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?

I've never claimed any benefits. I have needed to and got turned down when h got sacked on the spot as was under a year at a company and we'd just had dd so I was on smp and was at the point where it was nothing a month. We normally have savings but new baby wiped them out and we weren't expecting the job loss. I tried to claim benefits but they said his salary would remain as is for paperwork reasons and my salary would also count as if I was working full time and not on smp so I was told to quit my job to get anything or go back to work immediately. With a mortgage and other outgoings I went back to work much earlier then I wanted to and ended up having a breakdown.
I actually know people who have sat back and deliberately run out of money to be able to claim so they can stay at home with dc.
I think the whole systems a joke and wish they'd take away some of the benefits many many people claim as a lifestyle choice and put it towards reliable childcare to help people like me who spend a large majority of my salary on childcare and often have to weigh up whether or not I can afford to work anymore.
I live in an area where many people choose benefits as an option to get housing and not have to work. But at the same time their alternative is to survive on minimum wage. So really rather than benefit bashing people who are just choosing the best life they can have with what's available, would it not make more sense to bash the system and complain to the government that current social welfare system is a bit shit all round?!

It isn't bashing vulnerable though is it? It isn't attacking the person who needs a safety net and perhaps always will. We are not monsters. As a society we give hugely to charity - both in terms of money, energy and time. All those who on almost every thread say "go to the CAB" seem unaware that the CAB is a huge organization available to all FREE and staffed almost entirely by volunteers.

All the main charities are staffed by volunteers too - all the shops and helplines. So no, we are not lacking in empathy.

What fucks people off is the attitude that "The State" or "The Council" should pay for a lifestyle "that I choose".

Someone on full HB, CTax benefit along with a mix of others has a disposable income of someone earning well above minimum wage.

If you are mega rich - this doesn't bother you. If you are not contributing it doesn't affect you - you just clamour for more. If, however you are working and struggling this is coming directly out of your pocket.

Every hour you sit on that bloody commuter train or stand serving difficult clients in a shop, or serve someone in a restaurant, or answer yet another complaint about the bank/utility company or do someone's nails or cut their hair - is an hour that you are not spending with friends or family or in the sunshine because you have to work to pay for what you need. But guess what - your neighbour gets more than you and doesn't have to do it

So who are the people attacking the Benefit Bashers and calling then heartless? Not the people it affects of course. It is those gaining from the system or those for whom it makes no difference at all.

So stop bashing the people who work their arses off and contribute to society but are still at the bottom of the heap.

sunfloweras - exactly. That is the point.

THe problem IMO is people judge what in their opinion is ok and what isn't.

I was on incapacity benefit for life but came off because I felt well enough to work. I am now in a position of claiming DLA for my DS as I am struggling to work get my DS to medical appointments/ school appointments and work full time. I can't use childcare, it has broken down everytime I tried.. So as a LP I am limited.. I do hope there will be a point where I can increase my hours again but not at the minute..

I really don't care whether MN approve of what I am doing or not.. There will always be those people who play the system all the way through from the poor to the rich.. You only have to look at the multi national companies. The problem is the media like to target the poor..It makes more interesting TV than nice couple in suburbia could pay more tax, do this , do that..

The walk a mile in someone else's shoes is relevant here.

i do have far more disposable income now Im not working and on full hb etc.

I actually have the figures for both.

Smp happened to be the same as my weekly wage when I was working:

when working/on mat for two children

wages: £140 a week
ctc/wtc: £195 a week
hb: none
child ben: £34 a week

rebt was £91 a week, child care £40 a week, coubcil tax £77 a month due to single person discount

now im not working

hb: paid in full
council tax: now only £19 a month
tax credits: £115 a week
child ben: £34 a week
income support: £73 a week
health start: £9 a week

no child care costs. Also waiting to hear on DLA claim which if granted will be at least an extra £80 a week. Child matinence is going to enforcement so if they manage to get what he should pay then thats £49 a week.

I do know however thanks to tax credits beinf slow to update thats likely around a £400 over payment

YANBU I have never claimed a benefits for me or child, and I have come across a few "benefit bashing" threads on here, one thing I don't understand is why people make to their business to report fraudlent claimers.

I think the opposite. There are always people advising the OP what they are 'entitled' to

What does that even mean? People,shouldn't claim? People should struggle just to not have their neighbours turn their noses up?

