Dispatches- Britain’s Benefit scandal

[Sunnywalker]

Anybody watched this? It’s made me so angry. Some highlights include a company that can’t recruit an apprentice on 26k because sickness benefits would amount to 24k so it wouldn’t be worth it. 500,000, 25-34 years old on long term sick, a woman who has never had a FT job and claims 35k in benefits, this lady would like to work but says will never achieve the same income if she worked.

This country is bankrupt, public services crumbling! What is going on? Why isn’t there an overhaul!

I haven't seen the programme but I can empathise. I have a cousin who worked for 6mths when he was 17 and had a relatively minor fall. He is now 60 and has never worked another day in his life. He played football every week, rang 5 miles a day with a weighted backpack and spent the rest or the day bent over a pool table.....no wonder he had a bad back.

I had an issue at work and walked. Said cousin lectured me about responsibility and not expecting the state to support me. I was frothing, I had walked so I knew I was unlikely to get benefit but was prepared to live off my savings...in the end I got a job within the week.

I said he had room to talk as he had never worked and I asked what his son said when he was asked what Dad did. His reply was that his son would say his Dad did the best he can. He went onto say that with his sick pay and what was DLA, he earnt way more money than he could as an unskilled labourer and so by not working, he was doing the best he could for his kid! Well I couldn't argue with that. However I am sure his ex girlfriend, Mother of his son could as she only got £5 a week off him towards his sons upkeep as he was on benefit.

That being said, there are some people who are genuinely between a rock and a hard place when they are unemployed.

Yup. It is annoying when the handouts seem endless. Always makes me wonder why you need income when everything is either subsidised or free? Like in this thread - comparing one wage vs benefits. Where the person on benefits is getting free school meals, extra free hours childcare (that they don't strictly need to work), subsidised other bits. So they have less to pay for with that income than the apprentice or a care worker on min wage.

"Some kind of community service or government funded roles."

Ah, forced labour? Yes, that's what an advanced society does.
it's easy to look at the benefits received by families and disabled people. Look at what single, childless people get and try to argue they should be working for that.

Equally, like others here I come from a socially deprived background so lived among a lot of people who did feel entitled to have the taxpayer pay for paper pay for their life and have some family members who feel the same (I have an uncle who is approaching 60 and has never held a job and it blows my mind he has been able to get away with that but my grandparents and past partners coddled him.)

Much as people say that it makes financial sense - the amount of money I make far outstrips what I would ever get on benefits and I live a far more comfortable life than girls at my schools
who got pregnant early and had just done dead end job after deadend job.

18% of people in the UK live in absolute poverty. Absolute poverty measures how many people this year cannot afford a set standard of living. The Department for Work and Pensions currently defines it based on the living standard an average income could buy in the year ending in March 2011. If your income is 40% below this, after adjusting for rising prices since then, you are classed as living in absolute poverty.

Reduce benefits, or make the system any more punitive, and people will die. They already are.

Some might have pointed out years ago that Covid was a mass disabling illness that would end up putting a lot more people onto sickness benefits, increasing the welfare budget.
still the U.K. does not public health messaging about this and next year will be decreasing the vaccination offer even further. Which will not help the NHS at all.

What would you do with the fathers of the children? why wouldn't you look at a pensioners NI contribution and decide if they get to have a bedrooms? Do you actually think the solution is to have children sleeping on floors? How do we create enough jobs so there's a job for everyone? Bit of a dickhead plan isn't it?

@Babyybabyyy

Loads of people are better off on benefits as they receive more than me or close to the amount I earn and they also get loads of freebies and discounts!

Yes the freebies & discounts do mount up. I imagine once the children are out of education the amount would go down quite a lot though? I think I'd prefer to work & get my house paid off & have the security. Also I can choose where I live which isn't necessarily the case if you rely on benefits to support you.

That’s what Ian Duncan Smith said, and look what happened! Someone on benefits with a couple of kids with some sort of disability will get far more than the minimum wage!

We have jobs, plenty of them but they are unfilled. The recruitment industry at mid and senior levels have seen vacancies drop dramatically recently but there are thousands of entry level and unskilled jobs that literally anyone could do that remain unfilled.

I was going to say this. I used to be on benefits until quite recently actually one child and private rent was still only about 15k a year.

It's capped at 2 kids so someone with another child would get more but how would it be 35k??

Unless she has loads of kids born before 2017 ?

"My single parent mother never claimed out of work benefits although it would have been better for her with young kid but she believes strongly in working for a living. Whereas my best friend’s mom (school age friend) has six kids and never worked a day in her life, feeling entitled to have the taxpayer pay for her life."

