Would you be better of on benefits?

GwylimT

My brother has a severely disabled son, his son is only awarded eight hours of schooling per week at a special school, so my brother can only work eight hours per week. If he was able to work even thirty hours he would be better off by around £12k per year and would be able to afford vital care that his son is largely going without.

We both work part time, if we earned less we wouldn't be better off on benefits, looking at the calculators if we stopped working we would be £23k per year worse off after taxes.

FBaby

Of course there are going to be exceptional circumstances but not being to work FT because your child is severely disabled and can only be at school for a few hours is going to affect only a few number of people working part-time and claiming tax credits.

If you'd be £23K worse, you clearly on a higher wage, so indeed, giving up work would be quite a significant drop, especially if there are no children or only one in the family. It's families of 2 or 3 children, where both work FT who might themselves not much better off if not worse than the same family working 24 hours.

Jojo_the_Tightfisted

Most people who say it's an easy life on benefits haven't had to do it.

You're constantly vulnerable to the whims or errors of other people - often, the only time you find out is when you try to buy some food and there's nothing in your account. Then, you have to miraculously find enough money for hanging on your phone trying to get through to somebody who just doesn't pick up, costing you every second. You have to keep phoning and phoning. If you actually get through and the call isn't immediately cut off, you invariably deal with somebody who says there's nothing wrong, or that it's all sorted and you'll get the money, or that they'll pass your message on. Nothing happens, no money goes in, and you have to do this all again, where the next person will say you have to send in x, y or z, with there being no record on their system of you ever having called before. You can't speak to somebody who actually makes the decisions, all they can do is say they will pass your message on.

During this period of zero income, any other benefits, such as housing benefit/LHA or council tax immediately cease. So you get letters saying you have to pay immediately or they will instigate eviction proceedings. The council tax is due and the next step is having to pay the entire year's or having bailiffs turn up at your door, turning what could be a debt of £120 for a month instantly into over £1000.

Your direct debits for gas, electricity, any preexisting credit bounce. This means that you incur fees from your bank and you get nasty letters from the companies - if you're stuck with key meters, after a very brief period of emergency use, you're left in the dark. So you can't charge your phone to keep calling to try and sort it out. If you have a contract, that is, and you're not on PAYG and run out of credit after the first five attempts to call.

If you have children, they lose their entitlement to free school meals. This means that they won't get fed at school after a couple of days of being allowed a sandwich (and the embarrassment of having to go to the main office to say that the canteen have told them they can't have anything to eat) - in a poorer area, the odds are that other children will give them food out of their lunch account, but no 13 year old should be making the decision to use money put into their lunch account by their parents (or where they haven't had a benefits problem stopping their FSM) to feed another child.

The 'useful' advice given by official bodies is 'can't you borrow some money off friends or family?'. That's not useful. Emergency payments/Crisis loans don't happen. A referral to a food bank means needing to be able to travel to it and only provides for a couple of days with an absolute limit on visits. And assumes you have electricity to prepare the food.


You're going to need toilet paper. But there's no money to buy some. Do you beg from a neighbour or go into McDonalds to take paper napkins when you can't buy any food there? Most other places have changed from toilet rolls to single sheet dispensers, so you can't get anything helpful there.

And then - what the frack do you do as your period starts?



Even when payments are relatively regular, every time something comes through the letterbox, you have the awful moment of wondering whether it's a brown envelope. Brown envelopes mean disaster. Any other letter could be the landlord deciding to end your tenancy, leaving you to try and find somewhere else to live when almost none accept benefit claimants and you have no money for moving expenses, fees for going through credit checks you're bound to fail, rent in advance or any way of keeping in touch with the few people who would give you a packet of toilet rolls or invite you for tea so you get fed, as it might mean having to break all ties and go somewhere else.




Oh, and you're regarded as lazy scum by people who are only a serious accident or employer going bust away from being in exactly the same position.



****************************

I've been there, I hated every minute of it. Apart from it being boring, the vulnerability was the worst feeling ever.

We're still broke, but at least I know that I will get paid at the end of the month (deliberately stayed away from the private sector because of that possibility - I saw it happen to too many people, where they'd turn up for work and find out the employer had decided to go into administration the day the wages were due) and that pay just about covers rent, council tax, food and heat/light. I'm still constantly under threat of redundancy, but knowing I'm ahead with the rent and all other bills are paid means that I don't have to worry about THIS MONTH.

Next month, you never know what will happen, but worrying about not having any money next month is a vast improvement on not knowing until the moment you get to the bank that there's anything in there.




So no, you would not be better off claiming benefits. Unless you actually enjoy living on a constant knife edge and can exist on thin air at zero notice.

seven-day-weekend

There was a guy on the Jeremy Kyle show the other day. JK asked him why he didn't work. His reply? 'Cos I'm on Benefits'.....

I do appreciate that most people on Benefits are not there by choice. However, I do think the amount given for children (whether the parent is working or not) is ridiculous. If someone is not claiming Benefits has another child, their wages don't go up - why should the Benefits?

