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?

Garlic, you are contradicting yourself. You say that the small proportion of benefit choosers are ill, then you say it's a rational for people to choose to be on full benefits because of the cost of working.

Which is it? Or could it be that both exist and we shouldn't be aiming to put every benefit claimant in the same catergory?

I agree with Dolomites' point about child tax credits. They aren't given out to support working people, they are given out to support children, so to get them, all you need to do is have a child you can't afford to provide for.

Yeah Garlic I am 'mentally ill' too (whatever that actually means.... I do wonder if it is now shorthand for 'does not fit in' in whatever sense) but as I'm sure you do, most of us work, and that is important to remember.

I think that some of the benefit-claiming population are indeed 'unemployable'. Particularly those with agoraphobia, addictions, etc. And you're quite right that locking one of them up will cost more than knocking ten of them off benefits.

Outraged, the chap I overheard was displaying signs of mental illness with his irrational 'Yes, buts'. The relative, of course, I don't know about. Since they were all well over 50 and he's reportedly never had a job, I doubt his choice would be called rational throughout life.

Of course I'm not saying all claimants are mentally ill; I'm surprised you got that from my posts. I wanted to point out that a rational choice to stay on benefits is the outcome of our welfare state supporting business. (So, heh, it's the state that's mentally ill ...) It would be very insane to claim there's only one reason for choosing unemployment!

DG, thanks for your paragraph about some people being 'unemployable' - summarises the point very neatly :)

I'm fascinated by this idea of having a child you can't afford to provide for.

Most unemployed parents had their children when they could afford to provide. What are you going to do when they lose that ability? Kill the children? Force rich families to take in the DC of the newly-poor? Can't see either of those working awfully well ...

Having more children in order to claim benefits when unemployed is irrational. Only a psychologically-damaged parent would choose to extend their poverty by a further 5 years, surely?

^ caveat: I don't know that much about child-related benefits. If it is actually rational^ to have more kids while dependent on benefits, we need to look at why the parent can't get a decently-paid job and sufficient childcare in order to be better off. I'd bet my electricity credit the answer would come back to welfare monies funding business.

Bugger the italics!!

As usual people fail to see the connection because they refuse to believe that they cannot tell the difference between the deserving and the non deserving

Yes, I do refuse to see it. I'm aware that there will be a big fuzzy line in the middle of the deserving and undeserving, and that there will be some people who it is almost impossible to make an accurate judgment about. In those cases, I'd be happy to err on the side of caution so that no one deserving slips through the net.

You might not be able to tell the difference, but I can see a crystal clear difference between someone like my friend and someone like my cousin, despite both of them living on full benefits. I can can see that one is disabled following a spinal injury, and that he is unable to work because when he tried it he got a pressure sore from being in the same position for too long, and that he needs to be flexible with his time so that he can have physio, and that he does a huge amount of voluntary work. I can also see that the other bummed around at college for two years after leaving school, didn't bother to work hard enough to get her hairdressing qualification, got pregnant, got a two bedroom house with a garden, and got pregnant again by the same guy who officially lives with his Mum weeks into her first child starting school.

It's really not hard to see the difference between choice and necessity in many many cases.

If income support and child tax credits were scrapped, and DLA and ESA were increased, it would start to sort out the ones who can't work from the ones that won't work.

Most unemployed parents had their children when they could afford to provide

Yes, and I agree with a safety net for them. Although I do think enjoys should only be paid out for the first two children, because anyone who has more than that without having a substantial a,out of money in the bank is taking too big a risk.

Having more children in order to claim benefits when unemployed is irrational. Only a psychologically-damaged parent would choose to extend their poverty by a further 5 years, surely?

No, not really. Plenty of people who receive income support, housing benefit, council tax benefit, child benefit, child tax credits and free school meals are not living in poverty. If they were they may well be less inclined to have a second child. But strangely, many of them do. Being brought up to have little to no ambition and even less sense of personal and social responsibility is not a mental illness.

