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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Purgatory: Perceptions of welfare
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Alwyn
Shipmate
# 4380
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Posted
According to the TUC, a recent poll commissioned by them found significant differences between people's perceptions of UK welfare benefits and the reality:
"The TUC poll reveals many misconceptions about welfare and benefit spending including:
On average people think that 41 per cent of the entire welfare budget goes on benefits to unemployed people, while the true figure is 3 per cent.
On average people think that 27 per cent of the welfare budget is claimed fraudulently, while the government's own figure is 0.7 per cent.
On average people think that almost half the people (48 per cent) who claim Jobseeker's Allowance go on to claim it for more than a year, while the true figure is just under 30 per cent (27.8 per cent).
On average people think that an unemployed couple with two school-age children would get £147 in Jobseeker's Allowance - more than 30 per cent higher than the £111.45 they would actually receive - a £35 over-calculation.
Only 21 per cent of people think that this family with two school-age children would be better off if one of the unemployed parents got a 30 hour a week minimum wage job, even though they would actually end up £138 a week better off. Even those who thought they would be better off only thought on average they would gain by £59.
The poll confirms that hostile attitudes to welfare are widespread - with over four-tenths (42 per cent) thinking that benefits are too generous and nearly three in five (59 per cent) agreeing that our current welfare system has created a culture of dependency.
But when the poll sample is divided into three equal groups based on how accurately they answered the poll questions that tested knowledge of the benefits system, those who know the least about welfare are the most hostile. More than half (53 per cent) of those in the least accurate group think that benefits are too generous, while less than a third (31 per cent) in the group who gave the most accurate answers agree that they are." (Source)
The TUC seem to be trying to argue that, when people are hostile to welfare, this tends to be because they think that the welfare system is more generous than it actually is. Is this argument convincing? Should these figures cause us to see welfare differently; are such figures likely to change people's minds about welfare?
[ 18. June 2013, 13:34: Message edited by: Gwai ]
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Post hoc, ergo propter hoc
Posts: 849 | From: UK | Registered: Apr 2003
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chive
Ship's nude
# 208
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Posted
I object to the term 'welfare', it has an implication of nastiness. Why don't we use the term 'social security' which is what it is - society providing security to it's most vulnerable.
I think part of the problem is the government's evil attitude that all people on benefit are scroungers and work dodging bastards. This is seen in all to many of their pronouncements. It is an attempt to turn the country against the most vulnerable. The atos assessment of people with disabilities is a good example of this.
(For full disclosure I receive disability living allowance, a benefit I get despite working full tie, that allows me some money to help with the impact my disability has on my life.)
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'Edward was the kind of man who thought there was no such thing as a lesbian, just a woman who hadn't done one-to-one Bible study with him.' Catherine Fox, Love to the Lost
Posts: 3542 | From: the cupboard under the stairs | Registered: May 2001
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Soror Magna
Shipmate
# 9881
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Alwyn:
..... those who know the least ... are the most hostile. ...
I think you've just identified the human condition. ![[Biased]](wink.gif) Most of us believe in fairness, so the mere idea that someone is getting something for nothing, or something we're not, never mind the facts, tends to set us off.
There are, however, lots and lots of issues where a public perception is created or encouraged for political purposes. Those who have decided that government is "bad" will obviously want people to believe the worst. The worse they make the water look, the more likely they are to convince us to throw out the baby.
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"You come with me to room 1013 over at the hospital, I'll show you America. Terminal, crazy and mean." -- Tony Kushner, "Angels in America"
Posts: 5430 | From: Caprica City | Registered: Jul 2005
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Soror Magna
Shipmate
# 9881
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by leo:
Thanks for this thread - the more people who get to know how this evil government is attacking the vulnerable, the better.
Wait a minute, I thought we were talking about MY evil government!
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"You come with me to room 1013 over at the hospital, I'll show you America. Terminal, crazy and mean." -- Tony Kushner, "Angels in America"
Posts: 5430 | From: Caprica City | Registered: Jul 2005
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ToujoursDan
Ship's prole
# 10578
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Posted
The problem is that those who are convinced that welfare recipients are cheats or slouches who live the good life on "our" dime is that even when presented with evidence to the contrary, they deny it. You can present good facts and statistics like in the OP, but they'll say they saw a recipient with a iPhone or flat screen TV which proves that none of those stats are true.
It's a bit like trying to convince skeptics that climate change is real. One cold winter trumps 100 years of statistics and countless hours of analysis.
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"Many people say I embarrass them with my humility" - Archbishop Peter Akinola
Facebook link: http://www.facebook.com/toujoursdan
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Pomona
Shipmate
# 17175
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by ToujoursDan:
The problem is that those who are convinced that welfare recipients are cheats or slouches who live the good life on "our" dime is that even when presented with evidence to the contrary, they deny it. You can present good facts and statistics like in the OP, but they'll say they saw a recipient with a iPhone or flat screen TV which proves that none of those stats are true.
It's a bit like trying to convince skeptics that climate change is real. One cold winter trumps 100 years of statistics and countless hours of analysis.
This is my experience too, along with the 'othering' of those on welfare.
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Consider the work of God: Who is able to straighten what he has bent? [Ecclesiastes 7:13]
Posts: 5319 | From: UK | Registered: Jun 2012
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Porridge
Shipmate
# 15405
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by chive:
I object to the term 'welfare', it has an implication of nastiness.
I object to this term too, but on different grounds (at least where I live in the US). I object because the programs do almost nothing for people's actual welfare and indeed undermine it. The USDA which runs SNAP (food stamps) advises that the Thrifty Food Plan, on which benefits are figured, is nutritionally inadequate for long-term use.
quote:
Originally posted by chive:
Why don't we use the term 'social security' which is what it is - society providing security to it's most vulnerable.
It may be -- and I fervently hope it is -- different where you are. Where I live, these benefit programs tend to anti-social and result in nothing remotely resembling security.
quote:
Originally posted by chive:
I think part of the problem is the government's evil attitude that all people on benefit are scroungers and work dodging bastards. This is seen in all to many of their pronouncements. It is an attempt to turn the country against the most vulnerable. The atos assessment of people with disabilities is a good example of this.
Italics mine.
If your insight is accurate, and I'm afraid it might be, then I fear for the future of the human race.
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Spiggott: Everything I've ever told you is a lie, including that.
Moon: Including what?
Spiggott: That everything I've ever told you is a lie.
Moon: That's not true!
Posts: 3925 | From: Upper right corner | Registered: Jan 2010
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Penny S
Shipmate
# 14768
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by chive:
I object to the term 'welfare', it has an implication of nastiness. Why don't we use the term 'social security' which is what it is - society providing security to it's most vulnerable.
I'm not sure why a word with a very long existing meaning of faring, or doing, well should imply nastiness. People used to be able to be concerned for someone's welfare without any such meaning being attached their attitude. It seems to have been first used in 1904 or thereabouts in a social context. The welfare state, which was not seen in the circles I move in as nasty, came later.
I have seen it suggested, though, that the term "social security" has been replaced with "welfare" because it is not easy to corrupt the meaning of the first expression.
Welfare has to join refugee and asylum, together with benefit, as good words which have been Newspeaked.
Posts: 5833 | Registered: May 2009
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Alisdair
Shipmate
# 15837
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Posted
On the labelling question: it probably makes no difference what it's called---welfare/social security/dreamy sunrise---the label will come to be associated in people's mind's with whatever their experience/prejudice provides.
From my point of view the two most destructive aspects of 'welfare' (in my case being on the dole for a year in the UK, not too long ago), are:
1. it's lumbering insensitivity to the changing realities of people's circumstances;
2. it's continuing patronising and punitive approach (although improving still a long-standing corrosive feature of British bureaucracy generally).
The end result is living a furtive life whilst wrestling with a monster that constantly tries to take over your life and so often manages to obstruct the very enthusiasm and energy it is allegedly trying to foster.
I won't say it's all bad, it certainly kept me going, but at what cost----well I did 'get into trouble' with the system. All I can say is that, God willing, hopefully, 'Never again!'
[ 13. January 2013, 18:34: Message edited by: Alisdair ]
Posts: 334 | From: Washed up in England | Registered: Aug 2010
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Porridge
Shipmate
# 15405
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Alisdair:
----well I did 'get into trouble' with the system. All I can say is that, God willing, hopefully, 'Never again!'
