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Benefit hatred is out of control.

391 replies

carernotasaint · 17/05/2012 23:36

www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/owen-jones-hatred-of-those-on-benefits-is-dangerously-out-of-control-7763793.html

OP posts:
WasabiTillyMinto · 21/05/2012 15:57

cod - this is what i think has happened:

"....over the last twenty years or so the very large numbers on incapacity benefits have hidden the true scale of unemployment. That does not mean fraudulent claims were widespread. Rather, the medical threshold for access to incapacity benefits was set at a level that allowed substantial numbers of men and women with health problems or disabilities to claim incapacity benefits instead of unemployment benefits. Also, at various times Jobcentre Plus and its predecessors encouraged claimants to move across to incapacity benefits. The effect was to hide the scale of labour market distress in Britain?s weaker local economies."

www.shu.ac.uk/_assets/pdf/cresr-final-incapacity-benefit-reform.pdf

Codandchops · 21/05/2012 16:10

Fair enough with that Tilly. I am guessing that IB and DLA are very different in terms of what evidence is required.

FrothyOM · 21/05/2012 16:26

Incapacity benefit required a GP to sign you off sick every so often.

Fucking fraudulent GP's.

SerialKipper · 21/05/2012 16:37

Incapacity Benefit:
? first six months at lower rate - sign off by GP.
? after that, there was assessment by DWP medical assessors, with regular re-assessments if you had a variable condition. (I believe some conditions like terminal cancer with death expected within X period may have been exempt.) IB was then paid at a flat slightly higher rate.

I was already doing this in 2003. All this bollocks in the media that the IB/ESA changes were to introduce a non-GP assessment was just that - bollocks. It was already happening.

It's also bollocks that IB "went up the longer you had been on it" (as Frank Field MP claimed). There was a simple step change at 6 months, and that was it.

2old2beamum · 21/05/2012 16:50

Tilly you are right IB was introduced in the 80's to reduce unemployment levels. Those who were unable to work due to long term illness received Severe Disabled Allowance topped up with Income support, Round about 2002 everybody new receved IB.

SerialKipper · 21/05/2012 16:58

And you're quite right that the threshold for IB/ESA has been changed.

It used to join up with with the JSA threshold. If you were over the threshold but not in work, you got JSA. If you were under the threshold, ie your ability to work was significantly compromised by illness, you could get IB. (NB some people under this threshold were able to earn their living anyway, but only because a suitable role was available.)

The safety net has now been rolled back so that there is a gap between being well enough to be employable and being ill enough to get IB/ESA. And people are falling in the middle.

There are documented cases of people being refused both, but here's a thread that caught my eye on MN.

In this case, the employer has offered reassignment and the employee refused to take it, so in this circumstance the employer seems in the right.

But it's easy to see there will be plenty of people at that level of illness. They pass the DWP threshold of being able to work - sometimes they actually do work. But they doesn't pass the threshold of being able to do the job. They may not be able to deliver in any fulltime, earning-a-living job.

People at that level of illness will end up long-term unemployed - possibly for the rest of their lives - because they can't deliver what employers want. But they'll be treated by the DWP as ordinary unemployed and subjected to penalties and Mandatory Work Activity. So because they can't do a sitting down job for real pay, they'll be told to stack shelves for workfare. And when they fail to do this, even the JSA will be removed as punishment.

This is why disabled people are screaming. It's not for fear of loosing our flat-screen tellies.Hmm It's because the design of the new system predictably makes some vulnerable people destitute.

SerialKipper · 21/05/2012 17:01

Really, 2old, I thought it was introduced to support disabled people. And then misused to hide Unemployment figures in the 80s.

But I'll stand corrected if you can reference your statement.

2old2beamum · 21/05/2012 17:09

Kipper my DD 27 is in this situation, has Down Syndrome, congenital heart defect pacemaker, asthma which causes her heart failure. Lovely girl but hasn't the sense she was born with. She has been summoned for an interview/medical 30 miles away. In her letter it gives her instructions how to get there by 09.30. First catch 4 buses Confused---

doormat · 21/05/2012 17:10

2old contact your local advocacy centre for advice they can relocate her appt to a place which is more accessible to her x

SerialKipper · 21/05/2012 17:10

Sad 2old.

