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.

People do not want to hear that eg Starbucks is ripping off the govt they just want to froth about 'benefit scroungers' because they have been brainwashed by the Daily Mail mentality. And they are too stupid to realise that the sums involved are miniscule in comparison with eg the bill for making war in Iraq or Afghanistan. The Govt's deflection techniques have worked well.

What Aermingers said, exactly.

Unlike most of the MN membership, I I live in a deprived area on a council estate, I've also lived in nice leafy London boroughs where everyone is sooo 'socially aware'. We are homeowners but many of our neighbours are not. I know many of them personally and know for a fact that there are some that lie about being single parents and plenty of 20 somethings that have never worked a single day claiming there is nothing out there.We live in the southeast - there are plenty of jobs they could do but don't want to . There are also many families here where no one works and they have no intention at all to change that.

But you won't accept that, so what's the point?

yes there are people like that phantomdrinker but generally in deprived pockets as you describe.

I wondered how long it'd be until we got the old teenage parents get free houses thing

AHEM, THEY DO! I know two. this is despite both having a loving family that could have housed them.

anyway- its so black and white on here

it feels like you cannot CUT anything whatsoever without being a Daily Mail reading facist-

but caring 24 hours a day takes its toll

I can only imagine Owllady.

My Dad doesn't need a f/t carer as yet (he will and sooner rather than later) and what we already do for him can feel too much at times, even though there are 3 of us to share it out between. It has gotten to the point now where we've had to ask him to consider rehoming some of his much loved pets, despite the positive effect they have on his depression.

I cannot begin to fathom how carers manage. Imo they should be held up as heroes, not demonised as they so frequently are.

ExLtEve I really don't care if that's what you think, its still wrong to fraudulently claim.

On MN if people post asking whether to report benefits claimants if they feel they are being fraudulent they are told to mind their own business. It is a delicate situation when it is a close friend also, I cared about her a lot,rightly or wrongly. She was investigated but lied and said the boyfriend slept over now and then but didn't live there, it was untrue but they were happy with her explanation. I didn't report my ex as he was extremely violent so I would rather have been complicit in his fraudulent claim than seriously injured or worse.

I am not sure I am the one being judgemental here, what a nasty post when all I was being was factual. In no way am I saying I know the background of anyone else in the country but in these 2 cases I do.

MN is becoming a very strange place, apparently only certain posters are allowed to put their points of view or experiences across.

I completely agree with benefits and would like to see those in true need get more but I also know a few that have maybe not worked the system directly but it has benefited them when maybe if it hadn't have been so easy to depend on they would have found a job and worked.

One was a neighbour who had 3 children with her partner who worked. They had a lovely council place. They might have been topped up then, I don't know but that's fair enough. They split up and rather than think the youngest is at school now and there is breakfast and after school club that was fairly cheap (all three kids went anyway even though the mum was at home) so I'll get back to work she met someone else and decided to have a child with him. Perfectly within her rights and I don't think she had another child to extend the period of not working but because the house was paid for and two of her kids were getting some kind of disability benefit (possible Asperger's the oldest, not sure about the middle one, but neither was physical) there was nothing she could do to cover all her outgoings.

I just got the feeling because these things were being provided it has allowed people to plan their families around it while working people have maybe held back on more children due to the logistics and cost of after school/nursery care etc. So from age 17 when her first baby was born until about 5 years ago when she was 35 she's never worked and for 10 years or more she's depended on the state, having had 4 kids. There were a few others on the estate like this. Lots of chat at the school gate about what you going to do when X is 7, which I think was the age then that the government was forcing them back to work - a few went on a course to delay it. I think it's created apathy and a lack of aspiration but also other things affect it like what job can they do that is paying enough to come off benefits?

Another was my uncle and I always remember my younger cousin telling me he could have worked and she had great resentment that he didn't as they missed out on lots of things as kids.

It might be a small proportion but I think it makes working people that are hard up but just over the threshold of any help quite resentful.

My mother was one such person. She made no secret of the fact that why should she work, it just wasn't worth her while. She was lazy and quite happy to claim free school meals and uniform for me even though she knew full well that I was bullied partly because of it. She could have afforded a packed lunch and a nice skirt for me, but no, freebies must be claimed under all circumstances. She never worked a day past her 18th birthday after she had my brother.

I live in a deprived part of the country and come across others like this. They just don't see it as being wrong.

Not once have I ever suggested people deserving of benefits shouldn't receive them at all, I believe the system is flawed though. The people who desperately need them are not necessarily getting enough and there are people getting them who may not need as much as they get. Why is it so wrong to point that out, the question asked was does anyone know anyone like that. If you don't like the topic there is no need to come on with spiteful comments towards others.

