to not want people to judge those who recieve benefits????

[TidyTink]

Im a single mother of one,

i was working up until my DD (3) was born, rather than take a part time job that i knew i would always be stuck in i decided to get to college and study asubject that will lead me to a very hard working and well paid job so that i can fully support my DD in the future.

I hate recieving benefits and cannot wait untill i have finished my degree

Once i start at work i will be paying enough taxes in the future to more than cover the benefits ive recieved over the few yrs.

So why does everyone assume your a complete waste of space?? not all of us take advantage of the system!!!!

You have my sympathy, lewis, really you do. We have had similar cock ups, and I have reached the point where everything is taken in in person, and I get a reciept for it, but I have the relative luxury of being within walking distance of my local council offices. The outsourcing of processing has reduced the quality of service as well. My council now sends all benefit claims to coventry (why???)to be processed, and so instead of it all being sorted within a week/10 days, it takes the best part of a fortnight to begin looking at it, over a month later, I still haven't heard, although I know something has gone through to my HA.

It strikes me that they seem to enjoy playing God with our lives, in our house the system, jobcentre in particular has been re-christened the ss in our house.

And why did they have to switch to 0845 numbers??? Good old geographic numbers would be included in my tarriff, whereas I have to pay for these. Thank goodness for this site, it doesn't always help, but can be great.

I love that site - it truly is a help.

I agree - God is an understatement for the powertrip the workers I deal with are on!!

My housing officer deemed it Ok to hang up on me because I had been "rude and aggressive" ... now, let me elaborate.

I asked for someone to come to look at the damp that is rampaging through the front of my house. She said "When are you available" so I replied "any time" ... she said "I can't accept that - I need a time and date" so I say, "ok, Tuesday at 10" ... "No" says she; "I can't accept that -we don't have a booking by time system"

By this point I'd been on the phone for 30 mins on another issue that she was being just as arsey about so I said, in calm tones "so, if you don't accept "any time" or a designated time - WHEN do you propose you book me in?" - then the line went dead!

Yeah, having to beg for people to fix my house and give me the money I need is absolutely great - I love it (!) I love it even more because people assume that I'm living the high life and "having everything paid for you" ... yeah, it's paid but they rekon I owe them nearly 10 thousand pounds (which I don't - they have screwed up again)

The lower down the system they are the more jobsworth they get and the more they like to try and treat you like dirt I find.

I am fortunate that so far I have had no probs with my HA on the repairs front. When I knew we were going to have to apply for JSA, HB etc in Jan, I phoned and told the rent dept what was going on. Blow me down if 2 weeks later I have a nice chap standing on my step enquiring about our rent arrears. He was very nice about it all, and said he'd had a feeling it was waiting for hb, but left me feeling very small.

I had also rung the council tax dept, so no surprises when I recieved a letter offering to take us to court for non-payment.

Oh yes, and our HB & CTB isn't being backdated to when dh was first laid off 2 weeks previously because "we didn't contact the benefits dept as soon as he was unemployed" WTF!!! he spent that first week running round like a blue arsed fly trying to find an alternative job to avoid having to claim, so appeal going in tomorrow stating we believe we are being treated unfairly because...

JSA was only sorted a month after we claimed. In the meantime I had had the child benefit (2dcs) and the child tax credit. Which had been £56/week, but after I phoned to check the piece of paper I was about to take in for HB was the most recent and had the correct amount on it they found a ficticious overpayment and instantly started clawing back, so I had £40/week.. The sods.

The DH is finding the whole signing on process really humiliating too. After 2 hours at the initial interrogation (2nd attempt, cos the first appt, made by cardiff wasn't passed on to our local big jc, so they weren't expecting him) The woman said to him what are you doing in the way of looking for work. By that point, very pissed off with being treated like a bum, he bluntly told them that he'd turned down an interview so he could be at the interrogation, and how could he be looking for work if they were going to waste his time like this?

Do they think we want to be in this position?

4got to say - child tax credits are still chasing us for an "overpayment" which apparantly occured when they deleted the kids...

I would love to know where they were during the 6/12 period when they were retrospectively deleted...

we had two of our kids 'deleted' by the CTC agency too. So they reclaimed the money at the speed of light. Trying to get it back is now at 18 months and counting....
The majority of benefits claiments do so because they have no choice. Its a small minority that the Daily Mail seems to find who have 3 houses and foreign holidays. Some of comments regarding Jeremy Kyle are plain snobbish. More about how some looks down on those not like themsleves.
My 73 yo old mother has just been given a council bungalow and is on benefits. She spent the last 6 months sleeping on her sisters couch. Thank goodness for the welfare system. She was so excited looking round it yesterday.
But I will pass on to her that she is a scrounger who should go and get a job, disabled with arthristis or not.

oh, and still waiting for MsSparkly to recommend a job for dd. After all, all disabled poeple can work she says...

readytopop, we had similar from the HA- our house was one of those 50/50 ones so as wella s mortgage providers to keep happy, we also had the HA. We could get HB on that, unlike the mortgage which just ate up my maternity pay (we ahd insurance but DH's ex boss refused to sign the forms and that was that), but they kept turning up and demanding to deal with DH- who was refusing tot alk to anyone at that point becuase of his mental illness- and they wouldn't deal with me for anything. Once DH was well enough to talk to them, they were fine but that took a good while.

If DH ever gets that ill agian I will have him sectioned, and he knows that, for his own safety. But at the time I was too scared of what was happening, had 2 small children and was within days of my due date for ds3.