I am retired (stopped in my 50s when my husband took early retirement because of his health.) after having worked either full or part-time for most of my life (the times when I didn't, I was a SAHM and we got nothing from the State for that, other than Child Benefit, which everyone with a child got). However, I would always chose to work, even if I was no better off, as it gives you choices which you don't have when you are on Benefits

FBaby

Most people who say it's an easy life on benefits haven't had to do it.

I don't think anyone is saying that, but what they are saying is that it is not forcibly harder.

Even when payments are relatively regular, every time something comes through the letterbox, you have the awful moment of wondering whether it's a brown envelope

Similar feeling than every time I'm being told the organisation is going through yet another restructure and I wonder who this time will be kicked out of their job.

fishybusiness

People working part-time are rich in one other precious currency, TIME. All my life I have wished to have more of it, time to relax, time to spend with my kids, my husband, my friends. Time to get on with all the other things that needs doing, time that would mean I was much less stressed, pressured, rushed. There are no such things as claiming benefit for time though!

That's why I fail to have any sympathy for those claiming benefits,

I think that is a fair assessment from your own life experience, and I agree with you that time is one of the most precious commodities, but and it is a big but, having lots of time when not working and claiming benefits is useless in many senses. Can't afford to go out, at home during winter and having to try and keep warm, can't afford to have the old knackered car fixed so spend TIME all weathers fixing it on the cheap in the garden. Going out means going for a cup of tea in a nearby tea shop as there is no more money. Actually maybe going out for a meal if family have donated £30. Time means not having social or intellectual stimulation outside of the those everyday folks that are not at work. Time means searching ebay for second hand clothes - forget new ones. The list goes on, and the point is that a significant amount of time goes on just surviving.

Add to that JoJo's post which starts....

Most people who say it's an easy life on benefits haven't had to do it.

All the anxiety and hassle of maintaining payment of benefits...now if we need to see an advisor we have to travel 15 odd miles, the local Link no longer provides the service, cuts and all that. That 15 miles and back, plus parking costs a tenner in the car, two days food. How does someone make that choice??

Time means little if there are few choices as to what to do with it.

ska_lover

I have been on benefits, and been in fairly well paid jobs.

Benefits are a massive struggle financially where you literally watch ever penny, never use the central heating, use about a quarter of a scoop of washing powder, having so many budget and 'on toast' meals , value beans on value bread. We were grateful for them at the time but it was soul destroying.

I would never willingly go back, although as JoJo says it can happen to anyone I would never chose to be out of work.

I got a fairly well paid job after this period of unemployment, and nothing compared to being able to buy things that were non essential - like pushing my LO around the supermarket and when her eyes lit up at the new Disney DVD being able to actually afford to spend a tenner on it instead of saying no. I felt amazing that I could do that.

Going to work gives you purpose, and it teaches the younger generation a work ethic that they wont get if they see their parents not working

It does sound harder these days, I mean when I was on benefits I am talking 20 years back, but nowadays benefit sanctions etc, it didn't used to be like that and it does sound quite stressful if the stop your money you are literally out in the cold

ska_lover

fishybusiness wrote: »

Time means little if there are few choices as to what to do with it.

I know what you mean.

I found myself becoming increasingly depressed and lost purpose. I ended up volunteering at a charity shop a couple of days a week to get myself out of the house. (it did look good on my cv too I must add) but there is only so much daytime tv a person can take

theoretica

I don't have kids but believe I get a benefit from paying taxes which go towards educating other people's children. The general standard of education of people in the country does affect me. As does having enough of a safety net to reduce the number of people who might be driven to crime through desperation.

I don't think we have the benefit system perfect, but rather suspect there isn't a perfect solution.

Jojo_the_Tightfisted

FBaby wrote: »

I don't think anyone is saying that, but what they are saying is that it is not forcibly harder.


Similar feeling than every time I'm being told the organisation is going through yet another restructure and I wonder who this time will be kicked out of their job.

Not really. Restructuring means anybody losing their job will have a notice period; they already know the place is going through another restructure, then there's the consultation period, etc, then the decision and notice. Just been through it myself. And have been told last week that I might be 'made redundant' (ie, fired) anyway if the physical aspect of the new duties is too much for me. So again, I've got warning.

What would be similar is if you still don't know on payday every month whether your employer has got around to paying you until you go to the bank. Moreover, if they haven't got around to paying you or forgot to click the button onscreen that activated your salary transfer, that they require you to spend somewhere in the region of £15-20 in telephone calls to a call centre worker who might or might not pass a message on to Finance, who might or might not pay any attention to the message if they receive it, where they might listen to you or say it's your own fault or even deny not paying you (of course you've been paid! You're a liar!) or that you were never an employee in the first place and they're doing their job perfectly.

Oh, and if you mentioned to anybody else that your employer had screwed up your salary, to be told that you're obviously a liar trying to defraud them and it must be a lovely life to have that sort of existence, as having a regular income not messed about, a home that is your own to decorate, sell, rent out or live in as you wish and the confidence that there will be money in the bank on the 26th, is a miserable existence that they only continue because they're so much better than you.



Like I said, I've experienced both (and far more secure and better paid jobs, zero hour contracts, agency work, plus self employment). All of the work related options are less stressful than being in receipt of/having to claim benefits.