JSA and gambling

Senior1983

pcombo wrote: »

Just because your on beneifts doesn't mean you have to change your life, Dont do this and dont do that. No one has any right to tell you how to spend the JSA granted to you.

If someone wants to waste it gambling, drinking or taken drugs thats there life not for anyone else to say you shouldn't be doing that with JSA.

bit of a vicious circle really. Not gonna help the job seeking worrying about the 2.10 at York! benefit is an entitlement not a right and it should be used for job seeking ie too live not drug use or gambling. Here's an idea get a job and use disposable income on your hobbies and no one will judge.

HappyMJ

DanielClark wrote: »

yes they do



this is the reason, and it is correct.

they issue JSA under the assumption that it is being used to pay for necessities, and amenities that may help getting back into employment, not to be gambled with, or to be boozed away.

I see people every other week as I am cycling to work, stood outside the local boozer with their money-for-nothing in their white knuckled fists, waiting for the doors to open. I know people who have and still do drink their JSA away, then live the rest of the period "on the borrow", harrassing friends and family for money for the necessities they should have used their JSA on in the first place.

it's irresponsible to give people like this the total JSA allowance in money, for this very reason. I think if people are found to have been misappropriating JSA, they should receive the majority of their benefits in the form of stamps to be traded in for food/clothing/gas/electric

Where I live the beer in the boozer costs £3 a pint. Not too many people on JSA can afford that every day.

Stamps can still be traded for booze if needed but the exchange rate will be much worse. i.e I'll get £67.50 worth of groceries for you and you give me £45 cash for it. It doesn't work.

You are talking about less than 1% of people on JSA that waste all of it on crap. Most people on JSA actually will pay the bills with it.

DanielClark

HappyMJ wrote: »

Where I live the beer in the boozer costs £3 a pint. Not too many people on JSA can afford that every day.

Stamps can still be traded for booze if needed but the exchange rate will be much worse. i.e I'll get £67.50 worth of groceries for you and you give me £45 cash for it. It doesn't work.

You are talking about less than 1% of people on JSA that waste all of it on crap. Most people on JSA actually will pay the bills with it.

it doesn't matter how much it costs, an alcoholic won't try to spread the money out to fill the rest of the fortnight, they will drink until the money runs out, or until they pass out.

alcoholics/drug & gambling addicts don't think with a rational mind, to an addict, especially where drugs and alcohol are concerned, the addiction comes first, everything else comes second, including food.

with regards to trading stamps for alcohol, I don't know the facts, but I would be surprised if that sort of behaviour didn't go unpunished when found, for both parties involved. it's highly immoral at least.

how do you know the spending trends of JSA recipients? do you have concrete facts to back that sub-1% claim up, or is that a number you plucked out of thin air?

while I don't deny that the "majority" are spending theirs wisely, I find it hard to believe that >99% are.

I'm sorry, I just don't.

von

The people who pay JSA have no say on how you spend your money as long as you are available and actively seeking work. How you spend the JSA is entirely up to you, providing of course that you don't try and claim a crisis loan because you have lost your money due to gambling, then they might have something to say.

HappyMJ

DanielClark wrote: »

it doesn't matter how much it costs, an alcoholic won't try to spread the money out to fill the rest of the fortnight, they will drink until the money runs out, or until they pass out.

alcoholics/drug & gambling addicts don't think with a rational mind, to an addict, especially where drugs and alcohol are concerned, the addiction comes first, everything else comes second, including food.

with regards to trading stamps for alcohol, I don't know the facts, but I would be surprised if that sort of behaviour didn't go unpunished when found, for both parties involved. it's highly immoral at least.

how do you know the spending trends of JSA recipients? do you have concrete facts to back that sub-1% claim up, or is that a number you plucked out of thin air?

while I don't deny that the "majority" are spending theirs wisely, I find it hard to believe that >99% are.

I'm sorry, I just don't.

It's an estimation. Are you telling me that of the 1.6 million people claiming JSA that more than 16,000 people just collect their Giro and go straight to the boozer with all of it. I can imagine quite a few go the the bargain booze and buy a few litres of cheap cider but not to the pub (if that is what you mean by boozer). There isn't even that many rough sleepers in the whole of the UK. So they must be paying the rent, gas, electricity and food with something and that something is JSA.

Mrshaworth2b

The OP prob didn't think about all this judgement when they wrote the post on here. I was on JSA for a year, desperately trying to get a job. I wish I had 6k I could have played with. Anyway.. the job centre can't physically demand what you spend your JSA on but another way to think about all this when you've stopped being so selfish... Imagine you work full time hours+ and then you come on here and read someone saying what you have, imagine how much anger you would feel when really its your taxes paying for this addict and then you'll understand the other posts on here. I certainly do now I'm on the other side!

Adereterial

No, the JCP can't demand you spend your JSA on certain things. However, if you're an idiot and persistently overspend you're going to come a cropper fairly quickly - you get a MAXIMUM of 3 Crisis Loans in a year and in most places 3 referrals to foodbanks. I've seen JSA customers max out the help they can be given in the space of 3 months.

The post wasn't about that, though - it was about whether the government has the right to know what a person claiming benefits has done with capital or savings. The OP claims to fluctuating savings which sometimes cross the threshold. They need to tell the JCP about that, and accept that if they gamble that money away they will be treated as having deprived their capital and their benefits will be calculated as if they still had it. This is to ensure that benefits are paid only to those who need them and that you cannot get rid of savings other than in certain prescribed means to maximise a claim to benefit. The OP knows there is a threshold and they know they go over it without declaring it - that's fraud.

skintandscared_2

I accept that nobody can dictate what someone spends their JSA on, any more than my employer can dictate what I spend my wages on. However, since it is taxpayers' money supplying the JSA, I don't accept that someone with £6k to "play" with should be entitled to receive it. End of.

Fluffs123

thank you all for the many interesting replies. the moral dimension is not one i wish to go into on here.

a further question .... what needs to be considered if i sign off, even though i have no job to go to, then subsequently wish to sign on again at some future date? could they withhold jsa? that's something i've never done before - i've always signed off when i have a temp job and signed back on when it finishes.