Working vs Benefits

Pobby

Ah but here is the flip side.Someone I know who is a single mother on benefits thought it a goo idea that she added to her 2 kids she had already.Summoning the father to do ``the bizz`` she now has given the state another burden.Good ain`t it!!!!!

wherediditallgo

There will always be those who know how to work a system to their own advantage - some people on benefits will manage to get things that others think they're not entitled to, just as some people who work will manage to work the system so that they do the minimum required for the maximum gain. My old neighbour was on DLA & loads of other benefits - I'd see him run for a bus on a regular basis, yet his walking stick would come out twice a year just in time for his medical assessment, & he'd get brand new household stuff by getting help from charities. :rolleyes: If you're a hard worker, you'll find it humiliating to claim benefit & the unemployment service seems to come down on you harder because you've got recent work experience & have qualifications, whereas some claimants have neither. I'm not going to criticise the MSE member who's apparently living high on the hog thanks to benefits - we only have their written word for that, & some people do exaggerate when they want to make themselves feel/look more important, especially when it comes to something other members can't easily check.

All I know from my own personal experience is that living on benefits isn't a picnic & it's not a lifestyle of choice for most people. When I was on Income Support many years ago, I had to watch every penny - I had a key meter for my electricity, & I can remember trying to spend as much time outside as possible so that the electricity would last me. I also hardly roasted anything because I couldn't afford to have an oven on for hours when it was so much cheaper to quickly fry or boil something. I had to plan my bus journeys to get the most out of a one-day bus pass, & any phone calls were the essential ones (you didn't have mobiles then, so I didn't have the option of free calls/texts to fall back on). I didn't go anywhere unless I could get a lift there or could use my bus pass, because I certainly couldn't afford train fares or to share a cab. My benefit used to come by giro through the post, & I can remember praying that the post wouldn't be late, because I'd be down to my last couple of pounds, & I knew the electricity wouldn't last, there was next to no food in & I had no-one to borrow money from. It was a hard, dispiriting way to live - I only had to do it for a couple of months & I was lucky that it was spring/summer, but I hated every second of it.

Purplekylie, working for your money gives you more than just money. I can remember being off sick for months & absolutely longing for some adult company - being stuck with only the tv or radio for company is only enjoyable for the first week or so, after that you ache to get out of the house & talk to people doing similar work to yourself. It really affected me being stuck at home through illness, & I dread to think how I'd have coped with being out of work indefinitely. Working also gives you a sense of achievement - you've done your job & at the end of the week/month, you've earned what you've got rather than 'just' signed on a dotted line to get it. Once you're out of work, it's so much harder to find a job - you get up later, you don't prioritise finding work, you don't have access to internal vacancy bulletins etc & you lose the initial eagerness you had & your motivation especially when you find yourself busy doing things at home that you didn't have time for before. I know it's hard right now to see a way forward, but once you've got the money for your fees you'll feel a lot better. Check to make sure you're getting all the benefits you're entitled to. Maybe there's a way you could reduce your hours enough to be entitled to benefits, I don't know - I just hate the thought of someone being caught in a money trap & giving up work they'd love to keep doing but for not being able to afford to keep doing it. Please don't make any quick decisions on this - once you give up the job, you might regret it.

brightonman123

i would rather work- more income (hopefully!), choice, company benefits etc , and also self esteem- this dipped big time when i was ub40...

brightonman123

maxmycardagain wrote: »

i know of one benefit claimant who has a bad back nad hasnt worked for 25 years, BUT that doesnt stop him driving his 07 plated car to spain 3 times a year for 4 or 5 weeks holiday, maybe hotel beds suit him?
oh, the dss paid for his driving lessons, the car is on mobility, my back is worse than his
he gets £1200+ a month disability, plus his rent/rates paid...

maybe needs a call to the dss 'crimestoppers' equivalent..

wherediditallgo

maxmycardagain wrote: »

i know of one benefit claimant who has a bad back nad hasnt worked for 25 years, BUT that doesnt stop him driving his 07 plated car to spain 3 times a year for 4 or 5 weeks holiday, maybe hotel beds suit him?

It's not just someone on benefits will do that. I can remember a former employee being off work for several months at a time because of a bad back, always returning to work just before her full sick pay ran out, coming back for a few months then doing the same thing again. When they tried to medically retire her, she managed to provide a letter that said she was waiting for a back op that would make her more mobile after her post-op recovery. "Unfortunately" her case wasn't considered serious enough to move her up the waiting list, so she could be waiting years on the NHS for it. So she had more breaks off work for several months at a time on full pay, as they couldn't medically retire her when she'd be more able to do her job once she'd had the op.

