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.

You're presuming the individual is capable of seeking out the help.

Even if they can, the last lot of pip reviews I'm aware of had a 2 week time limit to send it back due to taking 2 weeks to arrive via Royal Mail second class. That 2 weeks included postage time so essentially you had less than a week to find someone to help and collate all the evidence.

You can wait months for a welfare advisor.

It's done deliberately.

OP, I don't know the meaning of your acronyms, but why not tell us what benefits you believe that you should receive?

Your circumstances sound very compelling OP but so do a lot of people’s - I feel bad saying it but as you started the AIBU, I feel I can say what I think is the truth.

There seem to be many, many, many, many people now claiming they’re too anxious, depressed or traumatised to work. And an ever increasing number of neurodiverse people to add to this mix.

The hard truth is the taxpayer can only sustain so many people out of work. I’m sure after WW2 probably half the population was traumatised, but carried on because it isn’t possible to have half the population out of work.

Our country is slowly sinking now due to the number of people who are black holes of ‘need’. It isn’t just benefits people out of work receive. They get free medical care, education for their children, infrastructure, protection from our military, a justice system and so on. The cost of running a country is hideously high.

I feel like our population has got too used to having free things as a human right, and sees the government and support services as having an almost parent-like duty to support them while they give nothing back.

This is why Labour are being deliberately vague and making no promises on welfare because they know that some tough decisions are going to be required post election.

I don’t think that’s the reason at all. Decisions can’t be made until they have full access to Treasury information and in any case any policy they announce is immediately stolen by the government. You may call it “being deliberately vague”, I call it keeping your powder dry.

Why have they sacked off policies then due to affordability? They must have some idea of what awaits.

Unfortunately you're wasting your time trying to reason with this person about the realities of the PIP process. S/he doesn't want to hear the facts, s/he's just not very bright and simply wants to regurgitate what she's read in the tabloids about benefit scroungers.

Make sure you apply for a postal vote if you are struggling to get out - there will be an election within the next year.

Do they think he will somehow get new genes?

The amount claimed in fraudulent benefits falls far far under the amount of unclaimed benefits a year. I can not get my head around people who are happy to throw disabled and sick people under the bus because they are bitter about the existence of some chancers - chancers who quite frankly noone really wants in the work place anyway. Do you really want to work with someone who has not bothered to get a job since they left school and are now in their 30s not because they can't, but because they think the shitty job they cant be arsed to do is beneath them? What a lovely work ethic that person will have. I am sure they would be a delight to work with and not make the lives and jobs of everyone else working with them more difficult. I don't see forcing those people back into jobs is worth making the hard lives of the disabled even more hard and increasing suicide and poverty rates when their existence is easily covered many times over by the huge amount of benefits people are entitled to that go unclaimed each year.

That makes no economic sense. I’m not sure what the proportion of income is paid in tax has to do with anything. By that reasoning if I decide I can’t be bothered to work as much and therefore earn less you would consider me to be somehow more of a contributor as despite putting far less into the pot it would be a higher proportion of my income.

This. They are heading for somewhere to the right of Marie Le Pen right now.

VOTE!

You’ve completely missed the point.

They will have been briefed by Treasury and the DWP.

This is what always happens in the months leading up to a general election.

Labour have actually stated (just last month I believe) that no one would be allowed to live a life on benefits under their rule

Because obviously money will redistributed and that can’t be done without knowing the detail. Far better to say you’re ditching a policy pre election and reinstate it when you’re in government and have all the information than promise it in a manifesto and backtrack in power. That’s fairly basic politics.

Link?

I'm afraid I think you are right.

I don't know if some people have a genuine lack of emotional intelligence regarding this subject or are simply deliberately obtuse.

https://amp.theguardian.com/politics/2024/mar/04/life-on-benefits-under-labour-will-not-be-an-option-says-liz-kendall

Mostly, I think it's the "But they get something I can't" brigade. That's all they see.

I'd gladly trade them my meagre amount of PIP for the realities of living with my disability and medical conditions but oddly enough they're not interested in that swap.

Ah so they haven’t said that at all. There are some more words in there.

“Under our changed Labour party, if you can work there will be no option of a life on benefits,”

It's a fact there are ppl on benefits that shouldn't be on them like it or not

There are more people not claiming benefits they are entitled to. Also remember that the benefits bill includes the State pension.
A lot of people have chosen not to work any longer than they need to and do not claim any benefits, so people with pensions or savings or other assets, working age is now up to 67, so that person you know who retired at 60 will be included in the numbers the Government is talking about.

This. As well as all their other mindless policies.

It is also on about young people too. Not people in their 30s ad beyond who have MH issues.

Out of context.

Omitted the part that states 'those who can work...'

I would say 30s and 40s is young to be on benefits and not working.