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

Who is the demographic this illiterate garbage is aimed at? My guess is moneyed working class 'boot-strappers' (it's hardly a intellectual broadsheet).
Sadly I think it's worse than that - the boot strappers can't be a large population.
It's a combination of -
People who have always been comfortable so have no experience of benefits etc
and
The worst sort of gradgrinds who think that children should still be sent up chimneys - these are the kind who pepper any radio phone-in telling you they had it even worse (and had to pay t'mill owner for permission to come to work) as if allowing yourself to be continually shat upon is some kind of virtue.

Perhaps instead of making the unemployed targets for derision, they could focus on making basic work pay, make working worthwhile (if you can't afford an eye test or a dentist, work is NOT paying), make it possible for young families to afford decent housing, ease the financial burden for students, enable women to work and study by providing childcare so they don't have to depend on men.
They could also reform the NHS, make it attractive to work in care or nursing, as it once was.
No, they will choose the cheapest, short term solutions that only ever benefit the already well off.

Since property acquisition (both for homes and investments) seems to over ride everything in UK society, it is no wonder we are worse off as a culture. Huge sums of money wrapped up in property does not find it's way back into communities. We could learn a good deal from neighbouring countries with regards to housing. It is a national obsession that eclipses everything else.

I can't imagine being so averse to paying tax that I could whistle whilst watching my country decay.

There's been an update on the so called 'benefits street' of 10 years ago.
Most of the people in that street were working. They didn't show that as it didn't fit the rhetoric.

It's awful isn't it?

Its just a load of guff. They are having fun being panto villians because this time next year they won't be in politics.

We have been switched from tax credits to UC, because I am a full time carer for DS (asd, adhd, 12 and in special school) so I literally cannot work. I need the few hours he is at school to be able to get anything done- and occasionally to catch up on sleep.
I cannot believe how horrific changing has been- the whole system is set up to make you feel awful for being on benefits (even though I had to give up my career because I had no one else to look after him due to his extreme behaviours!) And, to top it off, they take my measly carers allowance away from what I would get from UC, because its another taxable benefit! It's... awful. And we can't be the only family being impacted like this. The system seems to be set up to make those claiming for legitimate reasons feel like criminals for daring to need support.
People need compassion and support these days, not blame and ghastly rhetoric!

It’s horrific isn’t it . CA shouldn’t be a taxable benefit. UC deducting it is like sending someone to a food bank then charging them on the way out 🤦‍♀️

Didn't know that about CA, that's awful.

I didn't see this earlier.

What I can't understand is how someone who is well off and comfortable, and has never experienced life on benefits could possibly be interested in them. I can't even imagine them noticing benefit related news to be honest, living in an entirely other world with extremely different concerns.

I actually think it is those who have actually witnessed or lived beside benefit claimants. Who are not quite within that world but alongside it, so they are aware of anti social behaviour, etc, and judge the everyone by that same metric. Something about benefits claimants really pisses them off, and I don't think that's happening to large swathes of the the middle or upper middle class.
As you say, the bootstraps people. The 'gradgrinds' (a new term for me!) who probably share roots with the claimants but either got lucky or managed to do well in their professions.
The most judgemental people I have seen are only a step above the benefits category. Usually living alongside them and somewhat uncultured, insular.

Neither did I until we got the amount we were getting- it was quite the shock!!

@DeliaDerbyshiresSlippers

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 grew up in the South Wales valleys, so saw this around me.

They were (and still are, though perhaps to a slightly lesser extent) very insular. Many people had a lot of family living very close by - aunt living two streets away, daughter and her family next door, grandparents 10 minutes up the road. You know pretty much everyone, people still leave their doors unlocked.

Then throw in educational under-achievement, not helped by teachers having low expectations if you lived in certain areas, regardless of your actual ability, and high levels of teenage pregnancy.

Where do you go? You stay where you are, where you have a support network and know everybody. You get a job locally, probably on NMW - or less but it's cash in hand so no deductions. You might well be working for your uncle or your friends father. Maybe your mam helped you get a job in Asda.

I'm on ESA & PIP, I worked for 27 years until I got too sick to work, I probably should have given up earlier & if I had done, I most likely wouldn't be as ill as I am now. I've also brought up ds, who is autistic & disabled as a single parent, it was a struggle a lot of the time, especially when we were first on our own & I had to give up work. I hate this thing of being called work shy, I was in the Civil Service without which this band of clowns couldn't manage, we had to roll out all the cruel practices they introduced.

They deduct the amount you get for carers allowance from your UC? 😲
Isn't this replaced with carers element on UC?

No, if you don't get carers allowance and you are a carer, you can get the carers element, but it doesn't give as good credits for national insurance- which is vital to make sure you're eligible for state pension once that happens if you're spending years looking after someone!

This just isn't true. I would mention a specific area of the country where I used to live where this is COMMON, but I don't want it to be out in...

Yep!! The MNs on this thread are too privileged to frequent such areas

Ok in the late 1990s I went to Merthyr Tydfil, I asked the guy who I was with why there we gangs of young men stood around. " there's no work". "But there's a main line train station" " yes but they won't leave the valley " " but it's 1/2 hour to Cardiff "....I am so glad I was brought up to graft....I retired on 22December....I got a job on 28th..

Semi literature...I know fully illiterate blokes who have been out of work. Fuck off

It is awful. All the articles about benefits just seek to divide people.

It seems many people think that if benefits were cut, and that the "workshy" were sanctioned more (read plunged into poverty), that "hard" workers will suddenly see more money in their pay packet.

My sole income is UC. I have been told on MN that I should feel grateful to the taxpayers for "funding" me. When the CoL payments were being rolled out, someone told me that me getting it was like akin to marching her to a cash point, and me forcing her to hand over £300.

You don’t up with with 10 million working age people on benefits if there are no workshy people. The benefits system incentivises those that don’t want to work or work as little as possible. Perpetuated by below market level wages topped up with benefits.

Agree. Lots of work shy people. I grew up around a bunch of them- the people my parents associated with.

I do not personally know many people receiving benefits, but I no longer associate with the above crowd. So to say 'I only know x number of people on benefits not working' just reflects the people you know.

While I agree most in these situations can't work, there are communities of people where work just isn't a thing and benefits is the norm.

Maybe your experience and other people's experience differ.

I know plenty of people who access the benefits system. Most are either disabled or carers for disabled children, or are single mums working the best they can after being left caring full time for dcs by selfish absent spouses.
However, I also know two people who quite shamelessly claim every benefit possible, while working cash in hand, sub-letting rooms and then claim no income in order to avoid paying cms..

So the vast majority are legitimate and honest but there will always be a small percentage who game the system.

Just as there are those who claim disability and get caught on social media winning sports competitions etc.

Another example OP. My own 'd'f tried to persuade my dm to have baby no. 6 so he could give up work and live off benefits.

Thankfully she gave him a hard No but it happens all too frequently.

There's a startling naïveté here on MN; so many people refuse to believe that there are people who are able to work and choose not to, and lie to the authorities to allow themselves not to. It's not a Tory trope; good lord I could name about 15 people off the top of my head who have barely worked in their adult lives. Which in many cases has led to multigenerational worklessness. My parents' generation had "bad backs", mine has "anxiety and depression."

I absolutely despair of this patronizing attitude. Who in this world isn't depressed and anxious? It's a perfectly human response to challenging times...

this ^^

I know both types and choose not to associate with the those that abuse the system. It is very frustrating especially when you witness people who are generally struggling. The system is so close to breaking point and it is heartbreaking.