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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

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

999 replies

Bellerina2 · 09/03/2015 11:31

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 Sad

OP posts:
butterfly2015 · 17/03/2015 08:19

The £26k is a cap and includes housing benefit. It's normally people with a lot of kids who get anywhere near that amount. And I can assure you that with 2 kids and the associated benefits plus my PIP we get nowhere near that.

I love the assumption that everyone gets the same amount and that we are all off on holiday all the time, not forgetting that all our bills are miraculously paid for us and we get a free house and a free car. None of this is true. We get help with council tax but everything else comes out of the money we get including bills, mortgage, car, my dds £60 a month bus fares to get her to school and I am a bit sick of people assuming we rake it in. My ohs exw seems to think we are loaded (as well as telling oh I needed watching as I'm scrounging off him) and is completely bewildered by the fact we don't have the money to to 160 mile round trip to pick up sd every weekend.

PtolemysNeedle · 17/03/2015 08:20

ptolemy, disabled people aren't getting the support they need, you need to educate yourself a bit more here before you post things like this.

I'm aware of that unfortunately.

But I don't think that will ever improve significantly while there is so much of the benefits system that can be so easily criticised. Unlike some other posters, I don't believe the way to improve benefits for disabled people and carers (or just protect what they have) is to blindly defend every aspect of the system and the people that take advantage of it.

I think society would be much more willing to improve benefits for disabled people and their carers if there was more faith that the system worked only for the people that need it, and not for those that choose to take advantage of it.

The way the system is at the moment, haemorrhaging money to go to people that have never contributed because they think they have a right to be SAHPs or have as many children as they like despite not being able to afford them, means that the general income tax paying population don't want to throw more money into paying the benefits bill. I believe that would change if people were secure in the knowledge that only people who deserve benefits get to benefit from them.

I know people on here will disagree with that, but the way things are at the moment isn't working, and there is huge public support for benefit cuts and reforms. Something does need to change. Maybe there would be less support for cuts if we could believe that it was only people who are vulnerable and genuinely in need who would be affected.

Armchairathlete · 17/03/2015 08:21

Of course it includes HB!! Those of us who work don't get a salary plus extra to pay the rent /mortgage!!

PtolemysNeedle · 17/03/2015 08:27

People who live completely on benefits do get their bills paid for them!

Just because the money gets given to them to pay their bills instead of going directly to the energy companies doesn't change that fact.

In some cases, it is right that people have their bills paid for them by benefits, but in some it isn't, and that's what people object to.

LuisSuarezTeeth · 17/03/2015 08:29

It's all subjective, isn't it though? As I said, the people living long term on benfits are not those who can command a decent salary. So, for THEM it IS a good lifestyle.

All of them?

SunnyBaudelaire · 17/03/2015 08:31

"That may be anathema to lefties on here but it's true"

some of you people are so thick it is unbelievable.
Guess what it was a Labour Government that designed the situation of work not paying, so they could then justify unbridled immigration. And before anyone starts I am not a 'racist'.

BunnyFint · 17/03/2015 08:34

And the cuntfarts keep on coming....
Theboat is edging into the lead.
Fyi Theboat, we already have a decent voucher system in this country that works very well, it's called Sterling..

You'll love me, currently a SAHM, husband a higer rate tax payer, I claim carers and DLA for my son. We get no cb or tc. To look at us we have a decent life. You wouldn't know my son has Asperger's to look at him. I'm sure you would froth. I can just see the anecdote, my neighbour has two cars, two flat screens, Sky, nice house I'm sure she's fiddling benefits... Her son doesn't look disabled therefore can't be... I'm sure all my neighbours see is me at home being 'lazy' Christ, they'd have an MI if they knew we recieved DLA.

I've worked from the age of 15, have two degrees, then I gave birth to a child with a hidden disability. The minority who do take the piss are a minority, all the frothing generalisations directed to all benefits claimants affects the disabled and carers too. They aren't excempt from the cuts, disability hate crime has increased. Whilst you all say 'we don't mean you' you do until you're called on it.

Dawndonnaagain · 17/03/2015 08:34

You do know that the cap is for larger families don't you, you do comprehend that the single mum with one child isn't getting anywhere near that, don't you?

MrsDeVere · 17/03/2015 08:36

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

SunnyBaudelaire · 17/03/2015 08:37

"Whilst you all say 'we don't mean you' you do until you're called on it."
course they do. The only person I know who is really on 'full benefits' has a missing leg. Should he sit on a skateboard and beg? Or. as we purportedly live in a civilised country, maybe he should be supported by the state.

