Relative almost proud to "have to" claim benefits

[tellmeimbeingunreasonable]

Ok, so please tell me i am being unreasonable if i am!
I have 6 children, relative has less.
I work part-time, dh 50hrs plus a week
She doesnt work through choice - her exh gives her money as and when she asks
I have one child who is disabled
She has 2 children who work full-time (others still at school)

Went to a party other day and I heard her saying without any apparent "I cant get a job as i would lose my benefits and be worse off".
This makes me so . I thought benefits were for those who cant work, not for those who wont work.
I heard a while ago that the government were going to bring in something that stops able to work parents of over 10 year olds from claiming benefits, but cant find any info about it now.
Has really made me annoyed this!
So AIBU?

madmumsy, re your post yesterday about pregnant foreigners without partners being deported. if you are referring to saudi arabia, then it's actually the kinder option. in saudi arabia premarital sex is a crime, and if they are pregnant, then according to the lawas of the land, they would need to do th etime. however premarital sex isnt a crime in most countries of the world, so it's simplekinder to return them to their own country where they did not do anything illegal.

as for the op, i think she is being reasonable. i remember being really upset that my pregnant 16 yr old student was getting a take home'pay' of almost the same that i was working my butt of for.

Dh got JSA when he was off as Dr woudln't sign him off despite work sacking him 9and a suicide attempt- long time ago). Had he been made to go abck there to feed us, he would no longer be with us. That simple. He ahs been in steady employment for alomost 4 years now, had he not had the break and continued he'd be dead or in a mental health unit now and for evermore.

Mum and Dad will be on HB soon. Dad retires in a few yeras but he is without a pension because he fell victim of 2 compay copplases (not the famous ones so he wont get cash back sadly). He'll get a state pension and no more despite investing every spare penny since he was 15. Mum didnt work partly through their choice- Dad thought he ahd rpovided for htem- she did actually have a good job but her first babies all died and she ahd to give up work in order to have total bedrest with me. After rasing us she now looks after two of her grnadsons (and did mine for a bit) for free to help her daughters out. Without her we'd have been unable to work- certainly me when I used to have to catch a train at 4.30 to london once a week, and my sister who is a vet nurse and has to work 24 hr covers hifts, witha dh that works nights.

My pint? (if i can remember it) there are lots of ways to get caught in the benefit trap, not so many ways to escape it sadly)

I think it's the way that it was worded. If she'd said "I have to claim benefits because I can't find a job that fits around x, y and z, or I'd really struggle to make ends meet & have a lot of issues with childcare" type thing, then it wouldn't seem like a boast.

Ta fio maight just improve my typing

It is quite possible that she would not be better off working.
i have been on benefit twice after redundancy and i can tell you it was a bloody miserable existence.

problems i faced going back to work. well firstly the job itself. i needed hours between 9.30am and 3.30pm. this was my absolute limit with regard to childcare at the time, and this was with help. i dont drive and couldn't afford to learn. even the job i have now takes an hour to travel back from whether i walk or take two buses. there was nothing available any closer to my home. so say i didnt have help...two buses in a morning to get ds to his school (not very close to us but he was bullied at our local one). then another one back to take dd to nursery, then two more to work, arriving at approx. 10.30am.

then at 2.30pm, two more buses to pick ds up from school and another back to pick dd up from nursery, then a 20 minute walk back.

i dont suppose there are many jobs out there with hours like that and if there were, to make that kind of job worthwhile it would have to be every day and to do that it would cost 5 days worth of full day nursery sessions. (yes tc will pay 80% of that if they pay up) childminders are few and far between here and i did look into it but there were none who could pick up ds from school.

the tax credit situation is a whole different story. when i first applied i did not get any payments for three months. nursery do not accept none payment of tc as a reasonable excuse for being late with fees..miss a week and you're out, simple as that. im lucky i have credit cards as i used them to live on for a while, but not everyone can get a credit card, or a loan. not everyone has friends or family to help with childcare. tc are notoriously unreliable as are my local council who ballsed up my claim for part housing benefit every time they touched it.

its perhaps not that some people cant work because they will be worse off, but because they cant afford to be any worse off than they are already. getting off benefit is not as easy as simply changing your job. its not as easy as saying "the jobs are out there if you look hard enough". im not saying its the same for all but some peoples situations/circumstances make it virtually impossible. it takes a great deal of skilfull juggling to get it right.

and all that takes a long time to explain to someone who is clearly looking down their nose at you because you claim benefit, so it does become much easier to say "because i'll be worse off".

