in thinking it is getting impossible to discuss the welfare state on here any more

[size20knickersandfatter]

Disclaimer: I am all for the welfare state. I firmly believe in the NHS, and have no desire for a return to workhouses or other such draconian matters.

However, it seems to be that ever since the Tories started making cuts, it's impossible to even question on here the morality or the fairness of the system. I'll admit it - I don't think the system was fair, at all.

I earn a very average salary. As a result I am only slightly better off than I would be on benefits and considerably worse off when my childcare costs are deducted. It's difficult not to feel resentful when you're in that position.

• I don't believe throwing money around will mean any less children will "go to bed hungry."

• I don't believe benefits should be more lucrative than paid work. Ever. And at the moment, they are. I think the fact that they ever were is disgraceful.

• I think the welfare state is a crutch in a crisis. Disability excepted, it is not a walking stick through life.

I also know there will be hundreds of yawns, this AGAIN, do I want children to starve, I want a return to the workhouse actually no I want the poor shot actually I want them deported ha ha ha what a bitch what a cow what a horrible person. Oh and she hasn't mentioned widescreen TVs LOL.

No, actually, I'm none of the above, I'm just an ordinary person struggling to make ends meet myself. It's very easy to be lofty and high handed and sentimental when you're on board the gravy train yourself. As it is, I don't want benefits to disappear but I don't know just one piss taker, I know several, and don't believe I'm not typical in this.

Welfare - benefits - cost a FORTUNE and people are deluding themselves if they think they don't. The cost of other services doesn't mean welfare isn't a massive cut. It's like saying "that holiday is cheap, look how expensive it is to spend a fortnight in Disneyland." The fact is, it's unsustainable.

I'm happy for people to be given the support they need but at the moment I think some people do think "give people on benefits all the money they like and it will end poverty."

It won't.

mrsd I don't feel resentful. Being on benefits sounds awful just awful.

Seems worse to me that we spend a lot of money on keeping people in these depressing situations than if they had a good life for free on the tax payer.

I think for many many people their wages are far too low.
The govt. decide the way forward is to cut benefits so that working people do not feel resentful about people getting as much or more than they do working and yet it can be bloody hard to manage on a minimum wage.

I haven't had a pay increase in almost 10 years. I have to make my money stretch to pay bigger bills and living costs. I am not on a minimum wage - If I was I would be in real trouble.

What's the big deal with people having a flat screen tv? They are not expensive and have been around for years!

I'm saying "long term " benefits because she is talking about people who choose to be on them, so Income support, JSA etc. if you are on these benefits for years you won't end up owning your own home!

Mrs de vere- I think you make valid points about life as an unemployed person on benefits. I agree that for most people, that's going to be soul destroying, and even if there is just enough money to scrape by, I think you illustrate the lack of self esteem, the feeling that their life is owned by the state etc very well.
Personally I think anyone who genuinely believes they would be happier being unemployed and living on benefits is nuts

BUT I think where a lot of quite reasonable resentment is felt, is not to do with the intractable problems of the long term unemployed, but where couples are working hard, often both full time, qualifying for no top ups, and they see people manipulating the system and working part time so they still get benefits.

If you work part time, you don't have the lack of a sense of purpose and self esteem of being unemployed. You also perhaps don't have the pressure of working long hours and having to pay your own way for everything- housing, childcare, councils tax, dentist, prescriptions.

Now , this is the point where people will accuse me of being anecdotal, but hell, we all rely on our own experience don't we. And I know significant numbers of people who do exactly the above. They don't want to be jobless, but they do want to work the minimum number of hours they can to qualify for benefits. And that is not the purpose of the welfare state

Another example: hands up those of you with teenage children moving towards Uni, who won't be able to get the full maintenance loan because you as parents work full time and are therefore over the threshold? Meanwhile, watching the teenage children of separated /divorced friends of yours getting a lot more access to loans, grants and ultimately access to higher education- even when their parents combined income may be greater than yours?!

