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.

DoraGora - Can we return one of these babies if they don't meet our standards?

So,
I'm about half way through this thread. and I have a (couple of) genuine questions.

What's the definition of a scrounger or a cheat?

For me I'd say that if you need help to meet your needs you should ask for and get it.
If you don't need help to meet your needs then you should neither ask for it nor get it.
If you step outside of those basic statements it doesn't necessarily make you a "cheat" or a "scrounger" but it starts to get to a time when I wonder about the morality of what people are doing.

I'm defining needs as basic essentials, like clean clothes, shoes that don't leak, heat, light, nutritious food and a place to live (with cooking facilities) - I'll even throw in "basic" services, I work in IT and believe that the internet and online access is fundamental to increasing the social welfare of the world. - so more than nationalise the trains, I'd really like to see nationalised properly super fast broadband to every reach of the country (not just "commercially viable areas") -but that's a different post)

This is where I am coming from:
I work full time, I do as much overtime as possible, my clothes mostly come from Primark/Adsa/TK Max type places. I can't afford a house of my own, my (expecting) wife and I live with her dad.
I fix my own car, because I can't afford to take it to a garage, I believe that this is not difficult, everyone should be able to save some money by servicing their own car.
I cook meals because it's easy, and a lot cheaper than getting takeaway. - everybody should be able to cook.

Essentially whatever I can do for myself I do in order to save having to spend money, my life is comfortable, though not extravagant. - I don't think that a different label in my shirt would make me any more comfortable.
I go out once a month or so, and don't think drinking more, etc would make me have a better life.

I earn really well (higher than national average), though have a lot of debts which takes most of my income, when I called the bank to see if they could help they told me that they could not, because at the end of the month I have £60 left over. (though they questioned if I really spent so little and going out on hair cuts because it was about £150 below the national monthly average - because I can't afford to do those things! [cut my own hair]) - I argued that if I went and got my own house, or even just went to the pub more (basically if I just took no responsibility and pissed away my money) that they would have helped me so why wouldn't/couldn't they not? (incidentally the help i asked for wasn't more money, it wasn't even freezing interest, it was to take out a loan which had a lower rate of interest then the credit card I was paying off, - they refused.)

Back on topic:
My tax is paid PAYE, so I can't say that I "cheat" by not declaring, nor can I say whether I would, I expect that I would not cheat the system, because I strongly believe in a social system of helping those in need.

Here is the interesting bit/next question:
My employers recently opted me in to a company pension scheme, I can "salary sacrifice" in order to pay into this scheme.
what this means is that (since no tax is paid on pension contributions but national insurance is I can choose the following situations:

A, stay as i am, this means that I get £2000, I pay £100 into a pension. and get a combined tax and national insurance bill of say £400 (I take home £1500 and save £100 in my pension)
B salary sacrifice, this means that my pension money is put into my pension pot directly instead of being paid to me, so there is no national insurance, and I get to keep £12 for every £100 I save in my pension.

Another interesting one is child care vouchers.
my Employer is a part of the EdenRed scheme, where I can put up to some amount (can't remember what) per week into a scheme, and I don't pay tax on that money, but get the money back in the form of paper tokens that I can use to pay for child care (including music lessons etc).

Basically, I have a choice
A, Pay for child care directly. (this means from my wages after tax)
B, Pay for child care with these vouchers, meaning i "earn less" so pay less tax, but get all the money I would have paid tax on, (including the tax I would have paid) as child care vouchers (so I don't need to spend as much of my salary after tax on child care.

Apparently I could "save" up to £1000 a year i.e. pay £1000 a year less tax with this scheme.

In both cases I have chosen option 'A' - i.e. don't try to get out of paying some NI, that money is used to provide for other people who need it a hell of a lot more than I do.
Don't choose to opt out of paying tax, it'll be hard but I'll survive.

Does this make me stupid?

Should knowing that there are a minority of benefit cheats (e.g. someone who claims not to live together so they can get a bit more money to live past their needs and take a holiday that I can't afford to) may me think F'em I'll maximise my own personal wealth by paying less into the system, and then watch the system fail? or watch the government borrow (yet more) money to pay for the system meaning that when my kids grow up their taxes will need to be higher still and their social returns less still as it's all going on debt repayments (either structured or PFI?)

My point is I guess, what I feel is:
Yes, lying about your condition/living arrangements/illness or disability
E.g. "he doesn't live with her she;s a single mum", can't work have a bad back, but can go play football or golf etc - which does happen, it's been in the news!
well that's terribly wrong and people need and deserve to be punished for it.
also, those who "cheat" tax by.
Not declaring full earnings, inventing employees with non jobs etc are terribly wrong and should be punished.

