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

meher

That's why I'm not able to find benefit reforms in bad faith because the whole point of each reform, or at least the way I read it, is to restore integrity into the system so that no one has a cause for doubt as to whether it is being abused.

May be the prejudice directed at services, service providers of incapacity assessments should end, as a start. In any case even those who claim for disability are also tax payers - so why this fear and paranoia and protest and prejudice against a system that actually works in favor of the disabled person and everyone who likes to see fairness. To lessen stigma, the refoms that ask for people to be assessed accurately and fairly, imo, have to be considered with less emotion and more reason. But that hasn't been the reception to any of the benefit reforms. There has been only prejudicial stance against those who like to see fairness for all, by all I don't mean just the claimants.

cosmic-dust

I'm struggling to understand how two adults and two children all with varying disabilities get less benefit?

A single parent with 2 children one who receives MRC/LRM. I did previously post my benefit entitlement in another thread but I'm happy to re post it here again.

Child tax credits: £162.98 per week
(this includes a child disability premium)
Child benefit & Guardians allowance: £48.45 per week
Income support: £85.90 per fortnight
Carers allowance: £254.60 four weekly
DLA MRC/LRM (child): £275.40 four weekly
Child support £183.27 per month.
EMA son get's £30 per week.

This is paid into my bank every week/fortnight/four weekly, not a single penny of this is for housing costs!

I can't recall of the top of my head exactly how much council tax is paid in benefits every month, I know I only pay £23.00 per month.

I also get Housing benefit: £78.57 per week

Then add on free school meals x 2 for 5 days = £18.50 per week ( 1 in primary, 1 in Academy)

Once a year I can get clothing assistance = 2 x £50 = £100.

Council tax charge from 1st April 2011 - 31st March 2012 = £904.56
Water charge = £141.68
Watewater charge = £164.43
Total = £1210.67

Deductions:
25% occupancy disc = -£226.14
benefit = -£678.42
Wastewater discount = -£41.11
Water discount = -£35.42

Amount you must pay: £229.58

krisskross

It may well be that Ross and his family live with parents and thus get no LHA/HB or council tax benefit.

However I still think £250 a week with apparently only £50 of this spent on food is loads.

It is ultimately their business and none of ours but I feel he and his wife have done far more harm than good with the article and subsequent lack of clarity.

john539

MSE_Martin wrote: »

I must say Im a little surpised some of the comments above. The whole point of Ross's article (as it clearly states - it is his article not ours - this is a guest comment) is to give a voice to someone who you wouldn't normally hear from.

It isn't about the pounds and the pence its about the attitude and prejudice he has felt about claiming benefit. As for checking through his benefits - this isnt about auditing the man's life - its about a platform to give him his say, in his words, with his view - talking about what it feels like.

We have tried to minimise any editorial influence (the same courtesy we give to other guest contributers including the Prime Minister, or Ed Balls, Ray Boulger) and let him have his say.

He had bravely stuck his head above the parapet - he is a real person - please remember that when you comment.

MSE_Martin wrote: »

We are an open forum. Personally I resolutely disagree with many of the posts above - and had my say earlier.

Yet as long as the posts aren't rude or abusive or illegal, in a MoneySaving forum we need to allow people their opinions on moneysaving issues. That applies whether they're slating the site or anything else.

However there is a specific rule in the benefits board to protect posters asking for help. Unfortunately a relatively new member of my team did the link there - I've only just noticed which board it was in (having clicked from the news story).

I've now moved it to a different board to be more consistent (it cant go in discussion time as only logged in readers can see that).

If we started deleting any posts we didnt agree with or didint like, we'd have a very small forum - that simply isnt how social networking works. Though of course if anyone is rude or abusive then please report it.

I too find the attitude towards benefits claimants here tough to stomach sometimes - but then these boards reflect society - those are real views and as long as they're not within the benefits board attackign those asking for help - then they are entitled to their view.

martin

What a lovely thread !

How sad & sickening to read some of the disgusting & vile comments.

There are some real nasty people about.

Within a few posts it's derailed & turned into a Benefit Bashing thread.

Dunroamin

john539 wrote: »

What a lovely thread !

How sad & sickening to read some of the disgusting & vile comments.

There are some real nasty people about.

Within a few posts it's derailed & turned into a Benefit Bashing thread.