What the hell are you talking about quattro???!!!!!

Would you rather i sat on my arse all day than study???? or is it that im supposed to go out and get a shitty full time job where i have no chance of a morgage??????

Yeah i could do that, and then my daughter will also learn that shitty jobs n a poor quality of life is the only way!!!!

Get over yourself will you!

Oh and about most students getting into debt while at uni, i am in flaming debt too!!! like i just said I DO NOT GET IT PAID FOR!!!!!

I know im rambling on here but anyhow.....

Its seems Quattro that you are the type of person that hates the idea of the 'lower class'progressing!

Sometimes in order to better your life you have to take certain measures, i never thought my life would pan out this way, never, but it has and i have had to make choices. Its either a life of sruggling or a life where i can more than provide for my DD.

Like i have said before, maybe we should also take a look at the absent fathers who are living the life of riley!!

I am not living on housing benefits, nor am i recieving the kind of help that quite a few people on my course are! I have worked since leaving school (im 24) and ill be working for the rest of my life so what is the big deal???

Havent read the whole thread as its too long.

Our benefits system needs a rehaul and maybe then there would not be so much animosity over them.

We are lucky that we have a welfare system and I acknowledge that. However it should be there as a safety net only. Too many people see it as a lifestyle choice and thats where it goes wrong.

Unless there is a reason you are physically unable to work, then you should have to. Obviously those who have disabled children should fall into this category too as childcare would probably be out of the question.

Having a child automatically qualifies you to a whole range of benefits if single with a passport to not working. I know this will change when the new rules come in re working when your child reaches 7 but thats still a possible 7 years of not working. Those with partners may have no choice but to work as they get little help.

I would also love to see it bought it that benefits can only be claimed once x amount of work years has been done and paid into the pot. Maybe it would go someway to encourage school leavers to work or study and it would certainly help with our teenage pregnancy rate!

JSA is fine, it supports you after having lost a job for the interim period in finding another - doing exactly what the welfare state should do - ie a safety net in bad times.

Sadly our cultures mantra seems to be "its not worth me working" - what a positive thought to supply our children with.

I concur. It should only be a safety net. I think there should be more stringent measures for absent fathers who keep having kids they don't support cut they're benefit and giving it to the mothers. I would also stop benefits for people who are on benefits and misbehave 3 asbos and your out as it were. It's meant to be a safety net to support an underclass. Needs to be a clear path to get off benefits. People should do community work too rather than not do anything at all.

Just to add any savings should be ploughed into training and support with getting back to work. The Job centres fail dismally atm

Also some of us live in areas where there is alway work. I could knock on the door of any of the local neighbours who are desperate to find window cleaners for example, Babysitters aren't that easy to find either so there's always work going for that even for sixth formers. You see signs in shops about workers needed. Local care homes always need people. That is a very different environment than if you live in a place where no one around you has any money to spare to pay for anything extra. Someone knocked on the door last week looking for ironing to take away and do. It seems a very different sort of culture around here. The fact you lose benefits if you do any work or whatever the current rules are is such a bad disincentive to people taking on occasional night's work.

Indeed.

Yes I could get a job tomorrow if I lost my job, it wouldn't necessarily be in my field, but I could easily pick up work. I live in the North. You might just need a few weeks to get something set up to tied you over. That's all it ought to be really. They should maybe give you 3 months in an area where there are plenty of jobs and you have to put a case forward to extend it.

It's very interesting to hear about the difficulties of applying for benefits etc Whenever I come across any kind of low grade low IQ state sector worker (thankfully terribly rarely) who seem to have none of the efficiency of the private sector I breathe a sigh of relief that I virtually never have to deal with such people. I've even been pleased sometimes I've never earned little enough to get any form of child tax credit. Getting off the benefits and on to full time reasonably well paid work must be such a relief for some people.

Do you have to change your clothes after meeting them or do you find washing your hands with bleach is usually enough to cleanse yourself?

Needmorecoffee, you are being silly and you know full well i wasn't talking about people like your dd who are clearly too disabled to work. What were you hoping i was going to say? That your dd should be out earning a wage so that you could then spring back with an arguement? I am not taking the bait i'm afraid.

I think when i said 99% of people, that was exaggorated. But i do think there is a fairly high number of people who are claiming ssp, yes for genuine illnesses and complaints, but not so serious that it exempts them from work altogether. For instance if you have a bad back, in most cases that doesn't mean you cannot do something in form of work. But many use this as an excuse not to do any work at all.

I think what the govenment are trying to enforce now is that instead of doctors writing notes to say what the patient can't do, they want the doctors to say what the patient can do instead. It seems like a good idea to me.

you made the statement that everyone, no matter what their disability could do something.

quattro-do you actually live in the uk?how many immigrants do you think are acually genuine refugees rather than people who have come over here just to take the piss out of our benefits system?

yet they are more deserving of benefits then somebody who has lived and worked in the uk for years but has fallen upon hard times?

Best ever Xenia 'It's very interesting to hear about the difficulties of applying for benefits etc Whenever I come across any kind of low grade low IQ state sector worker (thankfully terribly rarely) who seem to have none of the efficiency of the private sector I breathe a sigh of relief that I virtually never have to deal with such people. I've even been pleased sometimes I've never earned little enough to get any form of child tax credit. Getting off the benefits and on to full time reasonably well paid work must be such a relief for some people.'

Please tell me this is a wind up. And not the most snobby thing I've ever heard anyone say.
You do know that those 'low grade peasants' picked your food for you? Can you actually bear to eat it?