To be frightened about the Government’s plans for benefits reform?

[PilgorTheGoat]

I am one of the millions of people currently on long term sickness benefits. I receive the LCWRA element of UC and PIP due to poor mental health and autism. I have severe anxiety and depression and I am awaiting an appointment to see if I also have PTSD due to sexual abuse in my childhood.

I have tried every element of support offered to me. I’m maxed out on 2 different types of antidepressants. I have had back-to-back (excluding the 6 month wait in between) 12 week sessions of counselling offered via the NHS. I am on a waiting list for intensive CBT due to my possible PTSD. I am currently having twice weekly private, video counselling appointments.

I can’t leave my house alone due to panic attacks. I struggle to meet my own care needs and my husband has to do a lot of the work for us both (although he works full time). I have a very understanding friend whom I force myself to go for a short walk with twice a week in order to stop myself becoming completely imprisoned at home but I find this very distressing and we have to take the same route each time.

I am so, so scared about the government’s plans to end sickness benefits for people like me. We don’t have a load of spare cash, we’re just about getting by. There is no support available. I’ve taken everything offered and my husband has been very proactive in seeking out other services for me to be involved with. I’d love to be better, I’d love not to live in fear but there is no help.

Why is it provocative? It’s a creeping reality.

It is indeed.

I would hope that we get a more competent government that can attempt to rectify the shitshow that this one have left us in.

Well we won’t because Labour have admitted we are skint and they’ve already put a pin in their most expensive policies. If it was as easy as ‘tax the rich and give us everything we want’ they would do it - they know it’s a fantasy.

I'm sure you're not suggesting that neurodiversity etc..is less disabling than other health conditions.

It's a novel idea I know but the government could tconcentrate on the huge sums lost to tax evasion etc by large organisations...rather than the most vulnerable in our society.

This is such a cop out answer. Tax ‘evasion’ is fantasy money - money we’re not even owed. Just money we want to be owed.

It’s like saying ‘just think how rich we would be if we doubled income tax…’

In theory yes but in reality you couldn’t implement it because people would stop working or move abroad.

Ain’t gonna happen. Do you think if it was remotely practical Labour wouldn’t do it?

Why kicking and screaming?

There are several disabled people in this thread talking about how they really want to work and yet have had their benefits threatened for trying, and have found their has been absolutely no tailored support to their needs to allow them to do that.

Why not provide adequate and tailored support to enable those people to find jobs that are suitable and sustainable for them so they can enter the work place not kicking, screaming and with a high chance of becoming unwell again, but supported. A supported transition period where unwell people can try and work or try and study to improve their chance of finding work without loosing their benefits until they are settled and secure in work would go a long way too. Panicking about impending poverty makes it hard to even try something that might not be suitable because the consequence for failing is too high.

Instead of that support though disabled people just get berated. I have shared numerous times in this thread that I want to work but have to have work that can be done around my various health needs. Instead of anyone saying "ok let's work out how to find that" people just berate you for wanting "the perfect job" and tell you to make yourself sick again. That is not just my experience of online discussion but pretty much the job centre too.

If we care about people going back into the work place we have to support them there, not just push them off a cliff into the sea nd then roll our eyes at them when they inevitably drown.

I think businesses effectively using UC as a fall back is a huge problem.
Paying low wages because they know their employees can get UC creates a huge tax burden.
The minimum wage needs to go up and zero hours contract needs to be stopped so everyone can work in the knowledge they can pay their bills.

Prior to UC when you worked ( assuming no disabilities) you got nothing more. You only picked up the ‘dole’ if you were out of work. Now with UC to top up wages businesses are effectively using benefits as a top up to their low wages.

I appreciate with higher wages everything has to increase in price and round and round and round we go……….I certainly wouldn’t want to be the one trying to sort it all out.

Says someone who openly admits to swinging the lead to make sure they took all the generous sick leave on offer from their employer. You know what they say about glass houses @DistinguishedSocialCommentator.

It is true that a lot of benefits go unclaimed or are wrongfully withdrawn and the scale of this probably massively outweighs the few who play the system. People should be angered by this, it's just another way of playing on people's hostility towards one another. 'Why should I have to work 35 hours per week when she doesn't work and gets loads of money'. Aboslute mugs when some people are on money you wouldn't even be able to comprehend or count, in fact they can't count it either which is why they have accountants.

Why not provide adequate and tailored support to enable those people to find jobs that are suitable and sustainable for them so they can enter the work place

I’ve said time and time again because it’s utterly unaffordable. The country doesn’t have the cash or resources to take a ‘tailored approach’ to 2 million people and allow them to flit around trying things out for months while also receiving benefits and dipping in and out of the workforce.

