to wonder why people are entitled when it comes to benefits and general life?

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It is becoming increasingly obvious, from threads here and conversations with people IRL, that quite a lot of people are so entitled. Obviously, everyone is anxious about the budget coming out on the 8th and what the proposed cuts will be, and so most of the talk has been revolving around benefits and the Tories (the party and those who voted for them). It is beyond frustrating how much entitlement there is in this country!

Firstly, there are people who have lots of children and then complain that the government doesn’t give them enough to feed their children. Well – the government (i.e. the taxpayer) had no part in having these children so should you not be grateful for whatever amount they do give you? I firmly believe that when you have children, they are your responsibility. This is where people say ‘Should it only be the rich that have children?’. No , just those who can afford children – if you can only afford one then stop at one. If you cannot afford any , without ANY state help, then do not have any. If you choose to have more children than you can afford to have, then you accept that you and your children will suffer as a result of your selfish decision. Yes, I totally understand that sometimes you can have children that you can afford and then life changes course; these are not the circumstances that I’m talking about. I’m talking about people who are struggling with the children they have (or don’t have) and then decide to have more. Someone will talk about contraception failing – which is rare- and even then you have choices; abortion, adoption, keep your children and struggle.

Second key area I have noticed is about housing. So many people argue that they shouldn’t have to move house ( to find a job or to be in a cheaper area) because they have family around or they grew up in a certain area. Absolutely you don’t have to move – if you can afford to stay where you are without state help! If you are relying on the state to help you and complaining about lack of jobs, then you will have to move somewhere cheaper. Plenty of people move. Family will still be family wherever you are.

Finally (well there’s a lot more but I realised I’ve typed a lot) , is regarding work. There quite a few people who absolutely believe that we shouldn’t have to work more than part-time because its not family friendly. On some threads, I have noticed people make snide comments about ‘ what a shame they live to work and not work to live’ and insinuate that these are bad people. They will bitch about these people and tear down people in highly-paid jobs but then turn around and demand more from them (in tax). My point being ; if you do not approve of full time work or highly paid jobs, why then do you want to take so much from these people who earnt the money doing what you don’t approve of?

This was mainly to vent because it is getting ridiculous and I didn’t want to shout at my friends and family (the ones who also behave this way). Apologies for any typos in the very long post !

Yes I agree things have probably been tightened up since I was working with claimants - and that's a good thing in some ways but a shit thing in that lots of genuinely in need people have been caught in the crossfire. That really pisses me off.

I haven't read the entire thread and apologies if it's been discussed already, but can I add entitlement to free medical care.

The nhs is not there to replace the role of parents, common sense or basic looking after yourself.

I hear people moaning that it isn't fully operational 24 hours a day 7 days a week and these are usually people who do not work and haven't paid into the bloody system. Boils my piss.

Why do people feel entitled to inherit vast amount of gentry land because of social class, that they haven't worked a penny for and should be land that belongs to everyone?

Op I do agree that there is more of a cradle to the grave mentality now In the UK and an overreliance on the state and expectation that state will sort key elements of people"s lives and that is a given. Certain policies not like the govt's legal obligation to house people seems an example of this.

Regarding benefits the idea that the govt gives you money to help live seems to be an assumed idea. In principle I'm against this concept as I don't think that's what govt is for and I think it's too much of a vote grabber. I also think the more the govt gives the more it tries to control.

Benefits like tax credits will be cut because although they support those on lower incomes the threshold for claiming is quite high and the fact that they encourage part time/limited hours of working for some is seen as quite unfair.

I do wonder why people in this country assume they deserve a reasonable standard of living but assume people living in other countries, particularly less developed
Countries don't. I often ponder this when I see people spending their benefits on shitty clothes from Primark - which they probably don't need in the first place - but which are made by people with much lower incomes working much longer hours than them who get no benefits. Seems an upside down world.

I have only read the first page of this thread.

OP - I used to think like you, when I was teenager and a complete idiot.

Then, I grew up and realised that people's circumstances change in lots of ways over the course of a child's lifetime, there are lots of things you can't predict.