Ignorant as I am of the UK systems, the US ones make it almost impossible not to "get into trouble." I suspect the same may be true over the pond.
Two basic problems:
1. It is probably not possible to design a large-scale people-processing system in such a way that it can cope both efficiently and fairly with highly variable individual needs.
2. It is even more difficult to design one that's fair and efficient when it's predicated on the assumption that applicants will lie, cheat, and steal in their efforts to get themselves stapled, folded, stigmatized and mutilated at said system's hands.
Unfortunately, many western societies continue to treat disadvantage essentially as a moral problem stemming from the allegedly bad intentions of the disadvantaged themselves. Reading histories of "poor laws" is a singularly depressing endeavor.
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Spiggott: Everything I've ever told you is a lie, including that.
Moon: Including what?
Spiggott: That everything I've ever told you is a lie.
Moon: That's not true!
Posts: 3925 | From: Upper right corner | Registered: Jan 2010
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claret10
Ship's Paranoid Android
# 16341
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Posted
In my experience it's the label 'welfare state' that people seem to use. Twice recently whilst at a friends' house (ok acquaintance) he has had an angry rant about benefit cheats. The first time there were 6 of us in the room, 3 of us in receipt of benefits. I bit my tongue felt hurt and didn’t bother to rise to it. The same thing happened this week, there was news story and this person turned round and said, well it doesn’t really affect us just those scum living off benefits. This time I did say something, to which the response was, well I didn’t mean u. Ok the conversation stopped at that point.
However it’s the perception that people claiming benefits are some strange race, cheating the system, that they are not just normal people struggling to survive. Most of whom have paid tax into the system.
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Just when you think life can't possibly get any worse it suddenly does
Posts: 137 | From: Somewhere, nowhere, anywhere | Registered: Apr 2011
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Sleepwalker
Shipmate
# 15343
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Posted
First of all I would just like to state that I have been in and out of employment over the last two years, working hard to get work whenever possible, so I am speaking as someone who has had to claim benefits but who has also managed to find work for most of the last two years albeit in fits and starts.
I think when discussing the benefits system in the UK it is useful to remember the original aims of Beveridge when he wrote his report (which, interestingly, was accepted at the time in its original form by the Tories and the Liberals but not the Labour Party). The three proposals which made it different to the piecemeal welfare provision of the period were that it would be universal (ie for the disabled, the elderly AND the unemployed), indefinite and an insurance policy (ie people to pay into a system after which they can draw on it).
However, he also put forward a caveat. He stated that those who claimed benefits 'should be required, as a condition of continued benefit to attend a work or training centre, such attendance being designed as a means of preventing habituation idleness and as a means of improving capacity for earnings.'(26)
He clearly recognised the risk involved in a universal welfare provision without limit of time, because he also suggested that 'Most men who have once gained the habit of work would rather work – in ways to which they are used – than be idle ... But getting work ... may involve a change of habits, doing something that is unfamiliar or leaving one’s friends or making a painful effort of some other kind. The danger of providing benefits which are both adequate in amount and indefinite in duration, is that men as creatures who adapt themselves to circumstances, may settle down to them.' (25)
(Quotes from The Beveridge Report as cited by The Beveridge Report and the Post War Reforms by The Policy Studies Institute. The first 20 pages of the original Beveridge Report can be found here.)
Far from a condition of continued benefits being attendance at a work or training centre, a claimant is now given six months before they are even required to look for work outside their chosen field. There are no conditions at all to claiming benefits other than to sign on. I could claim for the rest of my life with impunity. And during that time I could have an endless supply of babies and be provided with a centrally heated, double glazed house, furniture, with new carpets and decoration supplied before I moved in. If I had a bad back I could claim for a car or alternatively my relatives could claim petrol expenses for driving me to places. And so on.
Yes, the system needs to be fair. But it needs to be fair to those who pay into it as well as those who take out. Beveridge wanted the 'rich' to help to pay for the poor, as well as to help the rich pay for themselves. Unfortunately, most of us paying in to the system are not rich; we are just getting by. Yet we are watching while others who haven't worked in 20 years but have no disability against working are better off than we are. That will be less applicable to a single person than to individuals with children but whichever way you look at it, it isn't fair to the working person who is contributing to the system.
I think Beveridge's concerns have been realised and what is happening at present is that those in society who are working hard and putting into the system want the imbalance addressed, and I don't see what the problem is with that.
Posts: 267 | From: somewhere other than here | Registered: Dec 2009
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Angloid
Shipmate
# 159
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by leo:
Thanks for this thread - the more people who get to know how this evil government is attacking the vulnerable, the better.
As a member of the Labour party, I can't but agree, but also regret that Labour too are playing the divide and rule card and parroting the 'workers and shirkers' rubbish. The best the poor can hope for from either party is the Lady Bountiful approach of handouts for the deserving: maybe- probably, I hope - Labour will be more bountiful than the Tories but neither appears to be willing to tackle the root causes.
It is a scandal, as well as lunacy, that many public sector workers are paid less than a living wage and having their pay topped up from another state-funded tin in the form of income supplement.
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Brian: You're all individuals!
Crowd: We're all individuals!
Lone voice: I'm not!
Posts: 12927 | From: The Pool of Life | Registered: May 2001
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Pomona
Shipmate
# 17175
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Sleepwalker:
First of all I would just like to state that I have been in and out of employment over the last two years, working hard to get work whenever possible, so I am speaking as someone who has had to claim benefits but who has also managed to find work for most of the last two years albeit in fits and starts.
I think when discussing the benefits system in the UK it is useful to remember the original aims of Beveridge when he wrote his report (which, interestingly, was accepted at the time in its original form by the Tories and the Liberals but not the Labour Party). The three proposals which made it different to the piecemeal welfare provision of the period were that it would be universal (ie for the disabled, the elderly AND the unemployed), indefinite and an insurance policy (ie people to pay into a system after which they can draw on it).
However, he also put forward a caveat. He stated that those who claimed benefits 'should be required, as a condition of continued benefit to attend a work or training centre, such attendance being designed as a means of preventing habituation idleness and as a means of improving capacity for earnings.'(26)
He clearly recognised the risk involved in a universal welfare provision without limit of time, because he also suggested that 'Most men who have once gained the habit of work would rather work – in ways to which they are used – than be idle ... But getting work ... may involve a change of habits, doing something that is unfamiliar or leaving one’s friends or making a painful effort of some other kind. The danger of providing benefits which are both adequate in amount and indefinite in duration, is that men as creatures who adapt themselves to circumstances, may settle down to them.' (25)
(Quotes from The Beveridge Report as cited by The Beveridge Report and the Post War Reforms by The Policy Studies Institute. The first 20 pages of the original Beveridge Report can be found here.)
Far from a condition of continued benefits being attendance at a work or training centre, a claimant is now given six months before they are even required to look for work outside their chosen field. There are no conditions at all to claiming benefits other than to sign on. I could claim for the rest of my life with impunity. And during that time I could have an endless supply of babies and be provided with a centrally heated, double glazed house, furniture, with new carpets and decoration supplied before I moved in. If I had a bad back I could claim for a car or alternatively my relatives could claim petrol expenses for driving me to places. And so on.
Yes, the system needs to be fair. But it needs to be fair to those who pay into it as well as those who take out. Beveridge wanted the 'rich' to help to pay for the poor, as well as to help the rich pay for themselves. Unfortunately, most of us paying in to the system are not rich; we are just getting by. Yet we are watching while others who haven't worked in 20 years but have no disability against working are better off than we are. That will be less applicable to a single person than to individuals with children but whichever way you look at it, it isn't fair to the working person who is contributing to the system.
I think Beveridge's concerns have been realised and what is happening at present is that those in society who are working hard and putting into the system want the imbalance addressed, and I don't see what the problem is with that.
The problem is that there is this supposed divide between 'those in society who are working hard' and 'those on benefits' when in reality many people in work and who work very hard for very little pay are on benefits. Many people who are disabled and work hard just to survive day to day are on benefits. You would not receive a car just for a 'bad back' - you would be sent to an Atos agent who would decide if you were disabled enough to qualify. And then you could be declared fit to work even if terminally ill.
