Re- Benefits..please read..!!

[bichonbuzz]

Have just watched Benefits Busters prog where women on benefits are supported to try to return to work.One of the women gets £240 pw- has 4 chldren - which coincidentally is my wage - and she stated that she wanted to return to work but felt that benefits are too high and actually discorage some people to work.She was offered a job during her course but calculated that to take this job it would mean that she would be £50 pw WORSE OFF- i just feel that the gov should have let her work and contribute something for the benefits she would continue to get - it would be a win win situation as she felt it wd help her self esteem to work (appriciate some people could nt do this due to circumstances )- She seemed upset and motivated to work and it would have been one less person on benefits - AIBU to wish that she could have been supported to do this whilst keeping her benefits ....

i should add that he will need to show his passport with his ILR visa in it at some point with most of these benefits, even after supplying his NI number.

they'll just take a photocopy of it and give it back to him.

God the reason I hate these threads is that they usually become personal.

No one can no the precise details of anyone else's circumstances.

A minority of people will have very specific situations eg a complex caring responsibility which makes paid employment impossible for one parent.

The key argument which I have yet to see any reasonable response to, is that every adult who is capable of working, should either be working, training or studying unless a) they are supporting themselves or being supported financially by someone else, or b) there are literally no jobs that they can do.
The bottom line is, the 'state' (ie other adults who are working) should not be expected to support them.

Having a job you love, like or enjoy is a bonus. Most of us have done shitty jobs at some point, er, hello, welcome to the real world.

vh I don't have any argument with the should be- it woulod be hard not to agree

Though what you would do with those that didn't- ah there I suspect we wouldn't agree. The benefits system is not just for supporting the claimant, it is for those who are dependants also- and I would never agree with any system that penalised a child because their parents were choice claimants. That price is too high.

It is true that a job you like is a bonus, but it's a good bonus: we should be encouraging people to work towards that aim not by paying for them to wait, but to study etc. People who are generally 'happy' (I accept thats a very wide continuum) do tend to be more productive, have better health outcomes etc so it is a bonus for all society. Of course there will be always people needed to wash potatoes or as my Dad does clean outr sausage factories but actually, he is happy in that job: he feels he is a success at it (after decades in management actually gewtting sick of endless redundancies) and he likes the atmosphere of the palce.

BUt then I inhabit the Welsh region and mentor in the valleys where really, a job is a luxury most would not expect: perhaps my view is skewed by that.

EVERY MP should have to read that Guardian article.

I've yet to read an article regarding this issue that is so spot on!

wow! i revise. they should all have to read every single one of those comments, too.

C) am not like a playground bully but I dont think you know what it is to be THIS carer perhaps? In my situation, where no care provider will touch ds1.

Empathy and all that

Have tried to be empathetic, when did you last have a job? did you have childcare for DS1? I think you need a break, you sound stressed and resentful and need a bit of rest bite. Looking after your son sound like a full time job you don't think anyone else can do. Maybe you could get DLA as well if you don't already, your very defensive I was in no way attacking you when I said I understood how hard caring was.
I don't think anythig I say will be acceptable to you, you have decided to argue with all of my comments even when I am to encoraging you or have said your right.
Never said you smoked, said people would have more to live on if they did refering to the types of people in my earlier threds.

I know of childminders who look after children with problems like your son. I think the govenment should address this problem as its obviously an issue with alot of parents

this will be different than on going posts but there is something i can not understand;
its about lone parents with absent exs.
they are never in the picture anywhere, why?
if they dont see their children they still must have some input for their children, at the end of the day they made the children together.
the lone parent trying to start to work putting everything at risk, children shouldnt be at risk.
i think the absent exs must have input as well.
this has been ignored everywhere, and i can not understand that.

i dont see any responsibility on absent exs, their lives must be easier i guess without having to think what will happen to their children.

I graduated last year, before that I worked (for homestart in fact) because I lived near Mum and she cared for ds1. He hits and bites randomly, I could not tkae that on my conscience. I ahve a provider considering taking him in a years time if we can mange jhis behaviour, but right now even school are struggling.

I don't think I am defensive- MN hardened perhaps? USed to being demonised on threads as a claimant maybe? Probably, in fact.

DS1 is a full time job, becuase he ahs AS we dont qualify for respite or support (we get DLA at HR though, which we are going to use to put youngest ds4, 16 months in a CM for 4 hours a week). I also have ds3 who has ASD and is more severe but his old CM will take him (and also is doing ds4): ds2 is easy to arrnage care for.

