There's too much animosity towards benefit recipients.

[Threadkillacilla]

Any and every flavour of benefit recipient, disabled, pensioner, out of work, low paid, single parent etc etc.
There's a mean and nasty cohort on mumsnet who are vitriolic in their hatred for them all.
What do people want instead of giving people a basic level of existence?
What do they think will happen without benefits?

I did point out if you already have them, you can't change that situation and there should rightly be support and that peoples circumstances change, but apparently nobody can read that part

I'm talking about whether you work FT or are on benefits or whatever you do and you are in a situation where you don't already have the child

They are hugely annoying when they try blend in. I wish they'd just be honest.

I agree with you. It’s utter rubbish and I’m surprised at what people believe. Schools need to teach economics as some posts are just ludicrous.

So of course it grates, seeing somebody working a nice part time week, ‘getting’ as much as you while
simultaneously telling you you should be pleased for them and supportive

It grates for you because you seem to grudge anything to anybody if you can't also have it. I bet you'd love the return of workhouses and flogging people for being paupers.

Ah, much better. Don't take away existing children, just remove any support for them and introduce forced terminations for future pregnancies. It will also be easier once the undeserving poor are all in the workhouse and chain gangs as we know where to find them. I see the logic and origin of your 'solution' now.

I work and am a benefit payer. My income is around the 90th percentile (1).

I can go onto entitled to and see that someone in my position, 2 kids etc. working a minimum wage job for 16 hours a week gets an equivalent disposable income as I do after all their benefits.

So how good should the lifestyle be for people on benefits. Should they have a top 20% lifestyle, top 10%, maybe a top 5% lifestyle. All I know now is that their lifestyle isn't good enough and, from all the complaints you hear, they deserve better than they have it now.

(1) www.statista.com/statistics/416102/average-annual-gross-pay-percentiles-united-kingdom/#:~:text=Data%20on%20the%20average%20annual,around%2062%2C583%20pounds%20a%20year.

If wages do not support an average or basic standard of living according to market costs without government assistance, they are by definition too low.

Neither do I claim any benefits and I work with benefit claimants. I'm worried the current system (in particular the amount of benefits people need to afford private rent) is unsustainable. I think in the not so distant future, unless tax revenue can be substantially increased then they are going to be looking at making it a lot harder to claim or means testing things like disability benefits. It is a worry.

Could @PeloFondo enlighten us as to this 'bulletproof contraception'? because I was under the impression the only contraception that's 100% is abstinence.

But any statement like that is automatically jumped on as being 'benefit bashing', a twee phrase designed to close down rational discussion. Anyone who thinks there is no abuse of the benefit system is living in cloud cuckoo land, if we are wanting to improve the lives of genuinely in need people then one thing would be to weed out the con artists.

@Babyroobs I genuinely believe that means testing disability benefits will be the next step they take and also abolishing the clause that claiming disability benefits makes you exempt from the benefits cap.

Jesus, some folk on here seem be only a few posts away from 'sterilise them'.

Duh! The workhouse will have separate sex dormitories. That will cut down the effects of the peasant's well-documented feral lust. If that doesn't work, sterilisation is the only answer.

Appropriate work found and ring fenced from those with disabilities to enable them to engage in society and earn a living. The wages for this should be linked to a person ability to work, with even says 2-3hour a week providing a minimum income equivalent to current benefits. This would likely to be more costly than the current system but I believe it is worth while.

Not all disabled people can work even to a limited extent, and often the problem isn't the hours involved, but the physical and mental demands of most jobs. But yes, in the past there were sheltered workshops that provided these sorts of opportunities for many disabled people who could not have been employed in the open market. Most of these were cut under 'austerity'. It would be a good thing to have more such programmes again.

No ability to claim out of work benefits it should be funded through an insurance scheme to which you pay into from day one of working

What about those who were not employed from the beginning?

Make work scheme mandatory for those without paid employment (litter picking, street cleaning, factory work etc) to provide an income limited to the current level of benefits.

