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

grekko_2

Anyone else get the feeling that this board is overpopulated by ASOS decision makers or DWP budget shrinkers?

PhiltheBear

I've only just come to this thread because of the link from the most recent MSE newsletter.

I haven't read it all - it's too depressing to read comments by the "I'm all right Jack"s who haven't been in the position of being benefit dependent. I am - and have been for some time. Get a job? I wish. I apply for about 20 jobs - every day. I have a good job record and a high academic and work achievement level.

But I'm unfortunately over 60. Basically, I'm told I'm 'over-qualified' for almost every job I apply for - if I even get as far as talking to someone. Read that as "You're too old". I scrape by on benefits - and it's not charity, I paid much more in tax etc when I was working than it would be possible for me to receive in benefits over a lifetime.

If I could get a job - I'd be there as fast as I could - but it's just not happening. I've been 'passed' to one of the wonderful (?) companies that are supposed to help me by the Job Centre. All I get is some 20 year old telling me to search online or phone local employers. !!!!!! do they think I've been doing?

Funnily enough I've met many others, just like me, either at the Jobcentre or the 'welfare-to-work' company. We all have pretty much the same story - job vacancies aren't there - it's that simple.

meher

From welfare to workfare; it isn't anything to be proud of, specially for a wealthy progressive state, but when push comes to shove, this would be the end result.

Hutchch0920

PhiltheBear wrote: »

I've only just come to this thread because of the link from the most recent MSE newsletter.

I haven't read it all - it's too depressing to read comments by the "I'm all right Jack"s who haven't been in the position of being benefit dependent. I am - and have been for some time. Get a job? I wish. I apply for about 20 jobs - every day. I have a good job record and a high academic and work achievement level.

But I'm unfortunately over 60. Basically, I'm told I'm 'over-qualified' for almost every job I apply for - if I even get as far as talking to someone. Read that as "You're too old". I scrape by on benefits - and it's not charity, I paid much more in tax etc when I was working than it would be possible for me to receive in benefits over a lifetime.

If I could get a job - I'd be there as fast as I could - but it's just not happening. I've been 'passed' to one of the wonderful (?) companies that are supposed to help me by the Job Centre. All I get is some 20 year old telling me to search online or phone local employers. !!!!!! do they think I've been doing?

Funnily enough I've met many others, just like me, either at the Jobcentre or the 'welfare-to-work' company. We all have pretty much the same story - job vacancies aren't there - it's that simple.

Philthebear - I am curious to know if you might be able to tackle this by altering your CV? There is no requirement for you to put you DOB on your CV and perhaps you could just list the last company you worked for and use a seperate section to target your skills towards what the job description requires? Maybe you've already tried this trick...I don't know.

aolbfs

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'm a 24 year old single father who has shared care of his daughter.

I do not receive any tax credits. I do not receive child benefit.

I pay for my own council tax, I pay for my own rent.

I earn around 12k per year after tax and work 40 hour weeks. People can "earn" the same amount as me without lifting a finger or doing any work at all. I refuse to believe that most people on disability benefit cannot perform some sort of work such as office work.

And there are people out there who are on even lower incomes than I am.

Why should people on benefit be able to afford to smoke, go on foreign holidays and have Sky TV, at the expense of the state, when those who work for minimum wage struggle to put food on the table.

What are you crying for?
You made the decision to have a child.
The state should not be rewarding people for producing children.
You shouldn't be getting any help on that score.
If you know you don't earn enough to support a child properly, DON'T have one, simples!
Single people who don't have children have to pay towards the tax breaks that people with children get (not to mention the child benefit).
How is that fair? That's forced taxation on an entire section of society for no benefit in return.
Having children is a conscious choice. Being disabled or developing a disabling illness is NOT.
If we all took your view (as I just did above), the society we live in would simply discard the unemployed and leave them to starve. It would euthanise older people at 65 to avoid paying pensions and simply allow the sick to die.
Is that REALLY the sort of society you want to live in?

morgwn510

I was really shocked by this article. However, my reasons for being shocked are not the same reasons some of the other responders are shocked. I joined the forum to reply to his experience with my own.

I have exactly the same tumour (giant cell) in exactly the same place (right wrist), but my life is radically different. It would probably be unrecognisable to Ross.

