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'm genuinely not trying to upset anyone, it's a question I'm asking because well, that's the situation I'm in and I've been in before and had to terminate

After I pay my bills, now with the cost of living increases there isn't any money left over
So I guess my question is HOW would I afford a child? If I can't increase my wages
I'm not saying only the rich should have them but how do people like me afford one then? I can't tighten my belt because there's nothing left to tighten, and as a single person I'm not entitled to any benefits. With a mortgage I don't think I would get enough anyway to fund a child

And when people ask me do I not want children (because I'm at an age when people ask) I tend to laugh and be "no I like my cat/lie ins/partying too much thanks!" because it hurts and it's more embarrassing to say actually I don't have the money

I’m swapping between this thread and the one about claimants nervous of taking on extra hours which will destabilise their benefit claims - strangely both threads have moved to the question of having children if you can’t afford them …..

The world is really in a pretty pickle right now, but I am marginally disturbed by the “eugenics by stealth” sneaking in….

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

Puritan work ethic, then. I wasn't thinking specifically of Weber there, more along the lines that Protestant theology from Luther onwards described worldly work as a benefit to both the individual and society as a whole.

And people on benefits don't struggle? And none of them work full time either?

Open your blinkers

If I were to reply to that thread it'd be a don't worry lass you'll manage because I think we have changed priorities (due to necessity not frivolity) I'm older though and my DC are adult so I see your point.

Havent read the whole thread, but what I’ve also noticed is how much an increase in benefits (say, in line with inflation…) seems to anger people. As if we should keep benefits low/erode their value just because wages aren’t keeping up with inflation, instead of try to fix the latter. There’s such a scarcity/‘race to the bottom’ mentality in this country, for some reason.

I'd bet a large number of objectors to benefits are also people who received furlough support through lockdown

I wouldn't be too sure of that. There were many posters saying that everybody in receipt of furlough should be made to "work" for it (fruit and veg picking etc), or to pay it back once furlough had ended as we were all being "paid to sit on [our] arses and baking banana bread and enjoying [our] holiday paid for by the taxpayer". It didn't matter that we were also paying tax on our 80% salary or that there was nothing else to do for weeks on end apart from queueing up at supermarkets.

''@MxGrinch · Today 15:29
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.''

This.

I lived in France where benefit rates and social housing standards/provision are actually much higher than in the UK and there was no rabid, widespread ''benefit scroungers'' propaganda there.

it is very an English thing.

It is very much part of the class system and Empire obsessions.

But I think it is also about right wing media barons blaming immigrants/ benefit claimants/the EU for everything to distract the public from the general lack of competency of too many Tory governments.

I was just teasing, no insult intended. It's my academic field so I tend to pounce on it. Sorry.

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?

The majority of MNers would say 'Don't abort a wanted child' - I would put a tenner on it.

Yes, the site is very anti-union. And despite the professed disdain for certain factions of the right wing on this site, a sizeable proportion of comments and threads it contains certainly reflect those kinds of views.

I've not seen many benefit recipient threads. But people's anger is being focused entirely in the wrong direction. The divide between the obscenely rich and the rest of us is widening by the year. Public sector workers haven't seen a reasonable pay rise in years, and are now having to resort to strike action to secure fair recompense; they've seen their salaries shrink, as they haven't risen anywhere near in proportion to the rising costs of living.

Meanwhile, there's an elite in this country trousering the vast proportion of its wealth. The rest of the country are then left scrapping like crabs in a bucket for the meagre spoils that are left. Attention is diverted from the corrupt actions of the establishment by focusing it on those at the lower end of the wealth spectrum. In the meantime, an overwhelmingly right-wing media are fed incendiary narratives about benefit recipients, immigrants, or any other convenient scapegoat, so that the populace will turn their ire on them rather than where it truly belongs. There's a reason why successive governments keep banging on about tackling immigration, then failing to do so. It suits them to keep the status quo precisely as it is, as it conveniently turns the spotlight of attention away from those who are creaming the profits whilst driving this country through the floor.

