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..

Water is a fixed rate. In my area the lowest rate is £45 a month so goodness knows where you plucked the figure of £25 a month from

You can ask for a water meter. Suitable for most properties.

If you’re careful with your use a family should be ok for £25 a month on water.

MIL is on UC. She gets 268 per month. Paying an advance plus also a 'benefit overpayment' (though noone can tell her what the overpayment is for) and a budgeting loan. We are currently having to put her gas and electric on (meters, so even though its meant to be the same, its like twice the cots of DD bills) and buy some of her food too. She has to put 20 quid a week towards her rent, pays around half her council tax, costs her a fiver to get to the jobcentre, which they are asking her to do weekly. She has to get the internet in too, as you need it for UC, they say she can use the ones in the jobcentre, but thats a fiver a day to get there! We are going to support her for a year basically, until she can get her pension. We know we/she can get in trouble for the setup we have, but its this or basically let her sit in a house with no gas/electric, and be sanctioned for having no electric to be online 24/7 on the UC site. Honestly, currently I do often log into her UC account and do some of the checklist, because she is 64, has never ever used computers in her life so does not understand it all. She should be on ESA, but was failed for her medical and instead of listening to me, she listened to staff at the jobcentre who told her to sign onto UC/JSA and just put in sicknotes as its 'the same'. Obviously it was not, it lasted a few months then they said the extended period of sickness had ended, by that stage she could not appeal the decision. We have put in a new ESA claim for hr, her GP has personally wrote to the jobcentre supporting her saying she is not fit for work, however, apparently how UC/ESA works now is that until she is assessed as unfit for work, she has to look for work like someone on JSA would. Its a clusterfuck of nonsense. She had to give up work 20 YEARS ago due to serious illness. She has not worked in that long, has multiple specialists involved in her care, but like many was 'cured' in a 10 min assessment. I ramble a lot when talking about this as its just fucking ridiculous.

My sister was one of those who was all 'they should get a job, its easy!' etc. However, now instead of tax credits and such, she has been put on UC and is treat like the rest..suddenly its awful.

Some really off responses on this thread. Yes some people are in a mess by their own doing but what do you want society to do with them? Leave them to starve?
Yes some people never work, would you give them a job? No. So again, what do we do with them? Water and gruel?
A bit of common sense is missing here. There will always be people who can't function like the rest of us. We just need to accept it and do what we can for them imho. People with disabilities, mental illness and addiction issues are a separate issue and should be treated as such. Lumping everyone and all the benefits together is ridiculous. UC should be cancelled.

You can ask for a water meter. Suitable for most properties.

If you're in privately rented accommodation, and some HA or council properties too, you need the landlords permission to have one installed.

It is so sad - that poor girl who found the shorts in the charity shop with a tag for £7 being sold for £2 - 2 from 7 she said - that's £4. Scary.
Unfortunately there are thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands, of people who are unemployed and unemployable. We cannot force them into work - no-one would/could employ them.
Then we have those that honestly do not want to work. I pulled in a favour for someone six years ago. She said she was desperate for a job and would do anything if she could find one during school hours. At the end of the first day she told the boss, my friend, that she found it boring and then never turned up the second day. She never even called - just no show. From that point on she blanked me but continued to tell everyone else how she would do anything for a job. When a mutual friend asked her what had happened with the job she said it wasn't worth the hassle.
And no, I have no idea what is the answer.

Yes some people are in a mess by their own doing but what do you want society to do with them? Leave them to starve?

Quite. I would much rather a few who don't want to work and are happy to live on pennies do so, than take away the support net for everyone else. Which seems to be what many want, oh a few play the system, s lets punish all that need the support.

My sister was one of those who was all 'they should get a job, its easy!' etc. However, now instead of tax credits and such, she has been put on UC and is treat like the rest..suddenly its awful.

Yes there were/still are a lot of people cheering this on not realizing that the scrounger rhetoric also applies to them and that they will also be caught in the dragnet.

Admittedly I live in a bit of a bubble and never realised some people had it so bad. I’ve been watching this for the past few weeks and I’m shocked. How do people live like that?? £5 to last a month? Catching wild rabbits to eat? It’s so depressing watching these people and so terrifying that we’re all only a few bad luck scenarios from joining them.

Question: how do these people on UC who get paid monthly now think us working people get on?

Many people get paid monthly but they still pay their rent and bills instead of spending the money.

I work and I am skint all the time but I always ensure the rent is paid first and foremost.