I am an Australian citizen. In 2001, before I was diagnosed, I was on unemployment benefit in Australia. I had just dropped out of university and was suffering from clinical depression. I was certainly glad to be a beneficiary of the welfare state and the support it offered to get into work, and did feel that I deserved some help while I was down and out, because I had worked since I was 15 and had been financially independent for years. I got a job, and was promptly diagnosed with atypically aggressive GCT. I had surgery, my hand was saved, and a fusion of my right wrist with titanium inserts across my third metatarsal was performed at the age of 21 in 2002. It recurred locally in 2005, so I had another operation to remove it.

I worked on my career for a few years and enjoyed my 20's, holding down steady employment. By 2006 I was a bit bored, and answered the call to move to the UK from a friend. Before I left, I had one last check-up and found to my dismay that I had a third recurrence. I had yet another round of surgery, and when I had recovered, I took out a year's travel insurance with my Australian medical insurance provider and made the move to London. Within a year, I had a steady girlfriend, a great job and........ another recurrence. So far I'd gone under the knife in 2002, 2005, 2006 - and then had to go under again in 2007.

My girlfriend and I got married in 2010, and shortly afterwards I had another regular check-up - what do you know, a fifth recurrence. So in late 2010 I had my second NHS-sponsored surgery. In the same year, I was unfairly dismissed from my job and lost a grandparent, among numerous other setbacks.

All the while, in 2004 I had a scare where the tumour appeared to have metastasised to my lungs. Nobody has ever satisfactorily explained what happened, and I have had an abnormal chest X-ray ever since. I half expect that any day I will go for a regular check-up of my lungs and I'll find out that I have months left to live.

The thing that really strikes me though is that my life is great. I have a great time most of the time and am a happy person. I have worked really hard - despite the uncertainty I live under on a day-to-day basis - to enjoy life, and have built a comfortable life for myself and my wife. I also work in the IT industry, and I pay more (far more!) in tax and NI contributions than Ross takes home in benefits every year. I have achieved this because I have obtained an extensive list of IT industry certifications, costing many hundreds of hours of effort using second-hand textbooks from Amazon and eBay, and publically available resources over the Internet. I have pursued my career with companies who are comfortable allowing their people to work from home. If I have a bad day or need to go for one of the regular MRI or CT scans my condition necessitates, my employer (a very, very large outsourcing company) and I work together to find agreeable compromises. When I have a bad day, I work extra hard the next day or the next week to make it up. When I inevitably have my next medical setback, I will be able to work from home while I recover and then will comfortably be able to avoid any of the usual idiots in the world who can’t accept that a range of disabilities happens to a range of people.

In the last few years my wife and I have taken numerous exciting overseas trips (including one where we got engaged under the northern lights in far northern Norway), we've bought a flat in London and we've built a great life for ourselves. We don't have any children (yet), but we look forward to starting a family one day soon.

Having received my leg-up from the Australian welfare state and taken my share of benefit from the NHS in the UK, I'm obviously no critic of the welfare state. I did get a hard time from the NHS initially, being an immigrant, but the advanced and hugely atypical aggressiveness of my condition (less than 5% of GCT cases result in a recurrence, and I have had 5 of them so far!) has led to a situation where they are actively happy to treat me - partly because I have obviously made a life for myself in this country (having married a Briton), but mainly because I am such an unusual case that I actually contribute to their understanding of the condition itself.

So: why is my life great, and Ross’s life seemingly so miserable? From the picture he posted, and from the fact that I recently had a check-up scan indicating a probably sixth recurrence, we very likely share the same ultimate fate: a below-the-elbow amputation of our right arms. I obviously don't look forward to that day, but I expect that the resilience and positive attitude I have painstakingly built over the last 10 years will see me through that next hardship as effectively as it has through all the previous ones. I fundamentally owe all of that to the fact more than once when I was down the welfare state helped me back up. Ross is not having a fun time, obviously, but at least he and his family are not starving.

