Skint Britain: Friends without Benefits on C4

[amrscot]

Is anybody else watching this?

One of the couples take their dog out to hunt rabbits and squirrels that they can eat.

They've just shown him with a dead rabbit he has caught skinning it in the kitchen

Horrendous..

Oh look, here's Aquilla with a deliberately goady post....

There's a thing! I can't imagine why those silly people couldn't just pull their socks l.p. and get jobs and health immediately.

Well they jump off buildings from what ive heard Aquilla.

They are still painting it as an out of work benefit i see.

Some people on here really are cold hearted people. I live in Hartlepool, not on one of the worst streets but defiantly not the best of streets.
I am 19 years old, got my qualifications, finished school and never tried a drug in my life. I have been on universal credit since 17 years of age.
I am currently on universal credits and really struggling. People try and make out everyone who claims benefits are scum, disgusting, smackheads, druggies and every name under the sun. This is not the case at all.
Hartlepool is a small and overpopulated town with not enough jobs or accommodation. Personally I have tried so hard to find a job. Countless job interviews and countless knock backs. I try and try yet again but don't succeed. There has been times where I have no money for transport in which I once walked 2 hours to a job interview which I didn't get and if I didn't go would have been sanctioned for. Universal credit did not give me no help with transport and did not give me no help for suitable clothing. Last year I was in hospital for 8 nights due to being very unwell. Whilst in hospital I had a appointment at the local job centre. They still sanctioned me for not attending even when I showed them my discharge notes as I could not do my job search during the time I was there.
My dad is 50 years, receiving universal credit (previously worked over 35 hours a week at a local pub) and living with his 19 year old daughter. He got sacked from work due to his boss being one of his close friends and they had a falling out. Whilst working he had his own flat, payed all of his bills, managed to provide for my 13 year old brother whilst still having enough money for luxuries throughout the month. He managed fine. Since being moved into universal credit he lost everything due to not being able to cope with what they were giving him. My brother has also come to live with me too. He is a good man, never uses drugs, and does not smoke. He has tattoos on his body which has affected him finding another job! He has had countless job interviews but everyone has rejected him due to the way he looks!
Now me, my 13 year brother and my dad all have to live off barley nothing a month after paying rent, paying other bills, providing for my brother, buying shopping and dog food. This is what universal credit is doing to good and honest people who are actually trying!
My point to this is people who have watched this programme have assumed the worst and that we are all like them people on the television. You get good and bad parts in any place you visit and programmes like this only show the worst. Not everyone who claims universal credit are like them. There are many people including me, my dad and other people I know who generally are trying to make a good life for them selves which is practically impossible in Hartlepool as they are so few opportunities and so little here.

We also live in a 2 bed room house which is absolutely covered in damp and mould. My brother and dad both sleep on the couch and I sleep on a mattress in a more or less empty mould infested bedroom.
The people who work at the job centre are extremely rude and nasty. I have 2 dogs a bullmastiff and a border collie who are my absolute world and been there for me through thick and thin. At one interview I attended one women suggested that if I was that stuck for money to sell my dogs to get me by!

I think there’s a lot of single parents with more than one child who are far better off not working, so I can see why a life of benefits is preferable.

Single people who claim JSA, or UC now for the same amount, are better off working.

I’m currently in homeless accommodation and I’m signing on but I don’t want to work just now because my rent is over £800 pcm and I’ve been told that I’ll have to pay most of it if I’m to go back to work, even the lady from the council told me ‘don’t get a job whilst your in a PSL property as you’ll be screwed on the rent’, unfortunately I can’t say to the jobcentre that I don’t want a job just now otherwise I won’t be able to claim UC, so I’ve got to look for a job for over 35 hours a week otherwise I’ll get sanctioned and it’s not fair. Some of you may think that I should pay my way but I don’t see the point of working 40 hours a week just to see most of it go to rent, and rent on a property that’s not mines to keep, when I get my own council home then my rent will be 50% of what it is now, and then I’ll be happy to go to back to work, in the meantime I’ve got to apply for jobs knowing full well I don’t really want them just now, plus I won’t get any help when I get my new place, if I’m working.

The system is all so wrong.

Magic367 that’s awful about what the staff member at jobcentre said to you, people with attitudes like this should not be allowed to work in the jobs that they do, they’re acting as if your benefits are coming straight out of their money

You mentioned the government that gives free healthcare but you get that whether you work or not!

In Scotland then everybody gets their prescriptions for free, working or not, I know that the rest of the working UK have to pay for their prescriptions though.

@missmother
Somebody still has to pay for the heathcare system though. The cost fro a script is only the fraction of the cost of the medicines your actually getting

And god forbid someone would expect most of your money to go on rent. Thats the whole point of having a job, but I'm guessing no ones taught you how to be a responsible human being and that its sometimes hard being a good person? A good person contributes to society as opposed to constantly taking from it. There are lots of people who would be better off sitting on their behind all day getting paid, but because they are decent people who often want to better themselves they bring value to themselves by working and showing their kids how to be good people.

