not lack of jobs - lack of ambition!

[eggs11]

I know very, very little about politics, and if you can help me see this from a different perspective, please do!

A friend is a labour party member, and we recently had a row.I have a good friend (I like her for her personality, not for her life choices) who had a baby at 16 and is on benefits. She has a now 4 year old, starting school in September. She has a huge two bed flat in london (we would love to live where she does! but couldn't afford it), sky tv, the child has a nintendo ds, new clothes all the time, constant days out. I said it makes me angry that me and DP work (we also had a baby young) really really hard. Firstly, I had to go back after 9months, while she gets to sit on her bum until her kid is 5. Secondly, she gets free childcare! She had 2year old funding and 3 year old funding, while the £50 a day to put my 1year old in nursery makes it barely worth me working.

This is the point where we had a row. My labour friend said that it's not her fault that she's on benefits, there's no jobs to make it worth her working. However, if you spoke to my other friend, she has never even considered working. She said to me last week, when her daughter goes to full time school in sept, she has two options: 1) have another baby and get another 5years 6months, which she's planning on doing. 2)Wait until sept, then she has another 6months on job seekers to get pregnant. HOW IS THAT FAIR????? she isn't even looking after her daughter for the past two years, because she's in nursery. Why does this woman get to sit on her bum with free childcare? Why isn't she made to do voluntary work as a fully abled 22 year old with 10 gcse's, or at least made to go with her daughter to nursery and learn parenting skills, which is what I assume they think she lacks if her daughter gets so much funding!

I'm not saying that everyone on benefits/job seekers allowance isn't looking for work. I know how hard it was for DP to find work, it took months of hundreds of applications. I'm saying that while a life on benefits is so cushty and just relies on a baby every five years, no one has the incentive to work! labours answer was increase the working wage. I disagree, she's comfortable, why would she go out to work just for a few extra quid a week?

2fingers I replied to this further up the thread "ssd - you keep going on about people 'cheating the system dishonestly'. Seriously, if you genuinely know people who are doing this why aren't you dobbing them in for fraud?" when asked by expat

lady, I'm sure most posters dont really think a family on benefits have all that honestly, most posters must know a life on benefits is hell and the only way to have the plasma tv's etc is to be claiming something dishonestly and having extra money coming in, either that or be drowning in debt which is just as bad

I've known a few folk playing the system, all differently but for their own reasons...it is possible, but its nothing to be jealous of and much as I'd have liked to I wouldnt dob them in as I knew the kids in the families would be the first to suffer

Janey. Both my parents had teeth issues in adulthood. One lost the lot at a pretty young age and had to have false teeth and the other ones teeth rotted away. They kept a few but the ones they had were in very bad condition. They later in life got partial false teeth which were too uncomfortable to wear. I imagine better ones would just have cost too much.

janey, I agree with you, except the bit that says the gov recognise the problem, I don't think they do, I think they only see what they want to see

but the bit where people are going "benefit bashers la la la" is correct, rather than discuss the problem openly and say that the system isnt fair in some ways, they want to jump on anyone who says anything they feel is wrong, like its a personnel insult to them, it must be hard to read these threads whilst on benefits and think "but that's not me, I want to work but there's no bloody jobs", but all this jumping down folks throats doesn't help any discussion, I got accused of " benefit bashing bingo" earlier when I mentioned free school dinners and was asked "whats wrong with free school dinners?! when I hadn't said anything was wrong with them....., where the discussion there??

Have read most of the threads, but not all of them i admit.
Firstly op, you have zero clue about being a single parent!
Secondly, you are massively over exaggerating about her spending or she is working on the side??
Thirdly, would you like to swap places with her?

You may think it sounds all cushty, but i'm very sure if you could swap lifestyles you would be very dissapointed

The only part yanbu on, is the free 15hr 2yo childcare bit, i personally think ALL people regardless of income should get that, but if the government has gave it to her of course she is going to take it, especially being a single parent-she needs a break like the rest of us!

Let me break this down for you and lets see whether you will change your opinion:
Chb for 1 child: Roughly £68 a mnth
Income support: Roughly £71 a wk
Tax credits: Roughly £48 a wk
Maitenance:??? But if father is also on benefits, she will only be getting £5 a week!
Council Tax: that will be paid for her until the new rules come in April
Hb: nearly or all of her rent will be paid but she may have to subsidise it if she has so many bedrooms.

Sound fun to you now?
This is supposed to be a friend, yet your whole op slagged the lady off!
Wheres your goat

This isn't about benefit bashing... I actually believe essential dental work and check ups should be free for all. There are people on here who are sticking their fingers in their ears and going 'la la la benefit bashers' because it's more convenient that accepting what many of us are actually saying.