[ 13. January 2013, 19:57: Message edited by: Jade Constable ]
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Consider the work of God: Who is able to straighten what he has bent? [Ecclesiastes 7:13]
Posts: 5319 | From: UK | Registered: Jun 2012
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Alisdair
Shipmate
# 15837
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Posted
@sleepwalker -- In my experience the problems really start when your situation doesn't fit neatly into the prescribed box, which it doesn't the moment you stop being 'unemployed' and actually start working, but with an income that isn't enough to live on. Then the fight to stay legal but actually covering expenses really begins.
As for parasitic skivers: well they certainly exist, but to what extent. Ignorant prejudice says it's about 95% of all those on benefits. Objective research seems to suggest that the wilful hardcore is actually a very small number---and short of putting them in forced labour or killing them (or transporting them to Oz), they will always be around. If the 'objective research' is anywhere near accurate then the parasites aren't really worth bothering about, but they make a wonderful political tool to whip up fear and resentment.
It's the struggles of the rest---basically people who either have no choice but to depend on benefits (the chronically ill/disabled, etc.), and those who desperately want to get into/back into properly paid employment---that we (society) and the welfare system need to look after as constructively, flexibly, and fairly as we can.
Posts: 334 | From: Washed up in England | Registered: Aug 2010
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Pomona
Shipmate
# 17175
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Posted
Also I'm puzzled by this idea of those on JSA [jobseeker's allowance to non-Brits] being better-off than those working - it's about £50 a week for under-25s, a bit more for those over 25. Less than £100 a week is hardly raking it in when you have to cover all your food, transport, bills etc with that (and Housing Benefit is paid to the landlord so you never see that, and it does not go towards bills). It's less than minimum wage.
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Consider the work of God: Who is able to straighten what he has bent? [Ecclesiastes 7:13]
Posts: 5319 | From: UK | Registered: Jun 2012
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HelsBells
Apprentice
# 16051
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Posted
Thanks for posting this information, I've seen some of it before, but not in its entirety.
I think that the ignorance of the majority is being expertly played upon by both the Government and the right wing media to create and perpetuate the myths and stereotypes that welfare levels are more than adequate and that people who receive them are scroungers and don't actually want to work. They are also happy to let us believe that the burden placed on the state by the welfare system is caused by people who are lazy. In fact around half goes on pensions and a large proportion on topping up people's income who are in work (because lots of private sector employers don't pay a living wage).
These figures ought to make us view welfare differently, but I don't suppose that they will. People will on the whole see what they want to see and believe who and what they want to believe. If they already believe the right wing press, they're unlikely to take any notice of something put out by a traditionally left-wing organisation. They will just ignore it because it's more comfortable to do so.
Benefit levels are not generous and most people who receive them are just like you and me and are not scroungers or cheats. I don't know how we can get people to see this though.
Posts: 8 | From: Allanton | Registered: Dec 2010
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Sergius-Melli
Shipmate
# 17462
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Jade Constable:
... when in reality many people in work and who work very hard for very little pay are on benefits. ...
That there is one of the problems of the system that Gordon Brown created - take the money in tax, and then give back in benefits.
People who are working shouldn't need benefits, the benefits system, as properly outlined above, is as a safety net for those that fall on hard times and need a little support (interestingly the TUC didn't factor in the gain of Housing Benefit, Council Tax Benefits, NI credits which might distort the figures a little from where the TUC presents them).
We are a civilised country, how have we got ourselves into a position where the state has to provide benefits to people in work?
To start with, continue to raise the tax threashold (as this government is doing) thereby taking the poorest in our society out of the tax game altogether; secondly, increase the minimum wage - it is evident that the minimum wage is too low (especially since the living wage is higher...) which has a dampening effect on wage levels; thirdly - never allow a Labour government near our economy again, the last two times they've been near it we've ended up broke...
But of course, everyone is going to want to have anice lefty rant about the current government where the facts of labour's incompetance and lack of vision, direction or leadership would just be an inconvenience...
Apart from Sleepwalker, no-one else here seems to have spent anytime on JSA during unemployment and so I currently only hold Sleepwalkers, and my own, (having spent time unemployed on JSA), as authoritive, you can all pour over figures, but until you go through the system and live it you cannot say whether it is good or bad, and to be honest, you can live on JSA and the other benefits, enjoy a good level of life, want for very little (except the occassional night out) and gt away with spending your days pretending to look for jobs whilst doing bugger all.
The system is broken, and qudos to this government for looking at the unemployment support system and trying to make it work for all of society...
Posts: 722 | From: Sneaking across Welsh hill and dale with a thurible in hand | Registered: Dec 2012
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Sergius-Melli
Shipmate
# 17462
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Posted
Sorry to double post,
but also the reinstatement of the 10p tax rate would help as well - somethign else we can thank Gordon Brown for messing up.
Posts: 722 | From: Sneaking across Welsh hill and dale with a thurible in hand | Registered: Dec 2012
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Hawk
Semi-social raptor
# 14289
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Sergius-Melli:
To start with, continue to raise the tax threashold (as this government is doing) thereby taking the poorest in our society out of the tax game altogether;
This sounds good but it may be counter-productive. I'm all for lowering taxes on the poor and raising them on the rich - that makes perfect sense. But removing them altogether - I don't think so. I think it is important for every citizen to be a part of society and contribute, however little, both for their own feeling of being part of society, so that they have a financial and emotional investment in it, as well as the perceptions of others that they are not free-loading. No one should be in a class of society where they are takers only, and not givers also to society. At that point they stop being full members of that group but dependents of the group.
quote:
Originally posted by Sergius-Melli:
Apart from Sleepwalker, no-one else here seems to have spent anytime on JSA during unemployment and so I currently only hold Sleepwalkers, and my own, (having spent time unemployed on JSA), as authoritive, you can all pour over figures, but until you go through the system and live it you cannot say whether it is good or bad, and to be honest, you can live on JSA and the other benefits, enjoy a good level of life, want for very little (except the occassional night out) and gt away with spending your days pretending to look for jobs whilst doing bugger all.
This is a major part of the problem. We can argue over facts and figures and talk about statistically-calculated 'living wages', but when you talk to people who hold views critical of the welfare system they aren't convinced. My gran for instance knows many people who live comfortably on benefits while she struggles by on a meagre pension and is understandably put out by it. Arguing that her perceptions are wrong is a losing strategy (as is my usual approach many times!). As hard as the left tries, the right, the Daily Mail readers and the died-in-the-wool tories can't be convinced that the things they see day to day have been proven wrong by a few spreadsheets and a pie chart. First hand knowledge always trumps statistics for most people.
quote:
Originally posted by Sergius-Melli:
The system is broken, and qudos to this government for looking at the unemployment support system and trying to make it work for all of society...
I think this government should definitely reform the system, and I hope they do a good job of it. The balance is skewed rather than broken though, and the system needs rational and measured reform, not a thorough overhaul. I am concerned with the government's rhetoric which whips up negative emotionalism instead of considered thought, and puts the blame on the poor themselves rather than the system. This is nasty politics, and should be strongly fought against.
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“We are to find God in what we know, not in what we don't know." Dietrich Bonhoeffer
See my blog for 'interesting' thoughts
Posts: 1739 | From: Oxford, UK | Registered: Nov 2008
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Sergius-Melli
Shipmate
# 17462
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Hawk:
quote:
Originally posted by Sergius-Melli:
To start with, continue to raise the tax threashold (as this government is doing) thereby taking the poorest in our society out of the tax game altogether;
This sounds good but it may be counter-productive. I'm all for lowering taxes on the poor and raising them on the rich - that makes perfect sense. But removing them altogether - I don't think so. I think it is important for every citizen to be a part of society and contribute, however little, both for their own feeling of being part of society, so that they have a financial and emotional investment in it, as well as the perceptions of others that they are not free-loading. No one should be in a class of society where they are takers only, and not givers also to society. At that point they stop being full members of that group but dependents of the group.
Which is where - though I forgot to mention it, except in the double post, the reinstatement of the 10p tax rate would be a good idea. It is a small amount of tax to be paid by those at the bottom, though as I see it, this all has to happen against an absurd backdrop where the government takes taxes from me and then graciously gives me benefits back.
quote:
Originally posted by Hawk: quote:
Originally posted by Sergius-Melli:
The system is broken, and qudos to this government for looking at the unemployment support system and trying to make it work for all of society...
