to think its no wonder people stay on benefits?

[ruledbyheart]

My DP has started a new job getting the only job he has been offered after 1yr of trying, its only part time but we thought its better than nothing and at least he is willing to work.

He is working for a well known pizza franchise doing delivery and took the job on the basis he got a full 24hrs a week yet he is on week two and has only been given 16 so far.

He signed off job seekers to be told he won't receive anything other than the money leading up to sign off so we will have to survive for an entire month on my CTC and somehow live and pay billswith this.

He is eligible for WTC providing he gets the 24 hrs if not we aren't entitled to anything, without this we still have to pay extra on our rent and council tax out of his barely worth it wages.

However if we stayed on benefits we could afford to live no problems.

If his work doesn't give him the hours promised we will barely scrap by yet he couldn't leave and sign on again as he would be told he made himself unemployed.

So pissed off that we are worse off working.

There is no work locally and he struggled to get this.

I can't work at the moment as I'm pregnant and have 3dcs under 5yrs.

Aibu to think this is shit and we should have just saved the hassle and stayed on benefits?
No wonder people dont want to work.

Writehand, the wtc rules are changing for self employed people in April. You will have to be earning more than the equivalent of 35 hours per week at minimum wage.. or something like that. It's another kick in the teeth for people who are trying to get by in this awful time of high unemployment.

It's a joke, because I wonder how many people will end up claiming CT benefit, housing benefit and unemployment benefit, when they could have been starting up a business and getting WTC?

Surely helping people to start up a business makes better sense? They have a chance of getting off benefits, but if you're unemployed it actually damages your prospects of getting a job.

Yes, it does make sense to help people to start businesses, but this isn't about sense. It's about increasing the pool of free labour for Poundland and co.

It does seem to me, sometimes, as though there is a deliberate strategy to create a serf class. But it's simply unworkable in the long run.

andubelievedthat - The argument that the government needs to keep paying people to have more children so there will be people to work as carers when the population is old is not only false but also logically and economically unsustainable.

Firstly, there are already millions of unemployed people in this country as it is, so we do not need millions more unemployed to add to that figure. The UK is already home to hundreds of thousands of Filipinos, Indians etc who care for the elderly because so many British people will not work for such a low wage as they can get more claiming benefits (especially if they have children - see the OP's post).

Secondly, there is no guarantee that the children of a family that have been on benefits for years will go on to work, they are just as likely to become benefit claimants themselves and be a further burden on the state.

Thirdly, the logic that more children = bigger future workforce would spell disaster as there is finite land, resources and money and you are advocating a pyramid scheme, whereby there always needs to be more and more people at the bottom (workers) supporting those at the top (the elderly). This is simply unsustainable.

gaelicsheepThu 28-Feb-13 13:19:40

cantspel - "Yes the op should have been more responsible with her contraception"

Its not only judgemental. Its also sexist and mysogynistic. Because it implies that its all down to the OP

Orwellian there is no guarantee that any child from working parents or unemployed parents will go onto work, in this climate even those from generations of hard workers can't find jobs.

Just like there is quarantee that a child from a non working household wont go on to be the next Allan sugar. Come on many successes have came from poverty.

No one should be worse off working than on benefits, and those on benefits, every last one of them has a life story that put them there.

The biggest flaw in Britain at this moment is not unemployments it's lack of compassion

Orwellian what the fuck do you think the OPs DH is doing then if hes not working. Throwing parties in the delivery vehicle!!!!!

Orwellian, I would really recommend either reading up about neo-liberal economic theory and social policy or perhaps a couple of lectures on the basics

Talking about what we need as a country, is irrelevant to what our political class want or need. They no longer act in the interests of the nation state. They ONLY act in the interests of business & therefore the capitalist class. This is the real reason why the state is impoverished and can no longer afford welfare, education and health. There is a dialectic btw the debt and the ideology of small state. So the desire is for a small state, the conditions for this are created.

Darkest you mean men are involved in the process? Surely not. I'm sure I read somewhere that an angel appears in the kitchen and says 'right young lady, you're going to have a baby, but don't claim CB because Orwellian will be very, very angry'. If women wish to avoid pregnancy they should stop talking to angels. It's really very simple.

at Saskia.

The reason we have so many immigrants taking up poorly paid care work is not because benefits are so generous but because wages are so poor. Where these immigrants come from the wages are poorer still. The fact is though that the elderly are not be cared for in residential and nursing homes....that care is increasingly falling to women to do for free. LA budgets are being decimated and services cut.

Also, many immigrants are being ripped off, and are working for less than minimum wage - employers were very quick to find ways around that. Of course, British people aren't taking those jobs, they know they aren't legal.

Your husband may find that once he proves himself to his employers that more shifts are offered. He also needs to let them know on a regular basis that he needs to able to feed his family. Also any work is better than no work in the long term as it is much easier to get a better job if you are already working. However you have got to be able to feed your family...having the uncertainty of a decent income can be scary. I have worked on zero contracts before and things have always improved with time.

Paradise the trouble with that is that people dont have that "time" Because in that "time" more and young children are now being diagnosed with diseases and illnessess that were thought to be previously eradicated like rickets.
Sometimes families simply dont have the "time" to wait without it effecting their health or the health of their children.

Exactly Saskia.

A large crowd in the Hope Centre are from Romania, and say they are waiting for food because collecting scrap metal and washing cars isn't enough to make ends meet. A bigger number is there because of benefit delays and cuts, or simply because they are no longer able to make their low wages stretch.

