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?

Not going into specifics but I can, to an extent. Occasionally.

you can't force a couple to live together to save the state money.

I think change is afoot.

If you see my posts they are discussing with that poster generalisations.

It is laughable isn't it? Rather thin-skinned.

I haven’t reported a single comment. I said it was ‘unfair’, not mean.

Many of you seem totally obvlious to what being healthy actually is. Do you know how lucky you are? Thinking "I'll go to the cinema today"... and going. Not cancelling plans. Not taking a myriad of pills daily. Not having endless hospital appointments. Not having your driving licence taken away. Your ill days - when you moan about flu and we smile sympathetically - they're our best. Plus all this "get a job".... but how? Because then I'll have to tell them I can't do a 5-day week and I'm too weak to come into an office, I can't stand up for long because all the medication to keep me alive makes me feel like shit, I'm banned from driving.

Honestly, you really don't know how lucky you are.

Not forcing couples to live together. Don't be ridiculous.

Partly the reason for the high numbers of single person & single parent households. Families used to live together and pool resources.

I think benefits will now be whittled down until there is little choice and people will have to do inventive things.

I work in benefits and we have noticed quite a big increase in the number of people being investigated recently. Both means tested benefits and non means tested.

I suffered from complete kidney failure several years ago. Went onto dialysis, 4 hours a day, 3 times a week. Left me exhausted, unable to function properly and suffering from horrendous brain fog. Literally, being kept alive by a machine. Absolutely no benefits available. Could walk to the hospital transport, and put on my own socks. Pip? No chance. You want me to feel sorry for people quite content to game the system with stress and anxiety? Fuck no. Too many people have been ripping the arse out of the system for too long. And illustrating articles about benefit cuts with pictures of sad eyed paraplegics in complicated wheelchairs does the debate no favour at all.

Literally this!

I don't think people appreciate how limited the job field becomes when you can't drive, never mind all the other issues!

Your case is why I feel the way I do.

I know we have to pretend all struggles are equal, and take people’s word for it, but they’re really not. And there is nothing wrong with using common sense - if somebody can have babies, do the school run, go on holidays and socialise, then their anxiety is not too bad to work. Neither is their fibromyalgia or neurodiversity.

It’s deeply unfair people like you face stressful changes because of people who have nebulous conditions which apparently allow them to do anything but work.

There needs to be a list of what automatically gets PIP. Down syndrome? Tick. Terminal cancer? Tick. Dialysis? Tick. Non verbal with a severe learning disability? Tick. No reassessments as no prospect of complete recovery.

So many posters on this thread seem not to understand that the jobs market is COMPETITIVE. Even people with good qualifications and no disability can struggle to find a job.

Just saying “well you can use mumsnet so you can get a wfh job” is so silly I can only imagine such posters don’t actually work themselves. Hard to imagine someone so detached from reality functioning in a modern workplace.

No one is asking you to feel sorry for anybody. The fact that you mention not being able to function properly, plus receiving treatment so many times a week, strikes me as strange that you could not get PIP at some level. But a person has to have been having their difficulties for at least 3 months before applying, I believe. Someone will correct me please, if I have got that wrong.

We've already discussed earlier in the thread that these figures of people claiming for stress / anxiety / neurodiversity are likely misleading.

The condition at the top of my PIP assessment report is ADHD. I'm probably included in those figures. But no part of my PIP award is due to ADHD, it's just the first diagnosis I received.

It has to be for 3 months and expect to last another 9 months

Go on the DLA threads and look at what the claims are for.

Yes, strange indeed. A minimum of 12,often 15 hours a week chained to a machine, feeling like a zombie. FOR THREE YEARS.

Do you not see the problem is how subjective this is though? Those are just the circumstances YOU think should justify benefits, but it’s clear based on this thread alone that many people would disagree that e.g. someone on dialysis or with Down’s syndrome should qualify.

Agree!

It. Lasted. 3.years.

And did you appeal in that time?

You should have been eligible for PIP. There are lots of people who've had shitty assessors making up reports full of lies and full PIP has then been awarded at tribunal - it's a really widespread problem. That doesn't mean that other people don't need PIP - it means that you did, and you were let down by a corrupt system.

Thanks TigerRag.