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?

I completely agree. Fibro is just a catch all when the usual blood tests and superficial exams don't show anything.

People of state pension age didn’t ‘claim’ the WFA, it was paid automatically to all. It’s still paid automatically but only to those on pension credit now. Saving for a rainy day into a small extra pension didn’t really pay off for many older people. Working age people on means tested benefits can get certain discounts on their fuel bills.

A non verbal severely autistic person can’t fight back.

I've got it myself. I've had it for twenty years. I'm in a flare up now. I didn't mean to make it sound like I don't believe in it. I absolutely do. I'm just fed up because there's a few where I live who i know can walk for a fact. It then makes me look like I'm the one lying. I was actually referring to those people not everybody. I shouldn't have said that. I'm just sick of being made out to be putting it in also.

The number of weekly applications from under 40s has gone from 4500 to 11500 over the same period

This is the result of raising a generation with no resilience. Sooner or later we all sit down to a banquet of consequences.

Putting it on. I meant to say.

And glandular fever and genetics.

Firstly of course people dont choose to be ill

Then there is the impact of cuts to the NHS, Social Care etc

I suspect although I cant prove it that there are a lot of people who are not well enough to work but not ill enough to get treatment that addresses their condition

What I did find interesting but I cant find now is a letter from someone who worked for what was then the DHSS in the 1970's, in those days they had specialist services to assist the long term sick and disabled back into work, both trying to help deal with their conditions, and find them appropriate employment and training. Meedless to say all swept away by Thatcher

Yes. I know what you mean. There’s those that try to struggle on any way they can and those that take to bed. It’s frustrating.

I don't think they'd be expected to work though. I think it's the people who could probably manage to work if they had proper treatment that the government are after.

I'm in two minds about it all because I have personally known people who swung the lead and lived their entire lives on benefits due to bad backs and their nerves etc. It was a lifestyle choice for them, but obviously there are others for whom work is an impossibility due to health issues, and it's unfair to penalise them because the former exist.

I think health is massively influenced by mindset though and people can't be forced to work.

I worked all my life until I got Covid in 2021. I’ve been left in pain, with chronic fatigue. I’m part of support groups where about 90% of people have had to stop work due to long covid.
I’ve not claim benefits before this (other than child benefit and about £10 a week in tax credits when the kids were little)
The horrendous process of applying for pip etc was exhausting. I’m already dreading my renewal.
I think more focus needs to be on getting people who want to work into good jobs. My DS has finished uni and is applying for so many jobs and not getting anywhere. He’s working 2 zero hour jobs and doing voluntary work to get experience in his field of study.

Thank you. I really didn't express myself very well.

as the state can’t afford it

People always write on here the state and the government can't afford it without actually saying it's you, me and us as tax payers paying for it....

We don't have much if any mental health support for young people. There have been so many funding cuts that all services can offer is a sticking plaster.

Hasn't this always been the case though? When has there ever been good mental health support for young people? It's not affordable now, and it wasn't in the past either. And previous generations lived through wars!

I think the difference is the previous generations weren't mollycoddled like the current younger generations. People just had to get in with it.

People claiming disability has seen a huge increase over the last 5 years. Mostly due to people claiming to suffer from mental health issues. There are people with severe mental health, but there are also many claims where people think anxiety and stress justifies stepping out of the work force and claiming benefits. Life is stressful and causes anxiety, but you just get on with it.

There were mental asylums during the war years. People who were not coping then were locked up in them.

I don’t think working disabled people would agree with this statement you make many of them have fought hard to be represented in employment and enjoy their jobs.

I'm terrified.

Dd is severely disabled. We had to go to a tribunal a few years ago to get her DLA reinstated after an assessor barefaced lied in her report about what had happened at the assessment. That dd was all 'better' now.

Because she lost her DLA, I lost my carers allowance. I will always remember the smug face of the job centre bitch as she watched me crying, how gleeful she was telling me that I'd be sanctioned and I had to look for work now. It didn't matter that dd is severely disabled, bed bound, mental age of a toddler and I can't just leave her unattended for hours.

It took two years to get to tribunal. We had no money and I'm still paying off the debt we had to incur just to survive during that time.

I had 117 pages of evidence in my bundle. From consultants, her GP, every service she was under.

The fucking DWP didn't even show up to the tribunal. Years of pain and suffering, even contemplating whether ds would have been better off if I and dd died, just for the tribunal to take one look at the evidence and say 'Yes, of course she should get this DLA'.

I don't know what is going to happen in the budget. But I'd bet anything it's going to affect the genuine far more than the tiny minority working the system.

I feel sick. And right now I wish I hadn't voted for Labour.

It's two sides of the same coin. In order to 'make work pay' we need to cut taxes. In order to cut taxes we need to reduce the welfare bill.

No, I mean someone is not disabled and working comparing themselves to someone who is disabled and not working. Sorry I was not clear.

Okay thanks for clarifying.

I see the struggles some young disabled people have staying in work and yes they get benefits which is good but they do want to work too.

Look at mainstream media and how hard all the disabled actors and personalities have fought for more representation still it’s not enough imo. Society needs to do better.

@XenoBitch Yes, I'm not sure that I would class a mental asylum as mental health support though! And there would have been far fewer people in them. People with depression, anxiety etc would have got a job rather than go into an asylum. Only the most severe cases would have ended up in an asylum.

If the government were remotely interested in getting people back to work they wouldn't be going along with arbitrary office days in the CS.

My DD has a job that her boss, her bosses boss and their boss all openly say can be done from home FT with no issues. However, they've been banned from giving out wfh contracts.

So my DD, who is disabled, who went from working PT when she had to split between home and office to full time after Covid hit and everything was wfh FT. She has been promoted once. Has come off all income related benefits and was doing well for herself.

Two months into being forced back to the office (which isn't even the original office - it was closed. It's now over an hour away on two buses) she's having to make plans to drop back to PT. Her bosses are allowing her FT wfh for as long as they can get away with it, but they're under massive pressure to get everyone back in.

That's despite the fact when she goes into the office it's to a booked hot desk where she's not sat with any of her team, not doing any collaborative work and not doing any team bonding.

This isn't about giving sick and disabled people more incentive or opportunity to get into work. It's about the assumption that there are many fakers and if you make it more difficult they'll all disappear - which ignores the fact the small number of fakers actually have the most energy for hoop jumping

I don't believe people are deliberately faking it.

I think however that some people's perception of what its normal to feel like day to day, and at what level you have to just suck it up and get on with working, have become unreasonable. Whole generations of people have become accustomed to thinking the normal rigours of work are too hard and that going through a bad phase or a tough run of luck are irreparable mental health issues.

However alongside this i think there's too much expectation that parents of young children can manage with both working full time, commuting and juggling childcare/responsibilities at home. This leaves people stretched simply too thin and they have no capacity to cope with a rough week etc.

The focus should be on encouraging longer paid parental leave, followed by far more part time work - eg 20-30 hours a week, when children are young.

My gran "suffered with her nerves". She didn't even go into her own garden for the best part of half a decade. Her GP would come round and give her benzos. No therapy or anything like that. Obviously, she could not work.
I have a great grandad who died in an asylum in the 80s. His cause of death was listed as "insanity".