To ask the truth about life on benefits nowadays

[ginorwine]

Too many benefit programmes on implying different things- blaming media .
Also on some fb pages reports of increased food bank use and people with disability killing self due to new laws .
My cousin who is a wheelchair user has a sister bedroom and no issues over the bedroom tax and also says she as enough money for what she needs including a fantastic car that picks up the wheelchair and packs it into her boot , sufficient money for nice things , Petrol and meals out and said to me she genuinely feels she has a decent lifestyle .
Amongst the media hype am wondering what the reality actually is these days ....

Sanctions are very much to blame for the very severe hardship people face.

Watch the latest panorama. One woman received almost 50k per year as a kinship carer for 4 kids and she was complaining they' cut her money from 53k. Another had SEVEN children (3 in care) and 4 she'd lost temporarily because she couldn't keep the roof over their heads. She seemed to think it was the State's fault that she was in this position. One man thought 40quid a week was a reasonable amount to spend on beer and cigarettes.
A big part of it is how people perceive themselves to be doing. This woman thought she was really hard done by on 50k, but I'd think I was rolling in it, even with 4 kids to support.

My husband and I work full time and earn a combined income of 15600. Frankly I feel we live reasonably well (although our mortgage is small) so I haven't got much time for benefit claimants moaning about how hard it is when they earn much more than us.

hiphop I will take a look at panorama tomorrow. For now, I work an eighteen hour day, seven days a week with no breaks for holidays, no respite care, nothing for my benefits. There are anomalies, but most of us are not raking it in. Neither is it how we perceive ourselves to be doing, if I can't afford to pay for the heating, I can't afford it, it's not a perception, it's a fact. I choose to go without some things to ensure that dd doesn't. I should not be in that position when I save the government an absolute fortune by caring for her at home. Oh, and we get nowhere near fifteen grand a year.

"One man thought 40quid a week was a reasonable amount to spend on beer and cigarettes"

Yes its called domestic financial abuse. One of the two elephants in the room that the programme ignored.

The other elephant in the room was the HA not fixing that womans boiler.

If every programme shown about people surviving on benefits was like a half hour version of idanielblake it wouldn't be very entertaining would it?
Bit too depressing perhaps?
Be a bit too hard to look down on people and ride the high horses if there was much empathy to be hard with the 'characters' on these shows.

It really won't be too long until there is no such thing as a welfare system.
I've heard so many negative comments from people who are or have been reliant themselves upon benefits, after shows like Panorama. They can't see anyway that their own situation could be twisted to make them look so bad. Can't see how any question could lead them to responding in a way that makes them look 'grabby' or 'ungrateful'.

The Joseph Rowntree Trust have published in depth surveys of the financial impact of having a disabled child. If the needs of the child are so high that you have to give up work to care for the child then welfare benefits do provide a safety net but the reality is that long term disability in the family starts the slide down to debt and poverty for many families.
My son will never walk, talk, work, do anything for himself, he requires 24/7 care with frequent medical interventions. Tax credits and child maintenance from his Dad have now stopped as my son is a young adult. We have only kept afloat financially and been able to pay for things my son needed because close family members died and left us money, without this we would have sunk. My son is in receipt of ESA and DLA and I receive Carers Allowance of £63 pounds a week.
Many people do not realise that
Carers Allowance and DLA stop once the person you have been caring for spends a certain number of days in hospital. Some families may then have to resort to a food bank.
Carers Allowance is taxable so your "take home pay" for doing in excess of 100 hours a week and saving the NHS thousands of pounds will actually be more like £40 a week
Unless they have been in an occupational pension scheme before their child is born, long term Carers (mostly mothers) will face poverty in old age as they will have to live only on the state pension which the Govt have already deemed not enough hence the push for workplace pensions.

Antiopa Carer's allowance is also counted as income for tax credits and as 'money you already have coming in' for other benefits. In other words, a significant amount of it is removed if you access other benefits, leaving you in fact, with about fifteen extra quid a week! But no, we're rolling in it aren't we!

Hip hop frog

Have you actually RTFT? There are an awful lot more on here giving you feedback than the people chosen to be on a piece of propaganda to show to the masses so the country can have a scapegoat.

If you really want to get angry at people robbing taxpayers I suggest you look up 'Positive Money' to learn about where exactly the vast majority of the money circulating in our economy comes from and then I suggest you look up how much money is lost to our economy every single year via corporations paying low wages and having their payroll subsidised by the taxpayer whips cyphoning off vast amounts of money from their local economies into schemes where they avoid paying tax.

Finally, look up 'Our Daily Bread' where you can see your taxes being used in an infographic based on your income - you may be surprised at how your taxes are divided up to pay for various things (hint: I can pretty much guarantee that the jobless areond of the narrower 'drains' on your hard earned cash).

Hip-hop
Maybe you should look up the statistics on how many people actually died after atos started 'assessing' people on disability?