Apart from all other considerations, what do you think this will do to the wages of existing street cleaners, factory workers, etc.? If a job needs to be done, employ people to do it and pay them an appropriate wage. Don't treat it as a sort of 'community service' punishment for people who commit the 'crime' of being unemployed.

And many benefit claimants are not unemployed, but are already doing such jobs, and having low pay topped up.

People need to live within their means so if you can afford no children don't have them, can only afford one (us) have one etc

OK, but this is already happening to a large extent: families are far smaller now than in the past. And when people cannot afford to care properly for the number of children that they have, often they could afford them until an unexpected crisis occurred. In the last 15 years, there have been at least three unexpected crises of a sort that had not occurred for many years beforehand so could not have been readily predicted: the 2008 banking crisis, Covid, and the current cost-of-living crisis.

Right so everyone should be able to have a child, even if they can't afford one?
That's what's bemusing me
If I decide to have a baby, who pays for the child? Not me, because I have no spare money

My contraception was the pill and a condom which both failed so I HAD to terminate. It was either that or continue with the pregnancy and give the baby up for adoption. I can't get my tubes tied on the NHS and can't afford private so i now have a coil and use condoms

Not about benefits or giving children back you already have

I guess my point is do people really think "we have a fiver left at the end of the month, we can't increase our earnings but we will have a child anyway?" Because surely people take this into consideration when they choose to only have 1, or 2 children. So it's a consideration when you choose to have a child in the first place?

Eighteen hours on the treadmill and they'll be too tired for anything.

What I don’t get is there are plenty of European countries with much more generous welfare and social housing provisions than the UK and they have nothing like the social stigma that the UK has about welfare payments.

i have a relative living in France and she can easily afford to be a SAHM due to the generous family allowances. Similar in Austria I think. Also I read about every young person being allocated social housing in I think Holland or Denmark. Germany has much higher pay rates than the UK as well.

Its disgusting classism propaganda for the hard of thinking.

Ok then no children we can't afford, who does the low skill/pay jobs of the future? Who provides care as we get older? What about those who are carers but also provide second care for older people when they are in ft work?

It’s interesting isn’t it? I mean, being deemed worthy of employment is apparently a source of pride, higher self esteem and admiration from the wider community - even if your job is shit, exploitative, undermines your family life and mental health, has no security or long term prospects, it’s still better than the stigma of “being on benefits”.

Yet a huge number doing just this still have to have government support. Because the capitalist system is broken in its current form.

Whether you earn your money from blood sweat and tears, or receive it due to often inbuilt systemic disadvantage from the state, it goes back into the economy.

Those with the least pay the most and cannot build up their assets, those with assets just see them grow.

Capitalism as we know it is the worlds shittest pyramid scheme and it’s dependent on the least well off continually pouring every penny back into the system.

The children of the rich will step up to the plate and provide intimate care for the elderly, work on checkouts and clean toilets. Obviously. Of course, the low wages will prevent them from avoiding forced sterilisation so some sort of robotic workforce will have to be designed for the dwindling population, solely consisting of the deserving rich.

they have nothing like the social stigma that the UK has about welfare payments

Protestant work ethic. The one that demands you go into work when you feel like you're dying. Also (as demonstrated by a few posters on here) an engrained churlishness that some people are getting what they aren't; 'someone's winning something they don't deserve to have and I'm paying for it.'

I'm not saying I know the answer to everything

But if I posted a new thread and said
"I'm pregnant despite contraception, I can't increase my wages. I'm single, and have no money left at the end of the month, I really want a child but there is no money for one"
What are people likely to say?
I don't have a well paid job

What's the sensible answer to that? It's not have a child anyway, you'll find the money because well, there isn't any money to find
It's not always fair or right, and i am an only child as my parents couldn't afford childcare for 2 children

Unwarranted pedantry here, but that's not what the Protestant work ethic is.

Let them pick oakum! Let's see how lusty they're feeling after that!

Yes, everyone should be able to have a child @PeloFondo and you're moving into some pretty shitty, dark territory now mate.

we should be bashing the employers, who benefit from the system . The government are basically subsidising businesses, by topping up the wages of poorly paid workforce