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

[Deverethemuzzler]

You don't have to look hard larry

Sanctions cause the most almighty mess and not everyone has the resources to get themselves out of that mess.

You know what I hate sezam?
People who believe the bollocks fed to them by the media.
People who have bought into the propaganda produced by those with a massive anti welfare agenda
People without the wit to look behind the headlines
People without the empathy to at least try to imagine what it is like to live on a very small, fixed income whilst prices of everything are rising around you.

Thats what I hate.

[SauvignonBlanche]

Another, here

It's a good job the nurses have already checked my BP, otherwise my op would be cancelled, this thread will have sent it through the roof!

[LarrytheCucumber]

Thank you Nobody.
The only thing I found, also from the Mirror, said that during a set period 1,100 died after being put in a work related activity group, whilst in the same period 5,300 people from the support group died. I assume that the people in the support group had got more complex needs/ severe illnesses than those put in the work related activity group.
It isn't that easy to give up benefits either. Two members of my family have given up DLA, because their conditions improved, and you are treated with just as much suspicion if you say you don't need the benefit as if you say you do. In fact the Government then say that you were claiming when you shouldn't have been.

[IAmTheGodOfTitsAndWine]

It's not a race to the bottom. You're looking at it the wrong way. Instead of thinking 'Wow, we're lucky to have this at all' you SHOULD be thinking 'Why are so many people needing to claim this?'.

[unrealhousewife]

"food and other luxuries"

OP

[SpeedofSound0]

ODFOD.

This country is going back to Victorian times under this government.

Iain 'Sociopathic' Smith and Esther McVile are two of the most evil bastards going.

And no, I do not claim benefits.

[SpeedofSound0]

I agree with your statement completely.

Some people swallow this Tory bullshit all to easily.

[ScarlettDragon]

OP is George Osbourne in disguise. George does Dave know you're trolling MN again? The telling off he gave you last time must have been completely inadequate. What do you expect from a Tory.

[SpeedofSound0]

That was for what Devere posted.

Using mobile to post. :-D

[WorraLiberty]

YABU OP

Due to inflation, flat screen TVs and Gregg's sausage rolls cost way more today than they ever did during Victorian times.

[LuisSuarezTeeth]

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.

I'm so bored of twats like you that can't add up.

[tethersend]

Those entitled Victorians didn't know how lucky they were.

Bug-infested room in a damp lean-to? Lucky.

Weak tea? MANNAH FROM HEAVEN

Starvation? Well, at least they could do up their corsets. Tsk. Some people.

Working your fingers to the bone making matchboxes for a pittance? AT LEAST YOU HAVE A JOB.

Bloody Victorians, don't know they're born.

Now, the Feudal system, THAT was hard.

[Bange]

My grandparents were all much wealthier than I am.

We are nouveau pauvre.

I don't think it is much more than a pittance tbh. I was on OPFA for a while and on rent allowance (not all of it, just a portion) and it was so depressingly tight. All that doing without month after month is so tiring. I work now, I don't earn a fortune by any means (who would pay a woman who'd been unemployed for so long a forturne!) but I am better off and I feel it.

[Joysmum]

It's an unfair system. Those in rented get rent paid for. Those living at home with parents get JSA at the same rate as those who are trying to buy their own home. Rent means you don't have maintenance costs to find and those are paid for in the rent, as is buildings insurance. If you live with parents most don't have to pay their own way and the parents aren't compensated for anyway.

Somebody in their own home has to find food, bills etc and maintenance on their property and it only cuts in after 12 weeks, then if you get temp work the rigmarole starts again.

Add into that that people can be better off out of work than in work.

The whole system needs an overhaul to ensure a minimum standard if living is met, that those who can work do look for work and work for their benefits and that those in work are rewarded for being so.

[LarrytheCucumber]

I have not been on JSA but when the DCs were young we got what was called Family Income Supplement (this was in the 70s when rampant inflation meant every time you went to the supermarket the prices had gone up.) It was for people who were in work, but didn't earn much. It was, as Bange said, really depressing. All your friends talk about things they are buying/doing. Some of the things people do seem so wasteful when you have to make decisions on a daily basis about whether you can afford both carrots and onions or whether you should change your washing powder to save a few pence. I wouldn't wish it on anyone.
The other thing about it was that I couldn't envisage a time when we would not have to live like that. You imagine your life stretching before you with no wriggle room as far as money is concerned.
We lived in a fairly well off area, which didn't help. I don't remember having conversations about it because people just wouldn't have understood.

[YouTheCat]

Oh god! Is food classed as a luxury item now?

I shall have to start gathering mushrooms and nick some ducks from the park.

What a twonk, OP, seriously.

[Inertia]

My grandfather lived in poverty as a child - his own father was unable to work due to war injuries. In amongst the memories of as the substandard housing, and being hungry all the time, and never being able to afford the doctor, and not being able to complete his education ( he was a very intelligent man), his over-riding childhood memory was the shame he felt in only ever having shoes which were handed down from his older sisters, and how he was picked on for wearing girls' shoes.

Because of that , he was passionate about supporting a welfare state where nobody, especially children, had to suffer for being poor, or ill, or disabled. He wasn't wealthy but would have given - and often did give - his last penny to somebody who needed it more.

We are now in an age where the poor are being blamed for every crisis under the sun; where we are letting successive governments sell off our NHS, education system and every other state-owned concern; where people with disabilities and life-threatening illnesses are dying within days of being declared fit -to-work; where families are going without food because job-centre staff have sanctions targets to meet.

OP, don't you fucking DARE invoke my grandfather's memory as a means of supporting your bigotry. Yes , life was a lot harder for people in the past- and that's why anybody with an ounce of compassion doesn't want a return to that.

[sezamcgregor]

ADish - nope, but as a LP, I was able to not work until my DS was at school and able to get IS, TC & CB - and the £120 per week Maternity Allowance while on maternity leave.

[merrymouse]

Maybe next you could do some research about what it is like to be poor now.

[unweavedrainbow]

Why don't you plug your numbers into a benefits calculator and see what you would get now? Imagine your became unexpectedly pregnant and your partner left you, or something. You might be surprised-it has got a lot worse in just a few years.
www.entitledto.co.uk/

[HauntedNoddyCar]

Ooh another Pythons' sketch thread!

Cardboard box?
Aye.
You were lucky

[TucsonGirl]

I don't think the welfare state should be paying out more than a pittance. It should be enough to survive on, no more. It should not be option, an alternative to work. It should be something to bridge the gap between jobs.

[HauntedNoddyCar]

Yes I know it isn't actually MP prope

[D0oinMeCleanin]

Tuscon, despite what the daily fail would have you believe, that is what JSA is. It is just enough to survive on, there is very little left over for flat screen TVs or holidays or goats.

The average claimant (eg. the ones who aren't extreme enough to attract TV crews) have to chose between food or heat on a regular basis.

[Deverethemuzzler]

Joysmum
Those that rent get rent paid up to a certain amount.
If you live in your parent's social housing you will have to pay rent too.
Its very unlikely someone on JSA will be 'trying to buy'


If someone owns a house they are always going to be better off in the long term than someone who is in rented and on JSA.

What do you suggest? People who are lucky enough to be home owners get paid more JSA than those who are renting?
You get your interest paid on your mortgage if you are a home owner.

What is you think is so unfair?