Welfarisation has made people utterly entitled and unable to take responsibility for themselves and their families.

[hagchic]

I grew up in a working class family. The values I was taught were that you stood on your own two feet and it was no one else's job to do what you could do for yourself.

If you were hurt, you were expected to get up and go and clean yourself up - and stop whining about it unless it was actually serious. If you were ill, you went to bed and if you were lucky some magic lucozade appeared.

If you were sad, then you were sad. If life was unfair then that was just how life was and you needed to deal with it.

You never ever sought charity or took benefits when you were able to work or put up with less. You lived to your own means, not to what you saw on TV or at school - and if you wanted that lifestyle it was up to you to get it.

Today everyone has the expectation that someone must help them, that they are obliged to help them - even before they have made any attempt to actually do the work of helping themselves. They expect luxuries like holidays, pets, new clothes and treats when they do nothing to earn this.

I think self sufficiency is a value that needs to return to our society.

I think you might be posting too fast to understand maybe?

The OP did not mention PIP or disabilities when you jumped in with your first post below...

Bbcsounds · Today 17:09

I’ll speak severely to my legs and tell them just to work properly shall I?

But are there really loads of families like that?

Let;s go to the school and ask teachers...

The problem is any solutions to the people you describe tend to harm the people you want to help.

Take shame if we are all supposed to everything we possibly can to not claim benefits and feel a bit ashamed that we do, the obvious impact is disabled people have to feel a bit ashamed even though they have no choice.

If we make motability cars so noone woukd want one unless they were genuinely disabled ' it means the genuinely disabled have a lovely stigma car to drive.

And so on, make the benefit so uncomfortable no one would take it unless desperate- those in need are uncomfortable.

If you tightening the criteria so tight it would be impssible to fake, or rule out specific conditions because the popular press is doesn't like them - people who genuinely cant manage something risk being outside the criteria.

So yes they become scared or afraid that they will be ashamed, uncomfortable and in a stigma car to deter others or just outside the system they needed.

The op said

you never ever took charity or took benefits when you were able to work.

I can’t copy and paste because my fingers aren’t working well enough.

if that didn’t mean pip, which is an in work benefit, what did it mean?

Please see my last post. Thank you.

Which period are you referring too @hagchic

“During the mid-to-late 1970s, almost one in three UK households (31%) lived in social housing.”

Who lived in these houses if everyone was self sufficient?

Ironically, welfare exists to help give disabled people a bit of self sufficient lives. They might try to also have more resilience if they are supported.

The thread hasn't been derailed. Me and other PP have just given our thoughts on the above angle of disabled people. Which is apparently not allowed.😳

Yeah there are a lot of families like this. I live in a poorer area and there were quite a few at dcs school.

And raising the national minimum wage without raising the tax threshold doesnt really help a lot. I'm on just about minimum wage and barely saw any difference because I'm getting taxed more.

Especially given the op actually said you shouldn’t claim benefits and work.

I can feel and hear that orange cellophane

I dunno I mean I’m in Ireland and here it’s very difficult to live on minimum wage . Some people who work really hard still get some benefits here because their wages are so shitty. Like I’ve respect for anyone who works in any job and if they need benefits to afford to live I don’t have an issue with that . I also don’t have an issue with people who can’t work for real reasons such as disability or being carers claiming benefits or single parents who have been left in vulnerable positions …it could happen to any of us some day . You don’t know what’s around the corner . That said I can’t stand freeloaders who milk the system of which there are many

Agree 👍 The welfare state was created to help people in dire need and it was 'shameful' to use it. Now it's a calculated expectation of entitlements to claim for everything you can.

Same, if we couldn't afford sth we worked and saved or went without, looked after things, knew the value of money. Too many now instantly expect to be able to live above their means with no accountability, post superficial photos of DC's pile of presents, when they can barely pay their bills.

We had hand me downs, had to wait for something we desired until birthday or Christmas, didn't expect sth to be replaced if we broke it.

My experience of friends/relatives on UC are mixed. Some are absolutely genuine and couldn't cope in a job, others calculate the minimum hours they need to work to get 'full whack' as one called it. The acquaintances who I feel are unethical are involved in drug dealing, have one baby after the next, claim full benefits and earn a fortune on the side. Their houses are out of this world, newest cars, phones, designer gear and no shame whatsoever. Listening to them talk...I wouldn't dare wear that, opinions on how crap teachers, hospitals, police are, rude to sales staff, think they're above everyone else, yet never experienced a day of work in their lives.

thats the problem you cannot have high paid workers and still be a profitable business in many cases modern business needs cheap labour but then society needs good workers

You are hitting the nail on the head here whilst simultaneously completely missing the point.