But the point is nightowl - you have actually looked into trying to come off benefits, not chosen it as a way of life and appearing content at that. She has a car, family support for childcare and exh who is actively trying to offer her a little work. She wants this way of life, it's a choice. Why should the government and those who work support this?

{"me and others getting annoyed that someone who chooses not to work thus getting their rent and council tax paid for, can buy their kids more than i can, can go away more than me- we are so silly arent we for finding that wrong. "

well if you think its so great, go on the dole.

Simple

Sorted } Fillydoratonks

Is that the best you can suggest fillydoratonks? "Go on the dole" if your not happy? What benefit would that be to society? Surely the point of debate is to um... have a point?

you think life is great on the dole

so fine

get yourself into a mindblowingly awful depressive state, or split up from your partner and raise your kids alone, or spend your life caring for someone with profound disabilities, or scrabbling around trying to find a minimum wage job, and YOU TOO could be the proud recipient of- what is it now? £57 pw?

go for it, I say

but if you HAVEN'T experienced it, probably better not to pronounce on those who have

ps enjoyed that pint, peachy, it was well made>

Madmummy you're vastly misinterpreting the deporting unmarried/single pregnant people in the Arab world.

Say you're a victim of rape as a single woman. You report the crime. You discover you are pregnant. Your rapist is likely to either be your employer and sponsor or a member of his family. 90% of the time they will hold your passport to stop you skipping jobs. The authorities want to deport you. You have no passport. You are stuck in jail. When you give birth your child is taken away. You are still in jail while the rape trial goes through. If really unlucky you get tried for immoral behaviour after that collapses.

Sound extreme? cases like that happen weekly here in a relatively liberalised Arab state.

If as a wealthy expat singleton and you give birth your child will be taken away at birth and you will be deported. If you're lucky your embassy will be able to intervene on your behalf.

But neither of these cases are about saving costs, there are no benefits in the majority of Gulf states (Bahrain is the exception) and what benefits there are are only for the citizens (and Gulf states don't give citizenship away to non-natives). These are morality-led judgements. Maybe not my morality but morality of a kind.

actually f-it its absolutely NOT my morality and makes my blood boil just as much as the "people on the dole are spongers" argument trotted out here.

I'm sure everyone would rather have limited income than earn pots of cash and be lovely and middle class.

actually f-it its absolutely NOT my morality and makes my blood boil just as much as the "people on the dole are spongers" argument trotted out here.

I'm sure everyone would rather have limited income than earn pots of cash and be lovely and middle class.

actually f-it its absolutely NOT my morality and makes my blood boil just as much as the "people on the dole are spongers" argument trotted out here.

I'm sure everyone would rather have limited income than earn pots of cash and be lovely and middle class.

oops

We are going on benefits in August when we move. My DH is being medically discharged from the Army, cannot work, and will be claiming Incapacity Benefit as well as waiting for a decision on DLA.

We will have to claim Housing Benefit and Council Tax benefit to be able to afford to live somewhere.

I am currently 20+ weeks pregnant, someone tell me where I can get a job who will take me on knowing I will be taking 6mnths off in a matter of weeks.

We have no choice but to live off beenfits until the baby is at least 4mnths old (I cant face leaving a baby before that point) yet I know we will probably be "looked down" on for claiming.

We will probably be better off than we are now with a one-wage family because when DH is discharged, we are getting a payout that will clear all our debts and leave us with about £500 if we are lucky, but it will mean in the long-run we dont have to find in excess of £350 a month.

So if you want to judge, go ahead, but agree with those who say "walk a mile int heir shoes" - i wouldnt put my worst enemy through what we have been through in the last 18 months.

