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About LinkBacksAnyone who has ever lived somewere like Euston, which used to be all social housing can easily tell you which ones are currently been paid for by the government and which ones aren't.Originally Posted by kalniel
Anyone who has ever lived somewere like Euston, which used to be all social housing can easily tell you which ones are currently been paid for by the government and which ones aren't.
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From this article why can't more people be more keen to work if on benefits? And why are people afraid of being stigmatised being on benefits? they have to remember where the money is from especially for those who refuse to work rather than unable to work.
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I would suggest that a lot more people are, but that the media generally prefer to focus negatively on the topic, instead focusing on those that aren't interested and/or those who abuse the benefit system.
I would assume that it is due to the aforementioned media negativity focus, which evidently prompts some people to automatically assume that people on benefits are likely to be lazy and/or abusing the system.
Last edited by Output; 14-03-2013 at 06:02 PM.
sammyc (14-03-2013)
Nothing wrong with giving benefits to people out of work or disabled. What needs to change is what they do for that money. There are plenty of menial tasks that can be given to the unemployed, and the same goes for a large proportion of the disabled. Dedicate essential menial tasks (like cleaning the streets, bin collection, making fish nets etc etc..) to those out of work in return for benefits. Result is people arent left to idly sit around waiting for handouts, and they maintain a little self worth whilst they are searching for a job. Plus the country can benefit from it economically.
Pretty strong sense throughout most of this thread of indiscriminate hostility towards all those on benefits, rather than those who abuse the system. The constant referring to the unemployed as 'them' comes across as less of a third person pronoun, more of an insult. Very little nod to those who have paid into the system, for one thing - a lot of weight given to the 'free money/handouts/we're paying their benefits' argument. In a time of high unemployment, the difference between 'me' in a job and 'you' out of one may be no more than that I pipped you by a whisker for the same job - why should I look down on you & complain if you then need to claim unemployment benefits? Would I swap places?
By all means find a system that limits the minority misuse of benefits, but the creeping, unsympathetic generalisation of benefits claimants as takers & freeloaders is a very unpalatable line. Worse still the ivory tower 'claiming benefits is easy and fun' line from those with no direct experience.
Have to disagree with you here, the hard working independent person who finds themselves in a genuine position of need through no fault of their own is surely the most likely to have a strong sense of pride and to dislike relying on the system, whereas a 'scrounger' would presumably have less. Don't see a correlation between having pride & feeling distaste at having to rely on welfare, especially in a form that sets them visibly aside from someone in work, equating 'choosing not to work'.
Last edited by sammyc; 14-03-2013 at 10:30 PM.
kalniel (14-03-2013)
Dont know if your comments were directed at me, but if they were, they were taken out of context. To define my point further, i will point out that the country is now struggling to maintain its expenditure, and needs to seek viable, 'sensible' ways to get back on track. There are of course, many ways they can do this, like streamlining a lot of the bureaucratic systems currently in place, future investment etc. My comment was purely a point of view on how people who are unemployed can maintain their sense of self worth by still contributing to society, and how the economy can benefit through lower expenditure. Im sure you'll agree that its better than reducing benefits, or penalising the unemployed? Who that is unemployed can argue against actively contributing to society? Only those that dodge work i would expect.
^ no actually (although I happen to disagree that most disabled people can do some work, but that's another argument and has been batted around on this forum before, so I wasn't going to continue it on this occasion). I have no argument with the setting up of viable sensible schemes so that those who can do some work can have the opportunity.
Thats a minor point. Im not saying lets force all the disabled to work, but as you can appreciate, anyone with limbs is capable of achieving something, and even those that havent, or have sensory deprivation are mostly capable of doing something positive. Until the recent tightening of the disability system, i would have argued against you. Now, however, a large proportion of the more able bodied disabled have been declassified, which leaves me at a moot point.
To clarify, you'd agree that the fault lies with the unavailability of such suitable jobs-for-the-disabled rather than with the disabled themselves? Either way, this general tack always begs the question why aren't the partially-able finding something for themselves (and to be honest a couple of days light work @ minimum wage will pay cracking on for the same as disability benefits, and who wouldn't rather take that option than be given 'things to do' in exchange for benefits?) It's certainly an oversimplification to say anyone with limbs is capable of something.