I agree. Sometimes on here its like you can't even mention benefits without cries of "benefit bashing" which is ridiculous. I suppose their are some who just hate everyone who is on benefits but i would imagine the majority just think it needs to be run differently. Discussion is important but on mn its almost a no go area on the subject.

YY- that's exactly it- it's almost become a no go area. Anyone who wants to have a reasoned discussion about it finds the thread is jumped on immediately with cries of 'benefit bashing', mentions of goats or the classic which is ultimately not doing the forum any favours. Its become a place where many threads follow a predictable pattern and people will look to other forums to discuss important issues

True. Which is such a shame.

I cba reading the whole thread, but, as Amber Leaf points out, everyone with one child who is on out of work benefits gets the same amount to live on. Exactly the same.
When I was on income support, when ds was a baby I went to see the lone parent adviser, who worked out what I would get when I started working part time (21 hrs), and even with paying council tax, bus fares and buying lunch every day it works out at around £30 a week more when you work, which is substantial if your income on IS for buying food, clothes, travel and paying bills is £126 a week (which it was then).
Trust me, you are not better off on out of work benefits, and there is no spare money for an i pad.
Sorry, but those are the facts. You can check them with the dwp.
But if you think you would be better off not working, give it a go.

But doesn't that depend on your earning potential?

Yes it does- and on your commuting and childcare costs- neither of which you need if you're not working.

Everyones idea of cushy is different I suppose but theres no way I could live a lifestyle I would consider cushy on benefits.

For me sure its annoying thinking about fraudulent benefit claimants but no more annoying than say drivers who drive without insurance or the vast amount of other poor behaviour in society.

Mostly I dont concern myself with it though and just focus on my own life and let others make their choices. To me choosing a lifestyle which offers no growth for the future ie just keep having babies to keep state funding going would be hell but hey if that is a choice someone else is making and its legal then let them get on with it.

Um. My working full time aunt got braces at the dental hospital for free. You can't get braces free, unemployed or not, unless you are refered to a place like that, unemployed or not.
There are very few dental treatments you can get free on the NHS these days.

No fuckadoodle and janey, because the system which works out what you get when working is designed to always make you better off-hence you get a diminishing proportion of childcare costs paid, depending on what you earn.

I already said that commuting costs WERE taken into account, as was childcare.

And, because I had had to junk my previous career, and move somewhere out of London, my earning potential was fairly low. We worked out the amounts based on a wage of £8 ph, but if you worked it out based on min wage it would be the same.

For example, housing benefit is worked out based on only £65 % of your wage. Therefore, if I earn £100 a week, they only count that as £65 per week, and adjust the reduction in HB accordingly.

It IS getting harder to go back to work since the Tories cut the max childcare help from 80% to 70%. That affects people on low income the most, but even now, you are still slightly better off working.

Besides which, when you are working, there is career progression. On benefits you are going nowhere.
I used to live on an estate, somewhere where many of you might think would be full of women with loads of kids on the soc.
Well, the vast majority worked, in retail mainly. The ones who DID have too many kids and chaotic lives, and milked the system for all they were worth were few and far between.
And I wouldn't have wanted their lives, not for one second.

Whilst the state gives people the choice of not working, the system will be abused. Presumably thats why UC has lowered the age from 5 to 1 of when people are expected to work after having children. Much fairer as thats pretty much the same as maternity leave.

Her parents should be telling her to grow up and take responsibility but wond if they claim themselves and feel she is entitled. I saw a post recently on anither board where the person with one child got the equivalent of a gross salary of over £30k!

And interesting, I know quite a few young women, working, with young kids and struggling to make ends meet who also believe that someone, somewhere is having a cushy life and thumbing their noses at us hardworking mugs.
This is EXACTLY what the multi millionaires in charge of things want:For the poor to attack the poorer.
They are laughing at us, scratching around like manky pigeons, pecking each other to death over a few scraps, while they give more tax breaks to the super-rich.
There you are-have some politics. You're welcome.

I think the reason why it turns into crys of benefit bashing is because everybody who gets discussed always gets described as having so much or as feckless or not a very good parent and there are so money people who appear to think that is mostly the case with benefit claimants.

And that lots of people are struggling.

If you think about it its often going to work out easier for a person who has lived on £150 or less cash a week to budget for a while and cope because they are used to it than it will be for someone who has a income above the limits to claim anything when all of a sudden there income drops or living gets significantly more expensive.

Housing benefit is set up with income disregards so it does work out that you are slightly better off in work than out of work ( even with fsm unless you have loads of kids) tax credits give you a premium when you move up from a lower hour band to one of the higher bands.

Its not as if you can walk into the dwp make up a sob story and be given any more money than the gov says you need to live on but there are so many misconceptions about this that it creates problems,I've had people who have told me they think people can claim for pet dogs or that they think people on benefits don't have to pay water rates or get subsidised electric.or that there children get free taxis to school.

