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

[taxi4ballet]

The sort of people who complain the loudest about the welfare state tend to be the ones who are able to spend £73 on a toddler's t-shirt without batting an eyelid.

[Darkesteyes]

Food is a luxury is it OP? I doubt Social Services would agree.

[kali110]

Yabu!!!!
Iv moved back in with my parents. I was on jsa and its nothing! Im on esa now and soon as my bills are payed i have nothing left.
Im grateful for the tiny amount but its not enough to live on.

[LarrytheCucumber]

I'm still amused by the OP's Victorian grandparents. Long generations!
It does depend on how old the OP is. The youngest of my four grandparents was born in 1892. (I am fairly mature though )

[VictorianGrandchild]

GilbertBlytheWouldGetIt
I'm still amused by the OP's Victorian grandparents. Long generations!

Hardly. I was born in 1965 - I am 48. My parents were born in 1929 and 1932 respectively and their parents were born in 1895, 1901, 1907 and 1910 so 2 out of 4 of my grandparents were Victorian.

We don't all breed unfettered at 18.

[TheOriginalSteamingNit]

YANBU, OP. Victorian mothers used to drug their babies and leave them in damp cellars all day so they could go and work in a mill, so it really gets me angry when these days parents seem to expect clean, safe and secure nurseries for their babies, too. It's REDICULOUS, no?

[TheOriginalSteamingNit]

We don't all breed unfettered at 18 nice!

[expatinscotland]

Queen Victoria died in 1901.

She bred unfettered from the time she was about 20.

[pointythings]

In terms of how the poor were treated there was a gulf of difference between the way things were at the start of Queen Victoria's reign and its end.

Of course things have got better still since, but the stereotypical 'Victorian' squalor would be ascribed to the early part of her reign, so when various great-grandparents might have been born.

My grandparents were born in 1916, 1920, 1900 and 1898. I'm 46. I still don't want things to go back to the way they were.

[HauntedNoddyCar]

QV hated being pregnant and giving birth but was terribly keen on sex with Albert. I daresay she'dhave been far happier with decent birth control.

[JakeBullet]

Hmm...well let's just say that after being out of work for two years I am better off in my low paid job than I was on benefits. So yes OP you are being unreasonable.
Living in benefits is hard work, don't know anyone who is well off on them unless they are doing sneaky work on the side.

[SoonToBeSix]

Yanbu, you are being an ignorant goady hairy bridge dweller.

[LuisSuarezTeeth]

Right. On a theoretical week, where nothing goes wrong, for me and DS (16)

JSA £70
CTC £62
CB £20
Maint £20
Total £172

Gas/Elec £30
Water £ 9
Rent (Shortfall) £27
Council Tax £10
Phone/BB £9
Car Ins £ 7
House Ins £ 4
Food/Household £30
Petrol (Essential travel) £25
Car tax £10
Total £161

So at £11 spare per week (I've never seen it) I'm fucking rich. But, the washing machine broke, the car broke down, DS needs underwear, had an unexpected visit to a hospital 20 miles away. And I'm one of the lucky ones.

[sarahquilt]

I don't think JSA is particularly high but I think it should be linked to contributions. Someone leaving school should only be able to have the most basic level of benefit but someone made redundant after 30 years of work should get more. Leaving school to go straight on benefits just shouldn't be an option.

[ConferencePear]

A fact for the OPs consideration.
Life expectancy for men in some parts of Nottingham in the 1860s was 19.
It would be great to go back to that wouldn't it ?

[LuisSuarezTeeth]

It IS linked to contributions sarahquilt

[twofingerstoGideon]

Homeowners DO get help with the cost of housing.

It is a myth that they do not but one that is easy to research with minimum googling.

Yes, homeowners do get help after 13 weeks by which time they would be considerably in arrears with their mortgages. Homeowners are just as unlikely to have savings as renters.

By the way, I didn't use the word 'unfair', I said homeowners were vulnerable. I think this is particularly true if there is only one wage earner paying the mortgage.

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.

I would suggest that everyone - renters, people with mortgages, whatever - should get help with their housing costs as soon as possible after they lose their jobs. I don't understand the argument for making 'homeowners' wait 3 months.

[claraschu]

You don't have to go back to Victorian times folks. There are a billion or so people living on less than $1 a day right now.

[littlemisssarcastic]

Only contribution based JSA is linked to contributions. You can claim this for 26 weeks if you have made sufficient contributions in the relevant tax year.
Means tested JSA can be claimed if you don't qualify for contribution based JSA.
You can claim means tested JSA even if you have never worked. There is no time limit on how long you can claim means tested for so long as you fulfil the criteria and don't get sanctioned.

[littlemisssarcastic]

Having read a number of these threads, it appears that these threads aren't so much to do with how much JSA is, or even how difficult it is to live on or not.

Once you dig a bit deeper on these threads, it always becomes clear that it's got sod all to do with how much benefits is and rather more to do with the 'deserving' poor and the 'undeserving' poor.
Thin end of the wedge when you start down that road though.

[MarmaladeShatkins]

Suck on mah bawbag

[LuisSuarezTeeth]

An interesting sentiment, Marmalade

[wherethewildthingis]

My grandad (not Victorian, granted) was a postman who retired medically at 59 years old and lived to be 93.For all of his retirement he received pensions totalling £1000 a month. He bought his home for £500. Doesn't sound too bad to me!

[ThedoublelifeofDollyBrown]

What a silly argument to use, OP. Comparing to the the Victorians indeed!

[TillyTellTale]

VictorianGrandchild
Hardly. I was born in 1965 - I am 48. My parents were born in 1929 and 1932 respectively and their parents were born in 1895, 1901, 1907 and 1910 so 2 out of 4 of my grandparents were Victorian.

Queen Victoria died rather early in 1901. On the 22nd of January, to be precise. I think it would be pushing it to define someone who can only have overlapped with her life by 22 days at most as even a late Victorian!

You have one grandparent born in late Victorian times, and three Edwardians.

HTH