You are not the victim here!

You don’t know what your talking about.

It’s not my fault that Scotland doesn’t have to pay for scripts whether we work or not.

I’m not making out I’m a victim at all, and I said I don’t want over 50% of my wages going to rent, I was advised not to work from the very people that work with the DWP, doesn’t that say it all?

You think living off £73 a week is a good life?! Ha ok then

I want to move into my own house so that I can go back to college and work, I have a plan but I’m not doing it when I’m in a homeless house, everybody I’ve ever known whose lived in a PSL whilst working, has screwed up with the rent because it’s so damn high, I’m not about to do the same.

It’s not like I’ve never worked, I’ve been in homeless for 4 months and I’ve been unemployed for 3+1/2 months, I’ve paid years of tax before that, it’s a temporary arrangement.

Right now then I’d only get a job at minimum wage which is why I want to go back to college this year, I’d maybe walk out with £1k a month, working for 40 hours a week and about £700 of that would have to go to rent leaving me with £300 for council tax, elec, gas, food, fares to work, a life etc, this is why I don’t want to work just now, when my own new house has rent for just £400 then of course I’ll happily pay rent, just not slaving away to pay my rent when I could get it paid for me whilst I’m in homeless, this is the problem, the homeless rent fee

Exactly, there's not much else you could say to justify it.

@StevieHuckle you are an utterly ridiculous person. You think these people are living the high life because they get free healthcare? These people have £200 a month to survive on, that's food, gas, electric, clothing etc. How dare you sit and judge from your ivory tower being a landlord to 3 tenants in 'nice' areas. You haven't got an clue. Free healthcare doesn't put food on the table you moron

£200 a month doesn't put food on the table, I beg to differ!! I just know the value of a pound and have worked for every penny ive earned, its not me or people like me were just handed what we have. Most people deserve the things they have because theyve earned them.

Ive seen poverty, first hand. The places where ive witnessed it I'd be ashamed to show them the people we think have it hard over here.
Why shouldn't I judge someone who is admittedly fleecing the system, with no intention of getting a job while taking the handouts for it.

£200 where I come from is about 500 loafs of bread!!! If you blow that on drink and drugs of course your not going to survive. Thats the problem, its not that theres not enough money to survive on, its that theres not enough to survive on after they've squandered it on luxuries.

In the absence of a govt creating jobs in an area, perhaps they should have a scheme where people can have free travel and lodging to places where there are job vacancies.

Eg in some areas in south and east there is lots of agricultural work especially in summer. Maybe a free bus and boarding house could help. It is daunting to move away from what you’ve known but sometimes it is a way to a better life - many risks and tough though so maybe govt should give a bit of a leg up. This is what the Chinese do and lots of English and Irish people over the centuries.

200 quid after bills? It doesn't touch it. How do you cook if you haven't paid the gas and electricity? how can you get to job interviews?

How can you say landlords are hit the hardest when many of them overcharge for slum accommodation? and it's benefits paying for that. Landlords are making money out of poverty. Must be so hard.

I'm sorry but landlords are not the hardest hit. Working or not working people cannot afford the prices being charged, whether they're so high because of greed or because of the overheads I don't know, but it's happening. The landlord doesn't get his rent paid - Evicts the tenant, landlord still has an asset. Tenants have nothing, no home and no chance of getting employment with no home, racked up debt and therefore unlikely to be considered for future properties. On balance I think the landlord has the better deal out of this shitty situation.
How on earth have we reached a point where it you literally cannot make ends meet working full time? That to survive your only option is to claim benefits? The cost of living outstrips income. It's not rocket science to choose the option that keeps a roof over your head is it? If your outgoings (many of which are fixed and you can't change - water, rent, council tax, travel) are higher than your income, you're going to end up in the shit, and if there's no way of cutting it back any further then there's going to be concequences - debt, bailiffs, homelessness....... Doesn't matter how virtuous you are if what you earn doesn't cover what you need to spend to live.
You can't blame people for taking the option to keep a roof over their heads when working full time doesn't do that.
The answer isn't removing these benefits, when people still can't earn enough to live, that's just going to make things worse. The answer is to either forcibly reduce living costs by capping rent, CT and the like or forcibly increase wages so that someone on full time hours can actually live. When that happens then I'll be all for removing benefits to those who can but don't want to work, until then people need to survive.

@StevieHuckle £200 is not just for food it's for EVERYTHING ELSE as well. Are you being deliberately ignorant?

@StevieHuckle I wonder what luxuries the man who received £5 from universal credit to last a month could buy. Possibilities are endless with £5 hey?

You really have no idea of poverty. go and tell that to someone in Liberia or Congo

I don't live in either of those places. I live in the UK, there is little point bringing in other countries problems into this argument