"Benefits are a lifestyle choice for so many these days"

[Bellerina2]

I'm on the bus and two women behind me are having a long conversation about perceived benefit cheats and one of them just said the above phrase. WIBU to hit her over the head with a rolled up copy of the Guardian??

But seriously, it's so depressing that people think this. Well done to the government and likes of the Sun and Daily Mail for convincing people that those on benefits are leading some sort of charmed life

I'd argue that as those on workfare are in recepit of a generous package of benefits that yes, actually WORKING in a supermarket compared with workfare IS modern slavery!

fgs Gracie have you not got a job to go to? You are here every day spouting ill informed nonsense. If you do not work maybe your baby needs some attention.
'Generous package of benefits my fat arse.

Goodbye

We will have to beg to differ, in my book not working for an employer doesn't make you lazy.
Sitting on your ass watching tv, going to the pub each evening, and not doing anything with your dc is lazy.

Keepit People are forced to go on workfare. If they don't they lose their benefits.
As for the OED being hyperbolic, I'll remember that for my next lecture (still managing a bit of part time now and then). It'll raise a good laugh.

We will have to beg to differ, in my book not working for an employer doesn't make you lazy.
Sitting on your ass watching tv, going to the pub each evening, and not doing anything with your dc is lazy.

Even though the latter's work makes the former's leisure possible? Really? What exactly do you expect of someone who has (for example) been laying bricks all day? Should they come home and read to their kids and make dinner, clean the kitchen and then play scrabble and then do some knitting and then go to bed?

Dawndonna, slaves are not forced into work by threat of withdrawing benefits. They are forced into work by threat of violence.

People are forced to go on workfare. If they don't they lose their benefits.

not the same as slavery, is it?

As for the OED being hyperbolic, I'll remember that for my next lecture

perhaps while you do that, you should point out that the uses of slave in "she was a slave to fashion", "I am slaving at housework" and "my mother just got sold because she is a slave" are in fact very different uses of the word slave.

So which one do you think workfare is most similar to? The problem is that I know bankers who claim they work very hard (they do) and don't get properly remunerated. But even they wouldn't claim they are slaves.

Goodbye

According to most people yes, they expect their oh to be involved 50/50 have you not seen the threads.
Having a job doesn't exclude you from raising your dc when you are at home.

Are you willfully missing my point? This is not about division of parenting tasks within a family.

You said that watching TV and going to the pub after work rather than engaging with your children is more lazy than not working.

Whether a SAHP gets upset at the working parent for not engaging after work is a private matter and totally irrelevant to this thread.

Suzanne

In the dystopian society you envision:

• there will still a lot of people needed to programme and maintain the robots. Machine learning is not there yet. Jobs will mainly be the ones where you need a good brain;

• if there aren't that many jobs to go around, then there won't be money (incl. benefits!!!) to go around either. The welfare state would no longer exist, because it can't work in a world where only a few have to fund the masses;

• People will hopefully CHOOSE TO HAVE LESS KIDS because there will be no money from the state to support them - this choice may prevent what follows below...

• if they don't choose to have less kids, then nature will take over; people will die of hunger, and lessen the amount of people on the planet. There will, of course, be revolution, but guess who will have the better weapons? Given that the jobs will probably go to those people who still prove more useful than the robots. I guess this will just be Darwinism which is something nature designed, but the welfare state got rid of.

I think we should all have a mass strike. Let's see how those who choose not to work will fare when no one else does.

YWNBU, please do it! DH works but we still claim benefits, we need them to survive. If I got a job I'd need to work out if our income would drop.

Goodbye

You started talking about people being lazy who didn't work, I reminded you that there are all types of laziness and not working for an employer doesn't make you lazy.
If its irrelevant why did you mention it.

Millie

A mass strike would probably harm those that work as much as those who don't. besides some people love working and can't wait to get started everyday, they'd hate to strike.