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....I am surprised people give up and accept what they have

The problem is having ambition tends to cost money. You need qualifications and/or experience to be able to improve your lot. How do you do a college course that costs you and is at the same time every week when you're working minimum wage on a shift system? How do you get promoted when you have to be out the door on the dot to,pick,your children up because there's no one else to do it for you? How do you volunteer to get experience if you're working 60 hours a week to make ends meet? If you have lived life at the bottom and your parents and grandparents did the same, how do you pick yourself up and find a way forwards?

it is those playing the system which give claimants a bad image (ie, only working 16 hours when they could work more)

I am a single parent who has worked full time for many years. I was still entitled to benefits. I am professional but not,high earning. I have worked to the detriment of my own mental health and my children have been in childcare for more time than they have seen me. I have never seen a school play or attended a family event at their school. I am exhausted and have aged 20 years. I finally resigned and will be looking to work no more than 16 hours moving forwards. I will claim more as a result. I will be worse off financially but I believe the balance will be better for all of us for the next three years. I resisted going part time because of the judgement but can no longer sustain how things were. I personally couldn't give two hoots if women like you judge me to be 'playing the system'. You have no idea what I have been through nor the state of my mental health. It will cost a whole heap more for my children to go into care when I am hospitalised - and that would have happened, I very strongly believe.

ESA is not an in work benefit. I believe you can work up to 15 hours ???

Anyway, low paid jobs are always going to be low paid. If you earned £30kpa for being a care assistant, nobody would become a nurse, or £45kpa for being a TA then few would bother to be teachers.

People have to invest time and energy in building careers which 'some' people can't be arsed to do. You don't have to be an academic to succeed - my plumber drives a new Merc and the lad who started out helping my carpet fitter now owns the business, expanded and employs 5 lads who all drive new company vans.

It is relevant Starlight2345. And yes it true that the poor get demonsied but the definition of poor is changing.

If you have four kids in London and you live in a LA 3 bed house and your husband works as a self-employed taxi driver earning under £10k you will receive HB - C £1000 a month, (so £12k a year), Council Tax Benefit - say £1k a year, Child benefit - £60 a week - = £3k a year. that gives us £16k a year so far. Add your salary - which is untaxable as you fall below the limit so assume you see £8,000 of that free and clear of costs = £24k

Add Child Tax and Working Tax credits (£12k) and it will take you up to about £36,000 income.

That's £3,ooo a month. You would have to earn £50,000 gross to take home that. Think how much studying or overtime or stress or double shifts you'd have to do every year to come up with that?

This is the problem. NOT the demonisation of the poor.

I don't agree. I think most people realise that benefit fraud is not that widespread and anyone who has ever been in the unhappy position of claiming any benefit can testify that it is not granted willy nilly to every applicant.

There are some observations that I would like to make. Babies who would have died at birth 40 years ago now survive in increasing numbers. This might not mean they enjoy a lifetime of good health. The same applies to all medical intervention that was impossible in the past but now common place. But does this mean that as a population we have larger numbers of less healthy people who may certainly be unable to wotk?

I am always astonished to read of the people on here who marry the hard drinking 'bloke' who they were happy to get drunk with in their carefree days and then 2 or 3 children later compain they have left him because he is a drunken abusive partner. Maybe these poor choices also throw more people onto benefits.

I don't know but it seems to me that our attitude as a society has a great deal to do with this. My advice would br never admit claiming anything and I say that as someone who has been fortunate enough never to have to have done so.

Plumbers are hardly unqualified Babs they train for years .

Yes there are permitted work rules which apply to ESA but it is not an in work benefit in the same way as PIP is.

Er, what's not to understand, jane? I disagree with the OP that people bash benefits on here. There are always people advising what can be claimed.

x2 thats right, plumbers have to have a fair bit of intelligence to qualify, but they don't need a degree. Ultimately, having a vocational career and being successful is more about understanding business - being professional and growing your business. The majority of plumbers, electricians, joiners etc around here are never short of work.

Voice I'm really interested in what you say and I'm sure there are some interesting facts and trends from a 'sociology' point of view - but you would never be able to speculate that on here!!!

We live in a society where we are looked down for not working yet the goverment keep cutting jobs.

20, 000 police were made redundant or example. Plus teachers and tas are loosing work. I can only find zero hour contracts or short term in efucation for example.

So we are encouraged to work yet there is less work out there.