You must have been reading some other thread.

john539

thedrsmisses wrote: »

Hello all i'm Ross' partner

I've just sat and read through all these posts and i'm slightly disheartened by the fact that some of you have taken it upon yourself to do a benefits check on our behalf nothing like being treated like a liar until you can prove your telling the truth. Ross will be writing a post on here at some point to answer the most asked questions which seem to be about the ins and out of our monthly living expenses, did most of you actually read the post or scan read it? you say he goes on about "only getting 11k" he mentions it twice.

You also mention the DLA etc that we would most likely be claiming for the childrens health problems, we don't they wouldn't even be entitled to it for their conditions neither am i for that matter for mine, i haven't even bothered to put in a claim for it, its a waste of my time the DLA departments time and would just mean a longer wait for some other poor soul who needs it more then i do

I don't claim IB either i was getting CA until our second child was born and Ross' DLA was lowered to the lower care component on DLA with no mobility component so im not entitled anymore. And my reason for not working, i am a full time mum and carer to Ross, i am looking forward to going back to work as soon as my daughter starts preschool and Ross has had his operation later this year if their is any jobs left. Why Couldn't he look after the children whilst i work i hear you ask, how would he change a nappy? dress them cook for them pick them up safely or cope with the pain untill i got home and he could take a painkiller that would leave him to tired to stay awake for long

As for the assumptions as to why we have had 2 children with us both having health problems, Ross was in full time work when our son was born and my lupus and consequent kidney involvement wasn't diagnosed until a year after our daughter was born



i don't see how a tumor of bone or SLE with kidney involvement would cause reflex anoxic seizures in our son or our daughter to be born with only one kidney and neither do their consultants. When i was diagnosed with both my conditions i spoke to both my specialists and my children's consultants to find out if that had been the cause of our children's medical conditions to have my mind put at rest as any mother would.

I find it disappointing that many have missed the whole point of the article, the point wasn't to moan about how much we do or don't get as a family, believe me we are eternally for every single penny we have been awarded, yes we do struggle on 11k a year but find me a family that doesn't in the current financial mess this country finds itself in. i don't feel we need to justify what benefits we receive that wasn't the point of the article, yes we are claiming all we are entitled and yes we have done a benefits check to make sure that is the case, we maybe on benefits but we are by no means stupid. I'm sorry you feel cheated out of the whole story by us not declaring to all of MSE what we receive but that's just the way it is, maybe i can convince Ross to write a book and you can all read it in there, at least then you can choose to have your hard earned money pay our bills and put food on the table.

To those of you who "got" the point myself and Ross would like to thank-you, and especially those who have wished us/him well with his arm and all the lovely comments on twitter there has been so many lovely comments its going to take Ross a while to reply to each one

Natalie aka @thedrsmisses

thedrsmisses wrote: »

that has actually made me cry! so well done i applaud you.

i give up no one understands that i dont wont to discuss my finances on a forum that can be read by anyone anywhere. I dont see why i have to justify what we get if you really cared you would have pm'd me and asked not done it on here when i said i didnt want to discuss it on a open forum.

you really are the nastiest person i have ever crossed paths with

thedrsmisses wrote: »

i have nothing left to say on the matter i have explained why i do not want to discuss this on an open forum and invited people to pm me if they so wish. i will no longer be commenting on this board.

and just so everyone is aware it has been moved from the benefits board so you cant use that excuse.

thanks for taking the time to read the article im sorry if you dissagree with and im sorry for everything else.

good bye

All the best, look after yourselves.

This thread is just typical of many benefit threads that get derailed.

Jenna_Appleseed

MSE has reached a new low.

FBaby

What a sad turn this has taken. The aim of writing the article, making it public, and posting it here was to squash assumptions about people on benefits, and try to gain sympathy about the difficulties of living on benefits. In the end, i think if anything it's done exactly the opposite....

I think what was seriously missed from the OP and his wife was some humility. You can't use your own personal circumstances to make a point about discrimination and then refuse to discuss anything else than what they want to share. It would be the equivalent of someone coming here, saying that they have been dismissed totally unfairly from their job, struggling to feel their family, and expecting sympathy from strangers about their situation but refused to divulge why they were dismissed because it's noone's business.

I don't give sympathy for the sake of it or because people demand it. I do when I feel for the people concerned and I am provided with cicumstances that make me believe that they are treated unfairly.

Unfortunately, the OP and his wife expected posters to support their cause and sympathise with their cicumstances on the face value of what they said. Refusing to provide further information that would have immediately quieted down those naturally more inquisitive only made these people starting to question the validity of the whole assertion. The defensiveness and patronising attitude that then followed made them suspicious.