I think this government should definitely reform the system, and I hope they do a good job of it. The balance is skewed rather than broken though, and the system needs rational and measured reform, not a thorough overhaul. I am concerned with the government's rhetoric which whips up negative emotionalism instead of considered thought, and puts the blame on the poor themselves rather than the system. This is nasty politics, and should be strongly fought against.
Which is why, thankfully, the one person who is trying to avoid the rhetoric is IDS, who is leading the charge of reform in this area. Regardless of what others are saying, IDS is not seeing it so starkly and has grasped the mess of a situation where the government taxes people and then hands money back, the other inconsistancies in the system, for all of people's desire to dislike him he is actually focussing on people rather than statistics, or measuring the success of welfare by the size of the cheque we write for it. I always like the anecdote he has of visiting a staunchly Labour council estate in Scotland and being told it is a Labour area... in fact the story is repeated in this article and should serve as a stark warning that problems are not solved by measuring the amount of money we throw at a problem, but by actually doing somethign constructive, making sure that work is the most effective and financially rewarding situation, but also that people get the support they need to get into work and are encouraged/pushed to do what they can, sooner rather than later.
Posts: 722 | From: Sneaking across Welsh hill and dale with a thurible in hand | Registered: Dec 2012
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Hawk
Semi-social raptor
# 14289
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Jade Constable:
Also I'm puzzled by this idea of those on JSA [jobseeker's allowance to non-Brits] being better-off than those working - it's about £50 a week for under-25s, a bit more for those over 25. Less than £100 a week is hardly raking it in when you have to cover all your food, transport, bills etc with that (and Housing Benefit is paid to the landlord so you never see that, and it does not go towards bills). It's less than minimum wage.
I don't know the figures but I was told in a conversation just this weekend of a family friend who is working after being on benefits and whose income is exactly the same as if she wasn't working. She chooses to work for the experience which is laudable, but for those who have children to look after or need to spend money travelling to work, they may quite understandably choose differently, it being a net loss to their lives to go to work every day rather than staying on benefits.
Thank you for the quote from Beveridge Sleepwalker. I think he put it brilliantly. It is the human condition to try and make our lives easier, and the system as it currently stands can often present obstacles, both financial and emotional, to the painful transition from continuing on benefits which you are used to - to the often soul-crushing world of minimum wage work.
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“We are to find God in what we know, not in what we don't know." Dietrich Bonhoeffer
See my blog for 'interesting' thoughts
Posts: 1739 | From: Oxford, UK | Registered: Nov 2008
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Pyx_e
Quixotic Tilter
# 57
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Posted
I am and always will be in favour of welfare, if someone is unemployed, past pension age or ill then they should not lose their food, a roof over their head and an ability to pay basic bills.
In the area I serve in we have three of the top ten in the country wards of “social depravation.” In one neighbouring parish 70% of the people who live on it receive benefit of one kind or another. Three generations of welfare recipients is by no means unusual. There is a massive culture and awareness of how to maximise ones benefit income. A huge sense of “my Giro.” A sense of “entitlement” to benefit that bears greater resemblance to upper middle class thinking than any gratitude for living in a society that has a safety net. I could tell you a thousand stories.
Putting aside all the arguments about not enough jobs, culture, individual stories and circumstances as well as any idea of right and wrong I would like to make one point only.
My point is; dependency does dark things to the soul.
It is the horror of Love, I am called to give and not count the cost, to not let my right hand know what my left is doing and to give to all who ask of me, and in my weak ways I try.
But it seems sometimes my Love is taken and taken and taken. Until I am bereft and still the one I am loving is still unsatisfied and having been kept in a state of immaturity responds to my love in a childish and angry ways.
Putting aside the whole amount of benefit in Pounds, shillings and pence ploughed into this area the local council has spent £20 million in less than ten years and most indicators have got worse.
If you have an answer please let me know. For me at present only new life in Christ seems to draw close to a glimpse of Hope.
Fly Safe, Pyx_e.
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It is better to be Kind than right.
Posts: 9778 | From: The Dark Tower | Registered: May 2001
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the giant cheeseburger
Shipmate
# 10942
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Sergius-Melli:
To start with, continue to raise the tax threashold (as this government is doing) thereby taking the poorest in our society out of the tax game altogether; secondly, increase the minimum wage - it is evident that the minimum wage is too low (especially since the living wage is higher...) which has a dampening effect on wage levels; thirdly - never allow a Labour government near our economy again, the last two times they've been near it we've ended up broke...
1. That only removes those people from one part of the tax game, they are still left with sales taxes and various other government levies. If you leave the income tax thresholds where they are and drop sales taxes like VAT you'll make a major net reduction in the cost of living for everyone regardless of whether they are below the threshold or above it.
2. Ironically given your point three, that's a response you would typically expect from the Labour Party who represent those who are already lucky enough to work and afford to pay union fees. Wage inflation is very bad news for those trying to find employment as they have to meet even higher standards of productivity to even get into the game, just like the high rollers' tables at a casino only benefit those who already have the capital. If the cost of living can be lowered, the living wage can come down to meet the minimum wage and the less productive employees can avoid becoming even less competitive than they already are when they're up against outsourcing or automation.
quote:
Apart from Sleepwalker, no-one else here seems to have spent anytime on JSA during unemployment and so I currently only hold Sleepwalkers, and my own, (having spent time unemployed on JSA), as authoritive, you can all pour over figures, but until you go through the system and live it you cannot say whether it is good or bad, and to be honest, you can live on JSA and the other benefits, enjoy a good level of life, want for very little (except the occassional night out) and gt away with spending your days pretending to look for jobs whilst doing bugger all.
The system is broken, and qudos to this government for looking at the unemployment support system and trying to make it work for all of society...
I was receiving Newstart (the Australian equivalent) and the attached Rent Assistance for a short time a few years ago. I would say that it's good for subsistence alone, it definitely doesn't give much room for discretionary spending without making significant sacrifices and no capacity for saving or investment. It's less than the minimum full-time wage, but still fit for purpose to keep most people going if they have the willpower to make the sacrifices (buying lower-priced store-brand food, clearing out a room for a student to board, etc) necessary to make it happen. In world terms it still sustains a good level of life, but in Australian terms it's pretty grim and still makes employment aspirational for all but the genuinely work-shy.
What is most important, in my opinion, is to give those recipients who do genuinely want to work some meaningful opportunities to become more competitive as well as their benefits, primarily through subsidised access to training for White Cards, forklift driving licenses and so on. One way this can work is for the government to purchase slots in training courses which can be offered to benefit recipients for free. Another is "work for the dole" schemes where long-term recipients work for a period on a government construction project (returning the subsidy given to them by subsidising the cost of a new road in return) and receiving meaningful training along the way.
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If I give a homeopathy advocate a really huge punch in the face, can the injury be cured by giving them another really small punch in the face?
Posts: 4834 | From: Adelaide, South Australia. | Registered: Jan 2006
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Sergius-Melli
Shipmate
# 17462
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by the giant cheeseburger:
I was receiving Newstart (the Australian equivalent) and the attached Rent Assistance for a short time a few years ago. I would say that it's good for subsistence alone, it definitely doesn't give much room for discretionary spending without making significant sacrifices and no capacity for saving or investment. It's less than the minimum full-time wage, but still fit for purpose to keep most people going if they have the willpower to make the sacrifices (buying lower-priced store-brand food, clearing out a room for a student to board, etc) necessary to make it happen. In world terms it still sustains a good level of life, but in Australian terms it's pretty grim and still makes employment aspirational for all but the genuinely work-shy.
What is most important, in my opinion, is to give those recipients who do genuinely want to work some meaningful opportunities to become more competitive as well as their benefits, primarily through subsidised access to training for White Cards, forklift driving licenses and so on. One way this can work is for the government to purchase slots in training courses which can be offered to benefit recipients for free. Another is "work for the dole" schemes where long-term recipients work for a period on a government construction project (returning the subsidy given to them by subsidising the cost of a new road in return) and receiving meaningful training along the way.
I fully agree with what you are saying, VAT reduction would also be a major part to play (which would negate the raising of the minimum wage - yes I do know and understand the problems associated with wage inflation - the problem was that minimum wage was set at a lower than living wage rate by those that introduced it to the UK so the disparity between the cost of living and wages was already at friction and when coupled with the scrapping of the 10p tax rate, the constant increases in council taxes (another good thing proposed by the government at Westminster) it led to the situation where the government was taxing people and then giving them back the money in the form of tax credits and other benefits - it truly was, IMO, a 'successful' ideological war to enslave the population to the welfare state regardless of their pecetile).