SunnyBaudelaire · 17/03/2015 08:37

oh stop being so holier than thou Mrs DV.

PtolemysNeedle · 17/03/2015 08:39

Whilst you all say 'we don't mean you' you do until you're called on it.

That's not true.

You are the one who is voluntarily including yourself as a subject of this debate despite only taking a non means tested disability related benefit, no one else is doing that to you. (I'm not sure how carers is awarded btw). I fully believe in DLA as a non means tested benefit that is there to support some of the costs associated with disability.

Other people on this thread who are objecting to certain benefits and certain benefit claimants are not including situations like yours in this discussion, it has been said numerous times.

Yet some of you are still determined to get defensive for no real reason.

Dawndonnaagain · 17/03/2015 08:40

It's not blindly defending the system, ptolemy, it's not accepting what has been sold to us; that the system is continually and widely abused. It's not accepting what the Express and the Mail etc have been told to sell us. It's questioning the methods of a government that would have us all believe that benefit scroungers are ruining the country for everybody else.

Oh, and it's not being a leftie, it's being compassionate, it's exploring other possibilities, it's comprehending that there are other more efficient ways of doing things.

Dawndonnaagain · 17/03/2015 08:41

Of course it includes HB!! Those of us who work don't get a salary plus extra to pay the rent /mortgage!!

I think you may want to check your facts on this one.

SunnyBaudelaire · 17/03/2015 08:41

no I am not a fucking racist thanks I would just like to be able to say the word 'immigration' without a certain type of poster jumping down the throat and shouting 'racism'.Which you just know they will, as just demonstrated. so fucking predictable. Mrs DV my dad is an immigrant and my childrens dad. so there you go.

PtolemysNeedle · 17/03/2015 08:46

Dawn, it hasn't been 'sold' to me that the system is open to abuse. I can see that for myself with ever going anywhere near the daily mail or the express, or any other form of media.

I know the system is open to abuse by talking to people that are abusing it. They are claiming legally, and in theory are doing nothing wrong, but that doesn't change the problem that there are people taking advantage of a system that they actively choose not to contribute to. That is something that needs to be stopped IMO, and it is not remotely related to people claiming for genuine disabilities.

JillyR2015 · 17/03/2015 09:04

We need to change the system to make not working and only working part time be much worse financially for those who can work.

GoodbyeToAllOfThat · 17/03/2015 09:06

The "DM reader" meme has well and truly killed this thread. Is it so hard for you to understand, Dawn, that I am not a DM reader and I am not so stupid as to have been "sold" my views?

And you're pretty quick to accuse others of being patronising (I checked - 32 times), aren't you? How very hypocritical. Bless you.

SunnyBaudelaire · 17/03/2015 09:07

the thing is Jilly 'we' are not going to be able to do anything.
Do people really think this situation is some kind of accident?
No , there was a decision made to ensure that work does not pay.

MillieV · 17/03/2015 09:16

The system needs to change. Really does! You can't have a system where a life on benefits is better than work.

Unfortunately, the government has to undo years of mismanagement - and those who have gotten used to it cry wolf.

Take away a toy you have to a child, and you're likely to get a tantrum. The thing is, people don't really grow up.

Dawndonnaagain · 17/03/2015 09:16

I hope the checking made you feel better about things Goodbye.

MillieV · 17/03/2015 09:16

Oh, and I don't read the DM either - no time to read that crap.

butterfly2015 · 17/03/2015 09:17

We do not get a single penny towards our housing costs. Neither of us can work but the mortgage needs to be paid so it comes out of what we get. Which quite frankly is not very much. A joint esa claim gives us £110 a week as a couple. If you think that's enough to live on please show me how.

MillieV · 17/03/2015 09:18

Dawn Are you like this in RL? Everyone who disagrees with you being "patronising"?

Armchairathlete · 17/03/2015 09:18

It's interesting that the only mud and name slinging is coming from those quick to defend the current system.

I am far from, " thick" or a DM reader. Most of us have eyes, ears and brains. And we use them.

What I would consider thick and cuntfarty is repeatedly banging on about disability on a threda that has fuck jack all to do with it. Last time I looked no one " chose" disability as a lifestyle. It's as if some posters are looking to be offended and keep on and on about it because the rest of are refusing to engage.