To ask for a view on this ? If someone gets benefits and are not a carer / single parent etc .. then they should contribute to society in order to receive benefits ?

[Ooola]

I think in society we should all support orhers.
The taxpayers contribute by paying taxes .
Vulnerable people such as disabled , carers etc should be supported by others .
Those who can’t find work and get benefits .. should be required to give something back for the money they get ...not be forced to work for a big co operation but to contribute . Things like park maintenance , listening services , support to the struggling public services . There could be matching service so that they could chose to gain experience or use the skills they have to benefit others .
Any police checks , as are required in other jobs , would be funded . Does this sound fair ? If we all give what we can then it may be of benefit to all , including the claimant who could use this to build c v , etc . Surely it’s win win in principle ? If someone gets benefits say at a level of 10 k , 13 k , 20 k
.. it feels fair that they give something for that especially as it is comparable to someone working and getting minimum wage ?
Clearly time would need to be given off for job interviews etc .

Even two generations of complete worklessness in the same family was very rare
How do they define complete worklessness though. If a family of 5 children, all have 5 children and say only 1 of the 25 work but that excludes them, then yes, it would quite rare.

The true measure of any society can be found in how it treats its most vulnerable members.

This!

Each time we hear how well the economy is doing, we should also be told how many people are homeless, how many living in poverty, how many people are waiting for mental health support, cancer treatment and so on.

When GDP increases, how much of that do we see? The vast majority of us are far closer to poverty than we are to the few people that benefit from big businesses doing well.

Anyone who swallows the "benefits scroungers" stories printed by the mouth-breathing-murdoch press is a fool.

When the Government puts a quarter, even a tenth, of the effort into tax avoidance and fraud as it does benefits fraud I will believe it's about the money (because lets not forget that 2015/2016 estimates show that HMRC's unpaid taxes were above 30bn whilst benefit fraud/overpayment for the same time wasn't even an eighth of that). Until then I will remain convinced that it's entirely based on pitting one group against another to detract from the fact that no Government in the UK has any kind of definitive plan to reduce homelessness, eradicate poverty and increase support for disabled members of society. Why would they bother? It's so much cheaper to peddle the benefit scrounger stories and keep us hating society's most vulnerable members.

No, people shouldn't have to graft to be supported by our system. How we take care of our most vulnerable should be a matter of pride for us as a nation; I've been employed since I was 16 years old, now happily paying the higher rate of tax, happy to always know my taxes contribute to those who can't work for various reasons, and happy to always do so.

I hate the whole attitude of "I pay your benefits" some people take because they pay tax. Its like when shitty absent fathers pay the minimum CMS amount and somehow feel justified saying "don't you fuckin dare spend it on anything for yourself" to their Ex, conveniently forgetting that it's the absolute bare minimum that should be expected of anyone in a civilised society.

@Ooola it makes sense you were a benefits investigator given your views as my fr9end's son has cerebral palsy and and autism, is non verbal and has severe body spasms. He has the mental age of a toddler. He will never be independent or able to work, but was told to find work and was sanctioned. Although this was turned over, he now has to submit a not fit to work certificate every 3 months. Talk about a wasted GP appointment and how suspicious assessors are about genuine claimants and the contempt they have for the vulnerable in society.

OP is probably a Tory party shill using MN as a focus group to see how the next Welfare reform is going to be received

Just here for the deletion message

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/3740579-worked-50-hour-week-fed-up-aibu?msgid=91521679

To whoever asked, this is the other thread I mentioned

Likely correct Justan when they've got their next five years in the pocket they will have some sledgehammer policy to punish the poor.
They've done it every time but wave enough of a bone under our noses to distract away from their punitive policies.

If you are in the positon the OP describes you are expected to spend 39 hours a week looking for work, I think that's plenty. Benefits for most are really low, especially single people with no kids. Leave them alone. Mind, I was unemployed briefly in the early 80s and had the time of my life, it would stink now.

YANBU. Handing money over without anything back is totally wrong.

Most Charities are crying our for help. Our country is in a mess because we do not have enough money to pay for local services. There is always something that needs doing that cannot get the budget to do it so no one is going to be out of a job if it is kept this way. It should be that whilst on benefits you either learn a skill, gain more qualifications or gain work experience and a reference.

The bottom line is that that money should not be given without something in return if you are able bodied and not a carer, single parent or have DC under school age. Even 2-3 days a week so that the rest of the time can be spent job hunting.

Most of the people claiming benefits will have paid in over the years, that's the point of taxation and national insurance. I am the most right wing person I know and I don't agree with making people work for benefits, if there's work give them jobs.