I left it off because in the UK VAT is not charged on everyday groceries, and electricity/gas/oil are charged at a reduced rate already when bought so a reduction in VAT would not necessarily aid in the lowering of living costs that much.
Many of the problems around food and heating (except petrol in the UK which is taxed far too much (another good thing about this current government - it has either postponed or scrapped the Labour initiated rises in fuel duty) although yes there is a global factor) costs are mainly down to global, wholesale costs and events which are beyond the control of domestic policy.
Posts: 722 | From: Sneaking across Welsh hill and dale with a thurible in hand | Registered: Dec 2012
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Jade Constable:
and Housing Benefit is paid to the landlord so you never see that
I really don't understand why people think that is a relevant point. It's not like those of us who pay the rent or mortgage out of our salaries get to keep that money and spend it on other stuff as well. It goes straight to pay for our homes just like housing benefit does, so both cases should be counted as income.
Alternatively, in both cases it shouldn't be counted as income. I'd certainly be very happy if my mortgage payments were taken out of my salary before tax - it would nearly halve the amount of tax I pay!
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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Sergius-Melli
Shipmate
# 17462
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:
Originally posted by Jade Constable:
and Housing Benefit is paid to the landlord so you never see that
I really don't understand why people think that is a relevant point. It's not like those of us who pay the rent or mortgage out of our salaries get to keep that money and spend it on other stuff as well. It goes straight to pay for our homes just like housing benefit does, so both cases should be counted as income.
Alternatively, in both cases it shouldn't be counted as income. I'd certainly be very happy if my mortgage payments were taken out of my salary before tax - it would nearly halve the amount of tax I pay!
Because if they were to admit that it isn't a relevant point then it would spoil the narrative that they try to peddle!
Posts: 722 | From: Sneaking across Welsh hill and dale with a thurible in hand | Registered: Dec 2012
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alienfromzog
Ship's Alien
# 5327
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Sergius-Melli:
Which is why, thankfully, the one person who is trying to avoid the rhetoric is IDS, who is leading the charge of reform in this area.
Really?
Are you sure?
How about these for example:
quote:
The Rt Hon Iain Duncan-Smith MP, Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, July 2011:
Welfare fraud costs the taxpayer £1.6billion every year — that’s £3,000 a minute. It’s a waste of cash that could be spent on schools and hospitals. But I’m pleased to say that fraudsters are now on borrowed time.
quote:
The Rt Hon Iain Duncan-Smith MP, Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, February 2011:
Our reforms will end the absurdity of a system where people too often get rewarded for doing the wrong thing, and those who strive to do the best by their families get penalised.
quote:
The Rt Hon Iain Duncan-Smith MP, Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, November 2010:
That is why we are developing a regime of sanctions for those who refuse to play by the rules as well as targeted work activity for those who need to get used to the habits of work
quote:
The Rt Hon Iain Duncan-Smith MP, Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, November 2010:
...three generations of the same family have [often] never worked.
That last one is my personal favourite. You can read the research here but to summarise... Of the 3.7m 'working-age-households' 18% have nobody with a job. Homes with two generations of worklessnes are less than 0.9%. The percentage of households where 2 generations have NEVER worked is less than 0.1%. There is no evidence at all of three-generation worklessness. There just isn't.
Then again, this is a Minister of the Crown who more than once has been warned for misleading statistics
quote:
Originally posted by Sergius-Melli:
...thirdly - never allow a Labour government near our economy again, the last two times they've been near it we've ended up broke...
You know, YOU really should vote Labour because if they really are powerful enough to be responsible for a world-wide financial crisis caused by the US sub-prime mortgage collapse, then they're pretty impressive. If you're bored sometime, look up the stats on how the Thatcher-Major governments ran an effective massive deficit across 18 years, paid for with the privatisation revenues. Whether or not privatisation is a good or bad thing, you can only do it once. It amazes me how an economic crisis caused by Friedman-esque neo-Liberal economic policies is somehow the ultimate justification for such policies... ![[Roll Eyes]](rolleyes.gif)
quote:
Originally posted by Sergius-Melli:
To start with, continue to raise the tax threashold (as this government is doing) thereby taking the poorest in our society out of the tax game altogether; secondly, increase the minimum wage - it is evident that the minimum wage is too low
No, no, no, no, no.
That's just silly. Mostly because for the poorest in society income tax is such a small part of their tax burden and it is a spectacularly inefficient way to help the poor. (see
here ) If you really want to help the poorest, spending £11bn pounds on a tax cut where most of it goes to middle-higher earners is really silly. (Unless you do something else AS WELL, only £1bn goes to the poorest). As has been mentioned before, indirect taxation, especially VAT (who put that up again?) is far, far more important. Not least because VAT drives the cost of many other things. Council Tax would be a good place to start as well - how about some more bands? And that's before you get to the issue of how taking people out of income tax makes them a softer target for the label of 'not-contributing'
Just out of interest, who introduced the minimum wage? Who cut VAT on fuel? Just wondering...
Finally, have a look at this: Factcheck on IDS
AFZ
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Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts.
[Sen. D.P.Moynihan]
An Alien's View of Earth - my blog (or vanity exercise...)
Posts: 2150 | From: Zog, obviously! Straight past Alpha Centauri, 2nd planet on the left... | Registered: Dec 2003
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Eigon
Shipmate
# 4917
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Posted
I spent two years on Jobseekers Allowance, and it's only "a good level of life" to quote Sergius-Melli, if you're happy to buy all your clothes at charity shops, and pick up all the reduced and sale items you can when you're food shopping. I spent that two years in a state of constant mild anxiety - every time a bill came through the door I had to work out whether I could pay it that month or put it off until the following month, and you can only do that for so long before coming unstuck. Now, I'm good at budgetting. I've always had to manage on a low income - and I can pick up some wonderful clothes in charity shops, but it really does grind you down when you have to work out even whether you can afford the bus fare to go into town this week or put it off until later.
And it's not a case of just sign on forever - there are hoops to jump through. I spent 13 weeks on a "course" run by A4e, which was a huge con. We were supposed to get training and help with job applications, but what we actually got was sitting round in an office all day twiddling our thumbs, with an hour or so on the computers looking for jobs online. Any longer than that, and all the same jobs came round again, because there aren't any jobs. There certainly weren't any for me (I finally got work by my personal contacts in the book trade), nor for the man who used to run a post office until it was closed down (and had a physics degree), nor for the manual labourer who was a year away from retirement.
That was taxpayers' money being wasted on a scheme which provided nothing except keeping a few unemployed people off the streets for thirteen weeks with nothing to show at the end of it. My "work experience" ended up as doing the filing in the A4e office, handling my own file and the files of the other people who were sitting in the next room. For no pay, so I was damned if I was going to show any initiative - I did what I was told to do and no more, when I could have re-organised the office and made it run a lot more smoothly.
Also the manager in charge of the region was so appallingly bad that over 50% of her staff left while I was there, and because I was a sympathetic ear, they all told me why they were leaving.
And this has been a huge rant, I know, but I'm quite glad to get it off my chest!
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Laugh hard. Run fast. Be kind.
Posts: 3710 | From: Hay-on-Wye, town of books | Registered: Aug 2003
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Pomona
Shipmate
# 17175
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Sergius-Melli:
quote:
Originally posted by Jade Constable:
... when in reality many people in work and who work very hard for very little pay are on benefits. ...
That there is one of the problems of the system that Gordon Brown created - take the money in tax, and then give back in benefits.
People who are working shouldn't need benefits, the benefits system, as properly outlined above, is as a safety net for those that fall on hard times and need a little support (interestingly the TUC didn't factor in the gain of Housing Benefit, Council Tax Benefits, NI credits which might distort the figures a little from where the TUC presents them).
We are a civilised country, how have we got ourselves into a position where the state has to provide benefits to people in work?
To start with, continue to raise the tax threashold (as this government is doing) thereby taking the poorest in our society out of the tax game altogether; secondly, increase the minimum wage - it is evident that the minimum wage is too low (especially since the living wage is higher...) which has a dampening effect on wage levels; thirdly - never allow a Labour government near our economy again, the last two times they've been near it we've ended up broke...
