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.

This constant banging on about welfare is so tedious. It's driven by the very wealthy & big businesses who want us all looking that way & at immigrants while they continue to make huge profits and "legally" dodge taxes.
If businesses paid better wages and stopped offering zero hour contracts and if landlords weren't able to charge what the hell they like for often substandard housing and if there was enough affordable, genuine social housing many, many people wouldn't need benefits!

Many of the people claiming benefits are actually in work but the work doesn't pay enough. That's the issue that needs sorting out.
But instead many businesses will continue to keep wages low while demanding more of their workers or will offer contracts that mean people actually can't afford to take the jobs and landlords will continue to rip people off - and the big businesses will keep declaring record profits and landlords will continue to become richer.

But, no, the problem is entirely with those claiming benefits isn't it? 🙄

it comes off printing machines, but due to the whole way the economic economy is structured you cannot just print more etc

OP was very clear about doing ‘what you could do for yourself’ or ‘unless it was serious’ and is clearly not having a pop at people with disabilities - providing they do what they are able to to improve their situation. If you literally are unable to do any work fine, that’s not what this thread is about.

So with that caveat in place, I completely agree with you.

It’s not always benefits either it’s just this general idea that it’s someone else’s job / problem and a lot of people just don’t take responsibility for anything.

Have you seen the price of adaptations to a car?

also. The benefit is there - given by society to cover the costs of my disabilities. The £300 I get every 4 weeks doesn’t even touch the sides.

PIP isn't means tested and is designed to put recipients on a level footing. The clue is in what the initials stand for.

I agree op. I know several families (my extended family members) who have never worked. Too sick apparently. One with asthma. Too sick to work but had six kids. Surely a desk job would be less strenuous than running after 6 kids. The oldest kids have already left school with zero qualifications but are already being prepped on how to claim for PIP.
I believe in a safety net, but having more kids so that you can claim more benefits is a joke. I agree that work needs to pay, but people are short sighted and don’t see the benefit of working hard to get on in life.

I’ve never claimed a benefit apart from CB but for a lot of the years (before the recent uplift) I’ve had to pay it back.
The low aspirations within some families/ communities is sad.

Which wasn’t always right either. Some people cannot work but would love to.

Firm agree. The problem is we have a massive amount of the population that seek to milk the system and evidently a government that want to let them.

Unfortunately when the money runs out and the pack of cards collapses the economic tsunami will affect everybody! 2008 will seem like a walk in the park.

What happened in the past? My blind nana lived with us for pretty much all of my childhood. She didn’t starve. Why do you assume we would let her starve?

I think self sufficiency will have to return because the level of welfare now is unsustainable for much longer.

That sounds like a miserable way to live. If my children are hurt or upset, I hope they always have the confidence and feeling of security needed to ask for help. I'm sorry you didn't have a safe space to work through your emotions or someone to look after you when you were sick as a child.

I'd also rather there was a safety net in place for people who fall on hard times, have ill health, or are disabled, rather than relying on a pull yourself up by your bootstraps or end up in the gutter mentality 🤷‍♀️

Some people are entitled, some are not. This goes for people from all walks of life.

Didn't the last increase put a lot of people, especially young ones. out of work though?

You’re all a millisecond from needing benefits. One millisecond.

That's fine if you have a family that are willing and able to help. Workhouses used to be full of men, women, and children who didn't have that safety net.

I'm aware, I'm eligible to claim but don't because I'm a high rate tax payer and I feel like it's wrong to claim for things when I'm a high earner.

Another completely baseless myth peddled by those with an ideological desire to see Welfare reduced.

I think in general people are less caring and sympathetic towards each other than they used to be. So people look for sympathy elsewhere, like from our overcrowded NHS and social care. Or people go to a and e or call an ambulance and post photos on social media to try and prove they are ill enough to need sympathy and attention.

Because of the internet, we all "know" more people and there seems to be a competition to cope. People will say how they had a c-section at 9am, then got up and looked after their baby in nicu, then were doing the school run and looking after triplet toddlers within a couple of days. The people who are not dramatically suffering or have 400 stitches, iron levels of 2 and an infection but would still appreciate a bit of sympathy and for someone to make them a lasagne.

It was predominantly women who had to pick up that caring work as well. Not the men.

I would love for there to be an equal emphasis on tax dodgers. On defaulters. The amounts on the published list is eyewatering. I would like people to be as emotive about those people. Who are taking us all for a ride. Only little people pay taxes surely? They own a fortune. They should be made to pay up.

Life has got so hard - disconnected, stressful, busy, pressured - that more and more people cannot cope, starting from a very young age.

Perhaps all the ways society has been made shit could be put right? The billionaires hoarding their money whilst their employees rely on benefits. The decisions made around work, schools etc which are pushing more people to end up disabled and chronically ill.

Life doesn’t have to be like this you know? But instead of beating down those that cannot cope how about we start on those running the country in a way that’s damaging so many?

Now I am wondering how old OP is.

My parents, one born during the war, the other was 12 during the last year of the war benefited from the post war consensus. The consensus was based on the work of Beveridge who argued that a more comprehensive set of policies were needed to create a fairer more equal society. My parents benefitted from going to a grammar school, from cheap rates, from cheaper utilities, higher wages, better employment prospects and protections, creation of more universities, more affordable housing and care from the NHS.

On the other hand I now see people forced to give up their council home due to bedroom tax, a benefits system that punishes the most ill, disabled and vulnerable, an education system not fit for purpose, failing schools and universities on the brink of collapse, a crisis in child mental health with 500,000 on CAHMS waiting list, 4 million children growing up in poverty, life expectancy has started to fall over the last 10 years, waiting for cancer treatment rising, and over 7 million on NHS waiting lists. Many people on zero hrs and other self employed contracts scraping by.

Teachers are leaving the profession, thousands of children with additional needs are being let down and many now educated off list because the provision not only falls short but is actually harmful. LAC rising and not enough provision with many LAC in unregulated homes or hotels.

I could go on,......

Before the war everyone was indeed pulling themselves up by their bootstraps, turning up at the dock for 12p a day lucky to be chosen to work (zero hrs) and their kids living with lice, rickets and poor nutrition.

Should the working classes claim back some pride and demand better for themselves,......bloody right they should OP, wanna join me, I'm on the left!

The best thing the working class can do now is demand a new consensus and tax the wealthy, return rail, water and utilities to public ownership, rebuild our schools and NHS.

Well that is sad, imagine being so thrawn that you feel shame at needing help!

Do we really have a "massive amount of the population" doing this?

Do you have the stats to back that up or are you assuming that from reading the right wing press who have a vested interest in demonising so-called "benefit scroungers" & who therefore highlight individual cases at every opportunity?

This doesn't read like a real person wrote it.