Yes, but if one mother works and uses subsidised childcare and another stays at home, they are both costing the taxpayer.
I don't think working in itself makes you morally superior.

You have your pride, your self respect and every day you are making a contribution to society. I get that respect doesn't pay your bills but at least you can sleep well at night knowing you're a decent upstanding human being.

I'm disabled and on benefits. Does that mean I'm not a 'decent upstanding human being'? There are other ways of contributing to society than working.

Found it now on Channel 4 website.

I'll watch it later but I'm struggling with the sums behind the headline numbers.

Things are very messed up and no mistake ☹️

How did she manage to do that once the kids got older?

Benefits are too generous, that is all. Recently I was accosted by a Shelter charity worker in the street and listened to her spiel 'Young people can't afford houses' to which I said 'why can't they buy them'? I was told they can't afford it. I asked 'why don't they live with their parents?' I was told they 'don't have a good relationship with their parents'. Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy, did I give her my piece of mind? Or, rather, I told her my story - that I lived with my parents, this was not exactly blissful, and paid to live with them, until I could scrape enough for a deposit, hence late motherhood. No way should our people live in the streets, but equally, no way should they be given houses/flats, etc. A hostel is fine, better still - a dorm, people should not be too comfortable on benefits, no incentive to get off their arses. Somehow migrants who come to the UK and work, manage to fund themselves, buy their own housing or rent privately, and send money to keep their relative in food back home, and all on the same salary as offered to the UK natives.

Why can't people be made to do something in reciept of benefits, like litter pick, wash windows, general jobs that need doing, and if they do t do it - no money. I mean of course they'll say they have a bad back, small children or whatever excuse they can think of but why can't they be made to do something- I have to plod on into work even when I can't be bothered so why can't they do something for their benefits?

people on low salaries do not "manage" they get benefits top ups because in this economy a lot of work doesn't pay

what about people who genuinely cannot work? I have a DC with severe learning difficulties who will need lifelong 24/7 care. are they just supposed to starve???

Surely it's better to work for your own self-worth than to solely rely on benefits (assuming the person doesn't have a disability that precludes them from working). And in most jobs there is progression.
My job isn't well paid but I'm the second earner so do it for a top up of income if that makes sense. I hate not working.

I think part of the 'issue' is sickness can be so easily 'faked' now. They're entwined. People wanting to live off benefits are not saying they're perfectly healthy and just don't want to work!

I have anxiety, and many of my family have mental health issues, I can absolutely see how some people might have such a strong version, it's rehabilitating, however I've seen my family members tweak and change their symptoms to become so bad they couldn't possibly work.

Again, I understand it - the only housing advice I was ever given as a child was 'make sure you get a council property as soon as you can, it's the only stable way of having a home' - when you grow up with this mentality it is SO hard to shake. The idea - at least in my family/circles I grew up with, is work and life is tough and unfair, benefits are always there to fall back on - and then there's always a reason to fall back on them, and if there's not, you create one. It's almost an unconscious reaction, there will be a reason you cannot work. Everyone I know in this situation firmly believes they are unable to work.

I think of this in the same terms of compassion that I apply to asylum seekers. I understand why someone would do it.

Over half of the population is below average intelligence. There are many that have been failed by terrible schools and an education system that often can't tell its arse from its elbow.

You can claim that they are immoral all you want, the fact is that they cannot get a financially useful degree no matter how hard they try. Minimum wage jobs do not offer the progression they used to, and apprentiships are far too sparse on the ground (especially any for middle aged people that want to change their lives).

If you cannot earn a decent living on minimum wage, and that is all you could ever earn, then really your options are benefits or crime.

I'd argue they are quite moral for choosing the less well paid benefits route. Sonetimes having both parents around can help the childrenbtoo. I grew up on a council estate, the local 'benefits family' always went out of their way to help people, and their children were the most well behaved and polite! The son could fix a car by the age of 12 and the little girls would being round mince pies every Christmas that they baked themselves.

I also detest calling these people immoral, because this attitude rapidly extends to everyone on benefits.

The NHS is a complete mess. You've got people out of work because they need a replacement knee, physiotherapy or mental health support.

We have a mental health crisis and there's no consistent support. If people were treated in good time, they wouldn't end up in acute wards or so incapacitated they can't work.

Tried this. Unsurprisingly it led to the people who were paid to do those jobs being laid off and having to claim benefits. If we are going to do that people should be paid at least minimum wage for the hours they are expected to do those jobs.