But of course, everyone is going to want to have anice lefty rant about the current government where the facts of labour's incompetance and lack of vision, direction or leadership would just be an inconvenience...
Apart from Sleepwalker, no-one else here seems to have spent anytime on JSA during unemployment and so I currently only hold Sleepwalkers, and my own, (having spent time unemployed on JSA), as authoritive, you can all pour over figures, but until you go through the system and live it you cannot say whether it is good or bad, and to be honest, you can live on JSA and the other benefits, enjoy a good level of life, want for very little (except the occassional night out) and gt away with spending your days pretending to look for jobs whilst doing bugger all.
The system is broken, and qudos to this government for looking at the unemployment support system and trying to make it work for all of society...
People who work needing to be on benefits is the fault of the employer not paying a living wage. And I've been on JSA, a lot, as I've repeatedly said, as have many other Shipmates so please don't discount our experiences. When I was on JSA I had barely enough to feed myself and pay my bills (£10 a week for food, £5 a week electricity and I was on a meter so it cost more, the rest went on rent since my Housing Benefit didn't cover it all and transport costs) so it most definitely was not a 'good level of life'.
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Consider the work of God: Who is able to straighten what he has bent? [Ecclesiastes 7:13]
Posts: 5319 | From: UK | Registered: Jun 2012
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Pomona
Shipmate
# 17175
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Sergius-Melli:
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:
Originally posted by Jade Constable:
and Housing Benefit is paid to the landlord so you never see that
I really don't understand why people think that is a relevant point. It's not like those of us who pay the rent or mortgage out of our salaries get to keep that money and spend it on other stuff as well. It goes straight to pay for our homes just like housing benefit does, so both cases should be counted as income.
Alternatively, in both cases it shouldn't be counted as income. I'd certainly be very happy if my mortgage payments were taken out of my salary before tax - it would nearly halve the amount of tax I pay!
Because if they were to admit that it isn't a relevant point then it would spoil the narrative that they try to peddle!
Fuck you and the classist Tory horse you rode in on - there is no narrative we're 'peddling', it's the truth. There is constant outrage in the Fail and other Tory newspapers over people claiming Housing Benefit as if it's money the recipient actually sees, hence it being important to point out that the recipient never sees it, and in many cases HB doesn't cover all the rent anyway.
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Consider the work of God: Who is able to straighten what he has bent? [Ecclesiastes 7:13]
Posts: 5319 | From: UK | Registered: Jun 2012
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Anglican't
Shipmate
# 15292
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Jade Constable:
Fuck you and the classist Tory horse you rode in on - there is no narrative we're 'peddling', it's the truth. There is constant outrage in the Fail and other Tory newspapers over people claiming Housing Benefit as if it's money the recipient actually sees, hence it being important to point out that the recipient never sees it, and in many cases HB doesn't cover all the rent anyway.
Presumably they do see it when they sit in their living room and look at the walls. The housing benefit has bought the roof over their head.
Posts: 3613 | From: London, England | Registered: Nov 2009
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Pomona
Shipmate
# 17175
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Anglican't:
quote:
Originally posted by Jade Constable:
Fuck you and the classist Tory horse you rode in on - there is no narrative we're 'peddling', it's the truth. There is constant outrage in the Fail and other Tory newspapers over people claiming Housing Benefit as if it's money the recipient actually sees, hence it being important to point out that the recipient never sees it, and in many cases HB doesn't cover all the rent anyway.
Presumably they do see it when they sit in their living room and look at the walls. The housing benefit has bought the roof over their head.
They are not able to spend it which is what many articles outraged about HB payments suggest - of course they are written by people with no actual experience of it. Even with the u-turn on denying HB to under-25s, many young people are still locked out of the housing market by landlords refusing to accept HB - rather mystifying as it is at least a steady source of rent. For those leaving care or have been homeless, Housing Benefit is the only thing that enables them to afford housing since they often take longer to complete their studies.
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Consider the work of God: Who is able to straighten what he has bent? [Ecclesiastes 7:13]
Posts: 5319 | From: UK | Registered: Jun 2012
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churchgeek
Have candles, will pray
# 5557
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by ToujoursDan:
The problem is that those who are convinced that welfare recipients are cheats or slouches who live the good life on "our" dime is that even when presented with evidence to the contrary, they deny it. You can present good facts and statistics like in the OP, but they'll say they saw a recipient with a iPhone or flat screen TV which proves that none of those stats are true.
This is a big pet-peeve of mine. Even if a welfare recipient has a flat screen TV, they might have gotten it before they were on welfare, it might have been a gift, or they might have needed a TV and found it on sale. In any case, it's a one-time expenditure that probably wouldn't make the difference in being able to pay the rent that month, and if they were to sell it or pawn it for money for food or whatever, they wouldn't get much for it. As for the phone, many programs exist to subsidize phone service for people in need, and a smart phone may be necessary as it probably is the person's only connection to the internet as well as their only phone line. Do we really want to say people in financial need shouldn't be able to access the internet? Particularly for people who have families and are busy (e.g., going to different agencies to satisfy terms of their receiving benefits, or wasting all day in a subsidized health care clinic that doesn't take appointments - U.S. only, of course). And, as with the TV, the phone itself was a one-time purchase, and may have been subsidized as well.
I've only claimed benefits - unemployment - once in my life, and then only for a month; but I've lived on a relatively low income my whole life, and I know from first-hand experience that when you can't make the rent, all the penny-pinching in the world won't make a difference. My rent right now is just over $800; if I'm falling short $150, say, what difference does it make if I buy a name-brand product at the grocery store (although I do anyway) to save 15 cents? Or what difference does it make if I deny myself a sandwich at Subway (around $6)? Yet the same people, in the US, who say our national debt can't be solved with additional tax revenue want to nit-pick over the relatively smaller purchases that needy people make even though making a different, less expensive purchase wouldn't make a dent in their greater need. How much cheaper is a non-flat-screen TV (if you can find one anymore) or a non-smart phone? The difference between the actual purchase and the cheaper one - is that really all that's needed to move the person in question from poverty into the middle class?
quote:
Originally posted by Angloid:
The best the poor can hope for from either party is the Lady Bountiful approach of handouts for the deserving:
Sad but true. And another pet-peeve of mine. Who is "deserving"? What does it take to make you "undeserving"? In general, the public requires a very high level of sanctity in those people who require the public's help - a sanctity the public never requires of itself. Let him or her who has never wasted a penny cast the first aspersion.
quote:
Originally posted by Alisdair:
@sleepwalker -- In my experience the problems really start when your situation doesn't fit neatly into the prescribed box, which it doesn't the moment you stop being 'unemployed' and actually start working, but with an income that isn't enough to live on. Then the fight to stay legal but actually covering expenses really begins.
As for parasitic skivers: well they certainly exist, but to what extent. Ignorant prejudice says it's about 95% of all those on benefits. Objective research seems to suggest that the wilful hardcore is actually a very small number---and short of putting them in forced labour or killing them (or transporting them to Oz), they will always be around. If the 'objective research' is anywhere near accurate then the parasites aren't really worth bothering about, but they make a wonderful political tool to whip up fear and resentment.
It's the struggles of the rest---basically people who either have no choice but to depend on benefits (the chronically ill/disabled, etc.), and those who desperately want to get into/back into properly paid employment---that we (society) and the welfare system need to look after as constructively, flexibly, and fairly as we can.
![[Overused]](graemlins/notworthy.gif) The OP makes clear what the percentage of actual cheaters looks like.
Few people really realize the time and energy (and transportation expenses) people have to expend just to get help. I inadvertently lied above when I said I'd only received benefits once. I have no dental insurance right now, and once when I had a toothache, fearing something like a root canal might be in my near future, I went to the county-subsidized dental clinic. I was so lucky in that my income level qualified me for a $10 visit and, if necessary, a $100 procedure (can you imagine? Only $100 for a procedure without insurance?), and lucky in that I ended up not having any problems; the pain was caused by referred tension in my jaw muscles. But what this experience taught me was the non-monetary expense in getting this benefit: The clinic only can see 45 people a day, and they give out numbers early in the morning. I arrived much to early for my own comfort, and received number 43. A few minutes later, and I'd have had to just made the same trek back home (luckily for me, it was only one bus, though a long ride, and a few blocks of walking) and tried again the next day, perhaps even earlier. Then, I sat around from about 8:30 in the morning until 3 in the afternoon, in waiting rooms full of people, many with their entire families, and where TVs were tuned into the most awful daytime programs. I had a book, and managed to read some of it with all the distractions.