I think that most can agree that they are terribly wrong.
which leave controversy in the next point.

I also feel that it's a "bit wrong" (so not terribly wrong) to use whatever scheme you can to maximise your benefit whilst staying within the law.

So I mean that if you could happily live with your parents, (like they still have your old room) and space for a child etc), then you should do that rather than saying, "no I want my own place" whilst expecting the government to provide with HB.
I think that if your basic "needs" are met by 3 out of 5 benefits that you may be entitled to that it'd be "a bit" wrong to claim more. - especially as this is coming from the same "pot" that is not giving enough to meet the basic needs of others.

Similarly I feel that using "Salary sacrifice" or having an offshore head office for a company. or any number of other perfectly legal and wide spread scheme out there when you don't have to is "a bit" wrong.

Other than that.
no, I don't know any benefit "cheats" but I know plenty of people who avoid tax by not declaring or sacrificing salary, or own a company, and only take minimum wage because they pay less tax on large dividends that they take each year to top up their "basic wage" - People I know that do that are living "comfortably" with all their basic needs met and also living "securely" they really don't need to cheat the system.

So I put my money where my mouth is and don't try to minimise tax. - does this make me an idiot?

Am I right about what is "terribly wrong" cheating, and what's just a "bit wrong"?
Is one worse than the other?
e.g. the company director who is a comfortable and secure actually morally repugnant for trying to get out of helping others in society so much by paying less tax?, whilst the person who is claiming a little bit more because they can just doing what they should?

I think that when you're on the breadline, your needs only just being met - or not quite being met - then getting a tiny bit more out of the system, even if it's cheating, is entirely understandable (and entirely forgivable).

I think that when your needs are not only being met, but are being more than met and yet you're trying to pay less into the system as well then that is morally repugnant.

Another one today. Saw someone who used to clean where I worked. She told me her son - who I know and asked after- is 34 now, has 6 children with 2 different women, neither of whom he lives with. He has never worked and and stopped claiming job seekers allowance two years ago because he does not want a job and they kept sending him for training and to help him with job applications. Three of the children live with their mum who lives on benefits and has never worked, two live with their grandad who looks after them and one lives with the lady I was talking to who has brought him up since he was 2- he is 13.

The son claims benefits for the three that live with his parents and that is what he lives on. He sleeps at the grandad's but there is no room for him.
The lady pays bedroom tax because she had to move into a two bedroomed flat for her grandson but as she can not say he lives with her (because his dad claims the benefits), it costs her between £48-60 per month, and then she has to fund his upbringing completely. Her son gives her nothing. She has three cleaning jobs, is 63 and wascrying as she was telling me how much she is struggling. She will not tell on her son because 'it would rock the boat'.

She has an older son who lives on benefits because he does not want to work.

She was ashamed of them both but feels there is nothing she can do. Very very sad.

nota, that is a legitimate position to take and plenty of particularly older people will not take most benefits ever because they were not brought up like that.

I take the opposite stance - that a benefits claimant or a tax payer who takes what is lawful is fine and indeed as a big state is morally bad (obviously not the stance of nota, but certainly the stance of most of the UK as we voted the Tories in) if you pay less take within the law that is morally good and the more responsibility you move to yourself from the state the better.

We certainly all have choices. Any tax payer can give extra money to HMRC even over and above PAYE and indeed plenty of Christians donate 10% of their gross pay to their church - the tithe - in addition to the 47%, 42% or whatever tax rate they pay.

IN today's FT is an article about the benefits cap £26k coming down to 23K. It is very very very popular with Tory and Labour voters and I support. However hardly anyone is subject to it so it might make many of us feel better to know it is there but in terms of saving us money it has hardly any effect whereas abolishing child benefit or tax credits or free bus pass for the old would have a massive impact.

An interesting thread.
A friend of mine has 4 DC and has lived in a 2 bed council house for 16 years. Overcrowded, she has applied for a bigger house in the area, she needs to stay close as she cares for her parents and disabled DB basically, full time.
She can't get a bigger house - none available.
Around the corner is an OAP lives alone in a 4 bed house, widowed.Her family moved out 30 years ago when they grew up.
My friend has begged her - as good as on bended knee to exchange but she flatly refuses. She has been offered one bed accomodation in various areas, assistance with moving but she stays put.The council have bent over backwards for her.
I think that is taking the piss, if not scrounging.
It is not her house - it is rented, but she says no - it is mine.

