To really hate the "JSA is a pittance" opinion

[sezamcgregor]

I'm currently reading a lot about the Working Class in Victorian times - you know, when if you had a lazy husband who didn't work, you had to live in buildings condemned as unfit for human habitation with a different family in each room, lived on a diet of black bread and weak tea and watched your children slowly die of starvation. Or you worked in the mills (or similar), and you had to choose between pulling your children out of school as soon as they were old enough to work to get the meagre income that they would bring to the household or letting them get some kind of an education.

If you are unemployed now - you get your rent paid, council tax paid plus an amount of money given to you to buy food and other luxuries.

I'm so bored of having the conversation with people about how difficult it is to manage on £70 per week - even with Tax Credits, Child Benefit etc. Yeah, try telling our grandparents that

That's a shit argument.

So our forebears lived in a cave I shouldn't complain to my landlord about damp.

Is that it?

When I was unemployed I didn't receive any of that. It's quite a bit more complicated than you seem to think.

So Victorian times were appallingly inhumane and that justifies.....anything better? What a fucking ridiculous argument.

YABU unless you've bloody lived on it. For a long time.

'food and other luxuries' ?????

Our grandparents as in the baby boomer generation, yeah?

Goady bollocks.

yabu

You can't compare the two ages, you really can't. For starters, pulling your kids out of school now and sending them to work would bring you a shit load of trouble.........and it's a bit insulting for people living on the breadline saying they are able to buy luxuries.

Potato.......potatoe and all that!

Food and other luxuries? Like heating you mean? Or shoes for your children?

You've convinced me OP, I'm going to treat myself to 4 pints of milk and a loaf of bread later because I'm worth it.

food and other luxuries

My grandparents had more money than I could ever earn, and a brilliant pension. They certainly didnt have £70 to buy luxuries like food.

£70 is incredibly hard to live on, and if they get child tax credit its because they have a child that needs food, heat, clothes shoes all the usual stuff that adds up.

I wouldnt want to have to try and do it.

Yabu. It is a pittance!!! And don't tell me my dp shouldn't have got it after working since he worked since finishing school and became unemployed through redundancy. Were we not allowed to find it hard?

A s as for rent paid, well only a Certain amount. The rest you make up yourself

You know OP, funny you should say that. I was just thinking it's a shame I can't get DD doing some chimneys over the holidays.

Maybe you could teach him to sing "I love to pick a pocket or two"

OP, Are you or have you ever been on JSA for more than a few weeks? Are you speaking from personal experience?

Think you need to live it before you can comment really.

yes and women had to routinely put up with domestic violence without any help of getting away from the situation

so women should be very grateful that at least there are laws now to protect them

what a stupid argument we have moved on in society we hope for better as we can provide better

Come on MN, we all know we should be harking back to the good old days of child labour, workhouses, phossy jaw, rickets at epidemic levels, high infant mortality, no education past the age of twelve, (if you managed to get there in the first place)

Evenbetter Baby boomers did not exist in Victorian times. Well, I suppose there were some then because everyone seemed to have a dozen children so did live in Hard Times (pun!).

If you are talking about those of us born during and since the 1939-1945 War just been interrupted by JWs at the door we did okay. Those who were bombed out of their houses had other accommodation found for us. My parents were bombed out (father abroad) and Mother was given a fully furnished Nissen hut. She graduated to a prefab with fridge and cooker installed and then a flat. Their last accommodation was a modern house. I wanted for nothing.

Really? You only get your rent paid if you live in rented accommodation. If you are buying your home with the assistance of a mortgage, you have to wait a minimum of 12 weeks for assistance with the interest. No one is paying my mortgage for me at the moment. My DH was made redundant in May. He gets £76 every two weeks JSA, I earn £500 pcm, and we are getting £120 CTC and £82 CB. My mortgage is £20 more than I earn. So we have £350 a month for food, gas, electric, water and all those other "luxuries" you are talking about.

You really need to take your head out of your arse OP.

___

You have to be ^ this bright to join the MN ride.

I don't think food is a luxury and I don't think we should be "proud" that people are treated humanely now.

However, I did watch a programme where John Humphries reached the history of the welfare state. He went back to visit the street that he had been raised on as a child. One thing that was telling and I agreed with him on was that there was a certain shame in claiming welfare if you chose note: not were unable to to instead of working.

Essentially, his point was that the welfare state acted as a safety net and not as an alternative to work (there were jibs available in the particular instance he was commenting on). That ethos does appear to have been eroded to a certain extent and I think that is problematic