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

Flyboy152

Wingus wrote: »

You also might want to consider the following:



Personally, i think all benefit, should only be paid to those in the UK, but that's a whole different subject altogether.

Then you are restricting that person's ability to seek work. There are nearly three million people unemployed in this country and fewer than a half a million jobs available. If someone wants to try their luck at getting a job in France, Germany, Estonia or Poland, why should they be prevented from doing so?

qetu1357

What is interesting about a lot of the people criticising benefits is that for a sizeable chunk of them, they still get more benefits (such as free education for their children and free health care) from the government than they pay in taxes.

BTW I don’t think that someone who criticises the benefit system is any more a benefit basher than someone who criticises immigration policy is a racist. Some of course, are, but not all by a long chalk.
Anyway, this is frankly what needs to happen

1. Those who can work, work and work pays more than not working
2. Those who cannot work, get benefits
3. Those who can work but cannot get work, get benefits
4. Those who won’t work, get nothing
5. We also need to create a culture when skiving is not an option
6. and bashing benefit claimants is wrong too

So basically you need to move the money from group 4 to group 1, perhaps because if more people are working and less skiving there’s less tax to pay and also by maybe giving more money in tax credits to those who work and are on low pay.

And I believe the Government is on a journey to make this happen.

meher

Those who choose to work for the meagre wages should have increased benefits like free housing and provisions for free childcare than the one who gets paid for a long list of excuses for relying on others' hard work. In that respect may be we need to move from this conservative stance of providing a safety exclusively for those who don't work and take on a radical approach where people on small wages have many more extra benefits and acually change behaviors and lifetsyles. The idea of working should be made more attractive.

zagfles

meher wrote: »

Those who choose to work for the meagre wages should have increased benefits like free housing and provisions for free childcare than the one who gets paid for a long list of excuses for relying on others' hard work. In that respect may be we need to move from this conservative stance of providing a safety exclusively for those who don't work and take on a radical approach where people on small wages have many more extra benefits and acually change behaviors and lifetsyles. The idea of working should be made more attractive.

This is what tax credits attempted to do - but mostly failed due to the interaction with other benefits. Although the situation now is that most people are better off in work, those at the bottom end are usually only slightly better off.

Withdrawal rates for IS/JSA is 100% after the small disregard, and withdrawal rates for tax credits combined with housing benefit and council tax benefit work out at 96%.

Families in particular face sky high marginal deduction rates until their income is quite high - quite possibly rates of 90%+ until their income is over about £20,000.

The UC will make this better, the marginal deduction rates will be 65% then 76% once paying tax/NI, as proposed currently, although how the localised council tax benefit combines with this we don't know yet.

john539

Flyboy152 wrote: »

The point of the article was how he was treated by others and this thread has proved his point.

That's an interesting thing, that this thread exposes what happens in real world.

It proves the OP's point.

krisskross

Flyboy152 wrote: »

Then you are restricting that person's ability to seek work. There are nearly three million people unemployed in this country and fewer than a half a million jobs available. If someone wants to try their luck at getting a job in France, Germany, Estonia or Poland, why should they be prevented from doing so?

I can't imagine anyone getting JSA, housing benefit etc in any European country while they look for work. They would need a pre-arranged job and sufficient funds to live on.

We lived in Spain for a few years and very few English people had legal jobs. Most were trying to scrape a living ripping off other ex-pats in the black economy.

john539

JimmyTheWig wrote: »

Martin,

I don't know if it is possible to edit the original article, but I think it would help matters if the reference to living on £11k a year was removed. If the article isn't about what is available, then I think it is fair to not imply what is available.

The article is a very good piece of writing. It is very emotive and gives an insight into what it must be like to have to live like that. My concern is that something that is seen as an inaccuracy (I, personally, have no idea on the numbers but it seems that others do) detracts from the whole article. Others have the concern that if someone in a similar situation was reading the article they might think that that is all they would be entitled to and not pursue it further.

The general consensus on this thread is pro-Ross. Most people believe that he and his family deserve more than £11k a year. Most people believe that he is entitled to more than £11k a year.
I see three possibilities
(a) Ross is getting more than this but doesn't want to divulge the information. Fine. But I think, then, that the £11k reference should be removed.
(b) Ross is only getting this but is entitled to more. Fair enough if he doesn't want to go into details on the forum, but I do hope that one of your team has offered go through his numbers with him off-line confidentially.
(c) Ross is only entitled to £11k. In which case I believe it would help if we were told this and why, so that we can lobby our MPs, etc, to argue that people in this situation deserve more money.

In any event, I think it would be much clearer all round if what Ross and his family receive was removed from the original article.


Thanks,

Jim

But it gives a basic context on amount they live on.

Government benefit bashiing reforms are based on amount of money benefit claimants get, without any context, it's all about money.

Editing out the £11k would not stop the hyenas asking how much they get, looking for weaknesses to target the OP in their article.

lilmofie84

krisskross wrote: »

I can't imagine anyone getting JSA, housing benefit etc in any European country while they look for work. They would need a pre-arranged job and sufficient funds to live on.

We lived in Spain for a few years and very few English people had legal jobs. Most were trying to scrape a living ripping off other ex-pats in the black economy.

Doesn't necessarily mean they're not entitled to claim though...

http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/BritonsLivingAbroad/Moneyabroad/DG_4000102

krisskross

lilmofie84 wrote: »

Doesn't necessarily mean they're not entitled to claim though...

http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/BritonsLivingAbroad/Moneyabroad/DG_4000102

I agree and knew the mechanism was in place.

I can only comment on the Spanish situation and say I knew no one at all that was able to claim unemployment benefit based on contributions in the UK. It was difficult enough to get healthcare sorted even with the correct documentation from Newcastle.

meher

Derivative wrote: »

I don't hate the rich, but I do think we should have 60, 70, 80% tax bands (though I recognise that's unlikely nowadays due to globalisation).

I absolutely agree that wealthy should be made to pay 60% tax (albeit they do pay stealhily thanks to clever Gordon Brown) and vat reduced to 12% like in the us. I'd also very dearly love to see the inheritance tax be 100% and any obscene levels of wealth hoarded and passed to be criminalised as unlawful gains. But being subject to prejudice bordering to bullying for wanting fairness for all is something that cannot be allowed to get past unaddressed and I suspect such victims of abuse and being labelled as bashers who want to see fairness, belong to every category. It is important to remember many resourceful people among the disabled are working and tax payers as much as they claim disability allowances.