Yes. Unfortunately it's a very close relative. Never worked since leaving school and has no intention of. I worry mostly for their children thinking it is normal; however, thankfully there are people who work hard around them. I'm not aware how much they receive, but I do know that there's enough for iPads, consoles, cigarettes and holidays, amongst other things.

The only way to correct the system is to have every single person come in and explain themselves to a government official who will assess them on a very strict set of criteria and make a decision on each bit of welfare on a case by case basis. But as this will cost as much to operate as it would save, we just have to put up with what we've got.

Yes, I've seen people like it, generally from the traditionally deprived parts of the country but I've also seen a lot of people who have found themselves needing benefit and feeling horrendously embarrassed of needing and taking it.

I do know people who will not claim benefits even though they are more than entitled to them because they think people will think worse of them for being on benefits. I wonder why

"The only way to correct the system is to have every single person come in and explain themselves to a government official who will assess them on a very strict set of criteria and make a decision on each bit of welfare on a case by case basis. But as this will cost as much to operate as it would save, we just have to put up with what we've got."

Isn't that almost what we have at the moment though? Except the govt. subcontract it out to whoever charges the least. But the ones who are good at playing the system continue to do so and the ones who need the help are the ones that get sanctioned. But as long as they meet their targets of how many people to "get off benefits" they don't care whether they help the right people or not.

And if the government got all the scroungers back to work, they'd have to come up with some other group of people to be the target of people's hate.

True Vivien, I was 47 when I first claimed be efits and was clueless, had no idea what I could and couldn't claim. The jobcentre advisor I saw was brilliant and still is. Currently I would like to go back to work as DS is finally settling down but my jobcentre advisor has suggested I do voluntary work initially to make sure DS is truly settled before I rush back to work.

Op has not been back I notice.

Why do people start goady threads? Are they bored or something?

Ops history suggests a high earning husband, SAHM, private schools for kids and a 1million pound house. Seriously is this what gets her through the day?

I would rather be in my minimum wage job and surviving on food banks than that sad life envying the little that the poor can claim whilst living in a smug sheltered cocoon. Why the fuck worry what others get or don't get.

Op I feel sorry for you and your empty life.

well said.

Shakey1500 is a good example of people believing what they want to believe.

The only way to correct the system is to have every single person come in and explain themselves to a government official who will assess them on a very strict set of criteria and make a decision on each bit of welfare on a case by case basis

I would like to see a similar system for members of parliament with a tax-payer instead of an official. I would be quite happy to chat about instances where the bus would be cheaper, or how to save on food costs with my local MP

"The only way to correct the system is to have every single person come in and explain themselves to a government official who will assess them on a very strict set of criteria and make a decision on each bit of welfare on a case by case basis. But as this will cost as much to operate as it would save, we just have to put up with what we've got."

Yep, this IS pretty much what we've got now. And have had for some years.

Apart from unconditional pensioners' benefits, of course.

The trouble with trying to stop the few people who work the system is that the genuine people are the ones who get it in the neck.

Coy re. what you said upthread. Ive already seen a post on another thread where an MNer is considering going back to her abusive husband because its the only way she will survive financially.

I also believe that there will be more women entering the sex industry. There was a young MNer posting on here last year or year before who had exited the industry. She said she had seen an increase in women entering the industry since 2010. A lot of them were single parents according to what she posted.

Part of the issue with the single mother benefits that I have is that it's still structured as though it's the 1950s and very unfair on people who have a partner.

If someone has a child and no partner the state says that the child needs their mother at home to care for them and gives them enough money to survive on.

If you have a partner and they work the state makes the assumption that the family can survive on one income and the man can support the entire family. In reality this is probably more frequently untrue than true. And you will only get financial support to go back to work, not to stay home.

In an awful lot of those families a two parent family would be significantly poorer than the single parent if the mother decided to stay home.

It's unfair. Why do the children of single mother's need to be at home with their children more than the children of mother's in a relationship?

Money should be given freely to stop people becoming prostitutes? Come on ...

"
It's unfair. Why do the children of single mother's need to be at home with their children more than the children of mother's in a relationship?"

Er....because they ARE lone parents perhaps, nobody to pick up the slack or provide childcare while the single parent works. I am a single parent, my situation is different because my son is autistic. Even so i notice a significant difference win my health and everything else when I woek. Okay so maybe that's because I am combining work, with caring responsibilities and lack of sleep. It still stands though that if I had a partner or even DS's father closer I could probably manage to work.

" the single mother benefits "

what 'single mother benefits' would those be then?

fiveacres THATS what you took from that. Im simply repeating what was on previous threads on here.

And its not money given freely is it? Because in a lot of cases its helping replace maintenance that financially abusive fathers wont pay. And now women face having to pay to use the child maintenance service before recieving anything from the father at all. Of all the threads ive seen you on your comment about "free money" doesnt surprise me tbh.