They tend to be shocked to find out this isant true.

The world stands agog at our nutty benefits system,and huge debts, and the world's ponor beat a path to our door to us. If you can't see what's happening, you're blind. It is utterly unaffordable and unless a grip is got the country will continue its long decline further into the economic abyss.

'even now, you are still slightly better off working.'

Even if this is true (and I'm not convinced it's always the case) the point is that there needs to be a significant difference between working and not working. Likewise there needs to be a significant difference between working part time and getting top ups, and working full time.

If you are only going to be, for the sake of argument, 5 or 10% better off, in real terms, by working, or by working full time rather that part time, where is the incentive? I repeat, I am not interested in cutting benefits (and a lot of people on the thread have said the same) - what needs to happen is for people who work to know that they are substantially better off. They need to see tangible differences in their life. That is what acts as an incentive to people. I know there are other benefits to working too, but at the end of the day, people want to be able to pay their bills, pay for the essentials in life and then have money to enable them to improve the quality of their life. For a long time now, many many people on modest (or even on what would are generally considered quite reasonable ) incomes have found that in real terms they are absolutely shafted and are hardly any better off than if they cut their work hours. That is absolutely crazy economics.

World's poor.

It was said above that the government has finally realised that it is wrong that someone on NMW is no better off than someone claiming benefits. Except that instead of raising NMW, and risking alienating their supporters, they are lowering benefits. Which is wrong and will lead to even more poverty! Why is that so hard to understand?

The world stands agog at our nutty benefits system,and huge debts, and the world's ponor beat a path to our door to us. If you can't see what's happening, you're blind. It is utterly unaffordable and unless a grip is got the country will continue its long decline further into the economic abyss. So what do you suggest is done?

sock, I hear what you're saying "I think the reason why it turns into crys of benefit bashing is because everybody who gets discussed always gets described as having so much or as feckless or not a very good parent and there are so money people who appear to think that is mostly the case with benefit claimants"

but honestly I dont think most people do think everyone on benefits being discussed gets so much. I think most (although deffo not all, some folk have closed minds no matter what) folk know being on benefits is no picnic

I agree SSD but unfortunately the ones who do often turn up on these threads banging on about tv's iPads cars or mobile phones don't quite get it

Ssd- I agree that some people have closed minds. But that works both ways. I have talked to people on low incomes who complain about 'only' getting 70% of their childcare costs paid for them. They were agog when I replied that dh and me have always had to pay every penny of ours- even when it equated to all my wages. Their reaction was genuine shock. Likewise I was talking only the other week to someone who works for the same company as me (she is in a low paid role) and she was worrying about the changes in April to council tax benefits. She will still get most of hers paid but not as much of a subsidy as she's had for the last few years. When I replied that yes, council tax is a lot of money and I grit my teeth when the £200 per month goes out on direct debit from my earnings she was shocked, and asked how on earth I can afford it.

So I think there can be ignorance on both sides. If you're buffered by wealth you may have no concept of what it's like to be on benefits, but equally if you've received tax credits and other benefits all your working life you can have no concept of what it's like to have to fund everthing out of your own earnings.

I do however think its a minority who don't understand. I think most people know that the real issue is that the welfare system as its been is not sustainable, so it's not even a 'moral' issue about who deserves what.

The incentive is that working, you will not stay in the same place. I now qualify for jobs that pay 5000 a year more than I did 5 years ago, thru experience.
Believe it or not, most people do not enjoy sitting at home all day in a freezing flat they can't afford to heat, with no money to go anywhere or do anything.
I am glad you don't want to cut benefits because it was really really hard to pay £65 a week bills out of £126 a week, leaving us with £60 a week for food, clothes, nappies and bus fares.This is how I ended up in debt, and really in the shit financially, with an apalling credit rating, which I am still suffering the effects of.
Wages in this country are dire. Really low compared to most of Europe. Rent is insanely high. That is why working FT on a low wage can still be a massive struggle.
The people benefiting from the massive HB bill are landlords. Approx 60% of renters have to claim some HB. Most are working.

I just wish people would stop comparing low wage working to not working. No, there is not a massive amount of financial difference, but the amount there is IS significant when you can go from saying no to an ice cream at the park, to sometimes saying yes.
When you can pay your bills by dd, and you can have a trip to the seaside with your 4 yr old who has never seen the sea before, because you have that little bit extra it matters.

False Economy have published the following statistics:

Proportion of the entire welfare budget that goes on the unemployed: 3%
Proportion of jobseekers who go on to claim for more than a year: 27%
Proportion of budget claimed fraudulently: 0.7%

However, looking at Mumsnet you'd honestly think all those figures would be around at least 50%