To think people should be able to discuss and debate how public money is used for disability and otuher benefits

[Eatinghurts]

there are for our country a number of competing things happening
desire to have a functioning society which supports everyone
rising goverment spending in part brought about by rises in diagnosids of conditions and an elderly and sick poppulation
shifts in disabilituy expenditure with tech AI etc.

debatoing this leads many to argue posters are ignorant of disability and othering on the othrside assuming disabled people and their families do not pay tax.
I would hope as adults we could maturrely explore this.

They live without benefits. Happens all over the world where the economy is mismanaged and the state runs out of taxpayer cash because taxpayers leave the country, or tax take goes down or people start avoiding taxes to the max. All of this is happening in this country before our very eyes.

This is not a moral question. It’s a financial and mathematical one.

Well, people die, actually, if they don't have the means to eat or somewhere to live.

They end up in debt, homeless and some will kill themselves.
And some people are advocating this.

Yes that could be a likely outcome. That’s how it works.

If there are aren’t enough people left to pay, then there isn’t enough money for benefits.

Advocating what?

Never read a post on MN where someone has advocated for people to do this.

The issue I have with “debates” on this subject is that many people on here who have strong opinions on PIP and DLA don’t have a fucking clue what they’re talking about. They just spout a load of hateful cobblers which misinforms more people and their nonsense spreads further. Not only on here btw. MPs and the like do it too. <Helen fucking Whately I’m looking at you>

Advocating cuts in benefits where they don't actually care what the outcome is for those people who have found their money cut.

Again, it doesn’t matter what people are advocating for. No one can make anyone do anything.

People vote with their feet. This paying into the system are reducing in numbers in staggeringly worrying numbers. That’s has nothing to do with ‘advocacy’.

If the money for benefits isn’t there, it’s not there, no amount of advocating for or against will change that outcome. Cold, hard, cash doesn’t care about people’s feelings.

It is not about feelings. Many posts on here about how benefits should be cut with no regard to how that looks like in real life.
It looks like poverty, starvation, homelessness, suicide.
But if you are a net contributor, you are cushioned from that reality. Your loss is a bit more tax. Not poverty and destitution.

Whats your point? What do you suppose will happen as tax take keeps reducing? How will benefits be paid without a £1 trillion national debt, £20b monthly interest, and gilt yields in worryingly high territory. The country is almost broke.

How is math adding up on this Romantic notion that benefit bill is all well and good and there is not problem here.

I think that what needs reform is the entire system. The world needs to be more accessible for disabled people. The idea of flexible working, home working and job sharing needs to become completely mainstream. Employers need to be given tax breaks for employing people who are disabled so that they can have some flex in the system when someone is more frequently off ill than a non disabled person - but they also need to be rigorously checked to ensure they aren't being tokenist about it. Then we need to get a lot better at prevention in the health system - right now, people get ill, they end up on an NHS waiting list for months and years and get worse and there's long term and more serious damage. I'm not ideologically wedded to the NHS, I'm from a country with an insurance based system (not the US!).

Endless cuts, demonising disabled people and checking up on every last penny they spend gets us nowhere.

I do not have the answers as I am not a politician or someone that has the first clue about economics.
But I am someone on UC, and I can tell you that people like me are terrified as to what might come... and we are also fed up of the rhetoric on here about how we are scamming the system, are workshy, are somehow getting more money than someone working. It is all bull. I was told on here, by someone on over £100k, that I had more disposable income than them. I mean, that is bullshit.
But if the gov cut benefits, by how much.. who knows... I would be on the street and be a body you step over on the way to Waitrose.

Well, we could start with the triple lock...

What about it?

From that well known bastion of leftism, the FT:

https://archive.ph/QkwNp

In short: you're catastrophising. Probably because there's an agenda at play.

Or maybe you don’t understand basic fiscal reality. You could change that if you tried.

The IFS says it is impossible to state categorically that wealthy non doms are leaving the UK in droves.

Well, pensions are part of the benefits bill. The triple lock guarantees pensioners bigger annual rises than just about anyone else receiving benefits - so let's deal with that. UK benefits are already among the lowest in Europe, which is a little inconvenient for people thinking they can easily be slashed.

Well, I don't. But the guy who wrote the article I linked probably does. You haven't read it, have you?