So while I agree with mrs de vere that no one in their right mind would prefer a jobless life, I can totally understand how many people who work hard, to the maximum potential and pay their own way are thoroughly pissed off with the unfairness of the system.

And yes, I'm all for people being paid a living wage, house prices not being so exorbitant etc, but there are also fundamental flaw in the welfare system which need to be addressed

I have been reading this hoping it would not turn into a bun fight. I studied Sociology at degree level a long time ago, but even then there was endless debate on this topic and not much consensus!

I binned the text books, and anyway, I am sure the research and theories have developed endlessly in the past 2 decades, but can I throw into the debate the need for a sector analysis of a mandatory living wage?

Manufacturing? I honestly don't think a mandatory living wage would end well for the UK employees in this sector.

Health and Social care? Just off the top of my head I can imagine that paying a living wage to care home staff will deplete those living off their assets even faster leaving them eligible for state care, and we are back to square 1.

It is a fascinating subject and when discussing the theory, it is possible to forget the people side of it, so FWIW I can't stand the benefit bashing. It is entirely possible to discuss economic strategy without demonising whole sections of society.

I bet the career claimants wouldn't even fill a division 3 football stadium.

Ok anecdotal but here goes. Our downstairs neighbours are 21 with one child. They are vile, are very noisy and laugh and ridicule me when they see me going to work because they say work is for mugs, they boast about never having worked.

Do I envy them? Not a chance. Ok I don't like leaving DC when in work but DH has seen inside their house. They sleep on the floor because they can't afford a bed, their dd sleeps with them or in the buggy, they freely admit not to using the bedrooms in winter because it saves on heating, their TV is a CRT. Their Dd's only toys are ones my dd and our other neighbour's Dd have grown out of. Not a nice way to live at all.

redhelen but how is income support long term? It's not, and neither is JSA....

Job centre push and push to get you into work... It's £71 a week and not 'long term'

Same with income support.... Your youngest reaches 5, you are moved off it!!!

mrsd you are right, people do need an alternative. God only knows I don't have the answers.

In general I would like to see more money put into services than just thrown at families that are struggling. Most obvious would be better more affordable child care so that people can afford to go to work.

I would love to see massive reductions in the cost of public transport, round my way it's cheaper to get a cab than a bus if there are three of you. That doesn't feel right to me.

grumpy that is there choice, nothing to do with benefits system. There are budgeting loans to enable furniture to be bought!

Yy to the childcare. I've actually opted to be a sahm as it actually works out cheaper for me to do so than go back to work & pay for childcare

I probably fall into that category Janey, but my kids are not going to miss out cos I'm working all hours. I have a lot of my adult life to work full time, like I did before they were born. As to uni, it is also unfair that kids with well off parents won't fund then but there will always be some group that misses out.

And actually, as a part time worker I think you do more pro rata than a full time worker IME.

heysoul I was just trying to counter people saying people on benefits have more and have it easy.

grumpy your downstairs neighbours sound a bit like me and dh. Except we are mid 30s, go to work and are nice (I know no one thinks they are horrid but honest we are good people most of the time)

Dd sleeps on a mattress on the floor, we can afford a bed but she loves jumping around on it and it seems safer. I or dh normally sleep with her little devil never did learn to self settle

In winter our house is freezing and we stop using rooms because we can't really afford to have them heated. Loads of dds toys are second hand and I see no shame in this. Oh we hardly ever go on holiday, if we do we stay with friends / at grandparents place, maybe once a year.

I guess the big difference is we choose to make these savings, we are well off by any stretch but we have savings and if we need to or want to spend some money we can. Just pointing out that living in the way you describe is also done by people in work.

MrsDV I do dislike them but for a lot more than in my post above eg the death threats to our seriously ill elderly neighbour when she asked them to keep the noise down.