Now, imagine you're a single mother with a part-time or full-time job and no dental insurance, and need to go to this clinic either for yourself or your child. To even go and try to get one of the 45 spots that day, you might need to take the day off work (or let them know you might not make it in), and, if you get there a moment too late, do the same thing the next day. And you've got to waste your entire day sitting there, when there are lots of better things you could be doing. And this is just one example of what it costs, besides money, to claim a benefit when you're in need. How many low-paying jobs are going to put up with an easily replaceable worker saying she might not make it into work, and then maybe showing up anyway several hours late saying she has to do the same thing tomorrow?
Eigon also gives an excellent example of the non-monetary expenses involved in claiming benefits.
If someone were truly lazy, as the anti-welfare rhetoric claims all welfare recipients are, they wouldn't be up for jumping through all those hoops either.
Here in the US, there has definitely been a huge movement by a few really wealthy people to persuade the public, mostly through the conservative media and conservative politicians, that welfare and other "entitlements" are driving our economy into the ground. I was watching Bill Moyers last night, and Paul Krugman was on, making a rather compelling case that government spending actually does help get us out of recessions, starting with whatever the government can do to put people to work (re-hiring teachers and other public servants that have been laid off, e.g.). And yet so many rank-and-file Republican citizens, if you say that to them, will just respond with sarcasm as if it's patently obvious that's a stupid idea that doesn't even merit discussion. This was not true of conservatives in the past. And you get the bizarre combination of arguments that goes: "Taxing the rich won't help at all. Oh, and such-and-such percent of people don't pay any taxes at all; they should have to pay their share." [NB: everybody pays sales tax and other taxes! It's federal income tax they're referring to. And most of us who end up getting all their income tax refunded have been loaning the money to the federal government, interest-free, all year long.]
Like anything, you have to follow the money: Who benefits from this growing public perception that welfare-recipients are all lazy cheats who don't deserve help?
ETA: Sorry so long - I wanted to avoid duplicate posts. And I could rant about this all day and night.
[ 14. January 2013, 23:04: Message edited by: churchgeek ]
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I reserve the right to change my mind.
My article on the Virgin of Vladimir
Posts: 7773 | From: Detroit | Registered: Feb 2004
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Jahlove
Tied to the mast
# 10290
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Alisdair:
In my experience the problems really start when your situation doesn't fit neatly into the prescribed box
You are more-or-less correct, Alisdair but it's really not because the benefit administrators hate you, are prejudiced against you or wish to harm you - as far as we are concerned, we want your claim cleared, paid and on to the next one not only because all government departments these days are *target driven* but because, believe it or not, ime, the vast majority of DWP staff actually DO give a toss about the people represented by the paperwork in front of them and, indeed, empathize (I and many of my colleagues have first-hand experience of living on benefits).
It's basically because the computer system that these claims are built on is antiquated (The Idiot Bastard Son* of Pub Ping-Pong and an elderly Wang) and too few staff (moritorium on recruitment since 2009 on DWP) so for every experienced person who leaves, a new claim or change of circumstances may take twice as long because of lack of knowhow in applying workarounds to TIBS (above). To be fair, the Legacy system does a good job, given the vastitude of the data it holds and processes but it's still waaaay less efficient than anything an organization such as a national financial institution might have - and this is because successive governments have not been willing to invest the funding to update the technology (tho' I acknowledge that it would be a mammoth task).
The abrupt transition of being in receipt of benefits ---> getting work = no benefits is the issue which the new Universal Credit is supposed to address - I can't comment since I am not in one of the regions where it's being trialled but here's hoping it makes everything simpler.
* Frank Zappa plays for your enjoyment ![[Smile]](smile.gif)
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“Sing like no one's listening, love like you've never been hurt, dance like nobody's watching, and live like its heaven on earth.” - Mark Twain
Posts: 6477 | From: Alice's Restaurant (UK Franchise) | Registered: Sep 2005
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Karl: Liberal Backslider
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# 76
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I think the point about HB is that its inclusion often makes the benefits a given recipient is technically in receipt of look quite generous. This is because the housing costs of certain claimants are artificially inflated by, for example, being pushed into B&B accommodation or whatever private rented accommodation is available by the local authority. If you're at the bottom of the heap, you have little option as to where you live as private landlords won't touch you if you approach them directly as you don't have references, job, deposit etc., and social housing is in short supply. Hence people in dire straights tend to get shoved into expensive accommodation, the tab picked up by HB, and the total benefits bill for said claimant can be quite high, whilst they actually have a disposable income that leaves them choosing whether they eat today or they buy new shoes for one of their children.
There's certainly a lot of peddling going on; it's the image of welfare recipients receiving tonnes of cash whilst hard working families etc. etc. etc., aka the Dacre Drip.
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Might as well ask the bloody cat.
Posts: 17938 | From: Chesterfield | Registered: May 2001
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iamchristianhearmeroar
Shipmate
# 15483
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Posted
For those advocating benefit cuts/caps/withdrawal (which seems to be a tiny minority here, but probably not in the UK at large), what is the alternative?
The fact that those in work need benefits from the government shows that (i) the amount they are being paid is too low, and/or (ii) the cost of living is disproportionately high. The government can certainly control (i) by changing the minimum wage, but as a previous poster has pointed out this can have unintended consequences elsewhere, particularly for people seeking new jobs. The ability to control (ii) seems to be more limited. The present government, despite rhetoric to the effect, has done precious little to bring down soaring energy costs for example.
The alternatives to paying benefits to those who have no jobs do not bear thinking about. Is anyone really advocating bringing back Work Houses, or simply letting people starve to death if they have no job? It is also completely disingenuous to blame people for not having a job when there are clearly not enough jobs in the UK economy at the moment.
I also wonder what a "Christian" approach to welfare/benefits/pensions would look like. Are peoples' views here influenced by their faith or other factors: political persuasion, pragmatism?
(I'm sure mine are influenced by a whole host of things...)
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My blog: http://alastairnewman.wordpress.com/
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Lucia
Looking for light
# 15201
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Jade Constable:
...many young people are still locked out of the housing market by landlords refusing to accept HB - rather mystifying as it is at least a steady source of rent.
Small point, but not all landlords are allowed to accept tenants on HB. We are currently living abroad and rent our UK house out to tenants. Our mortgage provider specifically forbids rental to HB tenants, so it is not a decision we have a choice over.
Posts: 1075 | From: Nigh golden stone and spires | Registered: Oct 2009
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Jade Constable:
They are not able to spend it which is what many articles outraged about HB payments suggest
I'm not able to spend my mortgage money either, but that's what you appear to be suggesting.
Sauce for the goose, and all that.
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
I think the point about HB is that its inclusion often makes the benefits a given recipient is technically in receipt of look quite generous.
The point is this - if you're only considering income that isn't going to pay for housing when talking about people on benefits but you're considering all income when talking about people in work, then it's a false comparison. One which is inevitably going to make those in work look far better off.
The fair comparison would be to look at both people's income after housing costs are removed - their disposable income, as you put it - or to look at both people's income including that portion of it that goes straight back out again to pay the rent/mortgage.
I freely acknowledge that by either means of comparison I'm better off that the person on benefits. I just think that saying that money which goes straight back out on housing costs doesn't count when considering how much a person on benefits receives in a month, but that it does count when considering how much a person in work receives in a month, is pretty disingenuous.
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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Lucia
Looking for light
# 15201
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Although Marvin at the end of 25 years or whatever you will own a house which you no longer have to pay mortgage or rent to live in. Unless the housing market really goes pear shaped you are buying something that is an asset. You get something more than just a roof over your head for your money, you have a long term investment going on. For all those renting, on HB or not, they only get the roof over their head, not the asset at the end or the eventual ending of payments simply to have a roof over their heads. Which is of course why those who can buy tend to do so.
Posts: 1075 | From: Nigh golden stone and spires | Registered: Oct 2009
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Karl: Liberal Backslider
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# 76
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
I think the point about HB is that its inclusion often makes the benefits a given recipient is technically in receipt of look quite generous.