I'm anorexic do you think I deserve my benefits reduced even though I require my heating on constantly. Ps your spelling is terrible

The clear hate in these threads is revealed in the sheer numbers of commenters who, believing there's a shortage of money to maintain current UK spending levels, instead of asking what unnecessary spending we could cut, or what luxuries they can manage without, or how to share resources more equally, in order to ensure the safety and survival of the most vulnerable...go straight to taking sustinence level resources from the most vulnerable.

Thankfully, everyone I know in real life would immediately be asking what we can do to share our extras with those who need it.

The issue is that disability is not one sized fits all demographic.

Even 2 people with the exact same diagnosis may be affected/impaired to completely different levels. Disability is individual in many ways.

I mean yes you can argue you have your "socially acceptable" costs that people think of such as mobility equipment, adapted cars, etc

Bur people don't for example consider
-Utitlites- for example if because of disability you have much much higher levels of having to do washing for example, that will cost far more in water and electric than for a non disabled person
-food. Whilst we'd love for everyone to cook from scratch, for a lot of a disabled people that isn't as simple or even possible. Things like pre prepped veggies/ready meals or hell even takeaway services like just eat/Uber can be a necessity for someone who's disabled and can't cook
-if you can't get a disability pass or you're in a rural area you may be more dependent on taxis than non disabled people
-Private therapy. The NHS simply can't keep up with demand and in most cases recommend going private-last time I looked at the cheapest hire poking at £60pw/session
-Activities/alt therapy- more so Im thinking kids might be recommend to do certain sports or social groups to help that aren't covered otherwise

Those are just a few things off ten top of my head that wouldn't work with a voucher scheme

@Puppamumma What do you get in disability benefits in terms of rates of PIP?

i work with a number of high earners. Its really common to join video calls with people wearing coats, hats and gloves or using hot waterbottles to heat the room not the person. Obviously a sick person requires warmer rooms but what do you do to try and reduce your bills. I just don’t think net contributers are leading the life you think they are.

In terms of the spelling I am a highly educated person with a maths and economics degree from a top university. The total amount of PIP available to me is obviously capped at higher and higher. Yet multiple complex disabilities mean I have to make choices on how my PIP is speant. This means right now I cant afford the monthly costs of equippment to support writing, as am paying out for accessible adaptations to kitchen costing thousands. I also loose pip if in hospital. In one sense understandable but in another how do I plan.

I obviously would not put heating in this catagory but it feels lots of people use disability benefits to fund luxeries. While I have given examples with people with physical disabiolities, it verry often seems to be people with ND kids using DLA to save for the future. Honestly I expect DLA to be used to cover hear and now costs of safety equipment, sensory equipment and adaptive clothing, breakages, a takeaway when dealing with disreggulation means you cant cook ETC. It however feels acceptable to save for a future house deposit.

If you spell out what disability benefits pay for, to the masses, you will get an even bigger outcry, because a large proportion of them cannot imagine anything outside their own experience.

So when I say:

'I can't regulate my own temperature, I often need the heating on, or my AirCon on when other people would not need that'

They think 'well she can just put a jumper on, or open a window, thats outrageous, how dare she have aircon in her house when I can't afford aircon'..

For many people, spending over 2K on an air con unit* for the bedroom seems an outrageous luxury, for me, its the difference between being able to function, sleep well, work, and being plunged into an autonomic crash, where I spend a few weeks cycling through sweating buckets, dehydrating, shivering so hard it hurts, barely functional, and there is no fix for that, just 'ride it out', however long that might take.

I've just bought two pairs of trousers and a bra, I have little change from £200, because I am buying specialist sensory, wheelchair user adapted, easy-on clothing from specialist stores, I am not able to pop to a charity shop or hop on Vinted.

For someone who can charity shop, nip to Primark etc, thats a huge amount of money on clothing.

This is why we have a government, to make big decisions and find out the details and act on them, rather than asking the whole nation what they think - look at what happened last time we did that, we're still suffering the repercussions of that now, because so many people were given a vote on something they did not understand the implications of.

Also - what I need to function, work, live - surely, thats my business. Should I really have to spell out the ins and outs of my life and health to others to justify what I have and what I spend?

Just two days ago a poster of a thread they created said “survival of the fittest”. There are truly awful people on this site when it comes to disability.