"Its just not black and white"

[Mscombobulated]

Is what Dermot Gavin said at the end of Rich Famous and Jobless last night.

I watched it, despite my better judgement. I judged despite my better judgement.

If you watched it last night you will remember the family on benefits. I was that this family had 5 children and one on the way, whilst on benefits. There was no discipline in the house, no one seemed to care that children were up until 3am and the father seemed like a layabout - they all looked, quite frankly, unhealthy - Dermot walked out, on his moral high horse - and i was right along with him. The next day he went back and spoke to the family and the bombshell was dropped about the loss of their little boy I felt bad. What i saw as a bunch of scroungers turned into the saddest thing i had ever watched - they kept having more children, it was like they wanted to block out their sadness - they blatantly can't cope, the only thing they can do is have more children - the man has lost control of his life - he didn't WANT to go and get a job, after all, what is the point - he held his dying baby in his arms and carried his coffin. No mention of any counselling for this family - my heart broke for them. So what does dermot do - sends him knocking on doors begging for work

Which leads me to how i feel the benefits system in this country is letting down the poor and letting down the tax payer.

If you are on benefits and you take on work - your benefits stop, obviously. But if you then come out of work, your benefits don't start immediately, you have to wait a stupid amount of time before you get any state aid. So - this guy, he knocks on doors, maybe he might get a few weeks work - fantastic, but he is being forced by the system to fiddle the system - if he declares the work he will lose his benefits, but not just for the time he is working. Is there any wonder there is a "whats the point" culture in this country - this has been the case for as long as i can remember, from past experience and from people i know, from the media - why has this not been addressed?

i'll get my coat

Nice knowing you

You get run on payments for 4 weeks after you start back to work so you dont lose any benefits. You get tax credits paid to you accessed on last years amount so that lasts for one year no matter what job you take.

I did feel a bit sorry for them,but life moves on and having a child die is no excuse for letting your other kids run riot till after midnight.

he is stuck in a bit of a trap though as there's no way he could get a job that would give him the same level of income he was getting on benefits. They had a 6 bedroom house!!

Famous, Rich and Patronising, for once, Matthew Wright hit the nail on the head!

C'mon! Meg Matthews?!

FFS.

And these 'celebs' were all paid to do the show.

The BBC won't say how much.

I'm sick of paying a license for shows like this and the one the other week slating British workers.

sapphire That doesn't add up to much money in all honesty. Especially in a high cost area like London

Sapphire87, you wouldn't get 'disability benefits' for being 'suicidal', so I'd guess/hope it was for something else.

I hope this doesn't sound terrible:

I don't think being on benefits should be comfortable. Sometimes sacrifices have to be made. Where is the incentive for people to go earn an honest wage?

There has to be a safety net for people but it shouldn't be allowed to be permanent

The system is all wrong, if the man from that family went back to work, they'd most likely be worst off. I want to go back to work and I will in the near future but at the moment I just can't afford to how the hell is that right?! They need to re-think the system so people have an incentive to go back to work.

Someone really cocked up then, sapphire, or he and his family are asylum seekers. Because anyone with an iota of immigration knowledge knows that non-EU/EEA nationals are not entitled to recourse from public funds that soon after arrival to the UK.

Again, he must have been an asylum seeker or a UK/EU national and married to his wife long enough for her to have obtained ILR/ILE.

What I don't understand about the system (and I could be wrong with this, so forgive me if I am) is that, once you start to work, you lose loads of them, often leaving people worse off. Why don't we meet people part way. So, for example (made up figures alert), if someone is getting £10k worth of benefits, if they get a job paying £8k, we should pay benefits of £2k, to keep them where they were. Otherwise, what is the point at all of someone working.

Hope that makes sense.

I didn't see the programme so can only go on what is said here but, yes it is incredibly awful to lose a child, but they have many other living children and they are not doing what they should by them by the sounds of it. They are entitled to sympathy for the loss of their child, but not for the way they are behaving with their other children.

"I don't think being on benefits should be comfortable."

Well you're ok there, it isn't

They really do need to rethink the system though, if you do 16 hours work you get taken off JSA, however 16 hours work at minimum wage only just pays more than JSA, and then you have to pay council tax/prescriptions/etc, so end up far worse off. You also get a reduction in housing benefit, which is more money off.

You end up unable to make ends meet. Where is the incentive there? There is no system in place to look after those returning to work, especially as JSA payments stop as soon as you start work, but your wages are unlikely to start until a month after you've started work. So you cannot afford anything for a month (bills, food, you know, the luxuries ) and of course you can't save on JSA.

I do actually wonder what the Govt etc. want people to do. I was thinking about this the other night and came to the conclusion that the Govt is anti-children, amongst other things.

