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?

I am quite sure a good portion of benefit claimants work cash in hand alongside their claim.

Not all of them of course.

I've worked with carers who are only there because they have to be. No thanks. They are fucking awful to work with and I may as well be on my own.

So after over a decade of cuts to local services your answer is to have councils undercut the wages and terms of local authority staff by being cheap labour. Good luck running bin collections and social services when the entire bloody sector comes out on strike. It will make Birmingham look like a small skirmish. It's really hard to get local authority employees to take industrial action, but you seem to have solved that dilemma quite neatly.

It really irks me that care work is viewed as unskilled. Yes, you may not need a degree or a lot of experience, but you need a hell of a lot of skill to be a good carer.

Not only are you a carer, as in you provide personal care and administer meds, but you're a cook, a cleaner, a hairstylist, a personal stylist, a counselor, and most importantly, a friend. You need to carry out all of these tasks with patience and love while ensuring your client maintains as much dignity and independence as possible.

And you need to do it with a sense of humour because if you don't laugh about it, you'll break. Any carer will know the shifts I mean, the ones where you turn up for your third 12-hour night shift in a row and you're one staff member down, there is an ambulance waiting out back for room 12 and one out front for room 3. Room 7 is waiting for the district nurse, room 9 is refusing their medication, and room 8 is naked because their favourite night dress is in the washing machine has been stolen.

It is not a job for the unskilled or unwilling. And it is a vastly undervalued profession both financially and in the way it is viewed by others, others who probably wouldn't last half a shift if they tried their hand at it.

Some people on this thread have their heads in the sand regarding what people who are supposedly living just on benefits are doing. They make excuse after excuse about why people cannot work even if its just part time. Latest excuse is that there are no jobs or that they cannot pass the selection tests (which says a lot about them!)

EVERY EXCUSE UNDER THE SUN.

Basically most of those people lying around on benefits, parent who cannot get their child ready for school etc are also doing cash in hand jobs. How clever are they they boast to people. Do they not realise that the people they are boasting to about pulling a fast one could dob them in - unless of course the government dont really want to know, they dont have the resources to check on these people so hey ho.

30% of the tax is paid by 1% of the work force.

Some would like to see it much much higher.

Isnt it 1-7 of our young people doing nothing, not in education or working. What the hell are they doing all day?

Oh please. Tax avoidance doesn’t make high unemployment okay. The benefits bill is an absolute shocker. As I said before, we can’t be a nation of unemployed people propped up by a few billionaires

Ok, what is a profession for unwilling people then? What would you offer these people who find excuses not to do anything?

Agree completely.

I come in contact with many benefits claimants and very few fit the profile of a vulnerable wheelchair user who is desperate for a job.

The majority have fairly nebulous conditions and the help in the world wouldn’t get them voluntarily back into work. As you said - excuse after excuse.

Fruit/vegetable picking, street cleaning, domestic/office/industrial cleaning, factory work, construction, labouring, gardening, painting/decorating - to name a few, @Wildflowers99.

Some companies have ridiculous aptitude tests though. My friend failed the Tesco one multiple times. He's got a masters degree FFS so isn't stupid by any stretch of the imagination. He is, however, ND. His wife also failed . She's got a doctorate. But they were both going through a rough patch and needed fairly low stress jobs.

I guarantee there will be an excuse for every last one of them.

Another one who thinks disabled people should not have kids.
Disabled people, especially ones who have been so since birth, find a way to raise their kids and have all their needs met.

Nope. You don’t, and they can’t. You listen to what they tell you and believe it. I have worked within the system and believe me unless you have robust medical evidence to prove you can’t work, your benefits are sanctioned if you don’t engage with DWP and provide extensive proof of adequate job search. And unless you live with someone 24/7, 365 days a year, are medically qualified to understand the way in which their health condition affects them, have a working understanding of DWP assessment systems and know exactly what is in the application for benefits, you can’t possibly know whether someone qualifies genuinely or not for disability benefits or carers allowance. Benefits are a pittance and no claimant l ever dealt with professionally wanted to be on benefits. Most had no choice - either from health/disability or circumstance. Sick of the benefit bashing threads on MN. They pop up almost daily.

Why do we want to force people into work when there are not enough jobs for those who do want to work? Would you want them to be your colleague because I sure as shit wouldn't?

Not only are you taking a role away from someone who wants to work by forcing someone who doesn't want to work into it, but you're also lowering working conditions for everyone.

If an employer cannot fill a vacancy in a climate where there are half as many jobs as there are job seekers, they need to look at why.

Are their expectations too high? Are the working conditions good enough? If they are expecting unsociable working hours, are they offering enough benefits to offset that?

Why would Tesco et al keep their working conditions high enough to attract decent staff when the government can force people to work for them against their will?

Advocating working for your benefits ? Really ? If the job is there to be done, then people should be paid the rate for the job.

Many of those job vacancies are not even full time, and not every job seeker will be able to do every role. One job seeker does not have those 800k job available to them to apply for.

There are plenty of threads on MN about people going off sick because of their work environment and bullying managers. If your mental health is already poor, then you could potentially end up in a worse position health wise than ever before. I am sure someone will say about having resilience. That is victim blaming at its finest.

I have no clue why people who don’t know the first thing about benefits or why they are paid engage with these threads. It’s not virtue signalling in my opinion, it’s a combination of ignorance and prejudice.

Oh, it's all so simple for you, isn't it? How about:

• Because they have a living to earn? (We wouldn't want them giving up their jobs and becoming a further burden on the state, now would we?)
• Because the relationship is toxic due to, for example, past abuse from the relative, or the relative is violent?
• Because they live in a different part of the country/a different country altogether, and moving isn't possible?
• Or maybe because - as may become the case for me personally at some point in the near future - they are gradually becoming too unwell themselves to manage the tasks and responsibilities of caring for a relative together with working full-time?

Honestly, you've exhibited some naivety on this thread (and possibly elsewhere, if I'm remembering your username correctly), but a question like 'Why would the family not care for their own relatives?' really takes the biscuit.

Define 'virtue signalling crap'.

It will still do nothing to reduce the benefit bill. All that will happen is that the tax payer will end up footing more and more wage bills, if what’s happened with UC is anything to go by.

I’ve seen this comment from the same poster on several benefit threads. It’s been explained to them over and over again but still they persist. There’s a world of difference between naivety and complete unwillingness to understand or empathise.

The government are going after the disabled anyway. They wont be doing "voluntary work" for their benefits. I imagine that would be those on the job seeking group.
It doesn't happen anyway.

Do you really want your elderly or disabled relatives to be looked after by people who have poor people skills and are doing the job grudgingly and resenting every moment? There have been enough cases of neglect and abuse in the care system as it is. And even short of deliberate neglect, someone with poor communication and observational skills may not do a brilliant job of caring for a vulnerable person or one with dementia/

There's a lot in between it not being someone's dream job, and someone being totally unsuited to it.

Add to those very valid pointst: quite a lot of people do care for relatives, and then the same people, who bash unemployed people, bash the unpaid family carers for not going out to work or for working part-time.

I empathise that consigning yourself to a half life is symptomatic of a bad deal but it just perpetuates the misery for your kids and theirs and theirs…
I live in a deprived area (grew up in poverty myself) and my heart swells when I see people I know graft and pull themselves out of the mire. The current system breeds helplessness.