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.

It's not welfare - look at some European countries that have far better welfare systems and still a self-independence culture.

It's something else. Not sure what, but if other countries can have a better attitude towards self-sufficiency and still have a (considerably better) welfare system, then the welfare in itself isn't the issue, and it stops extreme deprivation for people who are unable to help themselves, as it's meant to.

It's a rotten society where disabled people and children are on the streets, as happens in many countries where there's no welfare system.

I do think we need a system whereby say you are a big supermarket, have a large staff base on low pay but manage to turn a healthy profit, you should be billed some of the UC paid to workers to bring them up to living wages, prior to paying dividends out. The beauty of this scheme for the likes of supermarkets is that they cannot move these staff overseas.

Some businesses would fold if we increased minimum wage. Our minimum wage is incredibly high compared to the rest of the OECD and any international company needed manual workers wouldn’t be able to base themselves in the UK if minimum wage was doubled.

Each individual knows if they are a lazy scrounger or not. Its not for me to decide.

I think the welfare system needs to be scrapped and started again. People should be assessed for need rather than cash just being handed out. It’s daft to pay young unemployed people living at home with their parents unemployment benefit. They have no costs. If they want pocket money they can get a job. In the same way that a single parent gets more than a cohabitating parent.

Same applies to low-paid public sector workers, some of whom have to claim UC housing element because their pay doesn’t cover the rent on a family home.

Yet if the wealthy are asked to pay a little more tax to pay them a genuine living wage, the greedy so-and-sos kick up a fuss.

The same people who stood on their doorsteps clapping them during the pandemic. Hypocrites.

Greed is good, baby.

Can somebody tell me is there money then?

Indeed. Here we go again 🥱

Exactly were basically just funding their weed/booze/gaming!!

Born 1948.
Free dentistry and eye tests for school children. Free treatment and glasses though there was a bit of a stigma attached. Free school meals were need-based but also attracted stigma. Healthcare in the community was more accessible- doctors made house calls and district nurses and health visitors dealt with chronic or minor health issues and health needs of children.
Mental health care was practically all in institutions and child benefit only began with the second child (though it was paid directly to the mother) So swings and roundabouts.

OP, when you are diagnosed with two incurable cancers, forced to take early retirement and migrate to benefits, do let me know what your new life looks like and whether the lucozade fixes things!

And it never did you any harm, amirite? 😁

Over half the welfare bill goes to pensioners 🙄

Thing is OP that for starters your family likely didn’t have the housing issues many have today, locally there is no social housing and a three bed house is renting for around £2200 minimum a month. Very many people will need benefits in the form of housing top up to cope with this as work does not pay enough,

I meet people desperate as they are working two jobs, the landlord is selling up and they can’t afford anything in the area.

I’ve always worked apart from a few years when my learning disabled son was in a crisis and needed me at home, I’ve always just “got on with it”. However I’ve met so many people who have been kicked in the teeth by life and struggle hugely as a result.

I’ve also met those who are not just unemployed but frankly unemployable.

Life is harder now than it was when I was a child in the 1970s . Dad worked, Mum worked around school hours so we managed on one wage. I bought my first place in 1996 for £42k …a two bed flat on a nurses salary. A nurses salary wouldn’t come close to buying that same flat today, And when basic needs like housing become out of reach I can see why people stop bothering.

The people who say it’s benefit bashing will swear this attitude does not exist because they don’t live in that world

it really annoys me, and it’s shit for people who really need benefits, resources are depleted for them

it makes no sense for low paid public sector worker’s employees to be billed for their UC top ups when the state is their employer. It’s just moving money around the public sector budgets.

My marginal tax rate is 67%. If I work overtime I only get to keep 33% of what I earn. How much more do you think I should be paying? I don’t think I’m being a ‘greedy so and so’ for saying that I think I pay enough tax. I’m sure other high earners would agree,

Horseshit.

@LoisGriffinskitchen correct.

Over half of families who rent privately claim UC housing element/housing benefit, though many still have massive shortfalls as it’s frozen and totally inadequate.

Try affording £2k pcm rent, plus bills, plus childcare, plus food, plus clothes, plus transport on an average wage, even as a couple. Let alone as a lone parent.

My cousin teaches at a school in a deprived community - pretty much every child from a family with multigenerational unemployment and the children not only consider this the only way to go, but to seek to ‘improve’ themselves is considered a betrayal of their community. There is no ambition for better (and, tbf, very limited options within their area) but the level of benefits makes this all sustainable on a personal level. I am not sure how it could turn around without hugely reducing benefits AND, critically, having an employer on the doorstep. But even then it will take a generation or more to change attitude to education and work.

You’re not wrong Op & I was raised the same way.

A single parent living with a teen who ages out of child benefit, then as they become an adult are liable for paying council tax... that is not "no costs".
Not all parents can afford for another adult to live in their home for free.
The job market for young people is really tough right now, so claiming UC whilst they find something is acceptable.

Not only this, many will hand over the house to a member of the family, by adding them to the tenancy before they die or feel old or etc

It was the introduction of the sugar free version that started the downfall of society. I look back romantically to when lucozade cured every ailment.

Here's how things work in my world. Everyone makes an art form of complaining about life generally, while also being intensely ambitious - for their children, in particular. Many succeed, but when they do, they are expected to make hefty charitable donations, sit on the boards of voluntary organisations, etc. The overall attitude is that life can turn terrible at any moment, for anyone: have fun, work hard, and give a lot of love to those who truly cannot.

There again, I'm what Farage might call an "ethnic". Perhaps this just isn't the old-fashioned British way.

So, how do you suggest hospital cleaners, porters, housekeepers etc get a decent wage to house/feed their families without claiming top-up benefits?

Maybe you don’t think we need those jobs? They’re not important or useful?

Absolutely agree with you. Many see benefits as a choice rather than necessity. Go on the fb groups and so many posts about whether they should work or if they do will benefits stop. It shouldn't be optional!!!
On uc within a couple as long as one is working 29 hours at minimum wage the other has no requirement to work. Ludicrous! A single parent will have no such choice!
The benefits Bill is unsustainable and when cuts are hopefully made the ones that will be affected most will those that genuinely cannot work.