WeeTinker " Because people take on bills to meet their income. "
I know it is hard but one reason we have done okay in life apart from moving away from all family in the NE to London is because we avoided that - year after year after year when full time child care was half each of our net salary we didn't spent anything like what people on our income spent, we didn't hav the holidays or cars they had or anthing like that as we were doing that putting asided for future bad times/ a rainy day, the deferral of instant pleasure fto have that large cushion. Obviously those on minimum age unless living with family cannot save much up but anyone on MN today who is in reasonable work manageing and not on any benefits now it the time not to get that car, not to get that holiday, not to do XYZ, not buy lunch each day but instead take in your sandwiches so that if you ever have hard times you have a cushion ideally 6 months of money to cover 6 months of rent there and always spread risk. I did my full time job plus a second one and so did my husband so we had various sources of money - very very hard work at times working 6 or 7 day weeks but it the key to our success really.

jcmayj

Cool story..

Let me ask you a question or two..

How often does you wage get stopped and you have to reapply for your job?
How often does your wage payer send you a letter saying they paid you too much and will be reclaiming it in your next wage?
How often does your wage change from being paid weekly, fortnightly and then too monthly?
How often does your wage get lowered because someone in government says you don't need that much money to live on?
How often does your supervisor decide you've not done enough work and stop half your money for the next 3 pay packets?

I work for myself and unless I earn on a particular day I get zero. I get no sick pay, no housing benefit, no child benefit, not holiday pay, nothing.

I work for myself and unless I earn on a particular day I get zero. I get no sick pay, no housing benefit, no child benefit, not holiday pay, nothing.

You are either extremely successful working for yourself, so much so that you don't qualify for any benefits, or you are not claiming what you are entitled to. Your income must be over 45k (I think it is?) to not qualify for child benefit, anyway.

I know the lady who was evicted personally. She has tried to get better and make something of herself. She went to college but was not allowed to complete the next step of her education due to her worsening addiction issues. She begged UC not pay the rent directly to her because she knew it would worsen her addiction. There isn't any real help for people struggling with addiction. I've known heroin addicts deliberately get caught shoplifting in an effort to be jailed so they'd get help. Unfortunately, the jail was too full so they were fined instead.

As for UC I work 30+ hours a week and I will be entitled to it once they make the full switch over. My outgoings far exceed £200 a month. My rent which I pay in full is £386 per month. In the winter I put around £50 a week on the gas meter. That's with the thermostat set to 19 degrees during the day and off overnight or when we're all out at school/work. Electric is £15 a week.

I'm struggling to make ends meet as it is and I stand to lose £60 a week once I'm switched over. That's £240 a month of money I don't have. I'm not an addict. I rarely go out, I don't drive or own a car, I'm not in masses of debt, my kids don't have the latest phones or mobile contracts. I don't even have a mobile contract for myself.

Magic have you tried applying for care work? I know a few places in Hartlepool who are crying out for staff. If you PM I will give you the names if you like otherwise just type Care Hartlepool into Indeed and it will bring them all up. It's all NMW and won't be enough to actually live on but you will be slightly better off.

Question: how do these people on UC who get paid monthly now think us working people get on?

Firstly, a fair sized proportion of people claiming UC are also in work. It is not solely an unemployment benefit so it's not a case of "us working people" vs "them". Check your facts.

Secondly, people migrating onto UC from other benefits (e.g., JSA) will have been accustomed to being paid weekly and don't have the funds to suddenly accommodate monthly payments. Imagine your employer pays you weekly for years and then all of a sudden announces that they're moving to monthly pay, you'll get paid this week and won't get paid again until one month from today. Could you survive that transition period without getting into debt or hardship if you had were already living hand to mouth?

Thirdly, some vulnerable people on benefits don't have the organisational or budgeting skills to deal with monthly payments. They have chaotic lifestyles or neurological disabilities or addictions or other difficulties. With weekly payments if you receive money on Monday and it's all gone by Wednesday, you only need to wait until Monday again for the next payment. You can ask people you know if they can lend you a tenner until Monday, you can stretch what food is in the cupboards for a few days more, you can go to bed early the rest of the week to save on light and heating. There are ways and means to get through a few days. When it's monthly though, it's harder. Can you lend me a tenner until the end of the month means the lender is without their tenner for a lot longer so is more reluctant to lend it out in the first place. You can't stretch three days of food into 28+ days of food. You can't go almost a full month with barely any light, heat, or hot water. Budgeting can be taught, but no one has taught them. The DWP didn't equip any of the unequipped people before they threw them in at the deep end and told them to get on with it.

