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 thing about wanting to work vs "choosing" benefits is complicated though.

If DP doesnt take a MW part time job thats too far away to be worth doing ie, we wouldnt be better off, is that "choosing" a life on benefits?

'There has been a huge increase in depression rates which may be in part linked to diet now people eat junk food, don't go outside much and don't exercise - all things which affect levels of seratonin in the brain.'

I believe oppression and disempowerment are the major causes of depression. Junk food and lack of exercise play a part but with so much free exercise space sold off, health system falling to pieces school afterschool clubs fee-paying and crap food being the only way some can balance the budget as I believe we need to START by ensuring people have enough money in the first place to 'invest' in themselves and develop aspirations. Not necessarily in their pocket, but in teems of resources. Good free health system, education, exercise space, access to quality food, warmth, safe housing etc.

It's that interesting chicken and egg situation, isn't it? When people had less food and no sugar in the war and were moving all day they were happier (as that means your seratonin and dopamine levels rise and beta endorphins). If we could make sure the shops only sold unprocessed foods people would have no choice but to eat them. Anyway this is a side issue but it certainly is interesting that a lot of modern diseases unknown to man for a million years have developed int he last 50 years since we moved our diet to the worst it has ever been in the history of our species and we stopped moving much.

You need no money to stand on your floor and jump (and even a skipping rope is not a massive investment you can probably find a piece of rope in a bin on your way to the benefits office) and to eat less but better food each day and go slightly hungry.

Anyway the bottom line is that many people want to work in England at present and there are few jobs. Next for example has 100 applicants for every vacancy in its shops.

When I was very depressed, I was prescribed antidepressants, which really messed me up physically (and mentally, actually). The doctor was very anxious to diagnose me as having a brain problem, but I kept saying to her, I think this is really a LIFE problem? Like, DP would be waking me every 30 minutes throughout the night, I had no care support at all, no training, no respite. She'd write down that I had difficulty sleeping. It took a long time for me to persuade people that I was "crazy because" not "because crazy". But once I did, I got some support - some care support, I go outside for an hour most days now, and I am allowed to do some work - I became less depressed. I became extremely functional.

I find it very interesting that my emotional response was diagnosed as an illness, and that they located the cure within my own body. It made the systemic failure into a personal one. I think this is generally a mistake. Not always, but generally.

YANBU. My sister in law quit her job even tho her partner had no job as soon as she got pregnant. Then declared them selves homeless as all they needed was a letter from a parent to say they are kicking them out. Got a flat with garden downstairs. The n they told the council they broke up so she was a single mum with a baby- now he has a two bed house and he has a one bed flat. Guess what - baby number 2 on the way still not a job between the pair of them. It's ridiculous this can be allowed to carry on when there is no reason on of them can't work. They sign on an fill out their job application book with made up enquiries and say 'never hrd back' nothin more happens and the money keeps coming in.

Xenia you wouldn't be entitled to a damn thing other than J.S.A because you have no children under the age of five and the powers that be would be investigating the disappearance of a rather expensive house among other assets

As someone has already pointed out, advances in medicine especially in the area of prematurity as well as an ageing population has made disability an increasing and more visible issue in our society.

She has the 2 bed house and he has the one bed flat

Acumen I think you're quite right.

It's all 'individual problems/ individual solutions'

Not sure how they are going to swing it when the NHS budget runs out and there is no money any more to throw medication at the poor and miserable!

I think that then we will see a paradigm change. Poor people will simply not be allowed to be depressed. Indeed anyone who cannot afford expensive medication will not be.

This is already happening as Atos are doing it. Not that they care if your disability is physical or mental. Everyone is 'fit for work' even though there isn't any.

sadly Charlie I do think there is a lot of this. And I am vehemently AGAINST benefit cuts because they punish the non-fraudulent majority too heavily.

I know of a lapdancer here in SE London who brags of earning 52k per year in tips and cash in hand, who is claiming benefits for 'anxiety', so her rent in a part of London I cannot afford is paid, etc. I was particularly hacked off by that as I suffer from bipolar disorder myself, earn far less than her and have never claimed a penny....etc... I had a real Daily Mail moment listening to her brag...

However, just because she does that does not mean that the majority on benefits do the same.

I think that the solution is better investigative powers on the part of the social services. I cannot imagine why the hell this woman has not been investigated and found out. However, this will cost money. So instead, everyone including the transparently 'deserving' must lose out. Utterly wrong in every way.

Perhaps people were more happy during the war as there was more equality and empathy for those who had lost everything.

another point about the war Xenia- people were united against a common enemy, which massively increases happiness levels.

Today it's every man and woman for herself and nothing but the individual (and family if you're lucky to have one you can keep together). Many are isolated and left alone to get on with it whatever their troubles. No community. Etc. This is a growing and endemic problem and medication, CBT, etc merely scratch the surface of it.

It is possible to object to some cuts but not others. I find the idea of being simply anti cuts as a matter of principle to be extremely lazy thinking

oh and it isn't lazy thinking to deny that welfare reform is not about reforming behaviour at all, but kicking as many people off benefits as possible regardless of whether they and their children will suffer?

