I don't really feel qualified to comment on the carers side of things save to say I know carers are treated appallingly and expected to live on a pittance but I've no lived experience of that
@gumball37 I'm surprised at your post simply as the impression we get in the uk about the welfare system in the USA is that it's pretty poorly administered and is usually insufficient but that's not to say I disbelieve you. I have family in USA but they've no experience of this as they're fortunate enough to be comfortably off and able to work
@CayrolBaaaskin I know a fair few people out of work at the moment following job loss during the pandemic because they are about my age (in their 50's) which is a notoriously difficult time to find work especially for women and they were all their working lives in industries that not only have been hardest hit by the pandemic but also brexit (mainly hospitality/tourism) which are also industries and roles where a certain level of physical fitness is required - which they have - but it's hard to prove that to prospective employers in your 50's! They tend to assume youngsters are fitter and more up to the work. They don't have training or qualifications or experience in admin, retail, care work etc and due to the massive cuts in education and training it's nigh on impossible to get into courses to retrain. Employers market at the moment so they can expect and require insane minimum entry requirements that aren't really necessary I've seen shelf filling jobs advertised as requiring highers! (Roughly equivalent to a-levels) here
Your comment also calls to mind a conversation I had with my dad some years back. At the time my sister and I were both single parents looking for full time work, her youngest had just started school, I was coming out of a long period of serious ill health, my daughter was looking for a part time job to fit around school. We were all bemoaning the lack of jobs and that even if we did find something to apply for we were unsuccessful.
He gave it "but I see the local free paper every day and there's loads of jobs advertised" he was purely going off that
What he wasn't considering/aware of was how much things had changed since he last looked for work (in the 60's!) and he hadn't looked at the exact jobs in detail.
I spent an afternoon with him going through not only the jobs in the paper but also those advertised online and we went through them in more detail and I was pointing out why the vast majority of them were not viable -
Hours outside of what childcare was locally available (for roles he was thinking sister could do)
Location - often on industrial estates to which there was no public transport (sister couldn't afford to run a car, I was on meds that I couldn't drive on) or the public transport didn't fit in with the hours of the job - and I don't mean we'd be waiting around a bit I mean last bus leaving hours before shift ended etc, taxis would be too expensive as a long term solution (he'd made a comment re the INTERVIEW "just get a taxi I'll pay for it" "are you gonna pay for taxis for me to get there and back every day?")
Qualifications and experience required that we didn't have - quite specialised roles in a local industry think electrician level knowledge - and the local college due to cuts was no longer offering the appropriate courses, nearest college for this over 20 miles away.
Employers requiring recent experience within last 5 years - this ruled me out as I hadn't worked due to ill health for around 7 years at this point, also ruled dd out as she was a school aged teen with no experience yet (seriously there were sat morning newsagent jobs asking for 2 years recent experience!)
Low pay combined with location meaning that we'd basically be paying to commute let alone other costs
And then even when there were jobs advertised that were viable and we had the qualifications for etc we'd apply and not get. He got very frustrated about that one at which point I showed him the screen on my tablet (gift from he and mum to both of us the previous Christmas to help with job hunting etc) with the online job sites that showed how many applicants there'd been per role and they were well into the hundreds!
To say he was shocked is a massive understatement
The friends and family I am referencing who are job hunting now in their 50's haven't done so since the 80's/90's, they've worked for the same employer since they left school/college and thought they had jobs for life or even if they changed employers they did so through connections like family and didn't have to apply or go to interviews etc
They're now completely thrown at how competitive and demanding the job market is, they've done no studying in all that time either and have also been shocked at how decimated the further education system now is for adults over the age of 25.
It's led to some v interesting conversations. About jobs, education, employers expectations, politics and policies and yes benefits.
They were so out of touch with that side of things.
I have also been a working single mum when my dd was little so yes I absolutely agree it's incredibly difficult and stressful and as I said expensive and I only had the 1! So I do get that it's hard.
At that time I commuted 90 mins each way daily, everything was a rush, I'd hardly any time to spend with dd and when I did have time off I was mainly catching up with chores and doing grocery shopping etc but at the time I thought I was doing the right thing by working, contributing to society, setting a good example for dd etc now I wonder if it really was the right decision for a number of reasons not least the effect on my Mh
The thread is about benefits and benefit bashers do exist so when I've referenced them I haven't necessarily been accusing anyone of being one (though there is of course an element of "if the cap fits")
I feel strongly that rather than blaming or vilifying those of us on benefits we should all be pulling together and directing our anger and frustration where it belongs!
At the govt and policy makers who DO have the power and the will to make ALL our lives better IF they gave a damn!
The big problem we have at the moment is having a govt, a cabinet who have NO CLUE what it's like to be in ANY of our shoes.
These are people who probably don't even know what their bills are, what their overall outgoings are because they have - and have always had - enough money to never need to worry about if they'll make the rent, or have to decide whether to buy bread OR milk, or having to make the decision to get a child new shoes and continue wearing leaky holey shoes yourself
They haven't the lived experience of struggling to get a job they have been handed EVERYTHING they haven't really grafted or achieved anything solely on their own merits!
I posted this on another thread re inequality in our society but I reckon it works here in reference to this too
m.imgur.com/gallery/j7v8Uhy
They THINK they "worked hard" to get where they are - they're clueless!