And finally for people who are in work, UC is calculated monthly and if your wages happen to be paid twice within any given assessment period (e.g., if you are paid four weekly) then you get no UC at all that month even though you haven't had any extra salary. Imagine you're working full time on minimum wage, your wages cover the rent, the council tax, and your travel costs to/from work while UC pays for everything else (food, gas, electricity, water, childcare, clothing, etc). Where do you then find the deficit from?

I'm talking about the lady on the episode who was receiving money that was sufficient to cover her rent but spent it on drink and drugs Instead.

I can't sympathise with individuals like those, but many of the other people that they are showing I feel very sorry for

I think the assuming the other side doesn't understand how hard it is really does apply to both sides. WTM, I assume you know that for the first 2 years of employment, you can be sacked at any time for not reason, so it's 24 months when you have no guarantee of an income coming from your job the following months. At least with UC, its stop for a reason and/or you can appeal the decision.

Also puzzled as to the benefit claimant who said that its OK to have dogs and being on benefits should lnt stop you to do so. Many people working working full time would love to have a dog but can't because it wouldn't be fair on the dog to be left alone all day even with a walker once a day (which they might not be able to afford). Its something you just accept, I don't understand why those on benefits who are struggling financially can't accept that having a dog is not the best thing to do for the dog either?

I'm talking about the lady on the episode who was receiving money that was sufficient to cover her rent but spent it on drink and drugs Instead.

People dependant on substances aren't known for their sound logical thinking.

She begged UC not pay the rent directly to her because she knew it would worsen her addiction.

It's very easy to sit in comfort and pass judgements in those people worse off than yourself. It's also incredibly easy to minimise addictions unless you've ever been addicted to something.

weetinkermoney well said, i have watched the programme you do get sanctioned if you miss a call from UC, the tories are so wrapped up in dealing with Brexit that they don't see the extreme poverty being on UC is causing, even working people on low incomes are having to use foodbanks, its a disgrace in this day and age, people should be out protesting to get the goverment to listen,

swingofthings

Fucking lol.. are you truly that obtuse?

Someone with a job can indeed get sacked in the first 2 years etc. But guess what?
They have a safety net called UC..

So worker gets sacked, they can claim UC..

Someone on UC gets sanctioned they have NO NET..

Can you really not seethe difference or are you purposefully ignoring it?

As for your dog comment... I'm just going to ignore it for the blatherings of an ignorant person.

Does anyone else just feel terribly depressed living in this country?

What will it take for it to change?

I'm talking about the lady on the episode who was receiving money that was sufficient to cover her rent but spent it on drink and drugs Instead. I can't sympathise with individuals like those, but many of the other people that they are showing I feel very sorry for

You really don't understand addiction do you? Handing an addict a lump sum of cash is like putting Dracula in charge of the blood bank. You're not giving them financial means to support themselves, you're giving them a big bucket of temptation to carry around.

At least with UC, its stop for a reason and/or you can appeal the decision.

Except the DWP stop UC payments for the most arbitrary of reasons and you cannot appeal a sanction.

You can ask for a mandatory reconsideration but only once the decision has been made to sanction you and you've received the letter detailing the sanction. A mandatory reconsideration decision takes anything from two weeks up to several months, with reduced or zero payments in the meantime. If the decision comes back that the sanction has been upheld then you can apply to a tribunal to take it further.

From watching this TV show, how many of the people on it do you think have the means to take the DWP to a tribunal?

What will it take for it to change?

Firstly:
More people realising those claiming benefits aren't the feckless unwashed the media and government want them to think they are are.

Then after the atitude of some people has changed we can work on:
No buy to let mortgages on homes worth below £250k
Rental caps in line with LHA.
Universal credit scrapped and replaced with a simple means tested guaranteed income of £1000.
Sanctions scrapped.
Job centres back to places to get jobs and training.
Local authorities given permission to build council properties on land that is disused.
Buildings unoccupied for over a year become local authority property to be redeveloped into housing.
Local authorities build a portfolio of rental properties run for profit and profit reinvested within that company.

Once thats all in place further development in education and opening the doors to higher education for people with little income. Hand in hand with that is setting up apprentice schemes that recognise not everyone is academic and some people prefer working with hands.

That's just for starters.

@WeeTinkerMonkey is never going to happen if people keep voting for the Conservatives though

jcmayj

I agree.

I've seen it said that conservatives ask,
"Which party is best for me?"
Whilst non conservatives ask,
"Which party is best for the country?"

How true it is, I don't know, but on a superficial level it rings true.