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 need a blue badge. I can't get that without claiming pip.

If anyone wants my disabilities for £100 a month they're welcome to them.

So what does that have to do with people who do receive benefits?!

Yes, PIP is really the only guaranteed way to acquire a Blue Badge in most local authority areas, for example.

You can send in consultants' letters etc - but scoring 8+ points on 'Mobility - Moving Around' guarantees it relatively quickly.

You've said it very well.

There does seem to be some really selfish, mean spirited people on here who just want to stamp on posters and be unkind.

I know!

PP must think only the wealthy should breed. Perhaps they think poverty can be inherited

Nonworking families on benefits don’t have a higher disposable income. They just are not encouraged to save any of their disposable income because they’re penalised if they do. So while you may have £300 left over a month after bills and save £200 of it, they’ll have £150 left over a month if they are lucky and are likely spend it. You’re seeing that you’re spending £100 a month on extras and they’re spending £150 a month on extras.

They’re also more likely to be struggling with substandard housing and so this £150 a month they spend is often to attempt to improve living conditions that their LL refuses to correct or they fear telling the LL about because they don’t want to be revenge evicted for “complaining.” So it’ll be DIY things.

We all saw the poor 2yo who died from mould in his home. 1 in 10 social housing and 1 in 5 private rented housing currently do not meet the basic minimum living standards to be habitable. I know others struggling with mould and they literally are using all their disposable money replacing clothes, bedding and such due to it being destroyed by the mould. To an outsider looking in it looks like gosh benefits Suzy is always buying new clothes and she gets new bedding four times a year! Wow, how come she’s got more to spend on that than I do?

Nonworking families on benefits also on average have higher energy bills because of the above rate of substandard housing plus housing that is ok but not at all energy efficient. Poor insulation. Windows and doors rotting out of their frames. Ancient gas boilers and dodgy electrics. Among these nonworking families are millions who are caring for disabled family members who have equipment that is expensive to run but necessary to survive. I read an article about a poor mum with a daughter who requires essentially life support at home and her electric bill is £17k/Yr. Yet the government help to the disabled for COL energy crisis is the lowest of all the help they are doing, a mere £150 a year….for this mum that means 3 days of her daughter not dying.

@Livpool Yup, it's a bit eugenicsy isn't it.

You can’t means test PIP otherwise you’d get people just over and beyond really struggling with disability and not accessing needs which would cost the state a whole lot more through NHS costs and people not working. Disabilities are sooooo expensive.

My husband and I both work. Our DD’s disabilities cost us £££ and every penny of her PIP. I often lose wages then there is petrol, car costs, food, heating, counselling … All hugely impacted by her disabilities. It’s eye watering.

Very!

That poster sounds unhinged though

As long as the government can keep saying "Look at all these benefit scroungers not working, spending YOUR money on fags and booze, while you, the poor squeezed middle, can't get any help" and the middle earners keep believing it the attitude towards helping the poorest in the UK will never change.

I'm a bit surprised there aren't more like that. There seems to be plenty when it's skating someone claiming.

Sorry I was only talking about the extremely wealth - the lady earning over £150,000, the billionaire.

my point was very badly made and I certainly accept that disabilities impose a lot of additional costs on families.

just debating - not judging or decreeing.

Sorry but this actually comes across as crass ableism. Who are you to decide or even question her disability needs? The idea that disabled people need to prove and justify their disability requirements (in this case to a random MN'er) is gross.

I think the middle are struggling though and unfortunately are being pitched by the wealthy not struggling against the lowest earners.

When the middle and the lowest earners start pulling together I think we’d all give the Tories a real run for their money.

Back to the notion of deserving and undeserving poor that the set up of the welfare state was supposed to eliminate.

@Grumpybutfunny
Youre not in favour of any welfare at all based on your list of disgusting “ideas”. I can only conclude you’re one of the smug superior types that has led a charmed life.

