To think the 'work shy' rhetoric is insulting?

[DeliaDerbyshiresSlippers]

Who are all these great swathes of work shy people? The Express today, never grow tired of rehashing the same old pre-election trump card - convincing people that our most vulnerable are bleeding the country dry (shhh, don't mention the state pension).

Who even believes this stuff anymore? How did slashing benefits during austerity help anything, how did it fix the fucking country? It only created more decaying towns and a system that can no longer support those in need (kids mental health, dentistry).

Who is the demographic this illiterate garbage is aimed at? My guess is moneyed working class 'boot-strappers' (it's hardly a intellectual broadsheet).
I only know of two people who access the benefits system, both disabled and both actually work as much as they can.

Do people really think, considering the utter shit show we are in, that making poorer people even poorer is a good idea? Will it make some peevish armchair grump feel better about having to pay tax? And is this typical armchair grump completely unaware of tax avoidance? Or is that ok, because 'trickle down, blah blah, creating jobs, blah blah)?

The rhetoric itself is punitive and degrading. This idea that everyone in receipt of benefits (inc. in work benefits) is a shirking, scumbag. The language is reminiscent of how prisoners or deviants were discussed in medieval society.

I thought I was non partisan, or at best apolitical, the outlook for the poorest in the UK looks dismal no matter who is in power

I sometimes wonder if it is to make people feel better about working themselves to death. This idea that work shy people are having so much fun at our expense, watching TV's the size of a billboard and kicking little puppies.

Work can be shit, but it gives a certain freedom. People on benefits have so little choice. I would also like to know where all of these jobs are that aren't simply replacing fruit pickers and underpaid bar work. It's hardly like the UK is bursting with manufacturing jobs. The generationally unemployed probably don't even have a full set of GCSE's. With little support for adult training we are talking the worst possible jobs and pay.

Undoubtedly some elements of press and politicians whip this up to be much more than it is, but you're just as bad if you want to deny it happens at all. You must move in very small or very privileged circles if you only know two people accessing benefits.

I work in education in East London and know of very many families where parents have never worked due to not speaking English, despite having been in UK for decades, for example. Yes, of course there are barriers, but there are also lots of opportunities to learn and take up other training, which of course many others in the community have done.

And don't knock the minimum wage jobs as a starting point either. With application, many of them bring good opportunites to progress.

I remember when this was all whipped up last time.

Politicians talking about three generations of unemployed and then everyone went out looking for these people who had three generations of unemployment and no-one could find them.

www.jrf.org.uk/are-cultures-of-worklessness-passed-down-the-generations#:~:text=Key%20points-,The%20idea%20of%20'three%20generations%20of%20the%20same%20family%20who,to%20locate%20any%20such%20families.

It is the rhetoric that I find dehumanising.

I don't have much experience, no, but it still leaves me cold. I am aware that many generations of families that lost industry jobs in the 80's failed to adapt and move on, producing further generations who have only ever known life on benefits. This is a complex and terrible issue that no one ever seems to address - the media only focus on them as degenerates.

I know of immigrants from Europe who work hard from the ground up in the UK and build a good life. In comparison, we have entire areas of frequently semi-illiterate people who never recovered from the loss of industry jobs in the 80's (I used to work in local gov many moons ago).

Surely they had options to move to find new work back then, or at least since. How have they fallen off the ladder? Many of them are largely unemployable, if you discount manual (factory/warehouse type) labour.

I do believe making poorer people much poorer won't help this problem, may further compound it. The resulting crime and anti social issues connected to poverty impacts all those who live and work around it.
I don't know what the answer is, but the only dialogue whipped up by the rags is toxic and unhelpful.

And here ends the party political broadcast.

You sound wound up op!

@Octavia64 multi generational poverty and unemployment is alive and well, particularly in the north west. I do not know the how the numbers pan out in total, across the UK though.
Most of what the press drags up is exaggerated and directly positioned to whip up anger and intolerance.

hard jobs such as childcare and elderly care should be paid well not the awful pay they are now for work which is physically and emotionally demanding and vital and valuable for society - I’ve known many carers get so burnt out (or injured due to the nature of the job sometimes ) that they then cannot work enough hours to get by due to the crap pay.

Also those on carers allowance - make it a non taxable benefit and raise it to actually reflect what these people are doing for society and the economy.

Im having a discussion, why on earth should i be wound up? It is a fairly important topic. Add something of value to it, if you can master a paragraph!

All this stuff about vast numbers of people 'not wanting to work' is anecdotal nonsense. Yes, there may be a very small minority of people who don't work and I can only assume keep themselves afloat with petty crime or off-the-books cash-in-hand work, for whom benefits are just extra pockets money (because no one is living the life of riley, or even living really, on benefits) and those people will never be bothered by sanctions.

You see headlines about 'OMG, this many people were so LAZY they'd rather have their benefits cut than take a job when offered' - with no context. Maybe they couldn't get to that job; maybe they have caring responsibilites for someone that mean that job was impossible for them; maybe they have mental health issues or physical disabilities that (whatever the appalling work assessments say) mean they cannot possibly do that job; maybe the job doesn't cover the cost of their childcare and so on.

