Why do you benefit bash?

[greyblanket76]

My family and I are working class and always have been. My friends are too and so are the people that I tend to socialise with/meet in everyday life. I've only been on MN since last year but have seen so many comments bashing people who are on/depend on benefits and I'd really like to know why?

Is this because some people on here think everyone that's on benefits is lazy and doesn't want to work therefore claim benefits? Or is it something else?

I'll talk about my situation and will keep it as brief as possible as I already know people will come in the comments to try and shame me. I'm early 20s and a single mum (didn't start out that way but your whole life can literally change overnight and that's what happened to me). I have one DC and I'm expecting another so I've been on maternity leave back to back as I'll have 2 under 2.

I've worked full time since I was 17 right up until I went on my first maternity leave. Due to the rate of SMP, I'm entitled to benefits as SMP doesn't even cover my rent which is £1200. I'm entitled to £1670 of UC which covers my rent and all my bills. During the first 9 months of my maternity leave I was receiving around £1507 UC (due to deductions) + £638 SMP = £2145 a month.
Once I give birth to my second DC, my UC entitlement should go from £1670 to £1907. This isn't 100% accurate but due to receiving SMP, let's say the deductions would be due £1700 UC + £638 SMP = £2388 a month. That would be excluding child benefit for both children btw.

When I was working full time, I was earning £1383 a month. I do plan to go back to work after my maternity leave ends as I genuinely love my work and have my whole career in front of me. However can people see the huge jump in difference between the two amounts? Nearly a grand in total! When returning back to work, I would be entitled to some benefits however because I'd be working full time, it wouldn't be a lot. That's why it's advised that you drop hours to work part time in order to get the most help available.

I've read my post back and hope it isn't too confusing but I just wanted some people who benefit bash to understand that sometimes life on benefits seems better especially as you have kids because you get so much more help. My mum keeps telling me to consider not working for a year or two just because I need to consider the quality of life my DC and I will have. I wouldn't be able to pay for rent AND childcare so what would I do? There's a lot that comes into play when deciding if you should go back to work or just be on benefits and I hope some people got that from this post. Seeing as this is an anonymous forum, if you judge/bash people on benefits, I'd really be interested to hear why. Posting in AIBU because I'm prepared to be flamed and have learnt not to take nasty comments to heart

@autienotnaughty

The people who typically bash are the middle class who have no concept of the struggles and barriers the working class face. They look at it as they are paying for lazy people to sit on their arse. Whereas the working class understand poverty and suffering and will accept support to avoid that.

@autienotnaughty yeah you're absolutely right and that's what I've got from this thread. It has definitely been an eye opener

I know people who just pop kids out and use them as a reason to not work. Shameful

no you dont.
Capped at 2 kids.

The biggest benefit basher I know is an ex. Furious about 'free houses', 'no need to ever work', 'scum of the earth'.

Um, had you stayed or at least deigned to lower yourself to providing some day to day care of a child occasionally, I wouldn't have been in need of benefits as I would have been able to keep a fulltime job when the childcare fell through.

Of course, I was equally scum for working fulltime, using childcare when it did function, taking maintenance and using it for food instead of designer children's clothes and so on.

But it wasn't ever about benefits. It was about misogyny. He hated the fact that women could be supported to function without a man, as that meant he didn't have the power to have children taken away/put in care and for any woman to be cast out onto the street once he/a man decided he no longer had use for them.

Most benefit bashing is all about misogyny. Look at the comments about having multiple children by multiple fathers and tell me that's anything but having a go at women for making their own sexual and reproductive choices. It's about having further sexual relationships without wishing to give power over to another man by cancelling benefit claims. It's about them being able to exist whilst being in possession of female sexual organs without permission of men. It's about women making purchasing choices that the observer reckons aren't of any value.

I think the problem is OP you have not given your personal circumstances!

Why should anyone have to do that? So strangers on the internet can judge whether she is deserving or undeserving poor? Fuck that.