2old2beamum · 21/05/2012 17:11

Sorry Kipper xpost yes you are right, but I am still cross

2old2beamum · 21/05/2012 17:16

I was told it was the nearest place, Angry obviously doting ma will have to do it but it is the bloody stupidity that gets me.

doormat · 21/05/2012 17:23

i know 2 old, your dd shouldnt have to go through thisSad

carernotasaint · 21/05/2012 17:29

2old im sorry you have been treated like this. It is typical of Atos though.

OP posts:
SerialKipper · 21/05/2012 17:34

An aside.

I've been reading personal military records from WWI which include details of disability pensions. In front of me is a Medical Board form with the question:
"To what extent is his capacity for earning a full livelihood in the general labour market lessened a present?"
Answer: "(1/2) one half"

So even in 1916, it was recognised that there isn't a line, on one side of which one is fully disabled and the other fully able to work. And also that what mattered was employability in the actual labour market and ability to earn a living.

doormat · 21/05/2012 17:37

frothy sorry dont open the sun nor entertain it since hillsborough.

FrothyOM · 21/05/2012 17:38

"So even in 1916, it was recognised that there isn't a line, on one side of which one is fully disabled and the other fully able to work. And also that what mattered was employability in the actual labour market and ability to earn a living."

massive problem for people with mental illness

FrothyOM · 21/05/2012 17:40

Good 4 u doormat, i don't normally either but they are running a dangerous hate campaign at the moment and I thought it was relevant to this thread.

doormat · 21/05/2012 17:45

frothy link here about mental health or shell shock from ww1
<a class="break-all" href="//liwww.bbc.co.uk/history/worldwars/wwone/shellshock_01.shtmlnk" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">liwww.bbc.co.uk/history/worldwars/wwone/shellshock_01.shtmlnk

i

AmberLeaf · 21/05/2012 17:51

That sun link! see how they put the couple who are claiming what they are legitimately entitled to next to a speech from David Cameron about 'benefit fraud'

Most of the sun readership would be too thick to spot that though.

carernotasaint · 21/05/2012 18:08

I dont do the sun either cos of Hillsborough and hate articles like the one linked above. It illustates the point of this thread beautifully though and proves it beyond all doubt. Did you read the comments underneath the article particularly the one by Corrupt Official.

OP posts:
carernotasaint · 21/05/2012 18:08

I dont do the sun either cos of Hillsborough and hate articles like the one linked above. It illustates the point of this thread beautifully though and proves it beyond all doubt. Did you read the comments underneath the article particularly the one by Corrupt Official.

OP posts:
Codandchops · 21/05/2012 18:16

My friend is due to see ATOS in the next month.
She is able bodied and used to be a HCA in a nursing home which she loved.

Then she gave birth........

The birth opened up the huge issues she had buried relating to serious sexual abuse (think repeatedly being raped) before the age of 13. She gave birth to a daughter which made things worse as she imagined what could happen to her daughter in life.

So 9 years on it is still causing issues
She cannot go out unaccompanied so I tend to take her where she needs to go and get her daughter to school. She has bad bad days - today I returned after the school run because I could see she was in a state - she just sobbed for about 30 mins. Horrible nightmares and visions ( I am taking her to the GP tomorrow) . Her partner also collapsed and died very suddenly 10 months ago in front of her.

Her life is hard and given what she has experienced I am frankly amazed that she is able to parent her daughter at all.

Agoraphobic and ATOS want to see her 15 miles away at 9 in the morning. If they read her file they would see this is a massive task for her. She will get there because I will take her but is stressing about the interview and fears she will be deemed fit for work which she is not. She gets low rate care and low rate mobility DLA plus the ESA (the old IB).

I just wonder why the word of her psychiatrist, her medical records and a report from her GP is not enough! Wtf can ATOS add to all that tbh?

On another better day you might see her in Costa Coffee with me (impossible on panic attack days) and then you might wonder "how comes she is on IB or DLA"? These "Costa Coffee" days are few and far between though. Sad

SerialKipper · 21/05/2012 18:26

Btw, the soldier was awarded £300 pa disability pension for the 50% incapacity (gunshot wound to lower leg). He was an educated chap who would have expected to become management in the family merchant business, not a labourer. Looking at the injury, I think he wouldn't get IB/ESA these days. And it's a toss-up whether he would have got DLA. He certainly wouldn't get the new PIP, which says if you can travel 200m in a powerchair you don't need mobility allowance.Hmm