I don't want to live in a society where we don't help each other, where only the rich can succeed and the gap between the rich and poor keeps getting bigger and bigger. Also, the term entitled only really applies to those with all the money.

I work hard, I don't claim benefits, I want my taxes to be used for the good of everyone especially those that need it the most, I don't want my taxes to enable rich people to get richer.

TTWK.
Dh and I paid in over the years, both lecturers, so doing fine until he was ill. I find I still feel sorry for those that made poor life choices but that's because I'm bright enough to realise how it happens. I understand why some people have no qualifications and I have read, and comprehend the research done by reputable institutions, like the JRF and so am aware that the so called feckless really are very limited in number. What is often particularly sad is that in some cases these people have undiagnosed learning difficulties, or depression, but being less articulate they're frequently either being sanctioned for spurious reasons or are not actually on the right benefit.

Grrr, So glad there are so many people pointing out how wrong the OP is. As things are I wonder how realistic it will be to tell someone with small children to leave their abusive husband.

willhelmina its called the cycle of poverty.

a. how do you know what it is they are spending or whether they need the clothes or not.
b. Do they come over to you and volunteer all this information.
c. If they do you must be someone pretty special because i dont get ppl coming up to me in town and disclosing all this information.

Im pretty sure it dosnnt happen to anyone i know either though i suppose i could ask them just to be sure.

To be ,fair why should the poor be the ones o support those less able?

I never buy charity records or donate to any charity endorsed by Bono Or Geldof and I never will. Not until they pay the taxes they should or donate all the proceeds from the sale of their material possessions and live a meagre life like I do.
Bono avoids paying tax so he can get fucked telling me to help the poor.

I agree OP, people are far too entitled. I hope that they decided to cut benefits for larger families as I don't think it's right that the taxpayer should support people who choose to have loads of kids. I think a fair number is 3 children, then after that, it's up to you to support them. I have 1 child and like the fact that I can afford to buy him nice football boots/treats etc. We quite often go to the cinema together which including snacks is £20 a time. If I had 5 kids I wouldn't be able to do that. Have the kids you can afford on your salary.

More to the point, get a job if you don't have one.

I haven't RTFT.

My dad lost his job when I was a kid and couldn't get another due to mental illness. What was he meant to do with the kids? Kill us? Build a time machine to go back and abort us?

Your post would only ever make sense if we were all born equal OP. As we're not you sound like a fucking buffoon.

This.

For those in agreement with OP your missing one crucial thing.

It's about the kids. Not the adults but the kids. Benefits are to support the children. They are innocent in that they didn't choose to be born or choose the situation they were born into.

I agree OP, people are far too entitled. I hope that they decided to cut benefits for larger families as I don't think it's right that the taxpayer should support people who choose to have loads of kids
So you think that my benefits should be cut because I had four children whilst we had a £90.000 pa income?

Dawn obviously you should have predicted the future. You clearly did it for the benefitz!!1!

But then you absolve the Parents of any responsibilty and so MORE children are born to potential poverty and neglect.....

I believe it is the responsibilty of Parents to provide for their children, and the State should only provide additional support for the disabled or in exceptional circumstances.

BMW so let's take an extreme example. The parents don't provide for them, even when you take away their benefits. Would you rather those children starved?

Lashes I wanted the goats!

I've worked with a family who have 6 children. My work was with the teenage members of the family to try and get them to a point where they had the skills and more importantly the confidence and resilience to be able to work.

The partner agencies were working with the parents and trying desperately to get the mum to do the freedom programme. She would love to have the confidence to work, the confidence to parent better and most importantly the confidence to leave her husband who kept raping her and making her pregnant.

What an entitled bastard she is.

While there is no doubt fecklessness, I don't think it's the cause of the entitlement culture.

A good chunk of London and the country are on housing benefits. There is no pretence now that people should be able to survive without benefits, and that's not because people are feckless. Most people receiving housing benefit are in work.

The problem is our screwed up housing system. if we want to wean people off benefits, we need an economy where it's possible for most people to have a roof over their heads without it.

