MSE News: 'I'm on benefits but I'm no scrounger'

Flyboy152

qetu1357 wrote: »

This is not a comment on Ross's case study..........

I thought this was an interesting line on the original email

"and the system abuses others by failing to make work pay"

So what should this abusive system do?

Pay people more or pay less benefits?

Of course some people on benefits have it tough, but some on benefits have it nice and some on benefits are on benefits because of their own fault.

What is the biggest wrong is people getting paid less than they would on benefits. The only answer, sadly, is to increase benefits for those who work (to add to their pay) and reduce benefits for those who don't - excluding those who really can't.

Otherwise the situation will continue and will get worse.

And just how do we indentify those who really can't?

Butterfly_Brain

Butterfly_Brain wrote: »

:T Thank you Martin.
Too many people forget that behind each story there is a human being and it is all too easy to bash those less fortunate and unfortunately this has been caused by !!!!less MP's who wouldn't know what it feels like to have to grovel for these benefits

I have been censored for the word !!!!less :rotfl::rotfl:

!!!!less = Incompetent, useless, hopeless, spineless, feeble, weak, ineffectual, worthless

Con-Dems = all of the above

Derivative

You try providing food, clothes, energy, transportation and everything else, for a family of four, on just over nine hundred pounds a month.

Is this some sort of joke?
I am being completely serious, are you kidding me?

Annually, as budgeting monthly bothers me

Food is the major expense there and that depends on how frugal you are. I would say £4000 as an absolute upper limit unless you are really being ridiculous, that comes out as ~£80pw.

Energy is second. Let's say £2000 to be generous.

Where do you want to spend the other £5k?

Mentioning clothes is just daft. Clothes are so cheap nowadays as to not really be worth mentioning in a budget. Five pairs of jeans and five shirts from Primark cost about £60 and will last you a year.

That's if you even want to buy new clothes, the only clothing I bought in the past 6 months was a pair of tracksuit bottoms and some running shoes. Total £35.

Kids are going to cost a bit more, but a few hundred quid a year tops.

Transportation - if you own a car it's hard. If you don't it's not. Pretty simple one there. Keep in mind noone is working, so noone is commuting - that makes transportation completely optional other than perhaps once or twice a week.

Do people other than me actually budget? I really do not understand at all how anyone can consider £11k a small amount of money after rent, even for four people. Really. Can't do it.

I'd rather have more - so would anyone - but it is easily, easily doable.

Flyboy152

zigzigzag wrote: »

It is far too easy to write-off and discredit people's valid opinions by calling them 'benefit bashers', thereby saving you from having actually to engage with their viewpoints. I would never consider myself a 'benefit basher', but I personally know lots of people who bend (if not outright abuse) the system - eg choose not to work or even look for work when they are fully capable of finding work for years and years (so they can happily enjoy their hobbies), ask their employer to lay them off so that they can collect benefits and enjoy spending all day at home with their kids, hide income and savings to qualify for more benefits etc - and these are intelligent, able-bodied friends and relatives of mine! And I've read of families who enjoy more luxuries on benefits than many working families do eg http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-16812185. Like jumbo said above, I want these people taken off their benefits so that people like Ross can be treated decently.

So let's not pretend that the benefits system is only there for people who need it, or that all benefits recipients are as honest and decent as Ross, or that benefits = poverty, and let's allow both sides of the discussion a voice without writing-off people who simply happen to have a different view.

If they upset you so much by them doing this, why haven't you reported them yet. Surely, those who allow this to continue, without telling the authorities, are just as bad.

qetu1357

Flyboy152 wrote: »

And just how do we indentify those who really can't?

By being much more robust with those who claim they cannot work.

Flyboy152

hanlou007 wrote: »

I personally think that the benefit system would be great if it was used for what it should be.....helping people who really need it (whether made unemployed , disability etc)
What ruins it is the people who are claiming it that have never worked.......or those single mums who have just popped a baby out for more cash and a house !!
Too many women dont think about the true cost of a child before having one....and too many people claim disability who dont deserve it and say they cant work....just because you have a limp doesnt mean you cant sit in a call centre and answer a phone.

Lets get the benefit system back to helping genuine people and no-one would argue with that !!

Flippin' 'eck, it's just like being the eighties, all over again.

LadyG_DHQ

My sympathies go out to this gentleman who is without doubt a genuine claimant.

However, as we are all aware, the problem we have in this country is those people that are working the system. Some of them have never worked and have no intention of working. David Cameron and Nick Clegg were so insistent when they came into power they were going to get people off the dole and into work, but with so many businesses going down the pan, this is an impossibility. In fact, it’s the dole wallahs ideal world – There only concern is that as the unemployment numbers rise, there won’t be enough in the dole pot to go round. It also seems that when it comes to targeting the unemployed the only people the Government come down hard on are those people who are genuine claimants – The regular dole wallahs still seem to go in and just sign on the dotted line. Personally, I don’t think this will ever change, with hardworking peeps having to work till they drop dead to pay the benefits of those that refuse to work.

I also think that instead of keep raising the retirement age, they should bring it down, as this would free up jobs for some of the younger people that want to work, have tried hard to get a job but are continually unsuccessful. If these people had the opportunity to work, then their dole money could be used at the other end of the scale to pay pensions.

Flyboy152

piprod01 wrote: »

Assuming that the figures are accurate, and he's receiving around £12K; I don't think very many at all of the people supporting the £26K cap have any desire to drop his benefits, and even under the plans we there is a lot of room to increase them.

I have yet to see a family struggle on £26K, except those living in London. But I think in that situation you have to do the sensible thing that any family faces when they can't afford the rent, move elsewhere. Should you be supported if you can't by food or shelter? Of course. But should you be supported to buy whatever food you like of wherever you want? No.

Maybe there are situations where a family need more than £26K to live that I can sympathise with. But I've not seen it, and looking at how Ross can survive on FAR less than the proposed cap, it's not unreasonable that we should raise a sceptical eyebrow about anyone claiming over 26 thousand pounds.

I don't think that the proposals include all benefits being capped at twenty-six thousand pounds. I think it includes a cap on all benefits to add up to twenty-six thousand pounds. For example, a cap of £XX on housing benefits, £xx cap on disability and sickness allowances etc. So, if you only get one benefit, you will be subject to the cap pro rata. I am not sure if that is the case and I stand to be corrected, but it is beginning to look like it to me.

gadgetmind

LadyG_DHQ wrote: »

My sympathies go out to this gentleman who is without doubt a genuine claimant.

I tend to agree.

I also wonder how on earth they managed to track him down.

zigzigzag

Flyboy152 wrote: »

If they upset you so much by them doing this, why haven't you reported them yet. Surely, those who allow this to continue, without telling the authorities, are just as bad.

Umm because they're my friends and relatives, as I said. I certainly don't like what they're doing, but that's not the same as shopping them to the authorities. I don't know what others would do - would you? I would feel pretty crappy. (Anyway, in relation to a few of them, you can't report someone for 'not looking for a job'.)