The £40k family

Austin_Allegro

I agree with Chugalug in that MOST people don't abuse the benefits system in the way that this person has done. But I do feel that in extreme cases such as these, there should be some form of complaints procedure or independent panel to assess the case and possibly recommend a reduction in benefits. The two main things about our welfare system that annoy me are:

1. It is contributory, that is why it is called 'national insurance'. It is not intended to be state charity handed out to people who have never contributed.

2. It is supposed to conform to the principle of universality, ie, the same for everybody. But the state discriminates against those who have savings, so it penalises those who attempt to provide for themselves.

Bun

I must have been misinformed - I was under the impression that eating muck like turkey twizzlers and smoking and drinking had an adverse affect on your chances of conceiving... It is clearly being out working all day that does that!

jellyhead

i tried a twizzler once, it was vile. son and hubby wouldn't touch them so i had to eat the whole packet (chucking it away would have been frivolous lol!). it tasted of fat and salt, kind of like chips but without the chips a good idea for places with vending machines though, after having twizzlers for your main course you'd need more than one drink. mind you we're just assuming they eat twizzlers, if i earned 40k a year hubby would order dominoes pizza every night lol!

although this kind of story irrites people it's not like that for the vast majority of people claiming benefits. you don't get anywhere near that kind of money if there's no disability in the family. if she wasn't ill then her hubby would be expected to find work, it was pointed out on a previous benefits bashing thread that there are systems in place to ensure that people do look for work. i was on income support once with one child and if you added up the total of eveything i got including how much rent, council tax, prescriptions, milk etc. would be it came to less than the minimum wage i would get if i worked in mcdonalds for 40 hours per week. churning out babies on welfare isn't usually lucrative.

i'd like to point out that although i've known several parents be on benefit at some point in their life not a single one has had extra children while on welfare. i certainly wouldn't have - to find myself on benefits was unexpected (long story but i couldn't have known that my first child wouldn't be financially supported by his father) but to have another child knowing full well that i couldn't support it would have just been wrong. i believe that most parents didn't expect to be on benefits when they concieved the child/ren, and that most don't have extra children if they're not working. if i was in that womans situation i'd have been content with the children i already had, if i knew i had arthritis and couldn't manage babies, meaning my hubby would have to stay at home instead of working i wouldn't have had those extra babies. that's just me but i really don't think that the majority of people on benefits would have a child if they knew they wouldn't be supporting it.

Fran

This thread reads as so bitter and twisted.

It just contributes to people on benefits, who already have low self esteem - not surprising with attitudes as displayed here - feel worse about themselves.

Though comments are supposedly directed at one family, comments like "scroungers" etc. really do hurt people who are claiming benefits.

I find a lot of posts on this thread abusive.

But then I really do know what it's like to be on benefits as I've been there.

IvanOpinion

Fran
I think what annoys people mopst is the fact that someone can sit on their lazy !!!!!! claiming the equivalent of a 50K in benefits whereas many other people work 40, 50, 60 hour weeks to earn less than half that amount in order to support their family. While this is an extreme it really does prove the point that there are spongers and scorungers out there that would not know what an honest days work was. I agree with other posters that say there should be a cap on how much any family unit can claim - I would think somewhere about 50-66% of the national average wage would be about right.

And to anybody who does the Mrs Lovejoy approach from the Simpsons ('What about the children? Won't anybody think about the children?') then you should not be having them if you can not afford them ... there are many childless couples out there who would give their right arm to be able to give them a decent home.

Ivan

jellyhead

i don't know about this particular family mentioned but i do think that some adults/children with disabilities need extra money for certain things. i saw a documentary once about a woman with several autistic children and she had an 'autism room' with certain stuff in it to help them feel calm and safe. it was expensive but probably worth it even from a taxpayers point of view if it helped the children and the mum to cope better, having a mum with mental health problems and children needing to go into care would have been much more expensive in the long term. some people with physical problems need extra money for things like taxis, without which they might need meals on wheels and other forms of more expensive help.

this family is not a typical family on benefits, it's not the norm to have this many children or to have disability money for several of them. i really do think it's important that the welfare state is there to support people who need it unexpectedly, sometimes maybe for 4 years until their youngest child goes to school. i was discussing this thread with somebody this morning though and she thought there should be a cap on how many children will be provided for, that nobody should have more than 4 without working to provide for them so benefits should stop rising after 4 children. she also thought benefits shouldn't go above a level that the family would be capable of earning were they working, e.g. somebody with no post-16 qualifications and no work experience could not expect to be given more than the minimum wage - if they were to go and look for work all they'd be able to get would be a 10k a year job and she sees no reason why the state should give non-working families more than those who do actually work a 40 hour week for 10k earn. a graduate who is used to earning a high salary but had temporarily fallen on hard times might be ebtitled to more help - in the short term. lots of people seem to feel like that. she even said while they're on benefits they can get all the qulaifications they desire for free, it's only working people who have to pay for college or uni. ho hum ... she is a daily mail reader though