I understand what you are saying, emmeline, if her family moved out thirty years ago, she must be quite old, could be over eighty. Whether she is renting or the owner is immaterial, she has been living there for some forty, fifty years, IMHO it is cruel to ask someone that age to get used to a new place and a new area.

the benefit system is so complex , it is difficult to say. Nearly need to be a lawyer to fathom it.

The Coalition decided that with social and council housing anyone who is pension age cannot be forced out of that home. I think that was very wrong and was vote buying.
A lot of older people are lonely and need carers so one solution might be to say okay 3 or 4 bed council house so old person can stay there but a young family will also move in with them. Beggars can't be choosers.

anyone who is pension age cannot be forced out of that home. I think that was very wrong

Can you not see what is problematic with that, when you see it written down?

Beggars can't be choosers

This is getting nastier

Someone who is over eighty is not a fucking beggar. And moving is one of the top most stressful things. The stress of moving could kill an elderly person in poor health.

HOW DARE YOU EQUATE GETTING OLD WITH BENEFIT SCROUNGING. Unless you are the Ursula Andress character from the film She getting old is not a fucking choice.

In fact Lotus someone of that age very likely fought for all the social changes which have helped to enable YOUR choices.

I'm sure Lotus didn't mean to sound entirely evil and will offer her island as a retiremet haven for the evicted pensioners.

It was a huge issue at the time - whether council house and social housing tenants over 65 in 4 or 5 bed houses should be required to vacate them for your families. I think it' perfectly fair to suggest that instead of this constant vote buying from the old we change things a little to benefit young families.

If that means the council tenant in a 3 bed house moving to a one bed flat I would support that.

Lotus the good thing about us old people is that we die.

If that means the council tenant in a 3 bed house moving to a one bed flat I would support that.

But that's not all that you proposed Lotus. You want to billet families into the homes that pensioners have lived in for decades. Or brand them beggars and evict them.

Hmm it really do think a lot of people are blind to what's going on with the welfare system.
Dh is a policeman - he sees it every day. Whole estates where virtually nobody works - they all claim benefits, some streets are full of mum, dad, kids, grandkids all with their own houses and none of them working.
Then because they are not working they are getting up to all sorts during the day which keeps him busy. So more money spent on policing them.
You'd think if they are fit enough to sell drugs, fight each other, run away from the police that they are capable of working a desk job!
I think it depends on what job you do as to how aware you are of what goes on. And the worst of it is he frequently sends reports to the benefits agencies, suggested joint task force etc....and they are not interested. Perhaps it costs more to investigate than it does just to pay them. Who knows.

maybe the council should develop some decent social sheltered housing for the elderly itms, my dgm lived in a lovely development.

it is sad that someone is stuck in 2 beds with 4 dc but ooh why have so many dc if you have limited accommodation or did she originally have a larger house?

I know quite a few families who are second or third generation unemployed.

They do not have the skills to do the jobs that are available today.
That is partly a failing of the education system 20 years ago
and partly the fact that the sort of jobs they used to do are done by machines now.

But the fact that my car wash man cannot find British people willing to work with him - so hires fellow Slavs - shows that there are many idle people out there.

Talk, but if my son can get a job as a postman where not even all his colleagues have a driving licence I don't really see why these people don't have the skill. The skill is to get up at 5am, walk all day and carry a very heavy bag.

Being able to read is useful for that job .... not a skill in the possession of many of the people I'm thinking of.
A couple of my clients cannot read though and earn good money.

One of the "benefit mindset" problems is that formerly high paid unskilled jobs - like stevedores and miners - are gone. They are what most of the long term unemployed families round here did.

You want to billet families into the homes that pensioners have lived in for decades. Or brand them beggars and evict them.

some suggestions then would be nice. What seems to be happening is that older folk live in larger homes they can't upkeep. if they own they get help with heating a bigger than needed place through winter fuel allowance. if they don't own they get that and help with the rent.

meanwhile, young people can't trade their first born for a place, and are paying through the nose for qualifications.

Dh is a policeman - he sees it every day. Whole estates where virtually nobody works

I'm afraid that this is the problem with policemen not living in the area they patrol. I once knew a policeman who worked in my part of town and lived elsewhere. He thought my neighbour was totally crime-ridden whereas I was able to walk home through it at three o'clock in the morning as a twenty-year-old girl and the only people who hassled me were the police. I have never lived in a safer place in my life.

Postman jobs are hard to get. I know someone who does relief postman work and says there is a lot of competition for permanent postman jobs.

Car washes - don't people working in them only get paid for the cars they wash so that the work can end up being less than minimum wage?