To think some posters need a "reality check" re. views on benefit changes

[lesley33]

I have some concerns about some of the proposed changes to benefits and how these may adversely affect people. So this is NOT a thread about that. But I am getting increasingly fed up at some of the frankly ridiculous reasons some posters are giving against the proposed changes. Examples include:

1. That children 12 and over will be traumatised if both parents work - even if second parent only works 20 hours a week.

1. That a parent with children 12 and over shouldn't have to commute up to 90 minutes each way to work. Far from ideal I know and if someone is on low wages this might not be affordable. But perfectly doable.

1. That childcare is impossible to get for teenagers. Ignoring the fact that many parents, myself included use a combination of kids home alone and afterschool activities.

AIBU to think some people need a reality check? Plenty of people with children already work, many with both parents working full time by the time their kids are teenagers. Plenty of people have long commutes, struggle with childcare, etc. Things might not be "ideal", but these are things that many many working parents already do.

Okay - I haven't campaigned on this. If you have been on many threads with me you will know that I have been thinking about all of the proposed changes to benefits and in the last few days changed my mind so that I am now concerned about some of them. I don't campaign on things unless I think they are a bad thing and I wasn't sure if I did think this.

I actually went to a meeting last night for disabled people - I am one - where this was being discussed and have offered some limited help now.

I do campaign on things and give money to campaigns. I have actually always been quite political and have seen 1st hand the difference campaigns make. But just because I don't always agree with you doesn't mean that I don't campaign.

I admit as well it sometimes takes me a while to make my mind up about things and I never campaign on things I don't believe in. So when friends were first campaigning against the Iraq war I didn't get involved as I couldn't decide what I thought - I felt I just didn't know enough. Later I became very against the war.

I guess - don't assume from postings here that someone doesn't "care" or doesn't try to change things. Lots of my postings are musings.

46% of children in towerhamlets are born to workless households.
unemployment is higher than liverpool.

how can unemployment be higher in central london than liverpool?

Tilly, maybe English not being the first language can explain the higher level of unemployment. I'm guessing this based on the population stats.

<strong>* fifty six per cent of the population in Tower Hamlets belonged to an ethnic group other than white British</strong>
<strong>* thirty per cent are Bangladeshi</strong>
<strong>* eight per cent are from other white backgrounds</strong>

Here's the link:

www.towerhamlets.gov.uk/lgsl/901-950/916_borough_statistics/ethnicity.aspx

'For example, having a long commute for unsocial low paid hours job that meant for 2 years I got back at 8.30/8.45pm and saw my kids in the evening for a very short time - DP looked after them in evening. And have my teenagers at home alone looking after themselves afterschool and I have for a time regularly worked every Sunday. None of this is "ideal". But we manage and my kids are doing well -'

Again, the operative words there are 'DP' and 'we'. What about the single mothers who will be forced into low paid jobs during anti-social hours, many of whom will be without the sort of reliable network of family or friends to replace the DP in your scenario?

I do realise that Lesley and all credit to you for it. Not many people are open to listening to both sides of an argument and I do know that you do that. It's something I do admire about you.

TotemPole

(1) English as a second language isnt a barrier to employment. i work with people who speak other home languages. parts of my family speak different home languages.
(2) Most young bangladeshi people in TH were born here so speak 'London style'. unemployment is highest amongst young men as i recall.
(3) from the data you provided, its 70% black and white plus other small groups. many of whom have been here for generations.

i considered language before posting but am familiar with the area & that does not explain it IME.

Thank you wubblybubbly. Crikey a compliment on munsnet!

math - Okay - just pick out the bits of my posts that suit your argument. I did make clear that I know there are reasons some people can't work. The whole thread though is actually about blanket statements that others have made e.g. 2nd parent of kids can't make a long commute or if you have kids you can't do unsocial hours. My point is that many parents can and do all of the things that some posters are saying can't be done. No not all parents will be able to, but some will be able to.

'Spiegel' article here.

A very interesting article, very much a reality check. It illuminates what is happening here on this thread and the many others, and in British society as a whole -- I believe you could substitute British and Britain for German and Germany and never skip a beat.

We see the principle of rationality, status based thinking and perceptions, and the devaluation of blocs of people, and a fractured society where values that were previously held by a majority and that gave rise to the welfare state, the NHS, etc., are now being eroded in favour of values that are alien, imported wholesale from the US for the most part. I hesitate to make a party political point but fomenting division and appealing to what I consider the worst instincts of the electorate are Tory specialties imo. 'Right wing populism' is an ugly thing to see in action.

'Significant segments the elites and higher earners are increasingly withdrawing from a mutually supportive society. They claim the privileges of the establishment, and they fight against a minimum wage, the wealth tax and the inheritance tax, even though the policies of redistribution have been in their favor for years. This is class warfare from above..' I think that could have been said of Thatcherism and it most certainly could be said again today. The remarks were made in the Spiegel article, about Germany. 'It shows that the core standards of this society are in great jeopardy.'

Its about the imo unrealistic ideas that a few people think are good reasons for not being able to work.

Everyone's circumstances are different. If your DP worked shifts, nights or longer than 9-5, you might not have felt able to do a job than meant getting home after 8 PM. Some couples don't have family nearby that can help.

A 90 minute commute puts parent miles away from home/school. I'm in London, about 30 mins away from most central locations. If something goes wrong with the tube, I can take a bus, taxi or, if gridlocked, walk home. There's no way I would put myself in a position where I couldn't do that. If we moved out of London, I'd get a job locally. The people I know who do a long commute are travelling in from the home counties. 20-30 mins on a fast train, then up to 30 mins across town. These are professionals in £40k+ careers, not NMW jobs.