Fran

IvanOpinion wrote:

Fran
I think what annoys people mopst is the fact that someone can sit on their lazy !!!!!! claiming the equivalent of a 50K in benefits whereas many other people work 40, 50, 60 hour weeks to earn less than half that amount in order to support their family. While this is an extreme it really does prove the point that there are spongers and scorungers out there that would not know what an honest days work was. I agree with other posters that say there should be a cap on how much any family unit can claim - I would think somewhere about 50-66% of the national average wage would be about right.

And to anybody who does the Mrs Lovejoy approach from the Simpsons ('What about the children? Won't anybody think about the children?') then you should not be having them if you can not afford them ... there are many childless couples out there who would give their right arm to be able to give them a decent home.

Ivan

There are plenty of criminals ripping people off left right & centre making far more out of it than this amount!

Where's the vicious attacks and sarcastic comments about them?

For some reason people like to have a go at the less advantaged end of society.

If children exist they have to be looked after, regardless whether you or anyone else makes judgements about who should be born or not.

Sarahsaver

soolin wrote:

I can't even read those stories anymore as I get upset. Mr Soolin was made redundant at Christmas and we are trying to survive on my part time wages which don't even cover the bills. We can't get any assistance as we made the terrible mistake of saving hard since we had children so we could afford to put them through university if they wanted to go.

Just think, if we'd spent all our money we could now claim to be broke and get some help, but because we tried to help ourselves we are penalised.

Apologies, feeling sorry for myself at the moment.

Soo

Thats ok, you ar eentitled to. I get annoyed about the fact that people like my sons' father can just walk out of a job cos they want to get legal aid and avoid csa payments, and they get away with it! And old people who have been careful all their lives and worked hard to buy their house have to give their assets to the state when they can no longer care for themselves.

Glad

Fran wrote:

There are plenty of criminals ripping people off left right & centre making far more out of it than this amount!

Where's the vicious attacks and sarcastic comments about them?

For some reason people like to have a go at the less advantaged end of society.

If children exist they have to be looked after, regardless whether you or anyone else makes judgements about who should be born or not.

I haven't noticed any 'vicious attacks' re people on benefits in general on this thread, in fact most posts seem to be directly aimed at discussing the family in the original post, is there any post in particular that has been abusive??
I'm sure everyone agrees that no child should go without as a punishment to it's parents for having too many children, and also that capping benefits would not necesarily stop people having large families and not working to keep them, but people who do go out to work to support their own family are always going to be annoyed to see that someone who doesn't is better off,

halloweenqueen_2

I do know what its like to be on benefits and at one time could just envision a life time of living from one week to the next payment, being looked down on and really not having much to look forward to, I know life on benefits for the people who need them is not a great life. However, these families that have lots of kids with no intention of working seem to get preferential treatment, I know of families that have been given two council houses knocked into one because of their ever increasing families and carry on as if it is their right, they have played the system so long they know nothing else and often are so obnoxious that the DSS staff just can't wait to get rid of them from their office and in the case of beardsly (who defines celebrity status these days - cos she don't apply in my opinion?), who could blame them. Are we taxpayers not allowed to say we are not happy with the situation without others insinuating we are having a go at the less priviledged in our society? If it gets to the situation that they can afford a luxury lifestyle without working surely something doesn't add up? Yes we do think of the children but do the parents, they are claiming this money but what benefits do the children themselves get? Is the mother concentrating any more help on the children that have special needs for the extra money she gets for them?
Most families who have to survive on benefits scrape by and single parents have that as well as no support from a partner, so i really do feel for them. Perhaps in the case of families with lots of children and no intention of working there should be a slide system a bit like the child benefit, £17 for number 1, £10 for number 2 etc.
I do read about these families and they always interview the extreme cases I know,but sometimes when they are insiting they are 'entitled' to this money I wonder what price they put on self respect. I do not begrudge any person who needs help receiving it whatsoever but there must be line drawn somewhere but it always seems to be at the expense of people on benefits who don't want to be on them but circumstances dictate otherwise.