I think looking after 6 children is more than a full time job anyway. Even the thought of working AND doing all the housework/washing/shopping etc for a household that size brings me out in a rash.

Besides, although you may take home slightly more working than on benefits, I suspect you also lose out on a lot of 'hidden' benefits like prescription charges for example.

So given the choice of making life bloody hard and remaining dependent on the state, I know which one I would choose.

People make decisions based on the set of choices they have. None of us can know exactly what we would do in that situation, unless we were in it.

there are, of course, economic theories about the necessity of a "reserve army of labour" on benefits. Bascially the idea is that having a certain number of people on benefits is a cheap way to maintain a pool of people prepared to do casual, low paid work for businesses at short notice.

JARM, try signing up with an office agency if your willing to do that sort of work, you only have to do it for a few weeks because you can stop when YOU like and they are usually really good, the one im with have been paying for the appts when i need to go for scans etc.

i understnad that this post might sound like im say 'well you can get work' but thats not how i mean it im just saying that if you wanted to it would mean you could save some money up so you can buy your DC some little things for when hes born

and plus i know that JC's do a rapid reclaim thing where you can get signing on quickly after you dont work any more

and plus it might help the time that you're have to wait to meet you DC ticks away quicker (im so impatient)

good luck

Oh, yes, JARM, you can always do temp office work.

They love taking on pregnant women, especially those in their 3rd trimester who have to go for lots of appointments and who may fall ill at work and then cause all kinds of problems.

Gimme a break, mother2b, those agencies won't touch a woman that pregnant with a ten-foot barge pole because heaven knows I tried when I fell pregnant and DH was earning min wage.

Oh, and, as you didn't read the post, JARM also has the added joy of coordinating a house move after her spouse's discharge from the military.

'So given the choice of making life bloody hard and remaining dependent on the state, I know which one I would choose. '

No doubt!

I've read all this thread (having put it off for a couple of days) and now I am almost too depressed to post.

I'll just point out that I and my family are on benefits atm. Dh suffers from depression and has not worked for over a year. We are currently on JSA as dh has been looking for work, but tbh I really don't think he would cope with working. Of course, if he takes a job and then resigns we will lose all benefits. I am expecting a baby any time now, yet the Job Centre have been calling me and asking why I am not looking for a job (dh had to call them and ask them to stop bullying me).

Dh has now decided that he will set up as self-employed - that way, when he is too depressed to work, he won't get sacked. We will be significantly worse off as we will lose our free prescriptions (dh's ADs, for eg) and free school meals (over £60 per month). Obviously, when he is too depressed to work we will get nothing. We will still get WTC which, as has already been pointed out, is often incorrectly worked out, then you get a huge bill for overpayment which you then have to pay back. We were overpaid for 8 months, despite calling WTC and asking them to reduce our payment it continued. We have been overpaid several hundred pounds and at some point will get a bailiff landing on the doorstep threatening us to get it back (it has happened before). Great. But we have no choice.

Oh, yes, it's a fab life on benefits. Fucking brilliant.

Who is getting at those who have no choice but to be on benefits? I have not written any posts saying that and that is not/was not the point of starting this thread.
The point of it was to see if others felt my relative's reasons were valid for not working. Not to judge anyone else who claims benefits - i have when needed to in the past like a lot of us.
"Walk in her shoes for a mile" as someone said - yep been there, done that, but the benefit system was set up for those who cant work so they have help not those who appear to choose it as a life style choice for years when they dont have to.(BTW - someone said in a post about her having 6 dc as a full time job, it's actually me that has 6 dc, not her)I have not seen anyone yet make a valid point as to why her situation is a reasonable one to be keeping on benefits for. She will still be on benefits if she is training/starting on a low wage like a lot of us have had to.
Cant be bothered to keep saying it again, if people want to be up in arms at tangents some have said that's up to them.

Tellme, I should have been clearer - my post was not really in response to your OP, more to the comments that followed and some posters very unrealistic ideas of what life on benefits is like. It's just so depressing coming across these attitudes all the time. Don't take it (well my post) personally - it wasn't aimed at you.

think it was less about you OP and more about some other people's responses. so don't take it as an assault!

thanks for that x