Nobody is allowed to choose not to work. Fed up of hearing this expression.

[girlfriend44]

I keep hearing people say people who choose not to work. Target them.
Nobody is allowed to choose not to work. I wonder if some people actually know what they are talking about?

Nobody is allowed to just lounge around and not look for work.

Able bodied people on UC who don't have a paid job are harassed all the time.
They will probably be attending interviews at the jobcentre once a week, where they have to provide evidence they are jobsearching 35 hours a week.

They can be sanctioned over any little thing.
They have to attend any courses they are sent on, even if they are useless courses. Non attendance will end in a sanction.

The staff can arrange interviews on their behalf if the employer has a tie up with the jobcentre which some do.
If it's deemed you didn't try hard enough at the interview, the employer can discuss this with the staff,and you'll be hauled up and sanctioned for not trying.

Those who think people choose not to work please be educated.
It's a hostile environment for anyone out of work.
Not every able bodied person can find employment.
Your not just allowed to sit at home and choose not to work though.

You'll have a claimant commitment and you have to provide evidence of jobsearching. 35 hours too.

I think alot of people who comment don't really know. Everyone is under pressure.
The days of just signing on once a fortnight and not having to.prove your doing everything you can have long gone.

I'm sure there was. I don't know anything about the claims and benefits process, but going off the comments about how hard it is to get certain benefits on this thread, I'm certain the assessor would've wanted to see medical evidence.

Agreed. It's throwing poor people under the bus and people are loving it.

I've added my experience to this thread.

I am a long standing Labour voter who believes in public services. I am also an education professional who believes that working adds to a purpose in life, gives a sense of community and of respect.

If public services are to help those really in need, those who are not need to be contributing to our communities and our taxes.

Nope.

Ordinary working folk are just fed up with being taxed to death, whilst carrying those who can work, but choose to claim state support instead.

This thread has nicely put paid to the nonsense that all benefits claimants are salt of the earth hard up folks. No they are not. Almost everyone knows people who are scamming the system. And those who claim not to know anyone doing this is probably doing it themselves.

Benefits of all types need cutting deep, much deeper. The stories about lazy scammers on this thread are outrageous, it’s an absolute insult to those who are paying for these people. And rightly making people hardened towards the welfare system.

Well, if everyone who is currently living on benefits genuinely can’t work, there won’t be an issue, will there?

If there are are no cut backs, there cannot be a welfare system. We can’t sustain an economy where so many people rely on welfare. We cannot sustain an economy in which the lowest paid are demoralised at the knowledge those choosing to live on benefits have a better quality of life.

Your hyperbole is embarrassing

The key words are “supported by partner”, ie not claiming benefits. The single mother is presumably claiming benefits, and has had the luxury of doing so till the child is 3. When you are self sufficient In the working world you generally don’t have that luxury

Yes. She is lazy and says she has a bad back and walks with a stick. Yet on sil wedding day she was dancing around like one of the Lords a leaping in the 12 days of Christmas.

Many of us are poor, working poor

some will get top ups UC (which is down to low wages even when working full time) or rely of that child benefit once a month to treat themselves

but we still value working because are able to many do not like their jobs and are exhausted from struggling to make ends meet and the rushing around stressing about picking children up from school/childcare but working is still the better option a strong work ethic is something I am proud of and absolutely want to pass this on to my ds

most of us on here are talking about people who are able to work but choose not to and rely on benefit’s it’s not about bashing those that can’t work be that for a short period of time or long term or who those who are actively trying and not able to find work

This. I have worked 40 years and will continue for a few more. I had children, illnesses, low times, menopause and all the symptoms and anxieties that it brings, bereavements and not once did I think ‘oh I’ll just give up work and claim everything I can’

i just got on with it, I’m now sick and tired of seeing people stay at home as a way of life when there are genuinely sick, elderly that need it, when libraries and hospitals and schools go without.

It has to stop.

Claiming benefits illegitimately needs to be demonised.

If the state will not effectively police it, then society must. Those who can work but choose not to, should be shamed in to changing their behaviour. In a functioning society, everyone has a contribution to make.

’All’ able shoulders must bear their share of the load, otherwise what is the point? The tax-payer is not willing to continue to be punished.

Claiming everyone who sees an issue with it being possible that people who work full-time can be financially worse off than someone who chooses to rely on the state is cheering on “hanging people” or Tories or lacking in empathy or whatever other insults have been thrown around here just indicates their privilege.

They earn enough and are insulted enough from this issue that it doesn’t matter to them. It just screams middle class ignorance.

Insulated*

Or they could get a job like others.

I agree *TENSsion *

im tired of people who live in mc bubbles telling working class people how they should think how having concerns means they love to bash the disabled, those with mh issues and so on

hand wringing from a comfortable distance

We obviously can't carry on subsidising everyone. I have had recent experience of someone gaming the system with PIP - and got a £40k new car, with accompanying free insurance and servicing. I think hypochondriac fits their description - it's sickening. Sadly these cunning people will always be able to game the system, to the disadvantage of genuinely disabled people. The government has to start somewhere as the benefits costs are increasing massively and soon there won't be enough working people to subsidise everyone else.