BTW I'm not ashamed of working, I'm ashamed of earning so little that I need TC to ensure I eat. Working on getting better paid btw but it will take time. I'm hopefully starting on a course this year which I'll do in addition to work because my shifts can work round it. Our aim is to be independent in 5 years although on a bad day it feels like it will be nearer 10.

Yawn - can you go and moan elsewhere please? The majority of people on benefits are those in work. If there was a living wage rather than a minimum and if there were more affordable housing then Housing benefit would not need to be claimed. Deposits for first time buyers are too big therefore they rent therefore the rent market has boomed and people don't earn enough to cover basic housing needs. Ditto the food situation and energy bills and so on and on.
Quit bullying those on benefits and instead point to the Government and ask them to sort the country out from its roots.
The only reason those getting benefits are being vilified is because the Government has encouraged it.
Quite how anybody thinks, Jobseekers for an example is living a cushy life on 78.00 a week is beyond me. And before you shout Housing Benefit - where and how would you like people to live? In slums at the edges of town? That be good enough for you?
Go away with this sanctimonious bullshit. Congratulations for being led like a sheep into the Conservative way of thinking.

when it's not the sleeping on a mattress or not being able to heat the house that makes me think they are vile. I'm sorry if my post made you think that. It's their constant abuse of the neighbours that makes me think that. Would be too much to detail on here.

By posting that story I was trying to challenge the belief that those on benefits live the life of riley. We were homeless at one point I don't despise anyone for being poor.

The vast majority of people on benefits do struggle, that's obvious. But a lot of people do seem to know at least one piss-taker. Statistically, we know these are a very, very small minority and not representative of people on benefits in general - and yet they are there.

What amazes me is that anyone actually can plan a benefits "lifestyle". I expect like many on here, I was registered unemployed for a short while. It was for six months in my 20s, and I remember how hard it was. You had to turn up every Monday morning at the dole office and account for yourself with copies of all your application letters, proving you were "seeking work" - they took it very seriously and were pretty stern about it. If you were claiming JSA (or Income Support as it was back then) for longer than they were happy with, they'd send you on a course or insist that you applied for a minimum number of jobs. It would have been impossible to take the piss. Or perhaps I just wasn't devious enough?...

Like the OP, I think work should pay. You should never be better off claiming benefits than you are in work. What can happen, though, is that someone takes a low-paid job to get off benefits and on paper that job pays more than the benefits would - but after tax, NI, travel to work and other costs such as work clothes, etc., are deducted, they're actually worse off, in terms of actual pounds and pence going in the bank, in the short term. That can happen. Being in work is always better than not, though - as the old saying goes, it's always easier to get a job when you have a job.

I suppose the controversy comes when we start to legislate for what we think the unemployed are "allowed". Is the Internet a luxury? Well, no, because it's essential for job-hunting. Nobody just goes and looks at the cards in the Job Centre any more. Is a car a luxury? Maybe not, for some types of work. Etc.

Of course, the standard response from my more left-wing friends is that we should all be getting terribly irate about the bankers' bonuses instead, which in practice "take" more money from us than benefit cheats, although I don't see the two as mutually exclusive worries. (Bankers are such a world apart from anything I ever do, anyway, and I mentally separate them off in the way I do the Royal Family - nothing I ever say or do is going to make a difference. We might protest and and knock a few thousand off their income here and there,so they get one less skiiing holiday a year. Big deal.)

No I don't envy them. And no, you aren't paying for the rich mrs DV. Unles you mean the Labour party bailing out the bankers. The Labour party.

Redhelen- I am not talking about part time workers who can afford to be part time. I am referring to those who deliberately manipulate the system to work fewer hours or in less demanding roles because they have Sussed that there will be virtually no difference in their standard of living than if they worked more and were entitled to less top ups
That is categorically NOT the purpose of a welfare state. And yes, I blame the system more than the individuals, though I still think it takes a certain mindset to work the system like that