I do wish Labour would stop propping up this nonsense Tory narrative and say they will concentrate on being fair - not 'tough'. Personally I'd rather 'my tax' went on 10,000 'workshy layabouts' than one person starved to death because of their benefits being cut, which has happened https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/may/12/erroll-graham-missed-chances-man-who-starved-nottingham-report#:~:text=Welfare%20officials%20failed%20to%20properly,an%20official%20report%20has%20found. and more than once IIRC.

Spot on!

I'm not a fan of any political party, it all feels like the two sides of one coin to me.
But I am interested in why this topic comes up as part of political campaigns. Since it won't make a huge difference to the over all economy if a minority claim benefits, what is it being used for?
Are there people so angry about claimants that this is worthy of front page headlines?

Yeah. The Express is not worthy of comparison to used bog roll.
As someone in receipt of pip and ESA, I tend to just ignore all the anti poverty/benefits stuff in the right wing press.
The fact is a small minority of people choose not to work. Is it because they have no education, no discipline, no direction? Is it to do with the fact they'd be worse off financially? Those alleged 'choices' are not really choices at all. Sadly some people are incapable of work, and not through disability or illness. There's way more unclaimed benefits than there are confirmed frauds.
I remember back in 2010 being repeatedly told by Ian Duncan Smith or some such cunt that all disabled people are liars and scroungers. That didn't work out so hot for him.

No, he only received a knighthood for it or something
A man who did well 'marrying up'.

I don't think it's just the right wing though, not now.

The UK does have an issue with productivity, we lag behind both the US and Germany so it's understandable that we need to get those that can work back into employment.
I do take issue with the OP saying there are people who are 'largely unemployable other than factory/warehouse work'. What is wrong with factory work and warehouse work ? We need a darn sight more factory workers and warehouse workers to make this country more competitive. We need people to make and move goods but no one values these trades.

We should all be wound up.

The government ate looking to cut £2bn from services this year and guess who'll get the blame? They are failing to tackle immigration, but guess who'll get the blame for needing them? They are looking to get new immigrants and possibly asylum seekers, with no checkable background to fill care jobs, but guess who'll get the blame when it goes to shit?

I couldn't agree more about carers.

They must literally save our society billions. Its an absolute scandal the benefit is so low and then to add insult to injury make it taxable.

Disgraceful.

Obviously the vast majority of people on disability benefit are deserving of it and need it but believe me when i say there are LOADS of workshy lazy people abusing the system! I come from a council estate and people openly discuss how to play the system and also openly admit they don't want to work! Why would they when they can get the same in benefits that they would get in a minimum wage job working 40 hours a week? Those people who can't admit that there are PLENTY of people abusing the system are part of the problem as are the government who instead of forcing employers to pay decent wages go for the easy target of benefit claimants!

Universal credit isn't fit for purpose. A barrier for teens and young adults goingvinto these jobs is the housing benefit rules. They become responsible for paying the rent on the parent/s house when the parent has a HB/UC top up.
Another issue is the length of shifts. There's been a few of my peer group 55+ who have taken the jobs. They could do a eight hour shift, but 10/12 is too much. There's lots of jobs in retail, they are for less than 20 hours, but full flexibility is wanted. As a si gke person, you can't live on that money, but don't qualify for top up benefits.

Well said. Unfortunately there are a huge number of daily mail reading dick
heads who think exactly like this.

Sorry, I meant that we have far less manufacturing than previously. So the work that people in (the now) depressed areas used to have. If the population has increased since the 80's, then we would expect more available jobs. Some towns (such as Bolton) have populations that have low aspirations and difficulty accessing stable jobs. There are many towns in the north where this has occurred, Blackpool for instance.

Factory work can be well paid, I appreciate that.

Obviously the vast majority of people on disability benefit are deserving of it and need it but believe me when i say there are LOADS of workshy lazy people abusing the system! I come from a council estate and people openly discuss how to play the system and also openly admit they don't want to work!

I know, but sadly these policies do promote hatred, the dialogue used by the press is basically demonising ALL claimants. The people who will be hurt most by this are the ill and disabled.

Getting some reticent people back in to work will not fix the country, but it seems like a jolly good scapegoat to paper over other cracks - stagnating wages and extortionate property prices for both owners and renters.

And it is very outdated.

They still presume that if a man and a woman share a house then they are sleeping together, therefore need less to live on.
If I were a renter on benefits and moved in with a male friend to save on utilities and rent, they would penalise us and our claims might be stopped.

Even if some people do abuse the system, it is dehumanising, not to mention sexist, anti-gay, and very limiting for most.
Thos who actually screw the system don't care. They do it anyway.

@DeliaDerbyshiresSlippers yes, yes and yes.
Disabled/sick/ poor people are always the tories “whipping boys” and used to make a nasty section of society feel better about themselves because they can look down on someone.
Sadly the majority of the voting public are frequently easily manipulated.

I do think that the more pressing problem is the elite raiding the country's wealth. However there are sadly many British people who could work but do not. They seem to benefit the most from the current benefits system. The most vulnerable never seem to get what they're entitled to. Sadly because the Tories have taken so much / wasted taxpayer funds, soon the tax that workers' provide will not be enough to support the vulnerable or those who could work but don't.