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 take your point but employers are already up in arms about the minimum wage being increased. It really should not be possible to get the amount of benefits that are paid now and I’m not just talking sickness benefits,

This woman freely admitted she probably could work, but she had a 7 year old son and all her benefits would stop if she started working and the money earned would not equate to what she gets now.

"England is far too soft and the system does need an overhaul."

Compared to where? Poorer countries in general? Because many western European countries of similar wealth offer much more generous benefits.

Their fault if they end up on the streets. Self inflicted i'd say. And i would think most would get their arses into work than end up in 'tent city'.

It is forced exchange of labour though if the alternative is to starve. You have the choice of not going to work and would not be left destitute - due to the benefits system. Thankfully we aren't the US (yet), they love this sort of stuff.

This is literally how we ended up with workhouses. Where does it stop?

Oh yes, just bring back the workhouses. That'll solve everything!

Maybe you should read a bit about the 19th Century.

I really don’t understand how this is possible. I have two quite disabled friends, one of whom has never successfully received disability benefits despite being very unwell and the other recently had her PIP heavily cut plunging her into food insecurity/poverty.
I am also a single parent. I work full time and get a UC top up which brings me up to a barely liveable amount (I own my flat so don’t get housing benefit). And every step of the way I find the benefits system totally hostile and useless, it seems hell bent on wasting my time and making me feel terrible about myself. IMO it’s not possible to just live on benefits these day, I really just don’t believe these stories at all.

That is about the same as two Band 6 nurses salary take home pay.

With respect with you mentioning your age it was easier to buy a house previously, that isn’t so any more.
Try buying a house now vs someone getting their rent paid on benefits.

I think the person on 35k of benefits while unemployed is bullshit tbh. I had relatively high private rent and one child still got around 15k. (I am not unemployed or on benefits anymore before someone starts) Granted someone with another child would get a little more.

It's been capped at 2 kids since 2017 so maybe she has 10 kids born before then? Luckily for the taxpayer they will be adults soon sooo kinda irrelevant

Most benefits ar means tested.
You can't just start claiming as soon as you arrive. Unless you mean the basic stipend given to those waiting for their asylum claim to be processed. About 40quid a week on a payment card, I believe. Should they just starve?

Yes, it's forced labour for a pittance rather than a proper wage. Survival money is not wages.

This is completely untrue. When you start working on Universal credit, your benefits taper. If you have a kid then a considerable proportion of your earnings is disregarded before any deductions taken place and even then it is on a very generous taper and they pay 85% of childcare costs. People are generally much better off. No excuses.

I have not watched the program, but it already seems to be doing a good job at dividing people.
Who is getting £35k in benefits? I bet most of that is housing costs. Or they have disabled kids.
The people I know on sickness benefits are getting no where near that amount. Have a look at what ESA is, and PIP, and do the maths. People who own their homes get no help.

And they would have the choice of not working and not receiving benefits.

Same as the rest of us.

I don't think it's wages are too low or benefits being too high. It's the COL. Rents and utilities are too high not wages too low. I grew up with a father in manual labour and a mother in p/t work living in a council house. No benefits and an average upbringing. We need to get back to a stage where families in work do not need additional benefits to manage.

So she'd still be subsidised by the taxpayer? With universal credit and presumably some kind of subsidised childcare?
I don't see why it's bad for society for a parent of a primary school age child to stay at home to be honest.

So you want thousands of people in tents and in doorways on your local high street? Where they then become the responsibility of the council and the funds it takes to house them?

Many people are better off on benefits than they would be working. Benefits should never be a comfortable choice but for many it is.

Only a couple of weeks ago there was a thread on here complaining about the rise in the minimum wage and how this now made it worthless to go study for a higher level job with all the stress that involved.

So do you want people to earn enough to actually live on without the need for benefits or not ?
I swear some people won't be happy until workhouses are reintroduced.
More gruel anyone?

Well, they go together. If the cost of living is high, both wages and benefits need to rise too.
Some countries have compulsory indexation for this.

I realise you then potentially have a problem of it fuelling inflation.

Hardly, it highlights the problem of allowing a few idle rich to hoard resources and charge the rest of us for the dubious ‘privilege’ of simply being alive here and now. It’s landlording and private ownership of other resources - energy, water, that have forced minimum wage and benefits up, and made a mockery of those of us who tried to work up. As someone without family support (whpever the idiot pp was who claimed all youngsters should live with their parents, be grateful your parents didn’t have too many kids and weren’t bullying, violent or even sexually abusive), there really is no incentive to try now and I wouldn’t bother facing the current climate, unless it led directly to going abroad at the first opportunity.

People are paid according to their skill set. If menial job wages increase, then obviously those higher up, who've studied and worked hard to increase earning potential, also need their pay to increase. We should all aspire to be something, and then accept what we are worth in monetary terms.

They're very low and difficult to claim and retain with regular assessments. You have to provide medical evidence.

For many years I was an manager working in logistics in one of the most deprived towns in the Uk. We paid a fair bit over the minimum wage and had enhancements for certain shifts. We also offered paid training to allow people to do the job. It was however almost impossible to recruit people. Those we did recruit were often from out of town. We even worked with the job centre and set up interview days, yet people that attended went out of their way to ensure they weren't picked or would tell you quite openly that what we were offering wasn't appealing as they would lose their benefits and didn't want to have to work shifts or work weekends. Attendance was also a problem as those with children and partner at home could afford to take days off here and there (ssp from day 4) and still be no worse off due to universal credit. Post furlough we also lost staff to jobs paying less as universal credit would top them up to where they were working in a higher paid role. Those on child related benefits would refuse to do overtime as they didn't need to work any more. The poor, generally middle aged members of staff with no dependents, were on the other hand usually desperate for all hours they could get. One single mother (by choice - conceived via ivf) who I employed was clear that she wasn't going to work more than the 16 hours stipulated as she didn't need to and she wasn't going to have anyone else raising her child. It's no wonder that people get frustrated, I know I certainly did, slogging my guts out day after day and going back to work when my kids were 6 months as we didn't earn enough for me to stay home any longer.