To think pre-paid benefits cards are a stigmatizing, punitive scheme?

[ArsenicFaceCream]

Just announced at the Conservative Party conference.

They will initially be 'voluntary' for claimants with addiction issues, apparently.

But of course the intention is to roll it out.

Universal Credit is going national in February so this could get interesting, given that UC will be paid to working claimants as well as those not working.

I do want to know though what we can do about it? I'm unaffected by the proposal but want to fight it because it's wrong. So what can be done? Petitioning MP's? Might be a start. I have no idea.

I have nothing to lose and if I'm honest a huge amount to gain.

I think its dreadful and will do everything within my power to register my objection to it.

They introduced UC to force more responsibility for budgeting and all the other crap they came out with now they are opening the doors to dictating what type of food people can buy and restrict the shopping ability of a huge amount of people a large amount of these people are working people.

It is not their money, it Is paid by the tax payer!

Oh the mighty taxpayer

And it's 0.7%

I think that 2B's post at 22.02 is all kinds of wrong in this context BUT, it does seem to be a commonly held viewpoint on MN that 'shame' is a powerful motivator to keep people on the straight and narrow and some feel that 'shaming' is a very valid method to achieve that in society. If you go onto relationships board and read any thread about affairs, you'll see dozens of posters advocating shaming the cheaters.

It stands to reason that those who have experience of benefit 'cheats', even in tiny percentages of the population, may have the view of punishment fitting the crime without seeing that the number of cheats is miniscule AND the impact of this proposed system would have such a negative and detrimental impact on people who actually have need of benefits and who shouldn't be penalised in any way.

Are they trying to implement this, so as to encourage working - I.e. stay on benefits, get it all on this card, limited on how you can use it; or work a bit, have your benefits on this card, yet the money you earn yourself you can spend to suit your family's needs, as its cash? Like an incentive to work if you see what I mean...

I don't think it's a good thing though. I hadn't heard about it until I saw this thread, so yes they're sneaking that one in quietly aren't they!

been watching the BBC news

only thing said about benefits was about the no rise in benefits,nothing else

if they have their way this one is gonna slip under the radar

I know just 3% of the Social Security budget goes to the unemployed Bog. So goodness knows what percentage of the whole budget that is.

people are starving

And it's 0.7%

!!

I think we might see a rise in sex trade like in countries with very desperate people.

agree

and a rise in petty crime

we are still very much a cash society

Also presumably if the entire benefit amount was on a card, the govt would force council tax depts of local authorities/utility companies/tv licensing etc. to accept it as a method of payment...simply not possible otherwise is it

We will see a rise in unofficial 'markets' in everything - especially moneylending.

Sorry, Arsenic, I was just hoping for a pointer to go and do a bit of discovery myself rather than grizzling for the research to be dropped in my lap... I just don't know where in cyberspace would be a good place.

No, don't be sorry. You spurred be to get on with seriously looking instead of vaguely wondering.

2B. Where is the shame in working an eighteen hour day, everyday? Where is the shame in getting up at 2 am and lifting a five foot five eighteen year old into the shower, helping her wash so that the she doesn't become blistered and sore from the urea, keeping her warm so she doesn't get hypothermia whilst I change her sheets and getting her back to bed. Where is the shame in assisting dh to get dressed each day, to use the lavatory or help him clean himself? I work damned hard and I deserve a glass of wine now and then, you are the one who should be experiencing shame for your thoughtless condemnation of things you very obviously know nothing about.

I think it is aimed at trying to put people off going onto benefits who could actually work or will encourage those people who just stay on benefits generation after generation and people who come over here and claim benefits without any intention of working. There are people like that my previous job was working with these people. I think if it does that can only be a good thing.

Nowhere in my post did I say the mighty tax payer. Sorry but benefits are paid from the tax payer, that is a fact and cannot be disputed no matter how much words are twisted.

Would this include child benefit on this card? I would be effected then but I still agree it would be a good thing for some people.

cleo which people were you working with, the Rowntree Foundation have demonstrated clearly more than once that generational benefit claiming is minimal and you cannot, even if an e. u. Member just turn up and claim, sorry but you cannot be working with 'these people'.

No cleo benefits are paid from NI contributions.

They are the protection we all pay for.

Why should benefit claimants feel shame? Why should a woman who has had to go to a rescue to escape a violent partner feel shame? Why should my family member who was left with 2 children feel shame because her husband cheated on her and walked out? Why should someone who has to give up work to look after a disabled child feel shame? Yes put policies in place to force people who can to work for real jobs for real money but don't start shaming people who are in a situation not of their own making.

This card idea is awful. And there was also the announcement of not letting 18-21 year olds claim HB or JSA.

So WTF happens to young people coming out of care or those with abusive parents Where and how are they going to live

But in order to differentiate between someone swinging the lead and someone genuinely needing benefits, an actual human person at DWP needs to examine the case and make a decision - are they going to do that for however many million benefit claimants? To decide who should have it on a card and who shouldnt, because they are responsible and on benefits though no fault of their own?

Wouldn't that be like playing God...how can another human be the judge of each case? Not gonna happen is it.

YY Daryl It will be a bloody great computer that does it which will either go into technological meltdown or completely implode.

Daryl Add to that people with the attitude that cleo displayed further down with the use of 'these people', free use of insults towards benefits claimants all over the place plus inevitable targets put in place to ensure that costs are kept to a minimum it adds up to a complete disaster. You'd end up with arbitrary decisions being made about the deserving and undeserving poor.
There is no good side to this idea at all.

Jack... 'not of their own making', that would preclude many benefit claimants though. Under existing arrangements people who suffer through circumstances are not treated different from people who suffer through bad, maybe foreseeable decisions (addictions?).

I wouldn't actually want to see a system whereby a woman can be judged and refused based on being left with two children because husband cheated (acceptable) versus a woman making a decision to return to an abusive partner (foreseeable and therefore unacceptable). Would you? Really?

In my opinion, we either have a system that protects the vulnerable (all of them) or we don't have it at all. I wouldn't and couldn't countenance a system as you've described... where would it end?