Anyone in doubt of this should ask themselves why tax avoidance is perfectly legal whilst benefit fraud is a crime.

@MarieIVanArkleStinks

Excellent post with which I heartily agree.

@PeloFondo I get that, and I have a friend in the same position as you who takes a 'financially sensible' (for want of a better phrase) approach to not having kids, but I know, like you, it causes her a great deal of pain when people question her about it (and fwiw she would be a wonderful mother, as I'm sure you would be). I didn't mean to come across as belittling you and apologise for that. But there seems to be a wider attitude that 'the poor shouldn't reproduce' and if enough people repeat this mantra and believe it, then who knows when these opinions will creep into policy debates

Benefits and workers pay are not unrelated though. I think a big part of the problem is the fact that the government is asking workers to pay more tax.

This essentially means that workers, who have not received inflation linked pay rises themselves, are expected to fund inflation linked rises for benefits claimants and pensioners. So you are taking away from one group who is working hard and struggling, in order to give more to another group (who have not earned it)

And before someone states that some benefits claimants are in work, the reality is that the majority do not, and even of those who do, many will only be working a few hours a week in order to claim as much as they can

There are so many threads where people say that they don't work more hours because they would lose benefits and not end up any better off, but apparently it's fine for taxpayers to bust a gut to pay for them to sit at home! People used to have more more dignity than this.

I know that there are people in genuine need, who use the system as it was intended, but I don't agree with the Mumsnet narrative that everyone on benefits is some kind of victim.

Please can we put the idea that people claiming in work benefits and unwilling to take on extra hours are doing it because they are happy for others to “bust a gut” so they can sit at home into its correct context?

There is another active thread on this subject where it is clearly explained that both the tapering of UC and the delay in processing changes on the current system can lead to delays in payment and put people trying to budget and keep their family life stable into debt and it is often counter productive for even the smallest gain.

Who can take a five week gap while they adjust payment? I don't believe all these won't work extra hours stories.
if I'm honest I don't think we value parenting as we should as well as carers. They still provide value to society.

@Threadkillacilla

Absolutely.

I would like to see benefits increased for the disabled and those who genuinely cannot work and greater pressure out on those who are able to work to get back into the workplace. In my area of London there are a lot of people who choose to live on benefits. I know people who've never worked or even tried to. It may be an unpalatable truth, but it is a fact. Yet there are job vacancies everywhere.

We need to give greater help to those genuinely in need.

Yep. Unless for the disabled, benefits should never total more than the minimum wage. Otherwise why on Earth would a lot of people bother to work?

You're looking at this the wrong way round. The minimum wage should be much higher than the bare necessary to make ends meet - put simply, no one working full time should be struggling to heat their home and feed their families. We should be increasing wages, not reducing benefits.

Why do we accept the view of X who says "I have this illness and I only got benefits after a long, hard application process"

But we don't believe Y who says "I work with XXXX and saw this person lie or exaggerate"

I believe both. I've seen people have to fight, (one a friend with MS - it was awful). And I've direct experience of the liars. It's easy to say you have depression and anxiety so bad you can barely leave the house, (Yet oddly you've managed two pregnancies with two men neither of whom you live with??)

bloodyplanes has direct relevant experience. You may not agree with her but I don't think she's lying. And all those who say "But X is claiming and does this or that" are shot down, dismissed, belittled. Yet might they not have as much of a point as the person who says "My DD had to do XYZ three times before she got told she didn't have to work"?

Unless we can discuss the process properly - because the process is inefficient, humiliating, wasteful and ineffective - things will only get worse.

But that won’t happen; due to the inflation spiral. Mumsnet seems to expect the moon on a stick.

Not if the wage increase is where it's needed - at the lower end. Wages do not need to rise across the board - there are plenty of people who have more than enough already and won't suffer if their wages stagnate.

I agree @ThisTimeNext

Whether bloodyplanes has relevant experience or not is impossible to verify.

The sweeping generalisations that vast numbers are being handed generous benefits for conditions that NHS professional deny the existence of, and there is no verification done somewhat undermines their opinion.