They want us to work, apparently, they say so - but they are making it harder by trying to remove things that help with DC when we do work (after school clubs, family tax credits etc.) The school placement system is a joke; the education system itself has been dumbed down quite extensively; going to University is as difficult now as it was when my Dad went in the 50s and had to pay his own way through (actually it's harder now because of the cost of living and all the debt).
And then - if you have been on benefits but you want to work, you discover all these other problems - no payment for a while, sudden increases in bills/outgoings etc.

Seriously, WTF do they expect people to do? If more and more people stay on benefits because it is easier for them to do so in financial terms, where is the tax money going to come from to pay them? Do they actually have a longterm strategy at all?

OK - so I'm ranting. My knowledge isn't comprehensive but it seems to me that the system is going to hell in a handcart and there's going to be an even bigger mess to sort out in a few years' time - but what do I know?

paulaplumpbottom - it does sound a bit terrible to say benefits shouldn't be comfortable. Surely it depends on why a person is on benefits. Given our current economic situation, where lots of people have become unemployed through no fault of their own and would dearly love to get a job which pays them enough to support their families, I think the govt should be bending over backwards to help these people.
This doesn't apply to people who have never paid into the system and have no intention of ever doing so

Thuimbwitch, totally agree.

I was lucky coming off JSA, I have qualifications that meant I could get a decent paid job. Most people aren't that lucky! They will be stuck with minimum wage and/or temp work.

Temp work is the worst actually, when on JSA I asked what would happen if i did 3 days work. I was told I'd have to come off JSA and reapply. Bearing in mind it took me 3 months to get JSA in the first place! (I was living off bread and water - lost loads of weight admittedly) So I had 2 choices as I saw it, either do the work and not declare it, or not do the work.

mycatisabastard that already happens to a certain extent with tax credits.

There is also an argument about - why should taxpayers subsidise employers who can't be arsed to pay their employees a living wage?

thumbwitch - I'm with you completely. Being on benefits is a constant nightmare of financial tightroping for the vast majority who use the system appropriately. Yes, there are those who play it for all it's worth, but for the rest of us, our lives are not easy, and they are full of the social stigma that comes from being associated with the cheats.

For example, being in recept of any housing benfits whatsoever instantly makes renting immensely difficult, because many houses/letting agents have a 'No DSS' clause. So, mark one: you have to struggle to find somewhere to live.

I'm currently on ESA, DLA and Housing Benfit, after being dismissed due to poor health. My partner has depression and, now that I'm not working, is my carer, as I have epilepsy and can't be left alone with my DS in case I have a fit. When DC2 is born, I will be looking for work, but then comes the nightmare of announcing that income and watching all the benefits drop off somewhat, leaving us with nothing left over. We already buy cheap food and use public transport, never have holidays except to visit family - where else can we cut fiscal corners?

And that's leaving aside the 'helpful' fact that benefits come every two or four weeks, while all bills run to a calendar months. Direct Debits demand careful timing. As it is, I spend more than half the month overdrawn by several hundred pounds.

In this situation, how am I supposed to go to work in good faith, given that I have been told I cannot work full time because of my epilepsy? OP, YANBU. Yes, there are a lot of system players out there, but there are also one hell of a lot of people who are just left by the roadside like so much trash. It's impossible to judge which this family are from an inevitably biased TV programme, but either way, I don't suppose they're far from that fine line of distinction.

Sapphire, there is no way anyone could get disability allowance in 2 weeks. (says mum of disabiled child who is on 3rd tribunal over a year after first applying)

Asylum seekers cannot claim ANY welfare benefits

Sapphire, when people arrive in the UK, they are refugees, they then seek asylum hence asylum seeker, they are then either refused or granted asylum.

Once asylum has been granted, they are no longer asylum seekers they can then apply for benefits.

Asylum seekers have to rely on charities and organisations for money, clothes, housing until asylum has been granted.

So the fact that the people you are talking about were in receipt of housing benefits, would mean they were not asylum seekers.

Havent read your link, havent got time im afraid.

I didn't want this to be about asylum seekers - i just wanted to post because the family on the show last night, demonstrated how vulnerable people are just left to get on with it. Of course they shouldnt have been having so many children when they can't support them, of course the guy needed to get off his arse and support his family - but you only had to look at him, he was clearly depressed, seriously depressed - he could barely get out of bed in the morning. Where is his self esteem? At the bottom of a ditch - why are there not EFFECTIVE programs to get people back to work, getting them to a place in their heads where they want to work and contribute. I dont believe these people were spongers - but i do feel sadly, that they will remain on benefits and the whole cycle will repeat itself. Those children looked unhealthy - where were social services, that family needed help and support - i hope they got it. I don't really care that their income is probably double ours - their lives looked anything but comfortable.

We are on tax credits, im not sure how that all works, but my DP is self employed and i suspect we are not entitled to them - not that we are fiddling, but i haven't finalised the accounts for this year and of course they assess based on the previous years accounts - its all abit "up in the air" and we are likely to have to make repayments. My DP is a builder and is doign ok at the moment, but that can change in a heartbeat.