You’re a single parent. You should know better. Op has never said she isn’t going to work, only that she is currently on maternity leave.

@lalafam

The benefit system should be in place for people who have genuine reasons to not work. Not people who made poor decisions and ended up single with multiple children and useless fathers. Me and DH waited years until we had children. Worked our arses off to get a house, jobs that worked around children. Then and only then did we stop contraception. I know people who work multiple jobs just to keep a roof over their heads and I know people who just pop kids out and use them as a reason to not work. Shameful

So people with multiple children with useless father's should what? Be forced into prostitution? Put the children in care? Die?

And who gets to decide whether a person has a genuine reason not to work?

@Cheeseonpost

Message deleted by MNHQ. Here's a link to our Talk guidelines.

It is priveledged to pay for massive amounts of insurance, childcare etc. She could have made a different choice, but she didn't. She's done nothing wrong.

You on the other hand...

I haven’t read the whole thread, I have been on MN for 20 years and am well aware of some people views on people that claim benefits, most of them don’t know anything about how the benefits system works or how much people claim, they have no idea that there are millions of fathers (and mothers) that refuse to support their children when they split, that many fathers (some mothers) play the system by not working or going self employed and claiming they don’t earn much so they don’t have to support their kids. Many don’t understand that many people are disabled or caring for a disabled relative/child and are unable to work, people don’t understand that getting childcare for a child with special needs is impossible.

I get judged all the time because I can’t work full time, I a, a single parent to a disabled teenager, because she’s over 12 I’m not entitled to free child care bit my child is mentally 5 years old and needs 1:1 care which would cost me twice as much as I would earn (that’s even if I could find someone to provide care). I get paid £68 a week to care for her, a fraction of the price it would cost for a carer to come and look after her so I could work. I would love to work full time and not have to claim benefits as I’m sure a lot of people on benefits would. My life is lonely, I have no support and not many friends because people judge me. Before having kids I worked from the age of 14, at the age of 18 I was working 3 jobs, I worked through both pregnancies and returned to work after dd was born , I was married at the time and we shared child care so it was doable but when dh left us it became impossible. Ex does play child support (a small amount) but offers very little support when caring for dd.

I understand that there are some that do take advantage of the system but many do not yet people are judged for needing help.

People often don’t plan to become a single parent, people make the wrong decisions all the time and also situations change very quickly, relationships break up, people die, people suffer domestic abuse, people become too sick to work or have a disabled child and suddenly their situation has changed dramatically.

@MrsSchrute "If this ever happened, which I pray it never will, then thousands and thousands of people would simply die destitute. Children would go into care as their parents wouldn't be able to afford to care for them, crime would skyrocket, and ultimately it would cost the government massively more than the current, unfit for purpose, system."

I don't think this would happen. People aren't stupid and would adapt. People would be far more circumspect about having children, and pay more into pensions etc. Families would help each other more instead of looking at it as being "the governments job" to help out their family member. And as a result people would be far more keen to get themselves back on an even keel if it was their family that was providing for them while not working rather than "society" in general.

My mum and my MIL both live in local authority retirement buildings.

My mum, worked full time all of her life, late 70’s, heart and back problems, pays £600 rent per month for a small flat plus bills, car insurance etc. Pension that she worked for.

My MIL worked sporadically and part-time. Has been assessed with arthritis in her spine (but she is just as fit and able, prob more so, than my mum). She’s younger, has overhauled her garden, moved paving slabs and last week wallpapered her lounge. She has a sympathetic doctor who has classified her as disabled and she gets:

2 bedroom bungalow and various bills paid for
Motability car - a gold coloured Renault Megane convertible with electric roof at one point, plus tax and, I think, insurance paid for. Replaced every 3 years.
Blue badge for parking.
Free glasses (costing hundreds of pounds per year)
Multitude of benefits, I am not kidding, she is rolling in it.
Treated herself to a £2,000 puppy last year.

