/pa paying that, as our LA won't let you have more than £3k in capital across savings and current accounts, and we need to save hard for big ticket purchases like wheelchairs and accessible technology on a regular basis (and can't get credit as too skint). DLA mobility has been cut to people in care homes, so they're losing their powered chairs in droves. DLA has been abolished and the incoming PIP will only support 80% of the current claimant pop (no suggestion they are not disabled, just won't be supported). The Independent Living Fund has been closed. Remploy is going. The WCA is widely criticised and the details are too extensive to go into, but google it. Unlimited workfare is coming in for disabled people, with sanctions for failing to manage it. There's loads more. Loads!

There are some small chinks of light - there ARE some positive changes happening in care and support, but on the whole, it's a bad time to be disabled.

The ONS states that 0.5% of people claiming "unemployment benefits" have been unemployed for 5 years. Sorry, no link but only saw it last month.

PostBellum

That tells us diddly squit. What proportion of the economically inactive are unable to work, or pensioners. Some families could be as little as 2 or 3.
There are no figures or stats here so it is meaningless really.

I have seen an area of high deprivation regenerated with families of 3 generations of unemployed and there weren't many.

My own situation is alien to my siblings, the culture I grew up and my parents.
I am from middle class, white collar workers, stalwarts and dignitaries in the community and certainly nobody unemployed for more than 4 generations that I know of. It means jack shit I'm afraid.

I don't really care if it means jack shit to you morethanpotatoprints.

I work with people who come from the most deprived sectors of our society and I hope I'm helping them to change their lives. I know what their lives are like and what their parents lives have been like too. Yes, it is anecdotal - but it is real to them & me.

However, I still disagree that anyone has the "right" to be a SAHP, even if that is not a financially viable option, without state support.

Acumens100, thank you.

I absolutely understand why people don't work because benefits pay the rent.

Loads of the easy to get type jobs involve hopeless hours -

early morning starts -cleaners, hotel staff, agricultural work
late nights - shift work, restaurants, pubs.

Once you have found childcare for your over 5's and some way of getting to work in the early hours (and outside of the cities you really need a car to get to work at 6am or back at 11.30pm) it probably isn't worth it. 26% of families are lone parents and it's bloody hard to manage the logistics of a crap paying job to actually make it worthwhile. I had to have three jobs (over 45 hours a week of work before it was even sustainable,let alone being better off).

You have no moral right to my money just to live the life you want.