Feel this country has become rotten - benefits

[She11y]

A studio apartment in my area is about £800 per month.
A minim wage job is around £1500 per month net.
After you've worked in a hard and demanding job - most minimum wage jobs are demanding - you've got £700 to pay for food, travel, bills, clothes.
You might end up with £100 left over each month. Working hard all your life with no hope of owning your own home or having any sort of financial stability.
No wonder people don't want to work. Make owninf a house affordable and over night 1/3 the people claiming benefits will stop.

My point is that a lot of people are on benefits because they're depressed at the hopelessness of their futures, and try to avoid working.

As long as they can live at home with parents? You don’t get a reduction on rent as utilities because you’re just starting out on the career ladder

No because PIP and sickness benefits are totally different.
I know people who manage to work because they are on PIP. They would not be entitled to sickness benefits.

I am declared as unfit for work for UC.

The Government want more control on that now though.
Hence the change in their attempt to get people back to work ie to make the benefits more evidenced based and, it seems, harder to qualify

Obviously you know all this anyway.

I know but am scared.

I second this. I don't think a lot of people know this happens, but it does. It's a ridiculous loophole. A close friend of mine does this- and she works in benefits. She owns her own house, he owns his own house and has kids from a previous relationship and flits between the two places when it suits him. And because he can afford to own and run a home separately, it doesn't matter for Universal Credit purposes. When she had their child, she cut down to 2 days per week to be eligible, and 85% of her childcare is paid too.
Me and my partner are both having tonwork FT after my maternity so we can save for a house deposit- and the other day she had the cheek to urge me to drop my days 'because you'll regret it'. I'm still raging now. That's the level of entitlement so many have and it's easy to see how fucking demoralising it is for those who bust their balls working.

I used to believe the DWP line that people will always be better off working. Now I dont- the government seem hell bent on that not being the case.

I also know someone doing the living apart thing. But they have 4 kids so one parent claims 2 lives with them and the other two lives with other parent. So they can claim for 4 kids.

Neither work.

You can't force a couple together though
I saw a post on here where someone said their benefits would vanish if their partner moved in with them. They were told that they were committing fraud. And then that they were responsible for the housing crisis.

So you’re basing your views about society as a whole on one person who had mental health disabilities and was manipulative. How does that make any sense?

Oh. That doesn’t sound at all like something that’s open to abuse by unscrupulous employers, now does it?(!) and how would that work if the person had to move jobs?

This thinking shows a lack of respect for disabled people and a suggestion that they should all be treated like a child begging for pocket money. Awful.

PIP enables claimants to have a life at home too. It is nothing to do with employment.
How would PIP payments to employers help someone who need care at home?

No. What used to happen was that people suffered in silence and were unseen and unheard. But you carry on with your rose-tinted glasses with ideas about the good old days.

People who cheat the system like that are scummy. They just are. You are not. Its no consolation, but personal pride and doing the right thing should count for something. It doesn’t any more for so many.

Do you mean that your friend works for the DWP and therefore knows how to cheat the system?

How is she able to claim UC if she owns a house?

It’s always been considered benefit fraud for people to pretend to be separated in order to claim as a single person and people can be and are investigated for things like this.

You can own a house and clam UC, as long as you live in it and you don't own any other houses.

Oh ok. Apparently this woman is working, claiming UC and pretending to be a single parent so she can claim more. This is definitely against the rules.

This is why the benefits system needs a radical restructuring.

The new PIP equivalent should be a payment aimed at those who are unable to work and need care at home not those who physically go to work. No ifs or buts.

Before someone mentions MH, only those with serious MH conditions who are totally unable to work would qualify. A streamlined more efficient System.

OK, I have a friend who has MS. She relies on PIP to to go to work and for her self care. She uses her PIP to go to the hair dressers and get her hair washed. She can not do it herself. She uses her PIP to have a car on the motibilty scheme so she can go to work.
If you make it so that PIP is for people not in work then she will not be able to work. How does that make sense?

I really don’t think that people who have no day to day experience of a disability should be saying what should happen and talk over people who do understand what it’s like with comments like ‘no ifs or buts’.

I worked with someone who had MS and they used the train. Is that not possible?

Plenty of people pay for hairdressing out of their regular wage.

Working isn’t just about making money, but brings routine, stability and self respect. I could have easily sat at home on benefits as a single mum, and for years I probably didn’t make a huge amount more. But I stuck with it, worked hard and got promoted a few times, my kids grew up. I now earn decent money and love my job. It’s part of who I am, I can’t imagine how i’d ever feel fulfilled sitting at home all day. I also have a disability so understand how hard it can be keeping hold of your job.

It will be possible for some, and not for others. No two people with MS are the same!

PIP isn’t means tested and has nothing to do with work.

She uses a wheelchair at home and a scooter out in public. She can not walk at all.
Buses are all well and good if there is space for your scooter, otherwise you are left at the bus stop hoping the next bus has space for you.
She gets higher rate PIP and swaps it for a car. She is entitled to do that.
People using their wages are not using it to get their hair washed because they are not so disabled that they can't do it themselves. She goes to the hair dressers to get her hair washed.

Quite. Some people with MS use a wheelchair and can’t walk at all whilst for others it’s a hidden disability.