I get the feeling whatever many people were offered they would find an excuse as to why it doesn’t work for them or why they can’t do it. ‘Wanting to work’ and the reality of putting in 38 hours a week are very different things and after decades of sitting at home it would come as a huge shock no matter what role it was. It feels like no ‘support’ is enough for these types of people, they will always say they need more.

There have never been more remote or flexible working opportunities, you don’t even need to leave your bedroom to work any more. If people can’t use a bit of initiative to find a job then tbh there isn’t much hope for them. I know people with Down’s syndrome, muscular dystrophy and paraplegia who work and have found jobs they can do. It’s pretty poor so many other able bodied adults can’t/won’t.

I’m really scared. I’m disabled and in severe chronic pain daily that I only leave my home for the school run and drs appointments. that’s it. When it’s being said to ‘work from home’ or that you can use your arms to work at a computer or office. There’s a difference between disability with limitations and disability with chronic pain. The pain is so severe I can’t eat or sleep. I get to my car after to the school run and burst out crying because I’m in agony. I’m a single parent and can barely manage day to day life due to my disability without working. I cannot imagine working and doing everything I have to do already, I physically could not do it. I’m so stressed because I would love to work and if I didn’t have the pain I do have, I would be able to. I think that’s what a lot of people don’t understand is how pain affects people.

Rubbish. You just don't like it because it places the emphasis on those which should pay rather than the most vulnerable.

Speaks volumes.

Benefit fraud and error - note error so not just fraudulent claims plus overpayments is just under £8 billion. Tax evasion is £35 billion. These are the Government own figures.

You do the math.

But what is the alternative?

If people need tailored help and support to enable them to work but there is no tailored support then what do they do?

An approach which is basically the equivalent of telling someone with a broken leg to just walk on it isn't going to get anyone anywhere, and it isn't going to save money. Plunging people into poverty and mental distress doesn't save money. It just takes the money from benefits and increases the need for spending in mental health services, the police, prisons, social services and child protection - all while creating more long term social problems for those associated with the sick person. Your just swapping one set of problems (benefit spending) for another.

Go ahead and tell me then. Why won’t Labour end tax evasion and pay for everything that way? You can’t say they’re money grabbing or they want to punish poor people.

Tax ‘evasion’ is fantasy money - money we’re not even owed. Just money we want to be owed.

Did you think before you posted that wonderful piece of nonsense? Tax evasion is a crime for which you can be sent to prison. Obviously it’s owed. It’s theft, pure and simple.

I don't think there's many people that are actually genuinely so bone idle that they don't want to work ... Even the people who've been on benefits all their life (and in some families it's three generations now,) you've got to question why? Why have they been on benefits all their life? Why has it been allowed to happen? You can't really blame them when society has allowed it to happen, and they've got into such a habit now, that they've just been at home all their life, and don't know how to work/how to engage with people at work.

They didn't sit there at school at 13-14 and think 'you know what - I'll spend the rest of my life on benefits and just get money off the state,' and 'I'll get pregnant at 16 and have baby after baby just to get a council house.' That wasn't the life plan for many. There's something in their mindset and upbringing that's been ingrained in it for the last 30-odd years. that means they thought they couldn't do anything else. And as I said, society has allowed it to happen. You can't blame people for doing it!

And then when it comes to people who have worked for 30 to 35 years and then stayed on the sick. It's because they had to go off on the sick for 3-4 months because of some hospital treatment or illness, and (like I said on another thread,) they've thought 'I'm bloody enjoying this time off!' and they don't want to go back. They realise not only that life is great being at home with their family, pets, friends, hobbies etc, but also that work is actually shit!

Some 30+ years ago, many people enjoyed working but it's not been the same post early 1990s... Because like I and someone else said on another thread, work now isn't like it was like then. People used to enjoy going to work, they had a laugh with their mates, they had quite decent pay, house prices were fairly low, workplaces had social clubs, they had day trips and night dos for the workers, there was camaraderie and there was friendship, and unions to protect you.

Many people used to look forward to going to work, and I don't recall many people having any time off at all. There was certainly not multiple hundreds of thousands - or even millions - of people on the sick for three or four years (or on the sick permanently.) So we have got to address the reason why ...

Like I said above - pre early 1990s, there was a lot of camaraderie and good fun at work and good pay, and a lower cost of living, and people really enjoyed themselves. NOW, all the workplaces are about targets and goals and appraisals, and courses, and meetings, and red tape, and things you can't do and can't say, and being a 'better person,' and always trying to improve yourself, and climbing the career ladder, and giving your whole soul and identity to the workplace - and not being allowed to put your family or friends or health first.

Little wonder then, that when people have to go off sick for a few months after 35+ years of working, they don't want to go back. I know loads of people who were the hardest worker I know for 35+ years, and they don't want to go back to work (they're now in their mid 50s,) and they are trying to stay on sick until their retirement. Because after being off for a few months, it has highlighted how much they actually do dislike work now and how it has all changed. And it fills them with dread and fear going back!