My mum has to save for when she needs new glasses.

Do you know the difference? My MIL knows how to play the system. She just moans and tells sob stories until she’s given what she wants.

Example - both MIL and DM need monthly blood tests. GP has stopped offering routine blood tests and sends you to hospital 5 miles away. My DM says okay and toddles off to hospital, my MIL looks aghast and just said “I can’t” so continues to be given appointments at GP.

My MIL has hardly paid anything in and has had hundreds of thousands of benefits and my mum gets none. Is the system imbalanced? You’re fucking right it is!

@lalafam

The benefit system should be in place for people who have genuine reasons to not work. Not people who made poor decisions and ended up single with multiple children and useless fathers. Me and DH waited years until we had children. Worked our arses off to get a house, jobs that worked around children. Then and only then did we stop contraception. I know people who work multiple jobs just to keep a roof over their heads and I know people who just pop kids out and use them as a reason to not work. Shameful

So what about those people in between? I was married to a well earning husband, we divorced and I have to now claim top up benefits as I'm on a low wage. I work, I haven't gone on to have more children and don't plan to. But I need extra financial assistance.

There is a world of people in between those who are disabled and can't work, and those who have loads of kids and have never worked.

How many women regardless of age could afford to get by with no benefit top ups at all - paying all the rent and childcare costs- if their partner suddenly upped and left?

@Waxonwaxoff0 thank you! It's okay if you've 'done things right' and your marriage has broken down and DH has left you on your own then you have to claim benefits. If you're young and in a long term relationship, it doesn't quite matter the same. I've apparently made bad life choices because I'm 'stupid'

@Cheeseonpost I agree with you. One accidentally child I can see how that happens. However two not so much, that is a life choice

MrsSchrute - they should stop after the first child to the useless father obviously. Not expect benefits to be a fall back plan. Plan bloody better before having children. OP has said she plans to go back to work. So fine take benefits in the interim but my comment was more aimed at the useless people who use the benefits system as their career path... people with illness and disabilities, benefits should be for people who cannot physically work.

[quote Waddlegoose]@Cheeseonpost I agree with you. One accidentally child I can see how that happens. However two not so much, that is a life choice[/quote]
Who said they were accidental?

@Hospedia

And some people cannot afford to save. Do the people doing the minimum wage jobs not deserve to have children? Because not everyone is going to have a professional well paid career. Someone needs to do those jobs with shit pay that we as a society rely on.

Exactly this.

Minimum wage should be set at a level that provides a respectable, if basic, lifestyle. It should be enough to cover the bills, buy food, and raise a family with a bit left over for some non-essentials of the individuals choosing.

No one should be "working all hours" at any job let alone 2/3/4 jobs, no one should be sinking while in FT work, no one should be working and still having to choose between heat or eat.

Employers get away with paying poverty-level wages because the government tops them up - that's where your taxes are going to, they're paying wage-bill top ups for companies who can afford to pay decent wages but choose not to because they'd rather give their money to shareholders.

@Hospedia thank you! Again, people are directing their anger to the individuals claiming benefits simply because they're doing xyz to live their life and not focusing on companies who get away with paying chicken change to employees. It's not an issue within society no, it's just an issue with the individuals.

Employers get away with paying poverty-level wages because the government tops them up - that's where your taxes are going to, they're paying wage-bill top ups for companies who can afford to pay decent wages but choose not to because they'd rather give their money to shareholders.

Haha so true but people don't want to open their eyes

@MaryAndHerNet

Why should I pay for an assumedly able-bodied person in their early 20s to stay at home with two children they have had out of choice, when there are disabled people out there struggling to turn on their heating?

you miss that 50p do you?
Thats about all you pay toward unemployment..

Not really the point, it’s more of a principle. If every Mnetter sent me 50p, I could probably buy a nice mansion to rent out.

I'd rather be friends with people who don't work than some people on this thread. Bet a lot of them are nicer people.