Benefit bashing

[LovelyBath77]

To think MN can be a bit benefit bashing at times. Even if people are rightfully claiming / ill / poor etc.

Recently, I have seen someone having a hard time although ill and having a baby and considering claiming tax credits. I also have had a hard time although illness (both me and DP) and low wage means claiming some tax credits.

I can understand the rage for those fraudulently claiming benefits or the like but why for those legitimately claiming? or AIBU?

And the middle class champagne socialists say it is racist to hold these opinions and they say the benefits system and NHS etc are on their knees because people smoke or drink or eat too much. Sometimes poor people can only find their pleasure in those things. I am not saying it is right to overeat or smoke. But poverty tends to encourage vice.

The thread linked is about a woman who has a job, and would be better off on benefits once she has her kid, so wishes to quit and claim benefits instead of continuing to work. She herself even says it's wrong that she is better off on benefits than working.

Is that benefit bashing? Saying is wrong to have a kid and quit your job and have the state support you?

Bluntness100 Well, as regards to that particular thread you have a point there. Very few people can be a SAHP these days. A single income is not enough these days- both parents nee dto work usually, unless the OH is very well off. Which isn't most couples.

Bluntness100 A lot would depend on whether the mother in that thread had a job that would enable her to get decent childcare/whether she can successfully manage the job AND the child, I guess. But when I saw THIS thread, I considered the OP was speaking generally about benefit bashing. That thread was just an example, surely? Because if it had been a thread about a thread, MN HQ would have taken it down.

There was another post on MN a while back about someone who knew someone with ME who was deciding not to work but (shock horror!) was seen going out drinking with his mates, or at the gym or something (can't remember which now). Yeah, because meeting up at the pub is totally the same as doing a full time job. NOT. There are benefit bashing threads on MN.

Benefit bashing threads/people used to be a great indicator of the wanker posters who we should pay no attention to before all the 'UserNumberFuckFace' came about.

HOWEVER! The userfuckface003484584 thing is gone now so pens at the ready people!

It's not fair if it's the very rich get to be sahps, which is the way it's going. The government wants all parents in full time work, which is fine if it's their choice . It's not fair, though, if it's purely financial and not the best thing for the family, the child and the parents physical and mental health (everyone is omitting the fact that the op of thread in question has a health condition ).

Not sure the rich always want that actually! People tend to go in for assortive mating these days - marry someone who went to their university, earns similar amounts rather than the big busted blonde from the typing pool who might look good on their arm. So you tend to find dual career couples amongst the better paid doctors and lawyers these days rather than a stay at home wife.

Obviously the mega rich male or female don't need to work at all and often don't. In the UK the aristocrats didn't work, they lounged around most of the time doing hobbies with servants.

Fluffypineapple if all benefits stopped then some people would die. Is that what you want?

despite him having immunotherapy and string cancer drugs for his IBD which would have made him so ill, he doesn't claim PIP or ESA

PIP and ESA are 'in work' benefits, and you should claim what you are entitled to.

The majority of people do not begrudge others claiming in times of need, it is those playing the system which give claimants a bad image (ie, only working 16 hours when they could work more).

Dh and I work ft and earn 18k each. We received wtc which all goes to our childcare and we pay the rest. We couldnt afford childcare without it but cant cover our bills on only one salary. Rock and hard place.

If it was easy to just go out and get a better paid job we would. If we could afford for one of us to retrain and live on one persons wages we would. But we cant. Thank fuck for benefits I say.

The 16 hours cut off is a mistake. I think a lot of people see this happening in their place of work.
If it wasn't upped to 30 hours this would provide a better work/life balance.
Being a stay at home parent is an absolute luxury that the middle classes. I longer have. Only the rich and the poor can do this now. Hence the resentment.

I agree OP, its the thing I dislike the most on MN. People are easily led by the media.

Not always, Lucy, no but they have a choice

I have ended up on benefits and can see me on them until probably Jan 2019.

However, my abusive ex finally left in January and there is currently a restrainig order against him. At the time the dc were just turned 2 and 13 weeks.

My daughter has since been diagnosed autistic and my son is permamently sick with bloody chest infection after chest infection. My daughters care needs are signifiant.

I had to give up my job as I couldnt find childcare for two 4am starts a week and alternate weekends. I also couldnt be a decent enployee as every week my daughter has appointments

in september I am going to finish studying my degree part time so i feel at least Im working towards a better future but I cant help but feel guilty Im not working and likely wont be able to until the 2 year old funding for the baby

The thread in question is about a family who will be better off ( at least in the short term) if the woman quits work and the family claim tax credits and other benefits.