No not you personally, I was just wondering if it changed the amount of tax you were paying and made you a higher contributor. I was wondering what the highest taxed goods are and if people bought a lot of those, they would be net contributors…

Many people choose not to work or work part time. The issue is claiming benefits. I think if people are claiming benefits and they are able to work they should.

I know people who refuse to work and are better off than me, I work 50+ hours a week. It Infuriates me that they get to sit at home all day. Get free prescription, free dental work, a free car , rent paid
No worries if they're ill .

I have to pay for all of these, and attend work when poorly as my rent doesn't get paid. I'm all for people getting the help they need. But the ones that cheat the system, I'm glad . Something needs to change.

Yes, you can stay at home as long as you like, as long as you find your own way to fund it. I have no problem with people loafing around independently if they’ve won the lottery, or they live in a tent in the forest.
I don’t think we should fund it from our hard work and sacrifices.

I also think both parents should be held fully accountable for the costs of raising a child to the point of prosecution.

If it were actually about the money, there are much more effective ways to balance the books.

Wrote a PP above, and I have just read an article that points out how it could be done at a stroke.

Change the 60/40 rule that defines poverty at 60% of average earnings and low pay as 66% of the average. Both of these figures – the 60% and the 66% – are simply too high. If we leave the market to set incomes, many people will end up being on less than 66% of median wages, and even more on less than 60% of median household income. The cost of avoiding this is vast. Indeed, my opinion is that that’s rather why the targets are set so high – so as to be able to insist upon wholesale dispossession of the rich to be able to meet said targets. But the truth is this cost is too high to be borne over any medium or long term.

This is a quote from a research fellow at the Adam Smith Institute. Here's the full article.

https://capx.co/how-to-fix-britains-finances?utm_medium=email&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-_bBvM6oO7i6ohhLhXmIJR9xa2n2LLmjx-uHJYmpMDugghzl12GBX1Joya-jlhWCb5jmUvDcvFHnmIvaUCQvLjEWnY9rA&_hsmi=106253014&utm_content=106253014&utm_source=hs_email

I sometimes think that there's an idea that "the people who are complaining about this are the ones who don't understand what it's like to feel pain" (or feel anxious, or experience grief, or go through the menopause etc)

And I know there's levels to it, but there's also an element of, until you've been through something you don't know it's possible to do with some grit (sometimes a lot of grit). We used to respect and acknowledge it as a sign of very admirable character - in fact I would say it was a very large component of "character". PP have spoken about relatives with terminal cancer continuing to work - I've also known people like this - maybe part time or taking breaks around chemo for example, but generally keeping calm and carrying on.

But I've often seen this attitude denigrated as being a martyr or setting the expectation too high for others - but why? If someone is capable, why set their expectation lower just because someone else is worse off?

I've not had serious illness personally but have suffered other setbacks that I thought were terrible in the moment but I got through. And I feel stronger for it. If I hadn't been forced to confront them I'd still be worrying about those things that seem so minor now, and that would be incredibly life-limiting. Those of us concerned about the 20yos with anxiety etc genuinely don't want them to end up in that position - and fail to realise the enormous potential they hold, if they can "force their heart and nerve and sinew, to serve their turn long after they are done".

I work with children in a safeguarding role.
I meet a lot of people who are working very hard, often in physically demanding jobs or unpleasant conditions, for a pittance and they need benefits to top up their income or they wouldn't be able to keep a roof over their kids heads. I also meet a lot of people who would love to work but can't because of their own ill health or caring for a disabled child with precious little help from Health and Social care services.
But honestly, I also meet people who game the system. I am working with a couple of women at the moment who have openly admitted to me that their partners (who are working and earning well) live with them, but they claim benefits as a single parent and been doing so for years. One also admitted to me that she and her Mum have lied about her Mum's health so she can claim Carer's Allowance for her. On a number of occasions I've been contacted by someone at the Benefits Agency asking me to corroborate what a parent has written on a DLA application form about their child's health and care needs, and it's been complete fiction. Recently, one such child was actually awarded DLA despite me and another professional who works with the family telling them that some of the things the parents had written on the form were not true. This does frustrate me as I work with so many families whose children have complex needs and really do need all the support they can get and I also have two children with SEND myself.
I would love to believe that everyone is honest, decent and wants to do the right thing. But experience has shown me otherwise. I do believe that people who choose not to work are in the minority though, and I worry that attempts to force them into work will mean that people who genuinely need and deserve to be supported by the state will be collateral damage. I don't know what the answer is.

@HRTQueen I think though that plenty of Working class people want to turn a blind eye to it- because they and their family and mates are net benefitters from a lax system-the kind who are busily agreeing with the Tory’s and Reform about migrants/benefits - but not when it comes to ‘their’ benefits- it’s not just the comfortably off MC hand wringing about it

I mean that poster keeps insisting everyone who disagrees with her lives in a bubble or whatever but when I tried saying I was a teen mum and work full-time and lived in a house for teen mum's who all worked or went to college. So what bubble am I in? Apparently only her experience with her own dysfunctional parents counts and some statistics she pulled off a random website.

How does she know she's the only one that doesn't live in a bubble on an anonymous website?