We don't know how many people on benefits are doing it as a choice. Our perception of it as nfk said pages back is largely due to what the people around us are doing.

I find the remarks like; "only a tiny minority of silly people" "it's hardly a lavish lifestyle" or "30000 (for free) is not much" are so strange. You must live in lovely contented wealthy communities.

It seems people don't want to hear stories like charliemummas - and I know loads of people like her sister- because it doesn't want to fit in their world view. But it is because of people taking advantage that the system is breaking. It's because of people like "potato prints" suggesting 'oh do what you want the state will pay' that when our children are grown up there will be no safety net for them. That is why it upsets me.

Let's also not forget that pre-recession, when there were jobs a plenty, there were four million unemployed.

Yes definately more needs to be done about the investigation. Apparently they will et questioned about the second pregnancy but have already planned to say it was a drunk one night stand and they are still separated - as that's what their mate did! It drives me insane and its not a lifestyle I would choose at all but it just seems the norm to them and they are shocked myself and fiancé work even tho we have a ds - think they are most shocked that I work and was asked 'don't u want to be with ds' well obviously but we have bloody bills and pensions and futures to think off!!

No, there weren't.

Anyway, I don't see what use these anecdotes about lazy people we know are. I mean, sure, I know lazy people. Incidentally, I know plenty of lazy people who work - when I had a job in a local authority there was a guy there, senior manager, who left the office at 3.30 every day. If his PA booked him into a meeting at 2.30 he would bollock her because it meant him missing his train home. It didn't matter that for most people 2.30 was the middle of the goddamn day - as far as he was concerned, that was his winding down time before he went home. And of course his massive salary was paid for out of public funds. I've seen plenty of other people creaming the LA system as well. But I wouldn't dream of using them as examples of some wide endemic problem. Some people are lazy, some aren't. You get it everywhere.

And I don't see how you can blame the unemployed for 'the system breaking down'. The reason that the welfare state is being eroded is because we have an (unelected) tory govt who are doing their damndest to take it away, for ideological reasons and because they are bastards. It's got nothing to do with fecklessness or idleness or whatever - they are doing it because they are tories and because they think that being poor is a moral failing - forgetting of course that the only reason they are rich is because they have all inherited off-shore earned millions. Don't fall into the trap of blaming anyone but the govt for these cuts - they are doing this clear-sightedly and on purpose.

Alurka.

I can't remember saying that at all. Perhaps you can point it out to me. I may have said that everybody has the same choice whether to work or be on benefit but thats hardly the same thing. I personally would put work before benefit but I don't begrudge those that can't for any reason. I don't judge those worse off than me. Oh and I like to think I show compassion and empathy, as that attitude was a constant in my upbringing.

I think that genuinely, the majority of people want to work and contribute and as Wallison says, in all walks of life including employment there are people creaming off the labour of others.

The government does not care about that; they just want to reduce the unemployment figures by forcing everyone into low-paid full time employment. Working poverty will be the new norm and no one should be happy about that.

Wallison.

I know plenty of lazy people who work too. In fact these threads have many who openly admit they can only post once because their boss is cracking down on personal use of their pc.
This isn't at lunch time. What lazy people and they get paid.

What annoys me is that I could be pretty sure that this wave of blamethe scroungers propaganda will have our neighbours saying to themselves "look at them lazy pair, hes feckless and shes pregnant and we are paying for them to sit on their arses and have kids."

And then we become an anecdote because they havent got a fucking clue about how or why we are in this situation or the fact that we HATE it.

Makes me

Lazy workers are their employers problem. Money being distributed to those who aren't working is all our problem. From what I can tell most people on this thread have no issue with money going to those who really need it - some people get cheesed off funding those who don't.

Four million unemployed was the figure I heard.

Sure, there are plenty of people screwing the system. They are all thieves. I know rich people do it, mps do it, I know self employed people do it - the discussion here is do some people on benefits do it.

More than potato prints, you have just demonstrated the point. "everybody has the same choice whether to work or be on benefits" - that. You made your choice; we carry you and our children have nothing.

PostBellum

The only people I know who receive any benefit who don't really need it are people like my sister and bil. They earn aprox £80k and receive £80 per month in child benefit.
They and others justify this by saying they pay enough tax. They don't need this money and could quite easily refuse it.

However, others who have fallen on hard times who have also paid tax for many years are called names and treated like the plague.

Then there are the others who receive benefit in tc/wtc to top up earnings that employers are unable to pay. Apparentely these are bad people too.

I don't understand why you get cheesed off with people less fortunate than yourself, because by definition those receiving benefit who in your words don't really need it are receiving very little to live on.

Alurka.

I doubt very much if you have any ideas of the choices I have made in life, or indeed when I have made them and for what purpose. You have no idea what I do with my time.
But hey, I am not doing paid work at present or haven't for a considerable time so I must be a bad person, draining the system.

No, morethanpotatoprints you are extrapolating. I am not cheesed off that those less fortunate than me get state support. I am cheesed off that those as capable as working as I am choose not to. It is only that section that annoys me.
As I've said before I work with people who have had the misfortune to find themselves in dire situations & I could not believe more that they need to be helped. I'm not sure that the system we have in place at the moment is the answer, and I would like to see far greater interventions in place.