Your point that the more [allegedly] able bodied have been declassified is to get into the whole current capability assessment argument, which I don't intend to do for reasons that my posts will become, well, inflammatory shall we say
You got it in a nutshell. Not saying i agree or disagree with governments current policy on disability benefits because i would need see how it has affected individual people first hand before i could formulate an opinion. Something i absolutely dont agree with is that companies have been given new powers to dismiss new employees for absolutely no reason whatsoever. A company should have legitimate grounds for dismissal, not just 'i dont like you - you're sacked'.
As for people preferring not to work over 'being given things to do', its a case of - we're not an empire any more, its about time we stopped acting like one. We all have things we dont want to do in life. Its what life is, a large degree of suffering with periods of happiness (hopefully) somewhere in between. I'd like nothing better than to spend the rest of my life in a room being waited on while i play games on the PC, or just generally loaf. But tbh, i cant do that. Its not healthy for one, and it does me no good mentally. Sometimes people need a bit of a push to do something they dont want to do. Anyone can achieve if they put their mind to it, especially with the right support.
Last edited by xodianbarr; 14-03-2013 at 11:11 PM.
I think that is also due to the system. In fact I'd go as far as to say the system will be completely useless for me in its current form, for ever. Due to its failings I am privately insured, which costs me a tiny fraction of a percent of my annual income, and provides me with about 70% of it should I be un-able to work for 6 months through health. I have almost zero sympathy for the people out of work for anything other than health reasons, I have had a series of good jobs yes, but not because I was born in the right place, I've not even 5 GCSEs thanks to dislexia vs state school. I just didn't sit on my arse, moved wherever I had work, never turned something down when I needed money. I only got my first enjoyable job because of the reference I got for washing dishes, a job I truly hated at the time (I'm a little OCD).
Compared to people I went to school with, a significant portion of whom are on the doll (I don't know current figures, but last I was back there it was over 50%) are not remotely helped by the system, in fact it hinders them greatly as it supports bad lifestyle behvaiours, want to smoke weed most nights, no problem, want to stay up till 4 am playing games, no problem.
When the system helps best situations I think it should help the least, it is easy to try and draw lines of a deserving poor and such, yes, but it is also not possible to have a talk about reform and changes without. Ultimately all benefits come at the expense of something else, they do not provide efficiency in the market (such as the kind from the industrial revolution, that means we don't have to all be employed on farms to stay alive). This means its important to recognise that someone, who has a spare room, is costing that spare room from someone else. It's not as if it would go empty.
As someone who isn't eligible for any benefits, I have to ask myself why am I paying twice, once for that person to have the spare room, then again for me to have to pay more to have my room.
If people don't acknowledge that any kind of benefit is an expense, a resource that could be allocated elsewhere, then we can't have any discussion on the matter.
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We'd in a way almost gone too far with that for employees who swung the lead. The FSB had countless horror stories, but what was worrying was no conclusive advice. Meanwhile companies that were treating their employees poorly often worked round it with 'constructive dismissal style' tactics, anyone who's ever worked retail for a company that trades on a Sunday might have come across the two hour shift method.
This meant small businesses were bound up with red tape, increasing the cost of new employees to small businesses is terrible concept, and the larger ones, with sneaky HR types that the rest of the firm despise operated with impunity.
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@ xodianbarr, slight misreading I think - I didn't say that in my opinion disabled people would rather do nothing over being given things to do, I said they would prefer to be in part-time work of their own finding than claim benefit and be given token occupation to 'earn it'. Assuming those to be the available (& slightly over-simplified, granted) options.
I have yet to work out why people on benefits get clumped into one group by governments there is a distinct difference to someone who has no job because he was made redundant and is trying to find employment and someone who has never bothered to seek any form of gainful employment. then you have those who have a genuine need based on disability and those who spend years receiving incapacity benefits for bogus conditions.
For no better reason than there are so many of them. You think thats a problem, you should see the state of the inland revenue...
I think you have to interpret what the government are saying when they refer to people on benefits. If it's in a negative way then I tend to assume that they are only talking about the work shy. It would make their speech extremely clumsy if they had to qualify exactly which sub section of people every time they spoke. And usually they do qualify this, but the media cut it out because they want a nice short sound bite they can use.
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