"I think we should all have a mass strike. Let's see how those who choose not to work will fare when no one else does."

See it is meaningless and empty rhetoric like this that annoys me.

Those who 'choose not to work' have usually had empty lives lacking in education and aspiration and any kind of positive role model.

I do not think I would want to swap my privileged university educated aspirational parents spot with them , thanks, would you?

Sillie Millie

YWNBU, please do it! DH works but we still claim benefits, we need them to survive. If I got a job I'd need to work out if our income would drop.

You don't need them to survive and pretty soon, you won't have them at all.

You need to realise that, as clearly you cannot live on one wage, you both need to work to survive. Not have one of you at home all day and being subsidised by the rest of us.

Anyone else STILL wondering why most of us think the welfare state is bloated, abused and needs a shake up?

Morethan

I get paid nicely. I even enjoy what I do. There are still a million other things I'd prefer to do if money was no object.

Funny Sunny

What you just said is rhetoric, too. There would be no welfare state if the majority of the population chose to do hobbies than work. FACT.

If your life was that bad... why would you even inflict the same on your kids?

... As in... why have them?

gracie

Why won't people still receive benefit soon?
What's changing for those with a partner working?

I cannot believe it has come down to modern day slavery.

Work. Work if you have to move. Work if you have to work in a toilet. Work if you have 15 degrees but have to take a job beneath you.

I've cleaned toilets, I've been a waitress, I've worked in call centers, I've picked up clothes in Topshop with managers talking to me like i was shit - all with qualifications up to my eyeballs. All with the desire to do the actual job i had studied for and wanted.

But guess what - I said let me clean tables and pick up clothes before i take the tax payers money. Because its the right thing to do. I'm tired of people talking about benefits like they are to fund the fact you want to be a SATM or you don't want to take a job you don't particularly like. That's called life. People who want to be stay at home mums and people who are picky with jobs and some people who refuse to plan a family responsibly are a growing problem.

Free childcare, free healthcare, free education, free training is a must to fight the problem of benefits dependency

There are jobs, there are opportunities - Dominoes just released a statement saying if UKIP gain power they would have to close their UK stores because British people don't apply for jobs with them and they are reliant upon the immigrant population

Some areas do need investment regeneration and job creation - but the benefits bill - (taking out pensioners and the disabled and unplanned single parent families) would see a 50% minimum decrease with family planning, less pride and flexibility sorry. People move countries to work. Make it happen.

Only on Mnet is a person vilified and called a problem to society because they wish to be a sahp .

morethanpotatoprints
If you want to be a bloody SAHP FINANCE IT YOURSELF AND NOT FROM THE TAX PAYER.

Only on Mnet is a person vilified and called a problem to society because they wish to be a sahp

Firstly, no one cares if you're a SAHP. They don't want to subsidize your choice.

Do you think this is peculiar to MN, really?

Do you not understand that there are mothers who leave their children to go to crap jobs that they don't particularly enjoy and pay taxes to subsidize SAHPs?

What part of this do you not understand?

How are you subsidising a sahp then?
I'm a sahm and get nothing, my family have cb (one dependant child) and my dh has tax credits, which in turn mean we are lucky that the little bit he gets is enough for me to not have to work.
You also have the option to do the same if you wish, but maybe what you receive wouldn't be enough for you. That is hardly the fault of a sahp.

candid Agree with you. Totally.

England has some massively pampered people who think you shouldn't work, if the job isn't one you like and "useless".

The problem is that I know bankers who claim they work very hard (they do) and don't get properly remunerated.
That'll be, because unlike workfare, they are in receipt of a salary.
You can play the semantics game all you like, I shall leave you to it.

The problem with Dominoes Pizza is the zero hours contracts.
My ds1 works weekends for them sometimes when they have the work, he couldn't rely on it to pay his mortgage though, he has 2 other jobs that do that.
It gives him and his gf the odd treat of a night out, but that's it.