But people should be entitled to a certain standard of living. Pure bad luck can knock a family from living comfortably to living on the edge of poverty where they need help. And in this country I think they are entitled to it.

People get ill, disabled, loose a partner's income due to redundancy/they slope off with the OW and don't pay child maintainance. Shit happens to people and they need the lifebelt of benefits to get them out of it. If there are a percentage who abuse it, then they should be identified and have their benefits withdrawn.

Don't get sucked into thinking everyone on benefits is idle. That's very Victorian. Turn it on its head and wonder why large companies/rich individuals get away without paying their taxes. Don't fall into the tory /labour trap of poor blaming because they are just diverting your attention from the real issue - the fact that large amounts of bail out money went straight into the pockets of the twats that were responsible for it in the first place. One massive scam. But of course, little Amy down the road is a child of a mother on benefits so she should not be entitled to a certain standard of living whilst Jonny's dad is a rich CEO who hides his cash and evades taxes, so he's entitled to everything. Mmmmmm.

Goddamn children! So entitled! Expecting to be able to eat, and have a warm dry place to sleep, and to be able to go to school, just because they were born! Should have thought about whether their parents had decent jobs before they were born, eh? And if they didn't, then they deserve to go hungry!

For heaven's sake! Do people on this thread really want to return to the 19th century? I've lived in countries with no safety net for the poor. Do we really want to see the child beggars sleeping in the gutter, or the disabled begging for coins? Do we really want to put broken glass on our walls to protect ourselves from the desperate and do we really want 'reading' and 'writing' to be a luxury that only the wealthy can afford?

(As a note, I've never claimed benefits but I consider that to be pure luck on my part)

Ah yes, the Taxpayer. That wonderful creature who pays for all these feckless, lazy people working 60 hrs a week as a home help or cleaning hospital wards on minimum wage.

By taxpayer, they clearly only mean Income tax. Looking at the figures, IT is barely 25% of tax raised. The rest is VAT, Corporation and other stuff.

Now, of the total tax revenue when everything else is included, people on the bottom 10% of income pay circa 60% of their money in tax, while the top 10% of earners pay circa 45%. So the "rich," it can be argued, don't actually pay their way. They actually keep far more of their money as a proportion of income.

Petrol is a major source of tax revenue. So, if you're poor, get rid of your car? Okay (I don't have a car anyway because I live somewhere with excellent public transport services). But how about the home help above? She needs her car to get to her calls. So why should she be so unfairly penalised?

Council tax is another. My house is worth about £150k. Decent size, large front and back gardens, 3 beds. Pretty decent. I pay about £2400 CT pa. Someone with a house worth £750k would pay around £3k CT pa. The house is worth 5 x mine but only generates a few hundred more. They have 3 street lights outside their mansion - I have one. I'm subsidising their blimmin' street lights . To make this fair, I think CT should be, say, 1% of your house's value. What? Too much? Can't afford it? Well do what you expect the poor scum to do; uproot your family, leave your job and move somewhere cheaper. Don't expect ME to subsidise your well-lit façade.

Thing is, it generally doesn't matter how clever and talented someone in the bottom 30% is. They will almost certainly be stuck there. Same applies to the top - Osborne had the best education money can buy, which practically guarantees any Bullingdon boy of average intelligence a 1st in PPE. Gidiot scraped a 2nd in History, despite all his advantages. Yet he's the current Chancellor, with no qualifications or past work experience to justify it. Don't insult people by saying he got there through sheer hard work and/or merit (as opposed to his connections) and they can do it too. It is impossible.

I think the person above who mentioned housing benefit is spot on.
If housing was more affordable, no one would need to claim housing benefit anyway. Same with tax credits, if the cost of living was not so high and wages comparatively low, no one would have to claim that either.
It's backwards to take that away without changing the causes to begin with.

Housing benefit is for the benefit of landlords. Many of whom in London are tax evading millionaires. It is they who get the benefits which they then squirrel away in the Camen Islands. It really is alright for some.