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 know lots of people who might work but not much and choose to be underemployed because they don’t want to work full time hours. The majority aren’t receiving any benefits now (that I’m aware of) but none of them have any pension savings at all and they all rent. They are net drains on society’s resources even now (ie aren’t net tax contributors) and when they retire will be massive drains.

Perhaps this kind of benefit fraudster has been successfully pushed into drug dealing and dog breeding by the stringent job seeking requirements.

There are plenty playing the system. A 36 year old nurse I know works term time, 3 days a week and tops up with universal credit rather than work 4 or 5 days a week.

In principle, you are right, but the reality is very different. Those job diaries can and are fudged and it's not feasible for staff to thoroughly check them/verify what is said. You're being very niave if you think the rules are applied accurately across the board & that people can't find ways around them.

Except that government isn't targeting those people. It's targeting the long-term sick and severely disabled.

Can I ask you.
As he is being forced to prove he has spent 35 hours a week searching and applying for work, what is he supposed to do other than apply for jobs he is not qualified for?

There is literally no set of previous work experience or skills that one person can match up with 35 hours worth of seeing and applying for job vacancies within REALISTIC AFFORDABLE ACHIEVABLE travelling distance of where they live that will provide a sufficient number of opportunities to fill 35 hours every single week.

DB has been a power press setter for 38 years. He is bloody brilliant at it. He trains new recruits. He can't even work a smart phone. He can't drive a car, only a fork lift. How many press setter jobs or fork lift driver vacancies per week fit his experience? I helped him look for a new job online several times because his employers take the piss wages wise. I found about 8 total setter jobs for slightly less than what he's on already. 0 that match it. Several forklift vacancies for NMW which wouldn't cover his bills.

Employers want people who often don't exist for the money they're offering.

OP there are indeed many people who choose not to work. My father and his wife haven’t worked in decades, for no reason, and I know many people like this. Where I’m from, getting free money and avoiding work is something of a national sport.
Also I really don’t think the DWP are as strict or competent as your description - for example, this benefits cheating gang received £54m for thousands of false claims over 4.5 years, and were only caught after a detective in Bulgaria noticed all the money flowing into a town there and raised a concern to the DWP. These “claimants” were not going in to Jobcentres. (About 1.5 of those years was during covid so rules may have been less strictly applied, but 3 years were before covid.)
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13470893/Bulgaria-fraud-Britain-benefits-scam-detective-exposed-gang.html

Surely someone can choose not to work if they have private means if support and are not claiming benefits?

Clearly the answer is no it's not.

Sounds like more of a feeling of hating being told what to do. Work for yourself then, but someone has to pay for it.

I would report anyone doing that, cheating scumbag.

There are 2 things here: people citing examples of people not working but who are not claiming! Not relevant to the OP
people giving examples of people they think are gaming the system- perhaps some of them are - the fact remains that it is extremely tightly policed and the numbers are very small compared to people avoiding tax or falsifying insurance claims (and thinking everyone does the same)

Oh and don’t get me started on people who think that disabilities are fake and think claims are fraudulent becomes sometimes someone can walk a short distance without a wheelchair, or has maybe 2 hours in a day where they have enough strength to work from home - guess what - the employment market doesn’t work so that you can do that regularly and it doesn’t bring in enough to live on

Your post is sadly not corrrct. Thousands of people are rinsing the system, I welcome the harshest of cuts to those that are,

I think we all know someone who fiddles the system a bit.

I have a friend who only works 16 hours a week so she can keep her UC, I asked her why she doesn’t pick up more days she said it’s not worth her while, she’d loose a lot of benefits (her youngest DC is 15 so no childcare issues).

I don’t understand working should always pay more, how can you work 16 hours and keep all your benefits but work 17 and loose them that’s unfair?

Maybe instead of slashing disability benefits and making them harder to get, look at why the Government has to top up people’s wages as working full time is deemed not enough to live on?