He is a FT job but he has a lot to give. I am lucky to have the boys and a Dh who cares alongside me- he works his arse off, shifts that amost killed him (literally bt thats another sob story and he is now self emplyed after being maderedundant- he's doing everything he can plus 50% on top and I can ask for no more- I am sop grateful for him.

And you know all thoseyears I worked I was desperate to be asahm pmsl- typical isn't it? but hopefully the ma if I get it will not only help my boys, but be useful for meas every job I really fancy is linked to asd these days

why arent they on tv programs like the ones made for 'lone parents back to work'
why dont they do programs about 'why they left their children, why not taking any responsibility, how can they be made more responsible, how can they be forced, how much are they supposed to help, etc '.

Well I think your doing well, you do sound tired though. I think, if its possible you desrve a well desered break.
I wanted to work for homestart or be a family worker when I finish the course, or an outreach worker, something wothwhile. I am doing the degree for myself more than anything, and to prove to my parents that I can.

agree 100% about the men aspect

homestart are good to work for, good luck with that

I get tax credits too I claim. Its people who do nothing but watch tv that annoy me. people who have no kids get jobs but quit them. I think people should be allowed to look after their own children if they want to as well. I will be hardening myself to the MN forums in futre lol

yeh its true, you only ever hear about the single mums, not the scummy dads who up and leave and don't pay up. Its alway the CSA system thats wrong rather than the dads for not paying in the 1st place

Message withdrawn

Message withdrawn

My daughter is 6. She just started school. She was retained at stage, the Scottish term for being held back. Had an extra year of council-funded nursery in an Additional Support Needs (ASN) unit.

She is already reversing her letters and putting them upside down on her word wall and having big problems with things that came so easily for me, a mentally ill-soon-to-be-posting-from-a-dongle-so-I-can-still-work-in-temporary-accommodation person.

How can I stop her from being so ignorant as some of the posters on here?

Because to be honest it frightens me more than the problems I know she has already with literacy.

I lie awake at night thinking of the poisoned chalice I begetted, and mentally flagelating myself for it, the one girl dyspraxic and so very likely dyslexic and dysgraphic, the other clever as I was, and as sad.

Message withdrawn

Neither, MissSunny.

But for those who feel that the stars of Shameless are the majority.

Those who feel that the poverty is an individual failing.

Those who would rather go after the lone parents than the multimillionaire in the big mansion paid for by DH and you (and formerly me because he was the SAHP for four years) and her misguided minions like Haley.

Those who have nothing but hate, jealousy and condemnation for the very people they live beside rather than the real fiddlers because they've fallen for what they've been fed by those very fiddlers.

THOSE are whom I'm addressing.

and nobody goes after absent exs who can make many lone parents.

Message withdrawn

Divide and conquer. Really. There's no beter example of that than here.

And to think, I left a place I called my country in part because they had such a muddled sense of empathy, such what I found immature ideals.

Only to find out where they got those, why they did, how the apple didn't fall from the tree in more ways than most Brits would care to admit.

Like father, like son.

You see, shanine, those people don't irritate me so much as the MPs in their ivory towers. My own claimed £8000 in hotel expenses in his own constituency last year.

It's Fred Goodwin and his £32m pension, ONE PERSON'S pension!, that DH and you pay for and people are still being made redundant from RBS. My best friend's last day is 30 September and she worked for them for 18 years.

She's leaving with £8000 and he's leaving with £32m in taxpayer's money and he was there less than a third of the time she was.

And he's a drop in the ocean.

He and his ilk at STILL GETTING BONUSES you and I and maybe our children if they don't fuck off to Australia will be, probably till Kingdom come.

So forgive me if I just can't get it up to take it out on Donagh and her job at Poundland.

expat - yes agree, the government (and i've said this b4 and still will do) eed to get their own house in order before they try to make change is things - I see the plot to shame the head of defence back fired over the weekend with his expenses compared to the defence minister!

turquoise, Yes that's my thoughts exactly totally agree with you. I was on IS as I say for a year, not my choice at all XH walked out (thank god) but he did his answer however was 'you'll get a council house' erm I don't think so matey you step up the plate and do what's right by your son. (which t be fair he always has done financially)

as I said it annoys me when people make this programmes about single parents our job is hard enough without additional stigma added on - this is why 95% of my friends don't know XH/I are separated. why do they never make programmes about how hard we have it, or success stories of people who are single parents and are getting on. but I guess that doesn't sell papers/isn't good tv?? and lone parents are an easy target.

As I say i'm lucky, however if my boss sacked me tomorrow i'd be up the creak, as I know I wouldn't get another job so well paid, and so flexible. That's the bit that scares the crap out of me cos we've got used to the additional money now, and this time there would be no saftey net from my parents helping me out money wise with the rent as they're struggling now their selves.