So why am I shocked by Ross’s experiences? I have never encountered anything but professionalism in the NHS. I have rarely encountered discrimination in the workplace, and if I have, I have openly challenged the other party to respect my rights and to keep in mind that my ability to the job I do is related to mental rather than physical agility. I am shocked by Ross’s resignation to his fate as a beneficiary of state support. The leader to his article mentioned the Paralympics in passing – so why does he choose to focus on everything he can’t do, rather than everything he can? Isn’t that what the Paralympic spirit is supposed to be all about?
The funny thing about all of my experiences (and all of Ross’s) is that ultimately we are absolutely minor sob stories in the sphere of human medical and political suffering. My wife lost her father when she was 19 and he was just 54 – the man was given 6 months to live but stubbornly refused to succumb to cancer for 6 years in the end, and had a jolly good time living the last of his life to the absolute fullest. I hope that when I go - whether I am 31 or 101 - I go with the same dignity, energy and fight.

The Paralympics themselves have in the last few days brought me to tears with the back-stories of a number of the competitors. What tragic circumstances for many of them to find themselves in - but what triumphs of positivity and energy most of these people are!

I believe that anybody who has the power to change their life but chooses not to forfeits their right to complain about it. In 2012, a historically unprecedented proportion of the sum of human knowledge is available at the fingertips of a historically unprecedented proportion of the world’s population. Yes, fall back on the welfare state, Ross, but remember that you don’t have to stay where you are - there are any number of opportunities for you to change your circumstances. If I have done it with the exact same condition then you can do it too. Oh, and if you aren't already a patient at the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital - get yourself in there pronto!

Edit: I should probably point out that as an Australian citizen, I do not have any recourse to any public funds such as disability allowance, unemployment benefit or housing benefit in the UK. NHS treatment is all I get.

anjak-j

FYI, those talking about the benefit cap... it won't apply to people who get the support component of ESA, or those claiming DLA or PIP(from April 2013). It also won't apply to people getting Working Tax Credits.
Source = http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/MoneyTaxAndBenefits/BenefitsTaxCreditsAndOtherSupport/BeginnersGuideToBenefits/DG_201734

I love that so many people are tooting their horns about how they'd like to sit on their butts 'doing nothing' for £11K. Maybe these people would like to take this guy's condition off his hands (pun not intended) too? Or they could take my multiple disabling conditions? I mean, what's constant pain that is only partially relieved by opiates stronger than morphine, at least five joint dislocations a day, severe fatigue, tremors in your hands, spasms in your back, cognitive issues brought on by both condition and medication, and three diagnosed mental illnesses when you can stay at home and get paid?

/sarcasm.

moggsy

aolbfs wrote: »

What are you crying for?
You made the decision to have a child.
The state should not be rewarding people for producing children.
You shouldn't be getting any help on that score.
If you know you don't earn enough to support a child properly, DON'T have one, simples!
Single people who don't have children have to pay towards the tax breaks that people with children get (not to mention the child benefit).
How is that fair? That's forced taxation on an entire section of society for no benefit in return.
Having children is a conscious choice. Being disabled or developing a disabling illness is NOT.
If we all took your view (as I just did above), the society we live in would simply discard the unemployed and leave them to starve. It would euthanise older people at 65 to avoid paying pensions and simply allow the sick to die.
Is that REALLY the sort of society you want to live in?

I can't quite tell from this whether you are serious or not but it's an argument I've heard put forward time and time again (and indeed is one that the current government is embracing with gusto).

However I personally can think of no better investment of tax payers money than to support the healthy upbringing of the nations children.

After all the future prosperity of this country relies squarely on the shoulders of the children of today.

bigpat

morgwn510, what an uplifting take you have on things. Good on you. However you must realise that not everyone (in fact I'd say very few) can remain as resilient as you have.

For all the people arguing back and forth over this case, you're the one person who could probably HELP Ross. Either to see that life still has a lot to offer and to view the glass as half-full, or even - this may be pushing it a bit - some contacts in the work-from-home IT sector.

It's probably a huge imposition, but would you consider contacting him (privately, off this forum) even for an exchange of emails? I'm sure MSE would put you in touch if you both agreed.

bigpat

To the people who complain about child benefit being unfair on childless people, just remember you were children once too and if it was in recent decades, you were the recipient of child benefit yourself. Paid for by taxpayers, some of whom were childless

Yes there are SOME undeserving scroungers out there and many of them have children. OK, those kids aren't YOUR responsibility, but that's not their fault. A decent society should eb able to look after its most vulnerable.

When I think of where I grew up, and the grinding poverty of a cold, wet hillside smallholding, I thank my lucky stars for child benefit and am quite happy that my tax goes to pay for it now. I'd happily devote more tax to it, rather then much of the pointless waste I see every day.