To think too many people are happy to live off benefits forever?

[BritishQueue]

Okay, I know this is a touchy subject here on MN, but I need to ask, AIBU to think that too many people are just choosing to stay on universal credit rather than work?

Obviously, I’m not talking about people who genuinely can’t work - disabilities, carers, etc (even though a lot of those who claim to be unfit for work are perfectly capable, and I’ve seen “carers” for people who don’t actually need any care…). But I know multiple people who are completely able-bodied and yet have no intention of ever getting a job. They say things like “it’s not worth it” or “I’d be worse off working,” and honestly, I don’t get it. I work full-time, pay tax, and yet I see people getting rent paid, extra handouts, and still managing holidays and luxuries I can’t afford. Not to mention that a lot of women think the government should subsidise their SAHM lifestyle.

I just don’t understand how it’s fair? Surely benefits should be a safety net, not a lifestyle choice? AIBU?

If you actually knew the first thing about resilience - there's plenty of easily accessible research - you could save yourself the embarrassment of making pig ignorant comments.

Then again, you sound like someone who has no shame, so 🤷‍♂️

Deleted now, but OP told a poster that she should have made a better life partner choice... poster was married for 10 years. Who can predict the 10 years in the future?

Yes made the same comment twice. It is a woman's fault for being a single Mum due to her poor choice of man.

Isn't lovely when women stick together? 🙄

How does our benefits system compare worldwide, does anyone know? I’m not sure how it would be calculated, pro rata per number of citizens maybe? What are the benefit systems in India, America, Scandinavia, China, Australia or elsewhere in Europe? Is this a worldwide issue?

The shit about min wage jobs doesn’t help
Calling them starter jobs and saying about doing courses etc to go into a career. Just because I’m in a min wage job doesn’t mean I’m stupid or failed, I have a degree. And a shit load of health issues that mean I need a WFH job and I’m stuck in the only one I can find

Then presuming that everyone on minimum wage is topped up - not if you’re single with no children you’re not
It’s soul destroying at the minute to work 40hrs a week to pay bills and nothing else. Think after everything was paid last month I had £5 left and I just thought what is the fucking point?

I'm not happy about the fact I'll probably need some sort of benefits for the rest of my life but I'm far happier about that than the alternative which is getting nothing because I can not work due to my disability and my caring responsibilities to my child who also has a disability.

I'd be much happier if employers were flexible, not innately ableist, didn't have punitive absence procedures for absences that are disability related, prioritised staff health and put people before profits, not hold people with disabilities that impact performance to the same performance metrics as non-disabled employees, stop changing their bloody systems so bloody often, could stick to a daily schedule without making unexpected changes and educate themselves on the disabilities of their employees but nobody can or would understandably employ someone who might need to take absences for long duration or frequently, not be able to meet deadlines, have verbal communication difficulties and exhibit unexpected and sometimes self injurious behaviours when overstimulated or when unexpected change happens.

I'd love to have a job and be putting into a pension pot and make friends and socialise, but I have not yet found an employer that actually gives a shit about my disability.

I get UC and PIP and I work full time from home. My monthly salary is only £200 more than my rent. What am I supposed to do? Private rents are out of control. The cost of living is sky high. We’d have hordes of people living and dying on the streets up and down the land if there was no UC.

You might be better off in the short term but longer term its very restricting. On benefits, there's no real opportunity to save and even if you could you're capped at £6000 which is only a few months living expenses if you rent. No or limited access to credit. Real struggle replacing large or expensive items like a couch, mattress, car repairs. Can never move abroad. Government can cut you off financially and chuck you out your home at any point as rules change as we've seen recently. No opportunity for promotion or career and life development. And that's for people who claim for genuine reasons such as disability.

Not sure how contributary jsa works! I pay £50 a month to an insurance company. Should I lose my job I'll be entitled to benefits for 2 years. New graduates get only one year and a lower amount. And you're right Denmark isn't Britain.

I’m in Canada so different system, but do you have to justify only working part time to the government?

I understand the money is roughly the same but if you are able to work full time shouldn’t you?

Again this seems so odd to me.

If you can work full time why shouldn’t you have to?

Even if the money is the same shouldn’t you be expected to work?

Some of us are the children of crack heads who’ve never had a job.

I’m in Canada and my mom has never had a job. She’s 67 now.

My dad didn’t work either but he od’d young.

@MyZippyLemonBiscuit Are you sure about that? Don't forget you won't be allowed to be SAHM for long if you are a single parent. You will be pushed to work fairly quickly.

Do you also think rape convictions reflect the number of rapes that occur?
If you do, I have news for you.

Those statistics you quote are recording known, found fraud. That will be a tiny percent of the actual reality. None of the people I know who game the system have ever been done for fraud.

Before you quote statistics you have to understand them. To use your own language, only ignorant people would conclude from them, as you do, that they mean ‘96% of claimants are legitimate.’

As I said, the benefit system is vast and complex. Effectively policing it would be a near impossible task, even if the Government were able to properly resource this.

Indeed. It is going to get worse in September.

why are you responding to an argument I never made?

I never said the people I know never had a job. All of them have had jobs.

This is not my argument.

None of them are crackheads either. Never intimated they were.

Shows the lack of your case when you need to lie about what others have said to ‘counter’ them.

Single mum, kids at school, you need to work a minimum of 18 hours a week or £600 ish a month earned, whichever is greater. I do school hours so I can pick them up and drop them off. Childcare is submitted though if I did want to work more hours.

And this is the problem @Princessconsuelabananahammock9 I don't blame people for not wanting to work full time for pretty much the same amount they would get working part time, but the system needs to change because we can't afford it.

You have to earn under £8,000 a year to get free school meals now.

edit, sorry £7,400

You don’t work in statistics, do you?

The argument is not that the fraud rate figures given here are fake, but that the people claiming they show 96% of benefit claims are legitimate, don’t understand the data they are quoting.

The statisticians who create those statistics would never claim they show 96% of claims are legitimate, as they know that is not what the figures are recording.

Knowing your data, so you know how to interpret it, is very important to statisticians.

It happens, a single parent, renting, with a SENS child can have a substantial income...and any child support from the absent parent is ignored for benefit purposes.
Is that wrong? i don't know, cut the benefits and the children suffer, keep the benefits higher than NMW and there is no incentive to work.

My DD is band 6 nhs, she takes home less per month than a single mum i know very well with 2 school age children, this mum would like to work as she gets very bored but she also knows she can never replace her benefits income.

A single person living in a HMO will get around £800 per month, 400 for the rent and 400 for themselves, not a fortune but also enough to perhaps stay as they are, DWP don't force you to take a job for many months, it at all, so long as you convince them you re genuinely looking for work.. & thats not difficult.

The amounts you can get whilst not working, are readily available.

Yep. Plenty of us on UC who don't qualify.

What’s the betting the OP is a DWP or Treasury special advisor, official or academic researching how the cuts are landing with the public. Or maybe a Daily Fail hack?

I’m surprised their username isn’t Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells.

Universal Credit is paid to people who are working but their earnings don't cover living costs. Housing Benefit is paid to people whose earnings don't cover their housing costs. So where does the money go to? In both cases, the ultimate winner is the employer or landlord, either running a business that would be unviable without the huge subsidy UC provides to it's underpaid employees or maxing rental income beyond affordable rates. These are the people pocketing your tax cash OP, not the claimants, they are simply the conduit for moving public money jnto private hands. If this fact can be obscured by people like you complaining their single parent neighbour spent a week at Butlins then so