To ask if you have had any contact with benefit 'scroungers'

[JumpRope]

I utterly believe that we need to protect the poor, vulnerable and those unable to work and they should have help to live.

I grew up in a very rural area, fairly poor, very hard work for non land owners - workers werefarm labourers mainly. And there were many people leaving school in the 80s and 90s and then abusing the system - picking up the dole, laughing about it, straight to the pub until it ran out; I remember a dog called Giro. People just sold a bit of marijuana for extra work. After moving to a bigger town, I came across families like this, where the dad would start it off, and the children would just grow up and do the same.

There were jobs around. As students homes for holidays, we picked up work without trouble, and could have stayed on, got promotions etc.

How do you deal with these situations? How can we make sure we are not making cuts to those who desperately need it, whilst absolutely changing the mind sets of able bodied men (and women) who have grown up believing they are entitled to money for nothing.

Well I've never came across anyone like this. Maybe I walk around with my eyes shut though. I don't know how people know so much about their neighbours either. I just about know their names. I don't want to know anything. I've got enough battles of my own.
Also the fact that you've had very little response if any at all on your thread I think tells you. No one has had any contact with any benefit scrounges.

Great post ilive

There were over 3 million people unemployed in the 1980s. There were no jobs.

No, I haven't.

I have come across people who claim quite a lot of money relatively speaking because they are, under the current system, entitled to claim it. I feel that the amount they are able to claim is wrong. That doesn't make them personally scroungers, any more than I am for sending my child to state school when we could afford private.

I have issues with the system, not people.

I'd rather have a generous welfare system in place and risk a few so called scroungers, than punish everyone in need.

I suspect the Tories disagree.

Perhaps the sort of jobs that you say was around didn't pay enough?

Or perhaps they were only temporary?

I agree parsnip

A girl I went to school with who I'm still friends with has three children and has recently "retired" because her body needs a rest!

Her and her dh used to both work part time and share the childcare between them. Fair enough, I know how much childcare costs and respected the fact they both worked.

Now, every time I speak to her she moans about how awful it is living in one wage and how benefits are not enough to top it up. But on the other hand tells me about how she's getting free swimming lessons for her child, getting recommended for care packages by the school and yet she seems to have chosen this as a "lifestyle".

We are both 35 and I think our days of being friends are numbered.

Not sure if she counts as a "benefits scrounged" as such but she has certainly chosen not to work whilst her husband only works part time and they are claiming everything they can.

I agree as well parsnip

Nope

Most of the people I know are relatively affluent.

The few I do know who qualify for benefits really need every penny they get. And more that they don't get in most cases.

I haven't either, personally. No-one I know has claimed when they could work. I suspect that there are people who do it - but have no evidence myself.

I also suspect that certain people I know/know of are not paying all the tax they should - but I don't know it.

I think that the system sometimes makes it more profitable for people to claim than work - especially if they have kids - but that is the fault of the system and of the employers who can pay low wages.

I do. I know some people who are determined never to work - or, rather, working has never crossed their minds.

It's naïve to think they don't exist.

However, I'd rather have a good benefits system than assume everyone is a scrounger.

Thanks both! Just seems like a total waste of time targeting the tiny minority allegedly abusing the system when the vast majority of benefits claimants desperately need it. Sadly they're now being penalised.

But apparently the overwhelming attitude in this country is one of self righteous outrage at hoardes of imaginary single mothers with eight children who live in mansions with a plasma screens in every room. As fearlessly uncovered by the Daily Mail.

I know a couple of people who left school with me in the 1980's and have never ever had a job which lasted more than a few weeks. I know people who claim benefits to stay at home even when their kids are teenagers ( not sure if they come under ' benefit scroungers' ? ). I know quite few 'lone ' parents who claim benefits but have a working partner living with them a lot of the time .

Dh knows a few. One in particular springs to mind. She's in her 40s and has never worked. She receives £22k in benefits and yet she complains that she can't afford to pay her rent or council tax (which are vastly reduced because of HB and CTB anyway). Turns out that she pays £120 a month for SkyTv and spends around £40 a week on her mobile phone. She moans when she hasn't enough money to go out, saying things like "surely I'm entitled to go out once in a while". Well, not if you can't afford it you're not!!

She hasn't tried getting a job because if she did, she would be a lot worse off than she is now.

I'm certain that she is the exception and that the vast majority of people claiming benefits are not like her - at least I hope they are not!

parsnipbob - It's awful isn't it! I was chatting to a single mother with 8 children at church this morning. They are all under 11 years old. 6 of them have SN. She is about a million miles away from living in a mansion with any number of plasma screen tvs. Instead she is worrying about how she's going to feed and clothe her children.

I've met a lot of people through my work who have never worked and never intend to. It is the culture in some areas.

For all that I believe that the vast majority of benefit claimants are people who would rather not be in that position. I don't know what the answer is but I agree with the PP who said they'd rather a few scroungers slipped through the net if it meant protecting the rest.

Also I don't forget that I have in my own life:

Claimed JSA (for 2 weeks but still)
Claimed SMP twice
Received (still do) CB for two children
Been excused from Council tax while I was a student

My parents also both receive state pension and fuel allowance.

I would be very worried about how to feed my eight children, if I had eight children.

That's largely the reason I don't.

If that post was real.

I've met people claiming as a single person when living as a couple. I've also met people signing on while doing cash in hand jobs and not declaring the income. That's not to say that I'd like the welfare system dismantled (I wouldn't) but there are definitely those who do abuse it and there always has been. I don't think it is the majority of claimants but it happens.

I know an awful lot of people who've been on the dole at some point. The one who'd fit the scrounger rhetoric the most is mentally ill, his own worst enemy, I'm amazed he's still alive with the ridiculous things he does to himself, and even he's had a proper job (albeit briefly).

What's the point in asking this? Plenty of people have done and could give you examples. But they won't because they know threads like this just degenerate into people shouting abuse at anybody who insists that anyone who has ever claimed benefits doesn't have the moral compass of St Francis of Assisi combined with a level of martyrdom akin to Joan of Arc.

But yes I have. Plenty. And I find the kind of people who are the quickest to deny any have ever existed are the kind of people who live the sort of lifestyle where it's almost impossible they would ever meet any anyway.

Like most of the Labour leadership.

Yes, me and my husband have. They do exist and have kids who when asked what they would like to be when they grow up answer, 'sit on the sofa eating biscuits all day like mum' or 'rob cars like my dad and brother'.

We do work with them about aspirations for the future but it is hard when they realise at 10 that they don't need to work to get the things they want. Memorably I've had a child tell me that they will have a baby and then the council will give her a house.

Not every one we meet is like that, it is sad however when that is the attitude of the next generation.

Yes I know plenty, a lot of them family members actually.

Unemployment benefit for a 40 year old is 73 quid a week, where do you get 22k a year from?

I don't know anyone who fits into this category personally, but I do live next to a small social housing development. Most of the people living there (from what I can tell) have at least one adult in the household who is working and in some cases, both. Many are working in manual labour jobs which are no doubt low paid and some work in the care industry - which is notorious for poor pay. I suspect, therefore, that on that basis, many of them are also claimng benefits to top up their pay.

I am always amazed at those who allegedly manage to avoid actively seeking work whilst claiming benefits when other tell stories of how they are hounded by the job centres to apply for work with the threat of stopping their benefits. Clearly the system is not working fairly if this is the case.

I believe that all those capable of working and supporting themselves (instead of solely relying on benefits) - with or without the top-up of benefits - should be made to do so. It is clearly the policing of this system that fails if, as you say OP, there are people who boast of a 'lifestyle' on benefits.