I do believe that if anyone is going to highlght unfairness and ill treatment publicly, they have to be prepared to provide justification. You can't expect people to change their minds and attitudes just because you tell them that they should otherwise, they would have done that long ago.

zagfles

FBaby wrote: »

What a sad turn this has taken. The aim of writing the article, making it public, and posting it here was to squash assumptions about people on benefits, and try to gain sympathy about the difficulties of living on benefits. In the end, i think if anything it's done exactly the opposite....

I think what was seriously missed from the OP and his wife was some humility. You can't use your own personal circumstances to make a point about discrimination and then refuse to discuss anything else than what they want to share. It would be the equivalent of someone coming here, saying that they have been dismissed totally unfairly from their job, struggling to feel their family, and expecting sympathy from strangers about their situation but refused to divulge why they were dismissed because it's noone's business.

I don't give sympathy for the sake of it or because people demand it. I do when I feel for the people concerned and I am provided with cicumstances that make me believe that they are treated unfairly.

Unfortunately, the OP and his wife expected posters to support their cause and sympathise with their cicumstances on the face value of what they said. Refusing to provide further information that would have immediately quieted down those naturally more inquisitive only made these people starting to question the validity of the whole assertion. The defensiveness and patronising attitude that then followed made them suspicious.

I do believe that if anyone is going to highlght unfairness and ill treatment publicly, they have to be prepared to provide justification. You can't expect people to change their minds and attitudes just because you tell them that they should otherwise, they would have done that long ago.

Whilst I agree to some extent, I think the thing we have to remember is that Ross is not a professional journalist nor perhaps is he used to posting on an internet forum such as this. They are clearly a family in difficult circumstances and recent posts have started looking like harrassment, to be frank. We should also remember he is not speaking from behind the cloak of anonymity like the rest of us.

It is perfectly right and proper for an article posted in the public domain on a well read site such as MSE to be challenged, not only for factual accuracy, but also for any incorrect assumptions it may lead people to regardless of its factual accuracy. This applies just the same to typical Daily Mail articles about people in £1million houses getting housing benefit, regardless of factual accuracy, the assumption created needs to be challenged.

We don't know whether the £11k figure is right or wrong, and we never will. We don't know how he worked it out. All we can say is that a typical family in his situation would get considerably more. That has been well established in this thread (as it should) and the point doesn't need labouring.

I'll be honest and say I didn't like the article, and don't think MSE should have published it. To me it came across as a rant and gave a misleading impression about benefits, which is not helpful to benefit claimants (or potential benefit claimants) for reasons I gave in an earlier post.

But how many of us is difficult circumstances have had a rant which perhaps didn't all stand up to scrutiny when analysed in cold technical detail? I know I have many times.

Martin said he wanted to give Ross a platform to have his say and to minimise any editorial influence, but I think he really should have been warned that an article so widely read would be analysed in hard cold detail.

On a final note, could I suggest that those posters who have demonstrated a good knowledge of the benefits system and have been so concerned that Ross isn't getting what he's entitled to, come across to the benefits board and give people advice who want and desperately need it - we could do with you (I know some of you already do)

triplefire

ses6jwg wrote: »

I don't think people who work are just angry at people who are fraudulantly claiming, if they are anything like me they are also getting sick and tired of genuine benefit claimaints - especially those claiming sickness benefits - moaning at how little they recieve and how they "struggle to make ends meet".

.....I refuse to believe that most people on disability benefit cannot perform some sort of work such as office work..

Honestly, didn't you read the guy's story? He has repeatedly tried to get work but employers won't consider him because of his tumour. That's the reality.

Anger at fraudsters is logical, but how on earth can a human being say they are tired of people with genuine disabilities complaining about the (far from generous) benefits in the UK?

Are you unable to play with your children because of pain?

Are you afraid to say what you do (or, more accurately, can't do) because people might misunderstand?

Do you face many more expenses than others because of your disability? I am employed part-time, get the DLA and disabled tax credits, but I pay far more than able-bodied people in taxis, special equipment etc. I also have a more restricted life and, since my rare bone conditions worsened, have had to take a job that pays much less and is far more junior than previous employment.

The many people in this country who seem to be against all disabled folks now disgust me. What do you propose to do with us? No wonder Martin says he was "surprised" by the comments. Is he in fact disgusted too?

Think about it. I'm sure you're puffed up with "British fairness" and other national delusions. This is far from fair.