About the Benefits program on BBC1

[bimbabirba]

It has made my blood boil! Especially that judgmental bitch, Debbie, who was telling the single parent that she shouldn't buy a whole chicken on tax payers' money to feed her children! Then she went all judgy and bitchy because the kids eat two cooked meals a day and she asked if that was really necessary!
I think the world has gone mad!

Saying someone needs 30K to make their wage the same as benefits is a bit of a red herring, you can get tax credits, housing benefit and even some income support if you are working.

They chose people who do the sort of jobs that the people on benefits could do.

Judgey pants riding high today?

I don't think it's unfair that people on benefits can get more money than a paid job.

I do think it's unfair that jobs are so poorly paid in the first place and people accept it as reasonable

Why is everyone racing to the bottom?

Why aren't people looking up at the people who are running their companies who earn shit loads yet expect workers to earn peanuts?

Why are people in awe to the big bosses, as if they deserve the excess salaries etc at the expense of the workers who have no pensions, minimal rights and need state top ups I survive?

The programme made me very uncomfortable. I didn't like Debbie's tone/attitude, but FFS, some of us who work FT can't afford 5 pets, to smoke, AND go out once a week.

I also felt off about Luther being a SAHP for over 20 years. ALL his kids are school age or adult now, so why is he still not working?

I know a load of former DV victims who were threatened with all kinds of crap if they didn't get a job.

Even though they're shot to pieces, they all did it. Ok not a mega paying thing, but they're scared of losing the help with HB. They are on the way to gaining independence from benefits and feel miles better in themselves.

I'd love to SAH, i'm on my own totally, and childcare costs a fortune, i'm exhausted with all the rushing around, but I have bills to pay.

Oh and school dinners are unhealthy, my son's packed lunch feeds him just fine, without the need for daily cake.

Debbie's attitude summed up the patronising, "I'm better than you", "benefits are stupid" attitude that many have. I mean telling someone to not buy a whole chicken etc? Although she showed herself to be an idiot there.

I actually thought the prog was quite balanced, it started out a bit knicker-hoikingly judgy but as it went on there were lots of 'reveals' by the presenters and claimants, like the real figure for out of work benefits being much lower than people assume, and that one of the 'scroungers' was actually suffering a lung condition that affected his breathing.

But overall, and I speak from personal experience, I do think there are generally those who strive and those who don't. And that if you give those people the exact same hand in life and opportunities, they will still come out of it differently.

I was suprised at the 10% figure, does thatbinclude the total amount of money going towards unemployed ? Including housing costs?

Or is the 10% what's just paid out in jsa?

Because that figure is v v v low
I bet a lot of.people werebshocked to hear that figure

Most of the welfare budget goes to pensioners, over half. A lot of the rest goes on benefits for those in low paid work, then incapacity them finally unemployment.

oooh i watched this

yes the woman judging the single mum during the shopping trip made my blood boil

and it made me sad when they were talking to the lady who runs the food bank and she was saying how the need for food parcels has trebled in 2 years :( how awful in this day and age

I too thought there was some balance. I still thought the chicken lady's attitude was totally wrong, especially over the hot meals. But,the same family had a huge number of animals which seemed extravagant to me.

The family looking after the elderly relative seemed decent, sensible and desperate to find work and I felt very sad for them.

The singl dad was a nice dad and a good man but he could surely have done more earlier in his life to work if he had wanted to work.

The young lad who was above menial paid work and had to have designer footwear frankly needed a kick up the backside.

It's sad day when whether or not a child deserves a hot meal at home is being questioned.

There are far to many reasons why this is a necessity.

There were so many patronising and condescending moments that I could barely watch it. The part where the over keen woman made him go into shops and ask about work was made all the worse by the fact there were none. What did she want him to do? It should pay more to work, but this is not a fault of the benefits system, rather that the minimum wage should be higher, and that training and vocational courses should be easier and free to access.

I find it sad that some low income working families would prefer to begrudge the children of the unemployed to hot meals a day (although I agree that the hot/cold thing is utter nonsense; sashimi is cold, but it certainly isn't a staple of the poor) rather than aspiring to more for their own children. Clearly the current government strategy of setting the poor against the poor, rather than improving the prospects for people to become less poor, is working wonderfully.

Also, I know that the posters displaying this kind of attitude will be angry at being subject to shitty judgement of the 'why don't you get a better paid job/both work/whatever else might bring in more money' kind or the 'well you should have worked harder at school/gone to university/become a city lawyer on £150k+' type. And they'll want to point out that it isn't quite so simple. And they'd be right; it isn't quite so simple, and it's very easy to sit in judgement. But, it's worth considering that the same might be true for the people they are judging and looking own on.

It's much better to be angry that you can't afford to feed your family very well than to complain that (you think) someone else (who you think is 'less deserving') is able to feed theirs better.