The point is this - if you're only considering income that isn't going to pay for housing when talking about people on benefits but you're considering all income when talking about people in work, then it's a false comparison. One which is inevitably going to make those in work look far better off.
The fair comparison would be to look at both people's income after housing costs are removed - their disposable income, as you put it - or to look at both people's income including that portion of it that goes straight back out again to pay the rent/mortgage.
I freely acknowledge that by either means of comparison I'm better off that the person on benefits. I just think that saying that money which goes straight back out on housing costs doesn't count when considering how much a person on benefits receives in a month, but that it does count when considering how much a person in work receives in a month, is pretty disingenuous.
I'm not aware of anyone routinely making that comparison - it's more the other way round, at least at the Daily Heil end of opinion forming.
Do also bear in mind that lots of HB recipients are in work - as pointed out back in the OP; it's not welfare recipients and working people, as if they're two distinct groups. Most benefits, including HB, are actually paid to people in work, but paid shit.
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Might as well ask the bloody cat.
Posts: 17938 | From: Chesterfield | Registered: May 2001
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Boogie
Boogie on down!
# 13538
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Posted
When my son arrived in Germany he had a minimum wage job while he learned the language. He got a travel card and free travel everywhere.
I think we should have that system here - so that people can travel to work whatever the wages. Minimum wage = free travel to work. Many more would be able to come off welfare and into work imo.
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Garden. Room. Walk
Posts: 13030 | From: Boogie Wonderland | Registered: Mar 2008
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Sleepwalker:
Far from a condition of continued benefits being attendance at a work or training centre, a claimant is now given six months before they are even required to look for work outside their chosen field.
Bollocks. Do you actually know anyone on so-called "jobseeker's allowance"? They are forced to jump through a maze of demeaning hoops before they get anything. What you say wasn't even true when I last claimed any benefits, about thirty years ago, its far less true now. I know people who have gone for weeks with no income at all because of the difficulty of proving their claim. And they are required to start looking for work and accept jobs when offered, right from the begining.
quote:
There are no conditions at all to claiming benefits other than to sign on.
That's not true. Claimants have to go through various interviews and patronising talks that are based on the assumption that all unemployed are only unemployed because of personal inadequacy. They have to be able to present themselves for inspection at short notice, often at places quite some distance from where they live. And if they fail to, they are assumed to be unavailable for work, the benefit gets withdrawn, and getting back on the system can take weeks. I'm not talking about what I read in the papers, I'm talking about what friends neighbours and family members have been going through.
And God help you if they trick you into one of those fake "work experience" scams.
quote:
I could claim for the rest of my life with impunity.
Well, aren't you lucky? That's not true about everyone else though.
quote:
And during that time I could have an endless supply of babies and be provided with a centrally heated, double glazed house, furniture, with new carpets and decoration supplied before I moved in.
Absolutely untrue. I'm sorry, but this nonsense is exactly the kind of anti-welfare propaganda the opening post was talking about. You've fallen for it and you are spreading the lies. You have been taken in.
quote:
If I had a bad back I could claim for a car or alternatively my relatives could claim petrol expenses for driving me to places.
No. First, that would be disability living allowance, not any kind of unemployment benefit or social security or jobseeker's allowance. Second, the government has recently withdrawn those benefits from tens of thousands of people, many of them quite unfit for work. Third, you never got them for an ordinary "bad back" in the first place.
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Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
Posts: 39579 | From: London | Registered: Mar 2002
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Pomona
Shipmate
# 17175
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:
Originally posted by Jade Constable:
They are not able to spend it which is what many articles outraged about HB payments suggest
I'm not able to spend my mortgage money either, but that's what you appear to be suggesting.
Sauce for the goose, and all that.
But if you have a mortgage to pay, you own a house, which you could then sell. Your mortgage money is ultimately controlled by you - you have an obligation to pay your mortgage to keep your home, obviously, but you are still able to change your living conditions (in theory, making no comment on the practicalities of this!) and therefore how much you spend on your mortgage. Those in receipt of HB are not in control of how much is paid, or even where they live a lot of the time.
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Consider the work of God: Who is able to straighten what he has bent? [Ecclesiastes 7:13]
Posts: 5319 | From: UK | Registered: Jun 2012
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chive
Ship's nude
# 208
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by ken:
quote:
There are no conditions at all to claiming benefits other than to sign on.
That's not true. Claimants have to go through various interviews and patronising talks that are based on the assumption that all unemployed are only unemployed because of personal inadequacy. They have to be able to present themselves for inspection at short notice, often at places quite some distance from where they live. And if they fail to, they are assumed to be unavailable for work, the benefit gets withdrawn, and getting back on the system can take weeks. I'm not talking about what I read in the papers, I'm talking about what friends neighbours and family members have been going through.
And God help you if they trick you into one of those fake "work experience" scams.
You are also making the assumption that all benefits are work related benefits. As I said above I claim DLA. To apply for that I had to fill in a sixty page form which was extremely distressing to complete. My specialists and GP were contacted and also had to complete forms.
quote:
I could claim for the rest of my life with impunity.
Well, aren't you lucky? That's not true about everyone else though.
quote:
And during that time I could have an endless supply of babies and be provided with a centrally heated, double glazed house, furniture, with new carpets and decoration supplied before I moved in.
Absolutely untrue. I'm sorry, but this nonsense is exactly the kind of anti-welfare propaganda the opening post was talking about. You've fallen for it and you are spreading the lies. You have been taken in.
I agree with Ken. That certainly was not the case for me. When I was previously claiming benefits and lived in a council flat I had no carpets at all the whole time I lived there because I could not afford them. I was provided with no furniture at all. I went to a charity and received a second hand fridge, second hand microwave, two second hand dining room chairs which were my only chairs and a second hand bed. A friend took pity on me and leant me her old tv and radio. There was no redecoration done before I moved in so I had to live with the horrible, peeling wallpaper until I could afford some paint. I did not have central heating, instead I had extremely expensive electric heating which I could only rarely afford to use. Clearly I was living in the lap of luxury.
[ 15. January 2013, 12:42: Message edited by: tclune ]
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'Edward was the kind of man who thought there was no such thing as a lesbian, just a woman who hadn't done one-to-one Bible study with him.' Catherine Fox, Love to the Lost
Posts: 3542 | From: the cupboard under the stairs | Registered: May 2001
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
I'm not aware of anyone routinely making that comparison - it's more the other way round, at least at the Daily Heil end of opinion forming.
It was implicit in your initial comment about the inclusion of HB making benefits look quite generous. Surely that means you think that a fair comparison would be one that doesn't take HB into consideration?
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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Karl: Liberal Backslider
Shipmate
# 76
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
I'm not aware of anyone routinely making that comparison - it's more the other way round, at least at the Daily Heil end of opinion forming.
It was implicit in your initial comment about the inclusion of HB making benefits look quite generous. Surely that means you think that a fair comparison would be one that doesn't take HB into consideration?
I think the fairest comparison is disposable income. What I don't think is that there's some dispicable lefty plot to distort things by not taking HB into consideration when the person in question is unemployed, as some seemed to be implying.
[ 15. January 2013, 12:19: Message edited by: Karl: Liberal Backslider ]
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Might as well ask the bloody cat.
Posts: 17938 | From: Chesterfield | Registered: May 2001
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Jade Constable:
But if you have a mortgage to pay, you own a house, which you could then sell.
Sure, if I wanted to be the richest person living on the street. I still need somewhere to live, and that still has to be paid for.
quote:
Your mortgage money is ultimately controlled by you - you have an obligation to pay your mortgage to keep your home, obviously, but you are still able to change your living conditions (in theory, making no comment on the practicalities of this!) and therefore how much you spend on your mortgage. Those in receipt of HB are not in control of how much is paid, or even where they live a lot of the time.
I'm only able to change my living conditions to the degree that I can afford to pay for them. If for whatever reason I had to ask someone else to pay my living expenses then I'd expect to have to abide by the living conditions the person who was giving me the money dictated. If, for example, I was unemployed and my wife was the sole contributor to our household then I'd expect her to have the final say when it came to how we spent her money. If I lived alone but dependent on my parents to pay my rent, I'd expect them to have the final say in where I lived. And if I was dependent on the government for my rent, I'd expect it to have the final say in where I lived. The one paying the piper gets to call the tune.
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Hail Gallaxhar
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