Exactly maybe more people should be encouraged in training as a plumber, electrician etc than a pointless degree that leaves them qualified for nothing and loads of debt but that's a whole different threaf

I'd agree - they also want mothers to work ( I think this is so there's more employment for chaildcare providers -so win win for government figures)

Otherwise they'd insist on more schools friendly hours jobs being available

Maybe these poor choices also throw more people onto benefits

Yes, of course. People should have crystal balls that accurately predict the future. How many more drunken louts in their youth manage to be decent, hard-working adults? Indeed, have you seen the bars in student unions?

Maybe if we refused to accept poor behaviour, the abuse of women and children, the abandonment of women and children, the refusal to financially support children, and ostracised the men who behave in this way rather than blame the women who are left o to pick up the pieces and manage on benefits things would be different? Instead, the expectation is that women pay for their poor choices and the men who have behaved badly get off Scott free.

We're on benefits though DH works full time. Doesn't really bother me what MN thinks, half of them may as well be on a different planet, and of course, living on an estate everyone's skint so it's not like we stick out IRL.

Of course once the kids are old enough, I will go back to work. And work until I drop no doubt, with very little or no pension. So I'm taking my pension now.

There is a huge amount of (seemingly accepted) snobbery and judgement on here towards people who claim benefits.

It's actually one of the worst things about MN.

People sit in their ivory towers and pour scorn on others.

If I was on benefits (we received a small amount of HB when I was on last part of ML and will do again this time) I'd keep my mouth shut.

Some people have no idea what it's like to be poor.

Seriously I don't agree Crunchy I don't think it's the ones that have a lavish lifestyle or even comfortable lifestyle that 'benefit bash ' on here i think its those people who work full time but on low wages or acverage wages (and loads of outgoings) that can see that there's not much difference in their disposable income and the disposable income of those on benefits that get pissed off with the system.

And we now claim benefits too as I,m my child's carer .

Bluntness the lady on the thread also had a chronic auto-immune illness. I'm sure anyone can understand why having a newborn and that as well, things would be challenging for her.

Yes, I have PIP / ESA mself and have always made it clear I do things like physio and go to the gym classes, etc in my applications, however I have ling term conditions which affect me in specific ways meaning I meet the criteria (combination of physical and MH) I have care plan and directives etc in place as no cure.

What concerns me is those benefits can be very evidence based such as you need to be in specialist care but some people maybe don't get that. My PIP is to 2019 at present but they assess you a year before, and yes they are very strict.

I don't really understand the anti tax credits thing, especially as they are (supposed) to be to support people into work. For example if you work 16 hrs, coming off ESA you can claim a disability element and in some cases that might be better for the disabled who want to get back into work.

I do get what people are saying about tax credits and subsidising the low pain and wages should be higher, and also that people can get dependant on benefits and not want to some off.

But surely that would be more things like out of work benefits such as income support / jobseekers rather than in work ones?

It will all change with Universal Credit away.

Child benefit and tax credits appear to be seen as 'living off benefits' on here when in reality a very large amount of normal working families claim them. It's bizarre.

For 2 years, I was seconded to work as a benefits adviser. In my first year alone, I achieved gains of over £1m in unclaimed or wrongly refused benefits. I dealt with around 30-40 clients a month, in a county with a population of only about 450,000. Try extrapolating that over the entire adult population of the UK to get an idea of the vast amount that goes unclaimed.

Benefit fraud OTOH, is very small, even by the government's own estimates.

www.gov.uk/government/statistics/fraud-and-error-in-the-benefit-system-financial-year-201516-estimates

Benefit bashers are quick to make judgments about how claimants spend their money, too, without really thinking about how limited their choices are. The tv that the DM readers think claimants shouldn't have is possibly their only entertainment and works out pretty cheap over a year compared to meals out, trips to the cinema, theatre etc. The expensive mobile phone contract quite possibly works out cheaper than landline rental and internet subscription plus cheap mobile, and for many people on benefits internet access is essential if they are to comply with the DWPs jobseeking agreement. A lot of government services are online only nowadays.

The gripers who moan about people on tax credits not increasing their working hours also don't realise that if you're on WTC and housing benefit, you lose around 80% of every extra £ you earn in lost WTC, HB, tax and NI. Who in their right mind would work 10 extra hours just to be £15 better off?

Imo, the 5 things that would give people more incentive to work and increase hours would be:

affordable childcare
rent controls on private tenancies
reduce the taper rates for housing benefit and working tax credit
restoration of council tax benefit
big increase in minimum wage