Confused re attitude to benefits and work experience

[catontheroof]

Your thoughts please - why has it become so politically incorrect to suggest that fit adults in this country should be expected to work for a living?

I believe that we need a safety net but cannot understand why people should not have to take jobs that they are qualified for if those jobs exist. I also cannot understand why people "deserve" tax credits etc.

If large chunks of our population do not work then our GDP is low. The only way that we can afford to have so many on benefits with a relatively high standard of living is by importing goods from other countries where the workers live and work in atrocious conditions.

Why do we think that it is right and proper that people in this country sit around being paid not to work whilst tens of thousands all over the world work in sweat shops to provide them with a lifestyle?

If our fit population all worked then we'd increase GDP and have money to help people in other countries where there is real poverty.

gaelic - Do we all get to sit in judgement to decide how much treatment you're allowed before you've exceeded your quota?

yes - if i rely on anyone individually , they get to choose what they provide & if i rely on the state, everyone gets to choose via the voting system. how can it be any other way?

Rightho then. I shall expect a thread imminently where we all sit and chastise someone for daring to be so physically weak that we are wasting our hard earned cash on keeping them alive. Let's have them justify their need for treatment and we can all decide if their symptoms and pain are bad enough to pay for.

Nobody lived without so much as a fire before the days of electricity. Nobody. If they did they died.

You don't think there could be other reasons why you can't find people to work for you?

but Tilly, very few people say things like 'why should I pay for all these sick people when I've tried really hard to keep myself healthy'. We accept that, in health terms, there will be times when we will suffer from ill health and therefore happy to pay for others. We also accept that some people will always be more ill and than us and need a lifetime of higher levels of treatment.

We don't deny it people because it would be better spent in the third world, and we don't (hopefully) begrudge the people who rely on it.

xpost gaelic

gaelic - You don't think there could be other reasons why you can't find people to work for you?

think that if you like.

Okay, we can agree that some need warmth and some can cope without. I do visit (or that should say "did visit") families with only storage heaters in appalling and poorly insulated housing. Being very expensive most families were not using them but managing with other heaters instead.

I think the move to the "decent homes" program is a good one if only to ensure those that need to have central heating or some efficient way of getting warmth, can access it. The only time I lived in housing without this luxury (actually first 5 years of DS's life) was unfortunately for me in a property which was icy in winter with no open fires and an oil fired heating sysyem which broke down every year without fail. Having experienced this cold I am a tad touchy about anyone suggesting that this is a luxury. Maybe had the house been better insulated I wouldn't have an issue.

I am so fortunate now to have a modern two bed house with a good heating system and it is well insulated too so that although I fear the bills I manage them easily. The one time we were freezing our bits off was during a very cold spell when the heating broke down and I was anxious about using the plug in heaters as they drained the electricity.

Oh to be as carefree as the previous tenant here....who bypassed the electricity meter and presumably lived freely with heat, light etc and no bills! It took me three days to realise that the meter was a prepayment one (installed as she had a massive debt) and it was showing zero credit, therefore all my lights etc should have been off but they weren't!

shotin - i dont begrudge paying for the NHS but if i rely in it, other people will decide what they want to fund & expect that to be limited.

Tilly - no I don't think that, but you are being rather hardline about this. I say again, being cold with no possible way of getting warm anywhere in the house is miserable and will induce illness in a previously healthy person if suffered long term. Even the poor in the olden days with only an open fire weren't in that situation.

i expect that to be limited.

I remember reading years ago a book written by a woman who had lived in real poverty during the 1920s, as a child and teenager, she said that the cold was the worst thing and that unless a person is dying of starvation she felt that warmth was preferable to hunger.

Think it was Helen Forrester if I remember correctly.

Tuppence across the Mersey.

We read it at school. I have a vivid memory of the part where the Dad gets some extra money and they get fish and chips. It really hit home, aged 14, about what it was like to be poor. And how much we have moved on as a society.

Clearly not as much as I thought.

