To be confused by benefits cuts to the disabled and ill?

[AllyHayHay]

As luck would have it, I have not been in this position, but I do know of one disabled lady who has struggled. She was incredibly fortunate to already own her own home prior to her accident.

I am not what you'd call politically astute, but I have been reading about the proposed spring benefits cuts and wonder why people always discuss this ONLY affecting the sick and disabled.
I am also aware that there are many, many rough areas with families who have never worked, people who are struggling with addiction, prison sentences (their kids, spouse, etc) and these people never seem to be included in the Guardian articles and opinion pieces online.

Why would a system wish to make the life of a disabled person worse, yet ignore the growing issues of illiteracy, generational poverty and other issues which are going on in most urban areas just out of sight of the comfortably off?
Why not address the reasons that great swathes of people are living on benefits across the UK who are NOT disabled? I imagine this would drag up questions of why those issues persist - and no one in government wants to address that.

Since benefits claimants who are not in work of on the pension are a minority, are these cuts more of a populist tendency?

Tesco's just announced they'll be giving nearly expired food away for free now. So there's that now

What a way to live....

Every little helps! On a serious note, it is a lot better than it ending up in the bin.

Agree, I've not heard any suggestion of LCWRA being taken away entirely. I understand why disabled people are worried about this but I don't think the catastrophising helps anyone.

The government really should have known better than to leak vague details and then leave everyone on tenterhooks.

It is not suspicious - it is well explained.

Obesity, due to crap food being so cheap, and people so short of time, leads to all sorts of illnesses.
Rise in pension age, so 60 to 67 year olds are now on sickness benefits instead of pension
NHS trying to do too many 'new' things like new expensive treatments, so longer waiting lists for the basics.
Longer waiting lists due to Covid
Long Covid
Smart phones affecting the mental health of young people
School system affecting the mental health of young people
Economic after-effects of 2008 crash affecting the mental health of young people, including lack of housing and lack of hope for future
SEND lack of support affecting the health of young people and parents
Rise in numbers of premature babies surviving with disabilities

And so on. I'm sure there are other things I have forgotten.

The questions are:
How as a society can we afford to pay for health, social care, and a civilised level of benefits for sick and disabled people?
How can we tackle the root causes, e.g. regulation of supermarket food? banning smart phones for under 18s? reforming education? housing?

Because the alternative is we fail as a society.

So people on benefits are too good for that, but it’s fine for barely-scraping-by working people to live in the yellow sticker aisle?

But you’re forgetting the contributing factors back then that we don’t have now:

1. Really high smoking and passive smoking rates
2. Higher pub drinking culture
3. Occupational hazards - relaxed attitudes to health and safety, asbestos, coal mining etc
4. Fewer vaccinations and the hangover of adults who had measles and polio as children
5. Adults still alive who had become disabled in WW1/2 (like my great granddad, who had chronic lung damage from mustard gas)
6. Fewer and more primitive treatments for many illnesses
7. No baby scans or antenatal testing, so fewer terminations for things like Down’s syndrome

I mean, the above must have produced an enormous number of disabled people. Why does everyone on here always think the past was the good old days and schools were relaxed, everyone was rich and mental health was booming? It couldn’t be further from the truth yet these myths continue to develop on here.

Exactly.
The first thing I did when I read @MaggieThatcher134 s post was Google when our local might do that ( even though I’m a die hard Aldi and Lidl fan )

It's just recently been found to have an autoimmune cause. I'll try to find an article.

How do you get this nearly expired food?

I don’t know but I doubt those on benefits will be the only ones in need. If it reduces food waste, and feeds people, what’s the problem? Win win as far as I’m concerned. I would happily accept some.

https://www.liverpool.ac.uk/research/research-themes/living-well/unlocking-mystery-of-fibromyalgia/#:~:text=In%20a%20breakthrough%20study%2C%20our,to%20new%20and%20improved%20treatments.

Research here

I have no idea. It may be at a later time in the Evening, I would have thought tbh.

Where did I say that?
No one should be living like that at all.

Nobody should be eating food that hasn’t yet gone out of date?

No, nobody should be in a situation are they are relying on free food. Not in the UK, and not in 2025.

But if you’re not working, everything you rely on is free isn’t it?

I can’t see an issue at all. The food isn’t wasted, it’s free, it’s from a quality producer, less people going hungry. Or should we increase food waste and make people pay money for food on the alter of pride?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c2er1m2rlr4o

I've always thought that it would be better that instead of benefits, voluntary charity and communities looked after the less fortunate than some national welfare state.

That's how it was before the welfare state. It was not good. Although workhouses were formally abolished in the UK in 1929, they continued under different names until 1948, when they finally closed. You have but to read memoirs of the era to realise how cruel and deeply exploitative they were. So no, it wouldn't be better.

Yes, so anyone on benefits could have no social life at all, no hobbies, no money to buy gifts for family at xmas etc. Just sat in donated clothing eating donated food. No life whatsoever.

On a thread where many sick/disabled people have said how frightened they are the proposed cuts to their money... and you have to come on with "everything you rely on is free" line. Why? Are we not ashamed enough for you? Or are you the sort to jab a finger into the shoulder of a nurse and say "I pay your wages"?

That would not work in today's Society, there are too many people needing help. Some People who once donated to food banks, are now having to use them instead. Working people, are known to not be strangers to them.

‘Fewer’ not less

To be fair this is what a lot of working people are going through.