We were on benefits a few years ago now.
DH and I got made redundant within a week of each other right in the middle of the recession.
We had a nice house, big tvs, games consoles, all sorts of expensive stuff that people love to complain about people on benefits having. It's so bloody shortsighted to not even stop to think that people may have had this stuff before becoming unemployed.
People who think that it is a fun way to live, and it's all about sitting at home while the tax payer funds a lavish lifestyle that you don't have to work for, have obviously never been it that position. There's no "spare" money, it's basic essentials. For me, it was miserable tbh. It was depressing.
All the talk about "the state of their houses"? I used to go through periods where I would get up, blitz the house, make everything lovely and then sit down and apply for job after job after job. After a week of that, and getting no responses at all, I would feel miserable and wonder what was the point of tidying up, dusting, Hoovering, applying for yet more jobs. It was bloody demoralizing. That would last a week or so, where my house, and my mind was a mess. Then id pull myself up and do it all over again, the same cycle.
I was very lucky and only had to go through that for 7 months. I can't imagine how down and miserable it is to do it over a period of years.
These programs make me sick and tbh the people who watch them and judge people based on this highly edited, snapshot of life clearly have never been in that situation.
Lets hope they never are, because the lack of empathy and compassion would probably have them in tears.