People have views on that.

TBH MN is pretty darn left leaning so the views are more pleasantly fragranced than in the country at large.

If you don't wanna know what people think, don't read the threads!

I have been thinking the same. I am reluctantly claiming tax credits and £2 a week housing benefit as I have just left my abusive ex and became a single mum of three. I feel awful for claiming but my wages wouldn't cover food or bills. I know I shouldn't have had three children if I couldn't afford them but as I'm not able to see the future I didn't know this would happen. I wouldn't tell a soul in rl I'm claiming as I know what people think of people like me. I'm also in a job where I get a few pence an hour more than minimum wage so don't get help with school meals dentists or anything else. I would never give up working but can honestly see why some people would be tempted.

So people should blindly agree with benefits being paid to suit people's lifestyles? Why?

It's not ok to opt out of working and expect the state/taxpayers to pick up the cost. If everybodies moral compass was that way we would have no money for anythings let alone benefits.

Benefits should be a short term solution in the event of job loss/sickness and there for the disabled to assist them taking whatever little work they can. They shouldn't ever have got to the stage where we pay somebody to be a SAHP, work just a few hours a week, live in an area their salary can't afford, have children they don't intend to financially pay for etc. It's just created a generation of entitlement, wanting things but expecting others to pay.

And that rainbowsandunicorn is why I'd never tell anyone about my situation as I obviously choose to live like this

I don't think it's just on mn. I think it is ab attitude prevalent in society. I think people incorrectly assume that most people who claim benefits are 'spongers' and are playing the system. I actually think that those are in the minority and the majority claiming do so out of necessity.

You don't ever hear about people complaining about large companies avoiding paying taxes though, do you? Or business owners not putting everything through the books to avoid paying what is owed. Or investment bankers and their greed - taking millions in bonuses after everyone has forgotten about the recession we hit not that long ago. I bet these individuals owe more money to the government that people 'sponging' off the state.

People look down on the poor and they are paraded around for our entertainment. Remember benefits street - that show about the road in Birmingham where most people were claiming? There are still plenty of crappy documentaries on TV of that nature now. Let's look down our nose at the poor single mother with 5 kids who claims and sneer at her because she has a big tv or berate her for having an iPhone. Is let's verbally bash the man who visits a food bank but still smokes!
Sorry for the rant, but the bashing of the vulnerable in society really winds me up!!

FWIW, (not that this should make a difference) I have never claimed benefits in my life... because I have been lucky enough to not ever find myself needing to in that I have always had a pretty well paid job. So my opinion isn't biased in that way.

ESA is not an in work benefit.
PIP can be claimed whether you are in work or not.

Rainbows the benefit system has changed significantly in the last few years single mothers are no longer able to claim income support in till their youngest child is 16 as they were just a few short years ago they have to sign on to JSA when their youngest child reaches five and strongly encouraged to find a job , from last April people can't claim tax credits for a third child lots of people on mumsnet think the benefit reforms are too harsh I know plenty of people who continued to have children they couldn't afford because they were supported by the benefit system some mumsnetters will say this didn't happen but I often think if your living in a comfortable middle class existence a you can't see how claiming benefits could have made for a more preferable lifestyle than working in a minimum wage job and being no better off than those who are on benefits.

I found benifits street depressing because so many of them just accepted 'their lot'. This is their life.

There was no ambition to do better to have a decent job or career.

We lived on a rough council estate when we were younger - employees knew the estate when applying for jobs - they made assumptions about the people that lived their - my sister applied from my grans address just to get interviews -

My mum worked part time just inside the requirements - but those are hard to come by.

I not surprised people give up and accept what they have

Quite often, when you have a child under 3, you are giving pretty much round the clock attention when theyre in your care. It is not lazy to feel unable to work full time. I had a child who woke evey 1.5 hours til 18 months. I did work 16-20 hours. I couldn't have worked more. I was a danger to society. I ended up having a car accident on the way home once as i was so tired

That thread was just an example, surely

That's the point. The op is saying there is a lot of benefit bashing on here. I haven't seen it so asked her to link and she has linked to a thread that doesn't appear to be benefit bashing. So where is all the benefit bashing on mums net she's referring to? She seems unable to show it....