So, disabled people don't have to support others, is that right?
Is that because they are not part of society?
If you truly want a society where everyone contributes to make the world a better, more supportive, more inclusive place, why aren't the old and the sick part of that?
Or is this just a goady thread about people litter-picking for their dole money? That'll show 'em. Bloody scroungers

Those who are out of work are doing plenty for their money.
If they were doing community service like some sort of criminal how would they attend all the job centre interviews and prove a ft job seekers file.
What about people who don't want to work, we aren't all the same, you know.

Greysparkles - it was me that asked and thank you.

For starters I think it’s massively disingenuous and misleading for op not to have made clear in op that they are an ex benefits fraud investigator. This is bound to colour their view of recipients in a negative way.

I have a friend who does the same job, lovely lady generally but as she’s been doing this job a long time it HAS skewed her attitude to benefits recipients which she sometimes but not always is aware of.

I’m also somewhat sceptical that op volunteers at a food bank, as that would surely have enlightened her as to the difficulties people are having.

Also, no system is ever going to be perfect, to have a system that completely protects against fraud would need to be a system that would massively under serve genuine claimants.

I’m not saying fraud is right or should happen but that I’d rather have a system open to what is honestly a minimal amount of fraud but properly provides for genuine claimants.

I’ve been on mn a while now and have seen numerous threads posted by ops claiming they “know” of someone claiming fraudulently, I have yet to come across even ONE that has clear evidence/knowledge of this.

Many don’t understand the System and wrongly think ALL benefits are only paid to people who don’t work at all, a significant number also think disability benefits are only paid to visibly very disabled people and are almost completely ignorant of the many invisible and fluctuating conditions, some assume a person/household they are aware of aren’t working simply because they don’t see them leaving for or returning from work at office hours. They also don’t know if that person is caring for someone they don’t live with and assume all carers live with the person they care for. They certainly don’t know the full details of their finances because funnily enough most of us don’t go around providing detailed accounts to our acquaintances! Hell most of us don’t even tell close friends and family!

So disappointing and infuriating to see yet another poor/benefit bashing thread.

This thread also reminded me of:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=8dwU2jGimkU

BlingItOn

I think that is what the Op was meaning .

My view is that a lot of people cannot say what they actually think Therefore views can fester and grow , without challenge or analysis .

I also think that if more dialogue was permitted , it would be healthier, and hopefully lead to more understanding .
Mumsnet appears to shoot down some viewpoints , without asking what experiences ( other than being a red top reader ) they are based on .

For example -
I feel that there where a lot of people in the Brexit vote that felt marginalised and could not express their views , and thus, through feeling ignored and unheard, voted the way they felt expressed their views .If they had been listened to and felt heard , a different outcome ?

Whilst I do not agree with this outcome , it is an example of the divisions of views and unless we are ‘ allowed ‘ to discuss ‘ unpopular ‘ views , we will remain entrenched ?.

I am not saying that Op is correct . I do feel that we need more room for dialogue around difficult issues , so that greater understanding on multiple sides of arguments can be heard .

Who said anything about litter picking? There are hundreds of charities in my area (we have a database of them) that need help, our Foodbank is crying out for help. No one is asking anyone to go down a sewer or pick up litter.

It doesn't take all week to look for a job. Once you've done your CV it takes minutes to whizz it off to a job advert. Hardly anyone goes for 3 interviews a day, 5 days a week. If you worked 3 days a week you would still have 4 to look for a job.

Yes, some people have paid into NI after working for a long time. Many others haven't. They choose benefits as a lifestyle. Growing up half my street was on benefits. One of my neighbours had 2 girls the same age as my brother who is now 60. Neither of them have worked since they were 16. They tried jobs and didn't like them. I work in debt and I see people on benefits every day. A lot of them get jobs and then give them up because it is too far to travel, costs too much to get there and they are not better off than on benefits. Not all of them, but a lot of them. These are the people who need to be given jobs to earn the money they get and need their mindset changing.

No, it will lead to exploitation. If there’s a job that needs doing people should have a proper employment contract and a reasonable wage. Funnily enough, if there was enough of these around, then people would not need to claim benefits!

So would bring on income support but technically still with your employer count? As others point out the majority of people claiming, like myself, need to focus on getting ourselves to the optimum possible before getting back into employment. I actually met my jobcentre rep and the disability specialist yesterday who stressed that one should never feel pressured by universal credit and the possibility of being penalised. The world is a lot.