My DH's job involves travelling away from home a week at a time. It's not something he can do, now that he has caring responsibilities for me.

He did put in a request for part time work, based at the office, under the flexible working request thing. It was accepted but then his employer's changed their minds. We know that's not allowed, legally, but that's where we are unless we challenge it in court.

The stress of everything that has gone on has finally taken it's toll on DH and he is currently signed off at work. He gets SSP. If he resigns he won't be entitled to JSA.

The reality of our situation is that when I die my DLA will stop. That and his SSP is what we're living on right now. He will have to find work to provide for him and our DS.

It's not impossible but I don't think it's too much to ask for a little understanding that their are often very difficult circumstances and not everyone is simply trying to avoid working.

It actually does scare me that we could become more like America. I know there are people struggling and living in poverty here - but read some of the american forums where people post about their experience of poverty and it is truly frightening.

but isnt this thread about the other side of society: they it is not reasonable to expect to be able be a home with a 12 year old (w/o SN) while other people work to fund you?

thats another part of 'It shows that the core standards of this society are in great jeopardy.'

I don't think govt policy is going to be able to sort very well, Lesley, among the various problems that people will face. And I don't think the government is particularly worried about the fallout this may create. There will always be single mothers to blame after all.

Look at the many reports of parents of SN children on this thread, especially those dealing with levels of care and how those are defined and decided (i.e. sleeping from 11 to 6) and what the effects of those decisions are, on a personal and financial level, for the parents (and therefore for the children) to see what happens when a sledgehammer is applied when a scalpel is called for.

I know some people have difficult circumstances and I don't think people with severe disabilities get enough support in our society.
But totempole I know many people who commute for jobs that pay a lot less than 40k plus. Of course the cost of travelling has to be taken into account, so for nmw it may not always be possible. But I used to be on grade 3 local government salary and took 2 buses too and from work. It took me about 70-80 minutes each way to travel there.

In London I had a 50 minute commute each way to work in a children's residential home - not well paid. I don't actually think that is that unusual. But I also grew up where public transport was poor and with little money, so I and most poeple I knew did travel for a long time on buses to get to school and work, even though it wasn't a rural area. So my mum had a commute of about 100 mins each way to an office job.

I'm not saying this is a good situation. Of course nobody WANTS to do this. I just think that lots of people do and that a long commute by itself is not a good enough reason not to work.

UC proposal: "If you are a lone parent with responsibility for a child between the ages of 5 and 12, or an older child who has exceptional care needs, you will be able to restrict your work search and availability to work

which fits with the hours your child is in school and
allows reasonable time to take and collect your child from school and
takes into account your child?s care needs, including whether child care is available and affordable, in particular during the child?s school holidays.
If you are a member of a couple and have a child under 13 you will be able to nominate one member of the couple who will be treated in the same way as a lone parent for conditionality purposes (i.e. who will be able to place limitations on their work availability and work search as above).

If as a couple you choose to share the caring responsibilities you can do so as long as collectively you are both looking for work at least equivalent to one person working full-time and one person working as many hours as a lone parent would be expected to. In addition, you both must continue to have reasonable prospects of finding work within this limitation."

math the generation who set up the welfare state and the NHS never forsaw how bloated they would become.

The former was set up to scoop up those in dire need. And quite rightly so. But it was never planned to be as widespread as is now the case.

And having spent a lot oif time on door steps during elections I can assure you that it is not just the elite who are demanding a pull back, it is the huge swathes if ordinary working people, especially those who find themselves just out of the reach of any help.

It was the inability to accept this truth by the higher echelons of the Labour party that did for them at the last election. If you are the party of ordinary working people, you have to actually listen to what they're saying. You can't just ignore it because it is unplatable to your well-educated middle class north London ears.

TRTM -- that sort of attitude and the sort of policy arising from it might be possible in times of economic growth.

When you import a policy lock, stock and barrel from somewhere else and try to shove that square peg into your native round hole maybe little details like the difference in economic growth rates might escape you, but forcing people off welfare and into jobs can really only work when there are jobs in the first place, when those jobs provide a living wage, and when there is childcare easily available, or families ready to step in, or legions of sahms -- the policies (lack of a safety net, god forbid any socialised medicine, expensive third level education or vocational training) that have kept vast numbers of American children living in poverty for the last 20 years have been square pegs in round holes even in the US, where the basic assumptions of conservatives since Reagan were that growth and social patterns would follow a 1950s model. That was the golden age according to American conservatism, and all you have to do to bring it back is close your eyes tightly and tap your heels together.

Even the American economy hasn't grown enough to provide the sort of employment opportunities that would justify the lack of a safety net. Britain's most certainly hasn't either.

Of course they do Wordfactory, the press is full of scrounging benefit scum! People are impacted by what they read.

Do you think the average Mr & Mrs Joe Public know about cancer patients in active treatment being forced back into work? Surprisingly this received barely any coverage at all.

I too worry very much that we are heading for an american model of society.

I worry too that the opposition are frankly handing it to the Conservatives on a plate.

But people aren't being forced into jobs that don't exist. They are being forced off benefits where they don't have to look for work and being forced to look for a job. If there isn't a job available then fine. But this doesn't mean that people shouldn't look for work.

mathanxiety but towerhamlets is central london. do you really think there are no jobs? what explains its unemplyment rate higher than liverpool?

I agree with everything you have said wordfactory. You can't ignore these issues about the welfare state. But the way Labour are reacting is just giving carte blanche to the Government to do what they want.

i blame Labour for not looking after the benefits system. everything that happened is really predictable.

it was always going to end with the tories pulling it to pieces.

i have read this thread open mouthed at some of the comments.

really, not since a walk past the proctology dept have i seen quite so many arseholes in one place