Blow for sickness benefit claimants

Wookster

donaldtramp wrote: »

Went up from 700,000 to 2.6 MILLION?

That is just an eye popping statistic. 2.6M - that is nearly 5% of the total population, and I'd guess 8% of the working population.

That is just a stunning number of people.

Unfortunately all these changes at a time when there are no jobs isn't going to make a lot of difference.

lemonjelly

I work in the advice industry, and can tell you that it is closer to 90% of incapacity benefit claimants who are being advised they need to find work.

Without coming across as a daily mail reader, many of them rightly could & should. For a start, for many, working would improve their health.

Many feel they should claim benefits rather than work.

Some are in a spiral, and become dependant on benefits.

We are no longer in the age where people see themselves as only being capable of one job/one type of job.

The government target is that 90% of current claimants will be found to have needs which can be supported to get them into work.

Don't see a problem with it, provided they are fair about how they do it.

SingleSue

This is a bit of an awkward one, yes there are those who swing the lead but there are also those who really cannot work but have pride and downplay their problems (my dad was/is one of them in the pride stakes, not the working stakes!).

As someone else has pointed out, the swinging the lead career claimants will know the little things to do/say to get their benefit continued, the genuine usually feel so eeekk about having to claim or being a drain on society, that they can sometimes downplay (so as not to be seen as moaning or complaining all the time) the ramifications of their disabilities.

Other points as picked up by others is that a fair few illnesses/disabilities will have good and bad days, for example I have spinal arthritis (never claimed any kind of benefits for it before anyone jumps in!) and some days it's fine, I can carry things, walk etc but other days, it can be so painful to walk that I am in tears, so what happens if you are having a better day when it comes to the assessment consultation?

I remember my father being turned down for disability living allowance because he has pride (too much of it!) and didn't want to moan..this was despite having received an industrial injuries award/benefit since 1972 (ish) due to having fallen off the bridge he was constructing (they were at fault) and almost losing his life and ever since, having to use sticks to walk. At the interview, he was asked if he could walk (not how far or how well) and he answered yes and didn't elaborate that he couldn't walk without the aid of his sticks and even with them, even a trip to the end of our street (which isn't very long) would leave him in severe pain for days, could he climb stairs? Yes but didn't say that 4 times out of 6 he had to go up on his bottom. He got turned down and was too proud to appeal even though his GP was extremely shocked and angry at the decision.

My father though continued to work right up to retirement (apart from when he was in hospital after the accident, he never missed a day at work due to his disability even if he had to almost crawl in on some days) and was extremely lucky that his later employer thought of his needs and installed lifts and disabled parking before they were a legal requirement and made sure his desk was close to fire exits and toilets so the minimum of walking was needed.

So on the one hand, it's good they are cracking down but on the other, the career claimants will still know the tricks and the risk of genuine unable to work claimants being passed able to work is increased.

ad44downey

PNPSUKNET wrote: »

oh well, make them work half are fraudulent anyway.

Err....what jobs are you going to make them do? Haven't you noticed that the unemployment rate is shooting through the roof?

I don't see how moving people from sickness benefit to unemployment benefit helps the economy.

JasonLVC

ad44downey wrote: »

I don't see how moving people from sickness benefit to unemployment benefit helps the economy.

It'll make a true picture of who is unemployed and who is disabled much more accurate. At least then we can see the true extent of the situation and plan economic policy accordingly.

Disability benefit opens the door to many other benefits (blue badges, carers allowances, IS, etc), whereas JSA is more restrictive, depending upon the type of JSA benefit claimed so may work out cheaper to pay JSA than all the other benefits.

ILW

ad44downey wrote: »

I don't see how moving people from sickness benefit to unemployment benefit helps the economy.

Its less to come from working taxpayers.

HousingBear

It exposes the lie of how much unemployment supposedly fell during Labour's early years while the levels of long-term sickness skyrocketed.

Here's a better idea. Just call all the unemployed "self-employed" and remove unemployment at a stroke. They would jolly well get out and find work then.

Sorry, just having a small attack of Dailymailitis this morning...

Norfolk_Jim

Everyone should have to do something in return for their benefits once a reasonable time has been allowed to sort yourself out. Theres plenty of work out there that could be done to benefit the country as a whole.
A family member more or less lives a life of leisure on sickness benefit, has no intention of ever working (lazy scrounging cow) and is less sick than I am, and I work. An aquaintance I know has stayed at home for years now to look after his sick wife (Nothing wrong with that) and lived on benefits but she is less sick than my wife.
Remove the requirement to give something in return (work) and people will adjust to live on benefits and get used to it - that attitude needs to be broken but theres a real lack of imagination in how governments address this.
There are less crazies who would be unmanageable than people think and we could put those in the army.

frugallass

donaldtramp wrote: »

More than two-thirds of applicants for sickness benefits are being rejected under a new testing regime, casting doubt on the validity of 2.6m existing claimants deemed unfit for work.

Bring it on and let's expose these low-life spongers

ad44downey

If you forced everyone who is on benefits back to work there'd hardly be anyone posting on here.