Look at big business and the self-employed who find tax loopholes to avoid pay tax (Amazon etc) instead of targeting the most vulnerable?

Attend an interview at the job centre once a week? Gosh, I hadn’t realised it was that rigorous. Thoughts and prayers…

I choose not to work and to be a stay at home mam and housewife. We are a 1 wage family, no UC or benefits. It works out financially better for us, taking into account nursery fees and childminders etc, we would be no better off with us both working. The house would suffer, the kids would, we would be making our life 10x harder for barely an increase in monthly incoming. Not worth it. We are lucky that we can afford to live on 1 wage thankfully. Both very good with money and have no reoccurring luxurys to pay for. Works great for us!

This.

I know 3 people who are long term unemployed. One of them has to go to the job centre weekly. The other 2 haven’t been to the job centre for years. They have been unemployed for much longer than the one that does need to go in, which makes me think perhaps the DWP focuses their attention on those who have been unemployed the least amount of time. Presumably they are more likely to get employment.

I say this as someone who receives a UC top up btw.

This isn’t how the system works anymore, with UC you’re always better off working more. I get a small amount of UC every month and I’m much better off working 30 hours a week than I was working 22 hours.

Either your friend is telling porkies or she is misinformed.

🤣🤣🤣.
We grew up in very different places

I think you're missing the point here. My acquaintance was actively applying only for positions he knew he wasn't qualified for. Like he'd go on indeed and apply for 20 truck driver jobs when he didn't have a license. He applied for a CFO position for a laugh. He wasn't job hunting. He was absolutely choosing not to work and thought it was such a good joke to tell people down the pub. The requirements are only hard when you're a genuine job seeker. When you're a piss taker, it's dead easy to play the system.

I only have one friend who doesn't work and this is absolutely by choice.

This isn’t my experience of my social circle. Obviously, it’s not all mothers who get to be SAHMs but it’s not all mothers who have to work after maternity leave either. But neither are looked down upon for not working like single mothers and pressurised by both society and the government to find work.

I might be totally wrong but I’m expecting them to go for the softer mh diagnosis like the can’t works due to anxiety. Evidence suggests not working makes it worse but I’m not convinced this approach will help.

Hmm I have mixed feelings. If someone like my dad for example who worked all his life in manual work could no longer do that due to health, there’s no way he’d have got a job in an office or similar. He just wouldn’t have had the manner to do it. But equally we do have several family members who have played the system and sat on their arse with their hand out for decades. It’s infuriating to be paying for these people but what can you do. No one is going to give them a job now.

But equally running a country is bloody expensive and only going to get more so when we need to increase our defence spending. So we need to (a) make cuts elsewhere and (b) everyone needs to pay more tax.

My cousin could have worked if she hadn't been funded such that she could spend her whole life not working and builtd the idea of work up in her mind as something she "can't manage".

She is 49 and never has worked. She's in a cheaper part of the country and managed to get benefits (I think lcwra, but not pip) and lives on that money.

She's pretty good on computers, did well enough at school to get a good university place but dropped out. She lives with her mum. She doesn't have any major physical health issues and never has. She has a driving license and drives regularly. The conditions she has as grounds for the benefits she gets are anxiety, ocd, agoraphobia & depression - she self reported those symptoms & sought treatment via the GP and eventually there was a long enough medical paper trail attesting how hard she indicated she was finding every day life. She is anxious & depressed for sure but the life she leads at home (her mum is quite hypochondriac with some health anxiety thrown in) is probably a contributor together with her parents divorce.

She has enough money, she has a lot of leisure time and does things she enjoys.

She refuses to engage with any cbt or therapy etc as says she can't manage it because it makes her anxious.

There was a point when she was about 20 when if there had been zero money available i think she'd have had a go at sticking out a job & it would have been the making of her, i think it would given her confidence and independence from her mum, she just needed there to be no choice but to make a go of it.

Now at almost 50 she is basically beyond help.