KingFlippsNips I think it sounds good personally! It stops people lazing about if they're unemployed and builds valuable skills that can be used in the workplace.
Do people ever think before they type?
Here we go again with the assumption that anyone unemployed needs to 'build skills that can be used in the workplace.' The only time I was briefly on benefits/unemployed, I had already spent 24 years in the workforce in a variety of jobs that required 'valuable skills'. And you can fuck off with the 'lazing about' comment.

So, Oola, you say you volunteer in a foodbank . Do you think your service users should 'give something back?'

Other than people inbetween jobs (hopefully for a short time only) who else is on benefits who isn't either a carer or disabled/long-term sick?

If there’s a job that needs doing people should have a proper employment contract and a reasonable wage. Funnily enough, if there was enough of these around, then people would not need to claim benefits Yes!

Sorry for my first post I should have made clear I mean those who are claiming out of work benefits - those who claim in-work benefits are, by definition, working, so when would they have time to "volunteer"?

“It doesn't take all week to look for a job” according to dwp and this govt it does!

And when was the last time you were job hunting?!

if you remotely think sending the same cv to multiple employers with different vacancies seeking different skills and qualifications works?

A few years ago my dd and I were both job hunting (I’m too sick to work, mainly due to mental illness, I wrongly [part of my illness is over optimism at times].

She was a school leaver with decent qualifications and a few years work experience under her belt and was looking for pretty much any job that she met the criteria for.

I was a 40-something woman with a large cv gap but 2 degrees a wealth of work experience in many different roles and good refs, I’d also achieved more qualifications in my time when I wasn’t working when I was up to studying.

Most applications are online now but few are a case of sending a cv by email, most are filling in that particular employers electronic application form. This takes considerable time not least because many of them don’t seem to have decent IT teams that have designed the forms or sites well so they constantly crash, freeze, pages get lost etc it can take hours just to do one. If you don’t have a computer at home to use then you are left having to use computers in libraries (which are closing/massively reducing hours, computers are limited so users are only allowed on 1-2 hours at a time, computers and printers are often out of date and poorly maintained) or places like career offices (which are also being closed/reduced hours, reduced computer availability etc)

Quite a few employers also insist on applicants do electronic psychometric or other tests, sometimes you have to “pass” these before you can even access the application form.

Even those employers who accept cv’s electronically or otherwise expect cv’s tailored to the role advertised, if they’re advertising more than one role they expect individual applications for each role, even if they’re basically the same just different hours etc.

Something that was very interesting was many of the job sites show a counter displaying how many people have applied for each role.

The vast majority of the jobs we saw advertised/applied for there were usually over 150 applicants per role.

When speaking to both the job centre and local careers service they were honest in saying there were at that time in my area approx 200+ applications for each role when all sites and other applications were considered. That there were 1000’s more people unemployed and looking for jobs than there were jobs available.

My dd applied for over 300 jobs before getting the position she currently has.

I applied for over 200 and only got 2 replies ever - and one of those was automated!

This govt and other bashers of the unemployed need to stop just banging on about “people should be working” and actually consider WHY they’re not working.

Because the most blindingly obvious bloody reason is THERE AREN’T ENOUGH JOBS!

Yet this govt has done NOTHING to create jobs. If anything their policies and decisions are increasing unemployment.

As for “people are pathetic saying they won’t work cos they’d be worse off than on benefits”

Have you even considered that what they mean is that they cannot afford to live on what they would have coming in if they did certain jobs? Because of low wages & the costs associated with working that particular job?

That’s not because benefits are wondrously generous it’s because pay levels are appalling!

As for comments regarding training etc - are the posters making those comments even aware of how huge the cuts to training and education have been?! There aren’t courses or training available to many, loads of courses have been closed.

My local college has lost funding for most of their courses, the next nearest college for many courses which would actually be useful for employment is a good hour away by train which means that transport to get there is really expensive AND many of the course times mean that unless you drive you wouldn’t be able to get there or get back by the limited public transport we have here.

You’re blaming the wrong people, you’re blaming those suffering because of these policies who have NO POWER to change any of the things that are wrong.

You should be blaming the people who are increasing unemployment, living costs etc and reducing training and education and support for people to be able to get work.

You should be blaming the ones WITH the power to effect these changes.

I think it would be far more beneficial to support those who are unemployed to improve their skills via college courses and opportunities to shadow employed people.
And here's that suggestion again, as if no nurse, solicitor, office administrator, university lecturer, bank clerk, doctor, shop manager, etc etc was ever unemployed.

All these things you talk of should be proper paid jobs. Then it would not be so hard to find a job, would it.