To think if you can't work you can't care either?

[stella69x]

So if somebody is in receipt of sickness benefits, therefore they are deemed unfit to work, they should not be entitled to carers allowance for caring for another person.

In my mind if they are fit to care for another person they are fit to work!

Opinions gratefully received

Wow, there really are some vicious people on here today.

I'm lost for words, this is a very, very nasty thread.

And carers is pointless anyway if you're in a non working household, you don't gain any money as it comes off IS.........just means you aren't required to look for work.

If that's aimed at me, I am not posting to inflame, I am curious, if you are able to care you are able to work as a carer?

I am looking for explanations as to why this is incorrect, why can a person be expected to provide care at under the minimum wage but not be able to provide care at a waged level?

ODFOD with your goady thread.

And don't even get me started on the man with early onset dementia I know who's a carer for his blind wife.....

Didn't know what to think, indeed...

It's obvious to a 12 year old that an ill carer deserves equal, if not more support, than a healthy carer, not less.

Because, you fool, there are no working rights or conditions or health and safety protections for family carers.

In which case stella perhaps a little thought should have gone into the phrasing of the question. You've been around a wee while according to your posting history, surely you knew how your post would go down on AIBU?

If a person is able to survive for up to three weeks without food, why do we eat every day?

If you can hold your breath for over a minute, why do you take twelve?

If children can work in mines, why do we need schools?

*twelve breaths a minute

Hey Cotananat don't get giving the government ideas.

I mean do the poor really need to eat every day?

You're not curious about anything, your OP made it very clear what your already fully formed opinion is.

It is utter nonsense to take a black-and-white attitude like this. I was a full-time carer for my Mum with Alzheimers for six years (although, as it happens, I didn't claim a care allowance). Full-time care really meant full-time, keeping her safe, happy and well as her mental powers declined, through to holding her hand as she died. I can think of many medical conditions I could have had that both required sickness benefit and still allowed me to care for my Mum. Fortunately I remained healthy; the idea of stigmatising those who do not, and removing the (little enough, God knows) support afforded carers is horrible. If people thought first, "there but for the grace of God", they might think twice about all the permutations of situation before making foolish blanket pronouncements.

OP....please read the fucking thread. Your crappy goady question has been answered many times already here.

If people are unable to work due to their own health yet still having to cope with caring for someone else and all that entails then they bloody well should be getting money to live on.

CoTatanat I've got one! If you can manage to care for your own child, how come you can't work in a pre-school caring for 5 children?

TheBigJessie,

If you can swim, why do you need a ferry ticket to France?

What •madratlady• just said is right.

Hey OP, why not ask WHY people receiving sickness benefit are being expected to provide care for relatives with so little support?

isn't carers allowance something like £50 a week for being a person's full-time carer?

Can you imagine just how much it would cost the state to employ someone to do the same job?

Carers save the government so much money, they should not be vilified.

Exactly.

I notice that there are not as many people getting frothy about the fact that you can't claim CA for 2 people. Saving the Government even more then.

Also, since the OP asks why people who care for someone can't work as a carer, it might well be that the person they care for needs them 24 hours a day, and can't safely be left. They might have nobody else to share the caring with.

It's also very different for people to care for one loved one, which could be anything from physical care to just keeping them safe, than working as a carer which is usually hard physical work for long hours with few breaks.

On the question of how you can be a carer for a loved one, and yet not fit to be employed as a carer, I'd ask whether you think a disabled mother who looks after her own baby should therefore necessarily be considered fit to work in a nursery?

As I recall, when I claimed benefits, they deducted the CA off the IS anyway. It's probably different now but you can bet whatever the rules are they are probably worse!

MrsDV it is worth your while posting.

My immediate reaction to the op was that she was right.

But reading your post, plus one or two others, have made me look at it from a different angle, and rethink a bit.