Thing is with any benefits system, there has to be an inbuilt reserve for those who are never going to contribute because there will always be those who either can't or won't. If we want a benefits system it has to allow for this to a certain extent.

I see families where there are three generations who have not worked which is sad. The worst thing is that this is a way of life, they don't know anything different and some don't see why they should be any different.

Changing entrenched attitudes like that takes some doing and it's hard for an individual who has never worked to see any benefits (beyond financial) until these are experienced.

I hope I will find work again in the near future and have some irons in the fire as it were. For me work is a lifeline, I may not be able to work full time but being able to work just 16 hours a week and have adult conversation as well as helping families makes me feel good about myself. Trying to get that across to someone who has never worked is not easy.

Obviously I have also met those who are not only unemployed but to all intents and purposes unemployable (recalls dodgy neighbour dealing drugs and being raided). They may have the latest flat screen but it's either dodgy or bought via Brighthouse/catalogues. These are the ones like the previous tenant here - up to every trick in the book but their lives are chaotic - nobody would employ them.

Havent read this whole thread yet but catontheroof seems to have Angelina Jolie syndrome.
This is where people like to ignore the poverty in their own country and look at the poverty in other countries instead.
A few weeks ago there was a Panorama programme called Poor America about the tent cities springing up in the states. Including a particularly disturbing statement from a young girl who had witnessed her mother eating a rat.
I have yet to see Angelina Jolie or Madonna rushing down there to help though. they are worrying about what happens in other countries instead.
There is poverty in this country too. why the fuck do you think all these food banks are springing up.
Yet if you open up a magazine like the UK issue of Marie Claire or the UK issue of Grazia the articles on poverty are always about other countries.
Loads of countries seem to have this ostrich in the sand attitude.
It seems to be part of human nature to be a NIMBY at heart.

That's the one Tuppence to Cross the Mersey - and I remember that bit too, how hungry they all were for these fish and chips. And how they were given a Christmas box with a turkey one year and cooked it on Christmas Eve (or their neighbour did for them) as they couldn't bear to wait until Christmas Day.

carer, I watched that too. It was horrifying.

I think poverty now is far more than just financial. How many families know about cheap nutritious food for example? Even while working I did not eat meat every day, in fact I rarely buy it and we have beans on toast, poached eggs, omlettes, salads, homemade soups.
When I do buy meat I make it last and we have stews etc and a roast chicken will feed us for three days as I don't waste anything.
I have met families where nobody has been taught how to feed a family on a limited budget. We seem to have lost our way in the UK regarding these things.
Our local childrens centre ran all kinds of nutrition based "feed your family" groups but these are being cut. It will be interesting to see how the families that had this input fare compared with those who don't have the option of them now.

i am hard. i dont like to waste life thinking about how it should be different. i would rather deal with any practicalities i can change in my own life then put my happy hat on with anything i cannot. i dont want anyone else to waste their life on what i think cannot realistically be changed.

Cod - i agree DP & i live on £50 per week for food but in MN terms that is suprsingly low. we eat really well & enjoy food. supermarkets dont want you to eat well without spending a lot of money. education is the key to regain the lost knowledge.

Ok, to answer your question of why do people in the UK expect such a high standard of living. Yes, WHY do they? Why do people need a car to get to work, when most people in Africa don't have one? Why do we need an NHS when Africans don't have one? etc etc.

What I want to as YOU OP, is this: Why do you want to bring the standard of living DOWN for the poorest people in the UK, rather than bring the standard of living UP for those in Africa?

If you want the standard of living for the poorest in the UK brought down, would you be happy for your OWN standard of living to go down? If not, why not?

If someone is working full-time in the UK for just £11,856 before tax (NMW), and can't afford to cover their rent, council tax, travel to work, clothing, gas, electric, water and food costs without state help from Tax Credits, and a bit of housing benefit to help them with their rent costs, does that mean that they shouldn't have any access to the same labour-saving devices as you? Why do YOU think that YOU should have those 'luxuries' like a washing machine, or the internet, but not those who work for NMW?

