To see benefits as a safety net, not handouts?

[ForGreyStork]

It’s the way benefits are talked about. To me, they’re part of a social security system -a safety net that people may need at different points in life, rather than “gifts” or handouts.
I also wonder whether increasing conditions and restrictions risk undermining that safety net over time.

AIBU?

Sounds like she knew it would wind you up but I promise you that it takes more than an email.

She wasn’t trying to wind me up; she was just telling me. She expected me to be pleased for her and I basically said,
“Oh, well done, you!”

She didn’t mention anything else about the process but I know for a fact that the correspondence with the councillor was the icing on the cake.
She definitely got a fence installed for free.

Maybe she just knows how gullible you are and thought it would be funny 🤣🤣

I know what she told me and what she showed me. You are being deliberately obtuse.

Did you read my original post?
She managed to get a fence installed under completely false pretences.

I call that being dishonest. Some would call that being a liar.

Gullible in that I work for a living and don’t make up absolute nonsense, obviously.

I saw the email on her laptop, she showed me it.

Clearly , you’re another benefit fraudster.

And some wouldn't believe everything their told you already agree she's a liar so why are you believing her over people on here who have been through the process

It would make no difference if I told you I was a benefit fraudster or not it sounds like you just believe anything you're told 🤣🤣

I had no reason to disbelieve her.
Do you honestly think she went to the trouble of arranging made up email correspondence just to wind me up?

Don’t be so ridiculous 🤣🤦‍♀️
And at no point did I let on that I was “wound up.”

I think they are really important, but the sheer proportion of people now relying on them is too high.

There are SO many working age adults not in work now, a huge proportion have anxiety/depression. Life is hard, too many people lack resilience & coping strategies.

I believed her because she SHOWED me the email she sent and she was full of praise for the councillor.

It’s possible that that there was other communication with other parties. She didn’t mention that and I didn’t ask.

Just because something happened that YOU don’t agree with, doesn’t mean that it didn’t happen.

There are different laws and processes in different countries, or were you not aware of that?

For example, Scottish schools don’t fine parents for taking them out of school. English schools do.

By the way, it’s “they’re,” not “their.”

I think they were designed with this in mind e.g to cover disabled people, those who are sick either short or long term, those who are made redundant so completely not their fault.

What we’ve actually produced is a bit of a monster whereby most working adults receive government top ups because they simply don’t earn enough to live (not their fault). On top of this some (not many) choose to live on benefits because it pays better than work OR they spend so long out of work, it’s enormously difficult to get back into.

And also the cost of this would be astronomical! Think of how many people work for the NHS alone! What happens to people who are found to have taken drugs? I presume they are just left to die in the street of starvation etc? It's a ridiculous idea.

So you only see one email she sent and you thought that was the whole process

Is there anyone on here, who has actually worked in or around the benefit/social housing/ justice system who thinks that multi generational worklessness is NOT an issue?

Because if you have worked in it, like I have, around hugely different areas of the country, I fail to see how you could not see it as an issue. It’s definitely not rare or uncommon or confined to a couple of areas across the country?
The government knows it too. There have been various programs over the last 30 years of my working life to try to address it. They failed because it is a multi faceted issue.
And for all the genuine benefit claimants, many of whom have posted on this thread, your denials about the reality of the system we currently have utterly baffle me. Every single fraudulent claim takes money away from YOU who genuinely need it? The system was supposed to be for people who genuinely need it and the fact is, those people aren’t getting anywhere near enough.
The entire thing needs an enormous overhaul.

Thats because a significant amount of disabled people will have anxiety and depression as they tend to go hand in hand. Being in pain all the time and no longer being able to live the life you once did can cause depression. Having a sudden unexpected decline in your health can cause anxiety. It would be very few people who got benefits for anxiety and depression alone. I have anxiety and depression its on my scr which gets sent with pip form but its not what I get pip for. Im under secondary care for mh but although I have anxiety and depression its not what im under secondary care for. I've been sectioned in the past but again not for anxiety or depression but that would still appear on paperwork. This is why there is a lot of confusion around people with anxiety and depression not working and claiming benefits. Also remember anxiety disorder is an umbrella term so that covers ptsd, ocd, agoraphobia, selective mutism, panic disorder its not just what people initially think it is

The world is changing. In the west we are quite coddled and don’t expect people to make massive efforts to support themselves. Or we wouldn’t have high youth unemployment and simultaneous vacancies in the jobs nobody wants to do. My ancestors walked from northern coalfields to the Kent coalfields when there was no work.