A local supermarket has delivered a load of stock just about to reach its sell-by date (it doesn't want to be named, to avoid getting caught up in discussion of the merits of giving food that is about to go off to the hungry) and today it is offloading industrial quantities of iced buns, which several families take home by the dozen.

The boom in Britain's food banks reflects a number of worrying and complicated trends. As well as rising unemployment, more people are seeing their hours cut at work. For the past couple of years, charities have been warning that a shift to a less generous way of uprating benefits in line with inflation, combined with rising food and fuel prices, would make life more difficult for people claiming benefits. Then there is the start of a new, harsher benefits regime, as a result of which it seems that more claimants are having their payments sanctioned ? cut or stopped entirely ? if they miss appointments. At the same time, the state system of a social fund and crisis loans is being wound down, so emergency cash payments from the welfare system for those deemed to be in extreme need are now exceptionally difficult to procure. Around 43% of visitors to Trussell Trust distribution centres nationwide come because of changes to their benefits or a crisis loan being refused.

I was offered window alarms today! this won't end well, if people are left literally with nothing, then we will have very many desperate people. I wonder what George and Dave will want done when crime shoots up.

Ok, I had to join because I don't think you've had very good benefit advice (in general, not on here). Your partner can continue to claim JSA for you both as a couple as long as he is working ON AVERAGE under 16hrs p/week. He would just need to declare this fortnightly. That is one option. The other option is a partner or "dependent" on a JSA (or ESA) claim (presumably you on his previous JSA claim) can work under 24hrs p/week...so you can claim JSA as the "main claimant", he and could be the "dependent", however you would be liable to actively seek employment etc, not him.
If you claimed ESA, which it sounds like you could do under "incapacity by means of pregnancy", you would not need to meet the same conditionality (i.e. Prove you are actively seeking employment each fortnight) but would need a medical certificate from your GP and may be required to attend a medical at some point (though it's unlikely if it's primarily pregnancy related).
Although your partner's earnings may decease the amount of benefit you receive, even 10p of income-based/related benefit will be enough to enable you to automatically receive "passported benefits" (HB, CTB etc).
I'm sorry if this is long and rambling - first ever post and on my phone!
I would like to mention the person (waaaay) up post who gave you the advice of "go to GP, tell GP he's stressed, get signed off, claim relevant benefit" etc that it is exactly this kind of attitude that leaves mental health conditions subject to such scrutiny and not taken seriously - it's people that use it as a card to be played, or to get out of something they don't want to do, that devalue it for genuine sufferers. (Not suggesting that is you / your partner OP)

8dayweek - thanks for joining. Can I ask, since it's thankfully years since I was in the system, how many times would he have to declare an average of more than 16 hours before benefits are stopped? Just once or is there some sense? And what us this black hole bet commnween 16 hours work = loss of JSA and 24 hours = start of WTC? Is that really the case?

8dayweek - thanks for joining. Can I ask, since it's thankfully years since I was in the system, how many times would he have to declare an average of more than 16 hours before benefits are stopped? Just once or is there some common sense? And what is this black hole between 16 hours work = loss of JSA and 24 hours = start of WTC? Is that really the case?

Sorry! Blasted phone keeps posting while I'm trying to edit!

Sorry op for your troubles.

I would like to know the name of the pizza company so that I can avoid giving them any of my money. If the customers walk away from employers who screw people over the companies might consider decent contracts. Start a campaign, name and shame!

It sounds like a tough situation to be in OP. I've been there several times in my life and hope not to be in that position again. However, since I had already known poverty and got through tough times when my family fell on hard times again (dh redundancy) I got creative. I set myself up as a babysitting service. Someone said up thread that you need references for that in London. Why let that stop you? That's where I lived. I babysat for free to get references from friends and aqaintances. I offered a much lower hourly rate than others in my area - and guess what I got plenty of work. One day I earned £60 to babysit a baby whilst the parents were at a wedding. Most weeks I did a few eveni gs and got 20 odd per night. I worked fulltime at the time and found it hard (long evenings, not being with my own dd). But that extra big of money made a difference.

What I am trying to say is that there are lots of reasons why something can't be done there are those that makes even thise those things work too - for a time. So why don't you look into doing something similar OP? Dh should also get more of the ZH jobs to increase his hours. If he isn't available for job 1 because he has hours from job 2 then so be it. One of the jobs may also turn into something a bit more secure in time.

Another thing, it sounds like there could be a maked in being a flexible childminder/babysitter for other parents in ZH/uncertain hours contract.
Why not look into setting yourself up for that?

I don't agree with ZH contracts by the way and think something should be done about them.

I'm still lurking and taking in the useful information so thank you for all the helpful advice.

I've explained my circumstances regarding my dc and this pregnancy if you still want to judge fine, but I am its not going to change so I don't find the input helpful in the slightest and I hope no one finds themselves in the positions I have been in.
I could understand if I'm sitting on my backside reaping the benefits but my DP and I are trying to stand on our own two feet like we have both done all our adult life until we both took some unfortunate and unavoidable knocks in life last year.

Thats all I'm going to say on that matter.

DP has spoken to the job centre this morning and been told unless he gets less than 16hours a week they can't help but as soon as he does he can sign on just for the weeks with less hours, HB and jobcentre apparently communicate so will get worked out for us on a regular basis (I dont hold much hope of this).

DP is looking for other work and for now we will just muddle through and see whathours he can get.

You have to earn more than £238 a week in my area before HB is affected. CB isnt included and the first £25 of pay is disregarded.

You should find out the circumstances in your area!

CTC for two kids (for us) is only £110 a week so you should still qualify for the rent help you get on JSA. I hope its the same where you are.