Working class values used to mean something. Workers were respected, ‘grafters’ as you say. They were valued, made to feel their lives meant something. People appreciated the shopkeepers, the care workers, the coal men. Their wages enabled them to buy homes, support their families on a single wage (should they choose to) and achieve a reasonable, if basic, standard of living.

That is all gone. How can you expect people to feel pride in themselves when they’re intrinsically undervalued by society? These days two people on minimum wage have little chance of home ownership, despite working longer hours and in boring, soul-destroying jobs where they’re treated like cattle by big corporations looking to turn a cheap profit. They can’t decide to tighten their belts while one of them stays at home with the kids because unless they’re both slaving away they can’t even afford the extortionate rent they’re paying their landlord, so they pay childminders which cuts another third off their income. Wages don’t pay enough to live on, so they’re forced to claim benefits as a top up, then they get bashed for being a drain on tax payers as well.

So yes, people did used to take pride in being grafters. Nowadays the same people go off to work at an Amazon warehouse on a zero hours contract where they’re faceless and broke and unappreciated. You try having pride in what you do when you work 12 hours a day and still have to use food banks and listen to your kids ask for things you can’t give them. Eventually that’s going to grind anyone down to the point of giving the fuck up.

You can see why young people can’t be arsed with any of it, it’s not rocket science.

Oh look, you're determined to make this thread all about you, to the point where you're reading things no-one has typed.

That's your prerogative but it's a bit mean to take someone else's thread off track, instead of starting your own.

That’s IN the very first post by the op. It starts a paragraph. That’s literally what he/she wrote!

edit to add. Please go and read the op. It is what she/he said.

What are you basing this on?

I don't think the op was harking back to the beginning of the NHS. Services started to be charged for in 1951, three years after the NHS was launched. School meals were never free for everyone.

I could not disagree with you more. I would love to know the story of your upbringing and young adulthood that makes you think everyone can do exactly what you did. Did you get a job straight out of school? Were you able to support a family on one salary? Buying a house? Help from family with childcare or financially? Are you well and healthy and are your kids well and healthy? Are you straight, neurotypical, typically abled?

All those variants make it difficult to generalise. And no, people who didn't fit that mould didn't just get on with it. They suffered, died, squashed themselves into conventional lifestyles and became mentally ill, committed crimes to survive, etc etc etc. The bright ones ended up in jobs way beneath their intelligence ruled over by rich thick people.

No. I don't agree with you at. All.

@ABOOO the quote I quoted starts the fourth paragraph in the op.

don’t accuse me of lying when I haven’t. Thank you.

There is nothing shameful asking for help if it's needed. Nothing at all.

The whole time of the post is that there are scores of people who lack resilience and depend on welfare as a lifestyle choice.
Whilst I have no doubt this is the case for some, and always has been in my lifetime (I’m 52), we need to look at other things.

MH services have been decimated. They are not fit for purpose. People cannot access help until they are at rock bottom and then it’s a very long way back up.
Families need two salaries to survive, and even then barely do.
Housing is horrendous. High rents, high purchase prices.
Less jobs, more services automated. My son was saying he was in our local small Tesco. One member of staff. Self service checkouts, a robot floor cleaner.

So much has changed.

I'm glad that my personal experience, which I have been told repeatedly is untrue or even 'not human' is not unknown to others.

The inferences made by some individuals are simply incorrect and not what I said or what I was talking about.

I am actually a huge advocate for the wealth tax (go Gary Stevenson) but it does not mean that I think it would allow everyone to live whatever lives they want - it would not be enough to cover everything that people want or expect now.

I think we need to become self sufficient, responsible and to accept less of everything - as I stated luxuries need to be seen as just that. I think that the luxury lifestyle advertised on tiktok/insta is seen as achievable for everyone - and it is not, nor is it optimal.

This thread has been totally hijacked by people who have used it to shout about their own needs and situations when that was not what I was talking about.

I'm not replying to you anymore as you're coming across as a bit manic in all your fast replies, which I think is what's making you misunderstand so much.

You've posted at least 50 times on this relatively short thread.

And I feel while you're doing that, you can't be reading it well.

OP can you give an example of what you are referring to, as I and possibly others reading don’t know what scenario you mean. Were you referring to disabled people claiming benefits or someone/something else? What exactly are people doing wrong ‘these days’ and what services are being abused?