I would love it if the state pension was limit to rises that reflect the rise in wages only with a mandate that we all pay into a private scheme from day one.
This would be a race to the bottom. The government is doing the ethical thing and showing societal leadership by raising state pension in line with the triple lock. They need to shame businesses into raising wages in a similar fashion. Also pensioners have no options to increase income unlike able bodied working age people.

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.
What should be done is increase disability benefits because the disabled have the highest rates of poverty and deaths due to inability to heat home or feed themselves. Not require they work for the pittance they need to survive.

An end to the current housing system for benefit claimants make it so housing benefit only pays for HMO style accommodation. Everyone deserve a roof over their heads but they should be funding it. I agree with a pp, this is bringing back the workhouses. Before long, they’ll be splitting off the men from the women and children, and then splitting the children off from the women. So that all the men and women can work all day doing your litter picking and such…

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. 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. This is batshit. It’s like you don’t know that JSA is based on your National Insurance payments records. NI is a type of insurance. It’s just nationalised so some corporation isn’t making a profit off it.

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. Yes well, most often people have the children when they can well afford them and it’s after the children are here that disaster strikes and they then need help.

I have no issues with the benefits system other than the 1% who abuse it but most people who get benefits need this to be in place otherwise I would dread think the situation.

I have always noticed people don’t have an issue with benefits if it’s spend on rent / bills / basic foods. It’s when anyone has anything classed more a luxury like a night away, getting nails done etc then a lot of people start to have issues with this. And everyone has a different definition of what a luxury is. I remember someone being annoyed that someone on benefits got a Camembert in their food shop 😬😂

It's not just the money. If you need a blue badge, you're then going to have to waste GP time for a letter and possibly be assessed before you can get one

the moral question is different - should tax payers cover this cost or you personally

Which is precisely why benefits aren't decided on moral grounds but grounds of need.

suppose ir goes to heart of why we have benefits - are they are safety net to stop people falling into poverty - if that is the case there is an argument that the very wealthy should not receive them

Then you're going to have to define, and keep defining, what you mean by 'wealthy.' Something I've asked before when we get the rants about 'wealthy pensioners' not 'needing' money how is wealth and need defined? I don't recall receiving a reply. And of course if you decide that people don't 'need' benefits then you're moving to a subjective not an objective criteria based system.

The Tories stir up hatred of benefit recipients. There are far less benefit frauds than tax avoidance frauds and the sums are usually trivial in comparison to the sums lost to the taxpayer's through off shore schemes, tax shelters, nondom status, etc. Of course there's always the occasional individual bad benefit apple but there is a whole tax avoidance industry at work. The Tories don't want us to look too hard at that.

@Stripedbag101 it's not about purely whether or not I can afford the costs associated with my disabilities.

First, I can't get a blue badge without claiming pip. I need a blue badge or I would never leave my house.

Second, I am able to use the pip claim to assist in reasonable adjustments to enable me to work to earn my salary.

Third, if I want to book tickets to go places, I can't access accessible tickets without proving my disabilities via some means and the only one I've found that works across the board is my pip claim.

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. 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

So what happens to those of us who are y'know employed to do those jobs (factory work in my case), if the unemployed are expected to do it in order to obtain their benefits? Go on have a little think and then you, too, will see the absurdity of your "plan"

I use my pip claim for example to get an adjustment from work that enables me to go to appointments without using leave.

It also got me a special chair and gets accommodations made when I travel to the office.

@Georgeskitchen
Back in the days before wage top ups

Oh, back in the days when real earnings were enough to live modestly on. Not the depressed wages that are at the lowest point in real terms they have been in 20yrs!

I would love it if the state pension was limit to rises that reflect the rise in wages only with a mandate that we all pay into a private scheme from day one

I bet you would. And FYI, we are 'all paying into a scheme' it's called NI. What's the safety net if this 'private scheme' goes tits up or people can't afford it?