To get really annoyed when people start comments with 'benefits claimants are <<insert negative statement>>'.... or tell me we are entitled to less of a life than 'hard working honest people'? <<rant

[PeachyTentativelyPosting]

All comments we have received over the past year, and it is getting worse as people are less well off and the country's finances tighten up.

I am not of course meaning those claimants- the lazy and the liars. We could argue for ever about what proportion they represent but there are some I acknowledge.

I am a carer. I work longer hours than an employer can ask, and currently survive on 3 hours sleep a night. I receive £53.10 a week, and get the comments / judgements as if I sit on my backside burning jobs pages with my fifty a day habit fags and drinking bottles of Smirnoff as if they were water.

It's not just carers that suffer- pensioners in a different way, and I think an awful lot of people would fall through the gaps of IB if they did make it dependent on DLA as proposed (read the adult DLA criteria- I know of several people genuinely unable to work who do not meet it). But carers are needed by society in a unique way- we actively save a fortune in care services. We have our benefit treated as taxable income so mostly removed if we qualify for other benefits but we are not seen as employed.

As the age of our society rises, more and more people will become carers,and unless we are totally free of loved ones it is something none of us are immune from. So why are we ignored? Is it a case of if you can't see us you don't have to admit it would happen to you?Or are we just disposable? And why do people make comments about 'hard working famillies'- between us we have 2 disabled children, another with SEN and a toddler, a part time job, a full time study course and a part time MA- we're hard working, just not on behalf of someonoe else.

YANBU.

What always annoys me is that there seems to be acceptable benefits, such as WFTC, and unacceptable ones.

I'm scared of how I will be looked at now I'm on benefits

Trinity

ANyone who has the sheer nerve to criticise you after the time you have had does not deserve to have their opinion heard (I wish I had the strength to beleive it for myself though!)

Trinity

Message withdrawn

I honestly do not think that people are talking about carers or the disabled when they are critizing benefits claimaints, really I don't.
Your sensitive to the matter and those that really are being critized no doubt have a thick skin.

YANBU.

the people who make these comments are usually the smug and ignorant.

hilst that would be (very) nice I deliberately didnt ask for benefit increase for myself in the OP. I just want not to be seen as a leech, really.

Milly on here I think you are right, but have had it in rl, sometimes from relations who place themselves in the 'I work hard and never claimed a penny' bracket. I know they work hard, doesn't mean nobody else does.

I work with homeless people, pretty much all of whom are claiming some kind of benefit and, as befits the job, hear constant criticisms about their 'lifestyle choice' and 'spending tax payers money on drink...' etc from most people I meet. It infuriates me so much. yes some of them are happy to sit on the streets and moan about their lot, and they do get short shrift from me, I can tell you!! but the majority of people I see every day are homeless or vulnerably housed through little choice of their own and would love to be emloyed or in training. In fact, that is what our day centre is all about - enabling people to move on with work or education, and it is very well used.

I am as full of bile as the next person when it comes to people abusing the benefits system, but I wish people could see beyond prejudices against those for whom the welfare net was actually intended.

rant over

I find a lot of people get quite "judgey" when it comes to benefits.

The people that piss me off are people like my friend who claims all she can as a lone parent while her partner lives with her.

'fact, that is what our day centre is all about - enabling people to move on with work or education, '

I think that is so important

One thing that befuddles me is the way that if you are a carer and study at Uni you cannot claim CA.

Surely we should be helping carers into work they can combine with their lives, and usually as a result of the cpsts associated with disability, this would have to be better paid work or self employed work. And its not as if carers care less when they study- I was at Uni doing my degree and still able to do school drop off/ collection. Hopefully, when I have my MA I will be able to get self employed work that I can fit around school / appointments / term dates etc. It's as if the Government don't want my taxes, though.

I was also a bit confused about how come DH's Uni offers a bursary to people who are good at baseball but not to people with a caring repsonsibility. Seems all a bit odd, really.

'The people that piss me off are people like my friend who claims all she can as a lone parent while her partner lives with her. ' well that fraudulent and illegal, I have no truck with that.

I get judgey about people like my 'friend' who claims everything, her partner works less hours in a low paid job so they get more benefits, yet they now own two houses ...WTF!!!
Ditto people who stay off work indefinately because they get paid for doing so even when they are seen loading shopping into cars/painting their houses/down the gym etc etc.

However I am never judgey about benefit claimants who really need them (and I know where youre coming from on the carers front peachy because I went through it with my parents who got sweet FA despite my mum caring for my father 24 hours a day before he died). I would never condem anyone who needs the help and gets it (good on you if you get through the application process alone), IMHO it should be made more accesible for those who really need it.

I agree about accessibility, although the flip side is being able to face down people who make comments about DLA and ask if they would like to see a copy of the form (generally you can only get the form if you are claiming, but we get sent a Welsh version as well LOL)

I was rifling through ds's things earlier and found a letter declining DLA from a few years back, I wrote and asked them to look again and they immediately gave us higher rate (now down to middle and fairly so given the system in place), now what else could that be than deliberately putting people off?On the SN boards we often warn people their claim is likely to be automatically refused, dont worry just ask for it to be looked at again. As if people at that stage of the process don't have enough to worry about.