Now we import people who do those jobs until they don’t have to. (Don’t blame them!)

With AI coming you might simplistically think that everyone could share out the reduced work and the whole country do a four day week and pay the unpleasant jobs more. But companies and money don’t work like that. It’s fewer jobs and harder work for the ones that have them. It feels inevitable that we end up with huge numbers doing nothing and the rest working hard to pay for them while the companies compete for their profits.

I’d like to see a more holistic and cohesive set of policies that look at the future world of work rather than the sticking plasters we use now. Would be better for everyone if there were a million people working a 3 day week than half a million working like crazy to support half a million doing nothing. Work is necessary for young people.

.

That is not what I said.
I didn’t question her on the process because it’s not my business. She was the one who brought it up with ME.
Maybe she just wanted to rub my nose in it that she got something for nothing when I had to work full time for the same thing? 🤷‍♀️

Btw, her DD is now 27 and works full time in a very physical job so she wasn’t that “disabled,” was she 🤣

I’ll say this again for the hard of thinking; I have no problem with people being giving benefits when they need them.

You do realise that mental illness isnt just mild anxiety and depression ?
Both of those conditons csn be disabling when they are severe
But there are also other severe and enduring mental illness,s such aa schizophrenia , Bi polar, schizo affective disorder which can be disabling for people.

That may well be the case but i doubt the councillor had much influence
When my Housing assicistion installed 7 ft fencing i had to get a referrall ftom my sons special school to the OT who came ro my house and agreed the fencing was far to low in view of my sons needs
The housing associaton agreed to install it
Ithe process took about 12 months.

So this was 20+ years ago when we had a completely different significantly more generous benefits system and more available services which has absolutely nothing to do with the reality of benefits and services available at this current time

Theyre both.

Benefits were initially concieved as a form of state run workers insurance. You pay national insurance and then you draw out money for certain life events: maternity, retirement, sickness, unemployment.
The "Contributory benefits" still function like that. Things like Maternity Allowance and contributions based Jobseekers Allowance and Employment and Support Allowance.

But the benefit system pretty quickly had to reckon with circumstances that didnt fit into thay mould. What to do (for example) with a person who was born disabled and has always been too sick to work. Even unemployment is a bit tricky.
Contributions based systems are designed for periodic or cyclical unemployment. Not (for example) the great depression. Or the systematic deindustrialisation of the 1980s. You need something means tested to cover a basic standard of living for those who have not paid in.

But apart from that, benefits have always been used partially for social engineering. Child benefit was a way of transfering money from men to women (on the correct assumption that women generally act in childrens interests).

Tax Credits were a way of incentivising low paid work because the Labour Government were committed to a low wage service economy but didnt want society to reap the full consequences.

Universal Credit is largely a way of subsudising housing and childcare through private sector providers.

The benefits system cant perform this function and remain a "safety net" because housing and childcare are long term ongoing costs. Not short term emergencies.

I personally feel that subsidising housing and chilcare is a legitimate function of the state. These things are necessary, hard for individuals to afford on their own and the private sector tends to make a hash of them.

Is providing money to individuals to spend in the private sector is a good way to go about it? Maybe not.

If everyone was paying £350 a month for council housing and another £200 to state subsidised nursery that would represent a similar level of state investment. But it would feel more dignified because the subsidy would be hidden in daily life.

Personally I think benefits should have an expiration date that forces people claiming to look for better paid work. The UK currently has an anti-hustle culture: let someone else pay the way is how many see it. We will continue to compromise the NHS and schools until we focus on core offerings.

So what about people who can never work?

How would an expiry date help someone who is permanently unable to work through illness or injury?