Maybe you should check out the stories of people who were sanctioned because they were in hospital and couldn't attend assessments or job centre appointments. That means they for got no money for weeks until it is sorted out.
Maybe you should check out the terminally ill people who had their disability stopped because they were deemed fit to work?

The system is a disgrace. Thousands of people are now housebound as they have had their mobility cars or allowance taken away

You get a couple of high profile families who cheat the system and everyone thinks everyone on benefits is raking it in. I wish!

Antiopa12 You should be able to get an income support top up as you're getting carer's allowance, and housing benefit and council tax benefit too. CA is a pittance and it is taken off income support, but you get a premium so you end up with £45 of IS. You can still get means tested benefits like HB and IS with savings up to £16k (it's reduced for amounts of £6k, but still worth claiming as you can get free prescriptions etc). I don't think my CA gets taxed, well it does but it's the only taxable income I have so it's well within the personal allowance.

I really recommend Carers UK for advice on CA and disability benefits. I called them and they explained how my benefits will change when DS leaves school, and our household income will be a little less, as he'll get ESA for himself instead of us getting tax credits and child benefit, but it's still manageable.

Mecca thanks for the reply. yes I see the new ESA form has 04/17 on it, it does seem quite similar to my last one but I'll make sure I use it next time not the one I have saved! Yes I think they have changed the criteria for the support group- the risk one anyway.

Just a thought you would have things like prescription scripts you could include? anyway good luck.

Becca, not Mecca! :-)

I've been called much worse don't worry! Glad it's helped.

I've daily prescriptions I can photocopy to illustrate daily care and risk. But I've heard that's no longer in the at risk category as I can get daily prescriptions 'any time'.

I've done a bit of my form.

I agree with a pp that disability benefits are a safety net short term but long term a person, especially single disabled people are looking at masses of debt, not only because of the removal of disability premium under universal credit and other reductions but because in some areas, like mine, the NHS refers to private practitioners instead of providing a service (things like physiotherapy longer term than four sessions for example which can be essential, especially if people deterioated to the point they need help to do physio).

Which panorama hip? Was it the one on 5th April? I saw some of that one and there was a kinship carer on there who was quite distressed about the benefit cap do in that case can't have been receiving 50k Although if the children were fostered it would cost the state that.

in some countries there is no such thing as pip and carers allowance. disabled and there families struggle massively.
And as for mental health problems forget it.
At least here there is help and in some cases I think the handouts are quite generous.
maybe thats not the right type of thing to say on mumsnet but I think people take for granted the support system we have in the UK.

User I was at an international conference before I had my son and during the coffee break I asked a delegate how families managed in his country if there was a disabled child. He said there was no help for them, everyone who could work had to leave the house to work and the severely disabled child was left on the floor of the hut whilst the family were away for 12 hours. Sometimes a neighbour looked in.
Thank God we do still have a safety net to give dignity to people in need.

Thank you Highfruit

Part of the problem is the all-or-nothing approach when it comes to disability benefits.

I get ESA, HB, and got PIP on appeal. Since getting PIP, my weekly income after rent is 2.5 times what it was before.

On ESA and HB I have a large rent shortfall as am expected to houseshare but having my own flat is a huge stabilising factor in my mental health. Being eligible for PIP means my full (still low!) rent is paid. It also means the PIP money itself, as well as a premium on ESA.

So without PIP I really struggle, but with PIP I have plenty*. It's so all-or-nothing. Because they've cut elsewhere - eg. HB for under 35s, mental health services (so have to pay for therapy), it makes the difference so much greater. It really is like there's a little group of people who get the funding and the government can point and say "look, we're supporting the disabled", whilst anyone marginally less disabled - or more likely, more unlucky/less educated/able to fight decisions - can go to hell as far as they care.

*I'm used to being skint so have simple tastes, don't have a car etc. Which is good, so I can save a bit for when they decide I'm not eligible and I'm back down to the breadline... And in the meantime I can actually pay for things to improve my mental health and employability, like therapy and education, as both are otherwise unaccessible since public spending cuts (adult education no longer offer reduced fees for Support Group ESA as considered "too far from workplace" to bother with us).

Green the £50k was exempt from the cap. For some reason the woman was convinced the money was for " days out etc" not providing a roof over the children's heads.

Thanks user I shan't be doffing my cap in gratitude because I don't live in a third world country.

BBCNewsRave that's because it costs more money to be disabled, there are costs that non-disabled people don't have to cover and aren't optional. And anyone getting PIP has high care and mobility needs, and in the support group of ESA must have no hope of improving their situation through work. People who are that severely disabled do need more financial support and security I think. I have been on PIP long term and DLA before that, and I think I that before I was entitled I would never have been envious of those who qualified, but would just been relieved that I was actually able enough not to need such benefits.

At least here there is help and in some cases I think the handouts are quite generous.

That says a lot about the attitude towards people who get the benefits they are entitled to!

Do you know how many hoops people have to jump through to get what they are entitled to? And someone with a tick list and a clipboard and a quota of 'denied claims' to reach can take it away in a 15 minute 'assessment' without a care in the world.