And as for your lovely plan to stick the disabled in hostels and give them food stamps - I hope YOUR life never turns on a dime like mine did - just one diagnosis of epilepsy, and I went from owning my own (lovely) home, having a career that I loved that paid me VERY well, and being married, to being a disabled Lone Parent, reliant on benefits. It really IS that quick - I had over £20k savings in the bank, but you soon eat through that when you are having to live on it as your sole income, and your insurances don't pay out...8 years down the line, while I am not in debt, I struggle from one week to the next.

I fail to understand how you are anything except a total hypocrite, unless you start sending EVERY PENNY of your income, over and above that which YOU think someone in a NMW job who can't afford to cover their essential costs as listed above should have, to people in Africa. Unless you are willing to do this, then you should shut up, and fuck off to the far side of fuck, and when you get there, fuck off some more!

And if YOUR personal Tax money is being used to pay my benefits, then my daughter wishes to say thank you for the (few) birthday presents that your tax money has paid for, and the cake that I have baked her and decorated that was obviously paid for directly out of YOUR personal hard-earned income. .

Here, have my very first . It's taken me since the day we GOT the emoticon on MN to actually have recourse to using it. So thank you for the opportunity!

Oh, and thank you for the goat too...

I've been thinking about the quoted figures for available jobs. A lot of the advertised jobs are part time. So to work full time people need more than one job. If you convert the number of jobs to whole time equivalents then the picture is even worse.

It is also harder to find 2 part time jobs as you have to ensure the hours don't overlap or that you have to travel across the country in a very short time. On top of that you are slammed in tax for having a second job, paying more than you would for the same hours and pay coming from a single job. Yet myself and others like me are prepared to do this and are doing our best to find more work. Yet it is not enough for people like the OP who feels they are so perfect that they advocate further humiliation for those made redundant, claim they have no right to own items bought before redundancy.

TBH the only thing I am now ashamed of is wishing the OP would fall on hard times so she can see it can happen to anyone through no fault of their own.

I dont agree with hostels but the OP has said: '.....cannot understand why people should not have to take jobs that they are qualified for if those jobs exist'

has she actually said anything other than that anywhere else?

also the OP said "If our fit population all worked...." isnt her whole point about healthy people not working? has she said anything about disabled people being forced to work?

I think you'll find the OP got delightfully distracted by arguments about how she would rather pay charities to help the 3rd world than pay tax to fund "spongers." She hasn't quantified what proportion of people count as "spongers," just stated a preference to pay charities to help the 3rd world rather than pay tax to help these spongers whom, she seems to think, take up the lion's share of her tax bill. She would rather support the workers in India (who are all very noble and hard done by) who make her clothes and subsidise her lifestyle by offering them little gifts of charity to salve her conscience, rather than ensuring they get paid a reasonable wage in the first place and make clothes she can't then afford to buy. She would rather people in this country had useful work taken away from them and given to people in other countries and then blame people in this country for finding it difficult to get work in this country. She would rather university graduates stacked shelves in Tesco and took those jobs away from people who are not qualified to do anything else. She would rather not get distracted by the details of what she is saying and just make blanket statements as though life is all very simple - which it is if you bring back workhouses and don't waste your breath having sympathy for anyone. The minute you bring a bit of colour and shading into your world view, you realise nothing is as simple as the OP seems to think it is.

"has she actually said anything other than that anywhere else?"

Yes. Read the thread.

Btw, I don't think you're hard, Tilly. I think you're foolish.

Suffering from a major case of It Won't Happen To Me. Or the more iterated version, It's Already Happened To Me And I Survived - as evidenced by the "my parents had heating but not have central heating."

And I may be misremembering this, but don't you do the same trick claiming you have a health problem but are making it go away by will-power? That ice is so thin you could read through it.

serial - CFS symptoms? willpower, no. but i did approach the problem is a way that i believed would give me the best chance of a good outcome.

did i think i could approach the problem in a way that guaranteed that i would get well? no of course not. i did believe that could control some things that would give me the best chance.