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.

Thank you.
I am ND (autism) and don't think I am for the scrap heap. I have tried to work, but it is a case of no one giving me a chance at all or I get so overwhelmed I burnout.

Yes I can relate to this. The job I ended up settling in involved my own special interest and being able to only work with one person at a time.

Yes it’s completely unfair and your situation illustrates how regressive this policy actually is. There is a consultation which we can respond to before 30th June 2025. I would urge anyone affected by this to respond and also ask those who care for you / are related to you to submit responses as well.

If there is no push back, the government will assume people think it’s fair.

If the parents are ND, it shows it has always existed. Previous generations coped (albeit undiagnosed) and survived. Maybe we should revert back. Past generations led a straightforward life and seemed happier than now.

The way life evolves is not always progress but sometimes detrimental to society.

Such an ignorant post.

Previous generations didn’t ‘cope’ - I know because the autism in my family comes from my dad and the generations in his family before him. So I remember what happened to those people who struggled and were unable to work, hardly able to function. One example In my family, one poor chap had only one set of (dirty) clothes, frequently got himself into scrapes and lived with his older sister, later becoming an alcoholic. He never worked, he couldn’t even drive. He spent most of his life miserable.

Nobody heard about these people because there was no social media and people were made fun of so they hid away.

My dad is not diagnosed but def ND. He can't deal with anything at all. My mum does every single thing for him. He is also an alcoholic and very depressed.

And in any case, if the government is correct about claims going up, it’s not just people with ND conditions or mental health difficulties because they have said that the main areas where claims have risen is conditions like arthritis, back problems and fibromyalgia as well as MH conditions in 18-24 year olds. If some of those conditions are becoming more disabling there is a reason and I would guess it might be not being able to get NHS treatment soon enough.

So this is a wider issue than some people realise.

Yes, I could have written the exact same thing about my own dad.

Sorry to hear about your family but good to hear you pulled together and looked after him. I totally agree and am advocating family support.

Personal family issues such as this are not a general tax payer problem.

If you think that people with disabilities don’t deserve to receive support from society then you also have to accept that you don’t believe in one of the cornerstones of a civilised society. There but for the grace of god go you…

The point of my post was in response to your view that ND people coped fine before. They didn’t.

I said earlier that the seriously disabled most definitely need support.

they are not family issues...they are people with disabilities. Many would have been locked up.sometimes for their entire lives because they were autistic or learning disabled. Or yes sometimes because of mental health issues. They didn't cope. They suffered .

Any disability (not just your arbitrary rule) causes a person to be at a disadvantage. societal support is designed to create a level playing field so that they are not as disadvantaged.

I actually think that one reason why more people claim now is simply because they are aware of their rights and no longer feel so alone because of social media.

There has to be something in this because the government is looking at making it illegal for people to post advice online re: how to successfully claim PIP.

I think more people claim due to the cost of living.

PIP is hard to claim. I don't claim it, but if I was left to do it myself, the forms would be rambling and make no sense at all. The assessors look for certain language and words, and that is why people seek help on how to word things. They are not looking to cheat the system, they are looking how to understand the system.
I had someone do the forms for my WCA for UC for this very reason.

You mention "create a level playing field' when in fact by trying to achieve this you are actually levelling down. Life is not fair and cannot be equal. This applies to health, wealth, intelligence, looks etc harsh but true. Maybe you would like a good looking tax to make those a little plainer feel equal.

Being plain looking is not a protected characteristic

Yes exactly. That, too. I wonder if the UK is disproportionately affected because of the mess that has come with leaving the EU. It’s that which has driven food prices up to ridiculous levels.

Yep. You used to be able to afford to live alone on NMW. Not anymore.

Jesus, you just have to be a Tory.

and most of this conditions cannot be diagnosed by traditional checks such as blood tests / CT/MRI/ultrasound etc, only based on patient's own words. Funny that.

Even most Conservatives I know wouldn’t say stuff this ignorant.

Oh go away.
I am diagnosed with autism and it took YEARS to get assessed. Then it involved multiple lengthy appointments including my parents. I am in my 40s.

I saw someone the other day saying that nobody can agree on what makes an autism diagnosis 🤣

please re-read the post I responded to. It was not about autism