You say you are fascinated by this idea of people having a child they can't afford to provide for, but it's really quite simple. If you conceive while you are receiving any means tested benefits, you can't afford your children. This is unfair in cases where two parents are working, which is why I support working tax credits, Housing benefit and child benefit. But if you conceive a child when you are receiving benefits that are not linked to working, such as income support and child tax credits, then you cannot afford your children and you have no moral right to have them.

I think it's not so much that people choose a life on benefits so much as the system makes it difficult to choose otherwise.

I recently helped out a friend's DD with tax credit and other applications. She works part-time, has one child who goes to a CM a few days a week and lives in a Housing Association house with a modest rent. Her annual salary is about £8,000 and she qualifed for a further £16,000-ish in various benefits. To enjoy the same standard of living she'd have to go from a job paying £7,000 a year to something paying nearer £30,000. She's 19 years old, has no qualifications & no experience so she'd never get a job paying that kind of money. There was a chance she could go FT where she works but, on paper, she'd not be any better off. She's therefore 'chosen' to remain with her current level of dependency if you like but really, the system has made that choice for her.

But why do you support working tax credits, Housing benefit and child benefit where parents are working, Outraged? Why aren't they earning enough to support their family?

Wouldn't the same arguments apply here, too? If you can't afford a family without getting welfare money, you shouldn't have the kids ...

So if you are working for low wages and having a child would entitle you to CTC, which quite rightly is a benefit for children, then you cannot afford them and shouldn't have any children .

Do people really think like this .

I don't mind the idea of claiming for one child, but yes, if you can't afford to have children, you shouldn't have them. You definitely shouldn't have more than one.

I think tax credits have muddied the waters more than any other benefit tbh. The whole concept of topping up means there is less incentive to do more because for every £ you gain, you lose another. The welfare system was built on the concept that, given the choice, everyone would rather work than not work. But when the losses outweigh the gains, that gets turned on its head.

Garlic, I support working tax credits because I'm able to see that the way things are at the moment, many people can work full time yet still not be able to afford to house themselves. Minimum wage isn't enough.

If a couple have one child and both work full time and still can't afford a modest home and to feed their child, then that is a problem with society, not the individual, therefore the individual should be supported by society.

It's not right that wages are so low, it wasn't that long ago that a postman or a lorry driver could pay a mortgage and support a family on that one wage. It would be great if things were still that way, but they aren't, so I acknowledge that.

I don't have a problem with people who work full time yet still can't afford one or two children. I have a massive problem with people who don't work and then have two, three, four or more children, especially when those children were conceived when neither partner was in work.

"If a couple have one child and both work full time and still can't afford a modest home and to feed their child, then that is a problem with society, not the individual, therefore the individual should be supported by society."

Blimey, Freddos, that's the most socialist thing I've ever heard you say! Fair play to you.

MrsDeVere, I would expect the judgments that lead to benefit increases or cuts to be made by people who know the claimants and have enough information at their disposal to make a reasonable informed judgement.

Now, I do realise that making an informed and reasonable judgement seems to be beyond the capability of this government and its contractors. Even a little common sense seems to be too much to hope for. But I protest against that. It doesn't need to be that way and it shouldn't be that way.

In your case, if you know you work, then other people's opinions are worthless. I couldn't give a shit what people think about me and my situation, if they don't know the facts then their opinion is worth nothing. They are not supporting me, I am supporting me, so they barely even have a right to an opinion.

But when people don't support themselves and are being supported by others like me when they are perfectly capable of doing it for themselves, then I reserve the right to have an opinion. It's what I pay my taxes for.

My friend who has the spinal injury could work if the right support was put in place, and would willingly, despite the fact he only has limited use of one arm. My cousin wouldn't work even when the support she needs, Like free childcare, is offered on a silver platter.

I think there are circumstances where one partner works part-time and the other partner does little or no work. They get tax credits for dc. They live a modest lifestyle - rent a 3 bed house in nice area, have a uk holiday, run one car. They don't have the heating on much. But they have enough food/drink. Clothes, gadgets funded by working relatives.