And then you've got the people who really do have quite bad mental health problems (ADHD, autism, depression etc,) and they really do struggle to stay in the workplace and are much happier out of it ... Because as I said, for the most part, in many jobs, being at work is SHIT. Even the lowest-paid jobs now, with little job security are demanding - and they cause people a lot of stress. And some people suffer great anxiety,

This would not have happened 30 or 40+ years ago. It's the way society has become, and like I said on another thread - in most unskilled minimum pay jobs it is shit working in them. Most only give you 4 to 8 hour a week contracts - but on the other hand, they demand you work 40 or 50 hours a week some weeks, and say you're not pulling your weight if you refuse. Then you might get 9 or 10 weeks on the run with only 8 hours, because they haven't got much work for you ... So then you get benefits and universal credit to help, then you get 30 hours again and get overpaid - and have to pay it back! People end up in debt and struggling financially and not knowing where they are!

As someone said earlier, some people who've got mental health issues, feel 'you know what - I don't feel too bad at the moment perhaps I could work,' but then have a relapse a week or two later. So if they DID start work, and then a few weeks into the job they start to break down again and think 'I can't do this,' then they have to try and get back onto ESA again. Good luck with that! As someone said earlier many people are scared to go back to work, as they're terrified they won't get back on ESA again, should it all go wrong/if they have a relapse,

I think a lot of people who have mental health issues (but are OK sometimes,) are only OK sometimes because they don't have to go to work. If they were pushed/forced out to work, they would just break down again ...

As for the person that said 'well what happens if a quarter of society ends up on these benefits?' I don't know why you think 17 million people would end up on them! But even so, if more and more people keep going on them, then I really don't have an answer to that ... The Government needs to look into WHY people struggle with work. Because as I said, this wasn't a thing pre early 1990s. Something has gone rotten in the workplace that makes it unbearable for some.

Also, as has been said, tax avoidance and evasion accounts for WAAAAAY more loss to the public purse than bloody benefit fraud!

It was me who suggested blogging. But you seemed only interested in attacking me on this thread. So, good suggestions are not just the reserve of a a few.

Tax evasion will probably include the proceeds of organised crime (e.g. drugs, people trafficking, etc.). I think we'll see the government collect that money shortly after it manages to end all crime.

'It’s not that disabled people refuse to entertain trying to work - it’s that the support from the benefit system disappears as soon as they get a job, so if it turns out they can’t cope, they have to start all over again with claiming - same if they relapse."

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And...what is wrong with that? So people want 'forever benefits'? Benefits are meant to help, not to stop one from the need to attempt normal living.

That’s not tax evasion because those activities are illegal. It’s why we have a process for confiscating all proceeds of crime.

https://www.cps.gov.uk/crime-info/proceeds-crime#:~:text=CPSPOC%20takes%20responsibility%20for%20enforcing,the%20confiscation%20orders%20we%20enforce.

Imagine having to try, and navigate the welfare system, whilst dealing with mental collapse. If someone has a history of very poor mental health, or other conditions, I can understand there being a reluctance to step outside of the system, once in it.

But there are charities that help people with MH with filling in benefit claim forms? Or are people wanting to make out a person who has relapsed, gone to a&e, is suicidal etc etc is expected to fill in benefits forms?Surely someone in authority, where they find themselves, would help them?

And if relapse isn't too bad, they can do it themselves.

@Golftennis tbh I have no experience with this, regarding mental health, I was just putting forward an opinion.

I had a nearly completed suicide attempt at 21 after a severe mental health issue (psychosis), this was 23 years ago. The benefits system was such a brutal process even then that I did everything in my power to make sure I never had to access it again. It INCREASED my vulnerability, it did not support it. I would say that for anyone with a profound MH condition the benefits system should be avoided at all costs. A specific mental health pathway that includes a biopsychosocial care plan that includes an element of UBI with work positioned as resilience training would be more effective than the current system.

Physical disabilities should be attended to differently - that should be on a case by case basis with financial, emotional and practical support tailored to the individual. Due to numbers I don't think this would be too complex to administer.

they fucked it went they labelled 'working tax credits' as state supplementation of earnings - employers must have rubbed their hands with glee.

Me neither. I too am just injecting some common sense.

In truth, as I have clearly demonstrated on this thread, I am trying to level with both sides, so I understand them both better. I also have no issues with 'benefits' done correctly. However, the more those on benefits reveal the finer points-usually after a long time and with some reluctancy- the more some of us wonder what the gov is actually doing wrong.

My question has always been: 'Why are those in receipt reluctant to reveal gems like these'. You can make your own conclusion, but it has been an eye opener to me, at least.