I didn't see the programme but based on what it says here I think there needs to be more career guidance at universities. Things may have changed alot since I was at uni but there was no career guidance at all. There was a careers office but no guidance and I would have appreciated that when I was there. All I am talking about is CV writing and getting work placements and jobs to gain skills and experience.

The trouble with the scenarios presented by the programme are this:

Did the woman who bought a whole chicken actually make it stretch for three meals and make stock with the bones? I was shouting about the fillets too, but that argument only works if you are actually going to stretch that chicken (like everyone on MN does, to fed the 5,000 ). I know I don't - I might pick off the easy bigs of meat and put them in a stir fry, but if the chicken has fed more people his week so there's not much left, I look at the bones and think sod it.

If she's applied for 25 jobs in four months, I'm sorry, but I really don't think that shows a great deal of determination to find work.

Also the man with the lung condition - I completely understand that a job as a HCA or a brick or would be unsuitable, but are we really saying that he can't do any work at all of any description? Not even something in an office? I work in an office and I am pretty confident it CL contributes nothing to getting my heart rate going except for my boss and the clients

Seen in isolation like that, it's very difficult for a lot of people to understand why people aren't working/can't work and I suspect that is why things like fitness to work assessments have got support among those who aren't subject to them.

It will be really interesting to see next week how they get on with trying out the jobs.

Another little thought - I have an 18 year - off to uni inn the autumn who with a bit of babysitting, gardening and caddying seems able to earn about 100pw when he can fit it in between studying and sport. He has one pair of school shoes (battered), one pair of sports trainers, one pair of fashion trainers and a three year old pair of docs. He has a contract phone paid for by me but it is not an i-phone.

The others on that programme I have some sympathy for; for that young man I'm afraid I have none. The sense of entitlement to an unearned lifestyle was overwhelming.

The last time I applied for a job, it took me the equivalent of a whole working day. Researched the company, reviewed jD and person spec, tailored written statement with evidence of compliant experience, reviewed and attched CV tweaking where necessary, triple checked entire application. If effort is made on a job application I think 25 in four months is high and indicates wide coverage.

comtessede do you think your employers would be falling over themselves to employ him.
He said himself, his cv would say home maker for 20 years.
I can completely see why he lacked confidence and therefore ambition. From his point of view he isn't physically cabable of doing manual work and doesn't have the skills or experience to di clerical work. His age goes against him too, why would a company invest in him for 10 years of service if that when they can get a better qualified young person for 40 years plus.
If the government want him to work then they have to invest in him with suitable skills and training, but of course they are unwilling to do that because it's actually cheaper for them to allow him to stay where he is.

'Also the man with the lung condition - I completely understand that a job as a HCA or a brick or would be unsuitable, but are we really saying that he can't do any work at all of any description? Not even something in an office? I work in an office and I am pretty confident it CL contributes nothing to getting my heart rate going except for my boss and the clients'

You do realise, though, don't you that if you have any kind of health condition it's really, really hard to get a job? Employers don't want someone they perceive to be unreliable when they can go for someone healthy. Plus, it's all very easy to make a judgment of 'well they can't do x but they could do y.' That may very well be true (and you know what, most disabled people WANT to work) but you aren't going to know his full medical history. Some conditions cause dreadful fatigue or pain. At first glance someone might look capable of doing something when they're actually not.

I only saw the program from the chicken bit but that said it all really.

aturtle and itstarts those are both very valid points. I particularly agree with this:

"If the government want him to work then they have to invest in him with suitable skills and training"

What I don't know (and I may have missed) is what he has done to try to get a job. The woman he met was asking him this question and his response seemed to be "I want to stay at home with my children". Wouldn't we all. I don't get from the programme that he had actually done anything about looking for work (at least recently) and it was only now that the youngest was at school that he was thinking about it.

I do think its true though that we need to spend more time with people looking at why they aren't getting interviews and jobs. Is their CV crap (as in, poorly written)? Could we give them some experience (even if that is unpaid) so that they can demonstrate a work record and reliability? I'm not necessarily advocating welfare to work, that to me seems like a very blunt instrument. But I am sure that if we had a scheme where employers had incentives to offer short term relevant work experience and people were given help with child are during that time, it would prove more cost efficient in the long run.

As for my employer, perhaps they are enlightened, but yes, they do have a track record for employing people towards the end of their careers - even for fewer than 10 years. Don't forget a lot of people don't stay in one job for more than 2-3 years, so I don't see that as necessarily a problem.

Do not get me started on that graduate, I have no time for people who think that certain jobs are beneath them. As for his statement that he needs designer trainers but that Asda is fine for women and children. I can think of about 7 cogent arguments why that makes him a total twat.

"It IS unfair that you can live a better life on benefits than you can working full time"

Agree... but the answer isn't less benefits... it's better wages!! It's a disgrace that the mimimum wage needs to be topped up by benefits to make it possible for people to live. The taxpayers are subsidising large corporations to have cheap labour.