What's the incentive for the dh to get a job, the dw to increase hours? None. They are comfortable and they have loads of time with their dc.

I know someone who lives like this. I'm a complete lefty but I think it's wrong.

You could aguge that tax credits for those in work which I don't think existed when I started work in the early 80s are an interference with the free market and result in employers keeping wages low as people will take lower paid work knowing richer tax payers will make up the difference for them through the tax credits. Housing benefit can have the same effect.

Surely the state could give a lot of those who cannot work all day long or just intermittently because of a disability work for benefits at home such as keying in data. Anyone who can type on mumsnet surely could do 3 or 4 hours a day of keying in data for the state in return for their benefits?

yes agree Xenia I think WTC and housing benefit have skewed the labour market. However I am not convinced their withdrawal will do much to redistribute wealth now given that all other policy is geared the other way.

not sure about your disability workfare idea though.... it might apply to those rare disabled people whose disability does not affect their mental health but what about fluctuating conditions etc? If you have MS, your condition flares up and you cannot do your work would you lose a weeks' benefits? If you have to retire to bed in pain are you still expected to use a computer for 4 hours? Who on earth is going to monitor this?

also there's the small point that Atos are now reclassifying pretty much all disabled people, apart from those receiving cancer treatment (following the Daily Heil raising the alarm about that one), as fit for work anyway and thus capable of 35 hours per week workfare out of the house!!!

oh-- and another minor point- if people are working they should be paid. So if the disabled are going to have to work for the state they should be paid what an employee would be for those hours. And they should have the right to progress in their 'job', earn overtime, etc. Universal Credit is designed for precisely that (supposedly....)

Outraged why do you draw the cutoff at one child only?

If a couple are both working full time and cannot afford a modest home and bill costs why should they be forced to make the choice to bring up their child without a sibling? Why should lower-paid workers have to make significant choices which the higher paid do not have to make?

I agree it may well be risky to have 'too many' children but who on earth (apart from you :D) decides what is 'too many' in any given circumstance?

Aside from that, I think that apart from the most diehard poverty-deniers there is a consensus that we live in an incredibly high-cost and frequently low-wage economy. Why is outrage not directed at those such as landlords who profit massively from state subsidy for their ludicrous rents?

I don't know when it started or why, guess it's all goggleable but there was such a thing as FIS (family income supplement) as far back as the 70's, then family credit in the 80's. I can remember hearing the phrase 'they are all on supplementary', when referring to working families on the council estate who had new cars. This was in the 70's.

I really do dislike this screech of "eugenics" every time it's suggested that you live within your means - including the provisions for your children. Does it not stand to reason that e.g., Xenia can afford more children than the rest of us (incl. me)? It would be extremely negligent and selfish of me to get pregnant with a child I could not afford to look after. I can't afford many things in life but I don't understand why the government should "top me up" and give me the "right".

I just cannot comprehend the mentality that anyone would choose to bring lives in to the world that they cannot provide for. Anyone betting on the state (or their parents, or their husband, or pretty much anyone) to pay their bills and feed their children is taking a gamble.

Because there are plenty of unplanned pregnancies and that has to be considered.

You ask Why should lower-paid workers have to make significant choices which the higher paid do not have to make, but at the moment you have low paid, or not paid at all except in benefits people, who have the option of having more children than higher paid workers.

People with a mortgage and a job that is just about highly paid enough not to qualify for tax credits don't have a different quality of life to those who are low paid but receiving tax credits. Those people have to make a choice as to whether they can afford more children, and because of the cost of child care, they usually can't. So they often stick at one or two. If you don't limit benefits to one or two children, you are effectively giving low earners or people living on full benefits more options than most people, and that simply isn't right, or fair.

Three children is a lot for anyone to be able to afford, and I don't think you can claim to be in a position to afford that many children if you are claiming HB or any other means tested benefit. If you couldn't afford to feed your children without a non means tested benefit like Child Benefit, then you do have children you can't afford.

I think morally it's understandable that people want a family, and where two parents are working they should be able to have preferably one child, maximum two, but after that you are just being selfish.