One day, the Occupational Health staff rang her home as they wanted to have her in for an assessment. Her son said she wasn't in, & when they were asked where she was, lovely son said she was in Spain on holiday & wouldn't be back for a month. :eek: When she returned to the UK, she was called to work & was asked how she was unfit for work yet could go on holiday for several weeks. Cool as a cucumber, she said she went on medical advice - apparently she'd had a doctor's appointment, & the doctor had said she should get some sun on her back, so she took him at his word & from the info she gave it transpired she'd gone within 3 days of the appointment! When the GP was asked to confirm what he'd said, he said he couldn't remember the content of the whole conversation but he couldn't say he'd not said it as it was the sort of thing he would say, though he did say he would be more careful about using the phrase in future. Young miss continued to take her 'rest cure holidays' for a good couple of years more until she was eventually sacked for something unrelated to her attendance.

Some people are so opportunist & crooked that they would steal snow & try to persuade you it was summer. You can't brand everyone for the sins of a few, as much as it gets to you.

neverdespairgirl

blind-as-a-bat wrote: »

I would love to know why people think the benefit system is generous? I must be missing something:rolleyes:

From my experience, it can be pretty generous.

For example, I needed to know what benefits a family with 6 children under 16 would get, and the answer was:

"I ran your family with six children through our program, assuming rent of £200 pw Council Tax £1200 pa. The total family income with no one working would be £34,160 pa."

That's not including free school meals, prescriptions, etc.

Seems pretty generous to me!

John51

A worker up to their eyeballs in debt is more likely to be jealous of benefit claimants though I fail to see how claimants made the worker take on those debts.

People were smug enough when doing the MEW thing. Now that's over and the reality of actually packing back debts from wages rather than an increase in equity is causing a lot of pain. As usual, benefit claimants get the blame for causing the end of civilization.

You took on the debt, accept your responsibilities and stop looking for a scapegoat.

blind-as-a-bat_2

neverdespairgirl wrote: »

From my experience, it can be pretty generous.

For example, I needed to know what benefits a family with 6 children under 16 would get, and the answer was:

"I ran your family with six children through our program, assuming rent of £200 pw Council Tax £1200 pa. The total family income with no one working would be £34,160 pa."

That's not including free school meals, prescriptions, etc.

Seems pretty generous to me!

I love meaningless answers like this. "who" ran it through "what program"?

The thing is the benefits computer program cant even get it right, and every other calculator i have ever used cant get it right either, until you actually have to claim ther is no way of knowing what they will give you, or checking if that is right as no one i have ever spoken seems to understands how it is calculated across all the differant systems that make up those paymants.

I also love the example of a family with six kids just to "load" your argument

And as for a rent of two hundred quid a week, i only get half my rent of 87 paid so on that basis alone i know that figure you gave cannot be correct.

Unless someone is lying to me and im not getting what i am ENTITLED TOO, which wouldnt surprise me either.

I really wish your claim where true though neverdespairgirl it would make being thrown on the employment scrap heap by the very govermants that are now complaining about me being there just a bit more bearable:rolleyes:

wherediditallgo

I agree. I'm not calling NDG a liar, but I'd like to know what program was used too. For all we know, it could be one of those used by the benefit services. It could just as easily be something whipped up on someone's home pc with incorrect formulae, that has no statistical or referential importance whatsoever. We've been given bare details of the family unit, so I took that to mean a husband & wife rather than a single-parent family with 6 children. I used the entitledto website & got a figure of £23,808.29 for tax credit, council tax benefit & housing benefit with no other money coming in except JSA, & that was with all the rent covered by benefit. That's less than 3/4 of the figure you gave. Even if both of them were getting JSA, the total amount came out as just under £30,000, again with all the rent covered & again with two parents rather than one. People are usually advised to submit an application & then get their own circumstances individually assessed, as the benefit calculators are renown for giving incorrect results. I have no reason however to think that whatever you used is any more accurate.

NDG, we'd need to know a lot more about the family structure, the figures you used & the program you used before the figures you've given could hold any sway here. Even if your figures are correct, they don't help the OP one iota, so I'm not sure why you posted them. You'd have been far better off accompanying those figures with considerably more details of the data & program/service you used to arrive at your result, & then suggesting she check her entitlements accordingly. Without that, your figures are pretty meaningless.

blind-as-a-bat_2

the entitledto website isnt always accurate either WDIAG, it showed in my situation i should recieve £50 more PW than I do

Something is wrong somewhere but you try getting someone to admit where...........Im still trying:rolleyes: (and there still paying my half rent amount on a figure that is 10 years old six months after i first told them it wasnt right:mad: so its taking some time:rolleyes: )