The state benefits system mega-thread.

[dilli-theclaw]

I'm tying to get into a bigger place for medical reasons but no one seems to want this one bedroom flat.

[Escapee]

I overheard a funny conversation on the weekend regarding benefits.

I went into Wetherspoons at about 08:45 Saturday morning for some breakfast, one of the usual groups of circa 09:00 drinkers started to arrive, they ordered their Brains Dark, Guiness etc as they do every day of the week. There were 4 of them sat down as I was eating my breakfast and they were discussing a mutual friend, it went like this:

I don't know what he does with his money, he gets the same benefits as I do but he doesn't come out. What the hell does he spend it all on.

I wasn't sure if it was appropriate to laugh or cry

[GrimUpNorth]

We've just set up a standing order to pay Mrs G's sister £60/month to help her out.

I know there's plenty out there who would expect her to move to a one bedroom property, but she's being offered nothing but flats in 'scruffy' areas (sorry if I sound like a snob!).

Another thing, she's been living in the same house for nearly 20 years and considers it to be her home. I suppose she's lucky we can help, because she couldn't afford the cost of moving house anyway, how are people who are struggling meant to move their stuff - by foot?

I tend to agree that cutting benefits is the easy way out, I think people would be more accepting of cuts if it looked like the Government were, for example, actively trying to reduce the long term tax gap which seems to have been bobbling along year after year at around £35b/year.

Cheers

Grim

Escapee if you could get some details on those people because i don't drink and sure as hell couldn't afford to go to a pub eveyday i'd ask them how they manage it. With rent and council tax increases this year we'll be down by about five quid a week the rent alone was doouble what benefit increase i got so totally freeze benefits please i'd be better off.

[MalteseFalcon]

Never had a problem with providing a typed out diary from the computer, because my handwriting is so bad that they would never be able to read my handwriting. Today get told that you are not allowed to do a diary like that in future, you MUST use the UJ site to record your search.

So I said what if you don't have access to a computer, the internet, are having trouble with it or just plain don't want them to have access to it. Oh you get sanctioned depending on why you haven't complied. Could be 2 weeks, could be 13 weeks. Got no issues with having to do a certain length of time searching every week. Certainly have no issues with doing training or attending job fairs or even having to go the JC every week. What I do object to is the fact that a typed diary has worked for me the last however long and now I HAVE to start using a system that doesn't record my job search activity. I put it in, save it and then login a few hours later and it is not there anymore. Bloody joke.

[Gary L]

What's UJ?

[MalteseFalcon]

Universal Jobmatch. Been having trouble with it since Christmas, and I email them every day and never get a reply back from them. Useless.

[Escapee]

Originally Posted by RizzyKing

Escapee if you could get some details on those people because i don't drink and sure as hell couldn't afford to go to a pub eveyday i'd ask them how they manage it. With rent and council tax increases this year we'll be down by about five quid a week the rent alone was doouble what benefit increase i got so totally freeze benefits please i'd be better off.

These can be found in the Ernest Willows Wetherspoons on City Road Cardiff, they are in every time I go in there for breakfast or an evening meal. I go in most Sunday mornings and often pop in during the week for breakfast (Less alcohol) if I'm working from my partners house.

My local one, The John Capel Hanbury in Pontypool is exactly the same but I know the regular ones in there are getting the alcoholics allowance. The Sirhowy Wetherspoons in Blackwood that I sometimes go to for lunch with work colleagues is the same.

Since the benefit cuts the numbers have dropped, but there still seems to be the core who start their shift about 9am, completing their shift around 9pm when they give up gripping the bar with their fingernails.

In my local one a couple of years ago I overheard one explaining to another how to get the alcoholics allowance.

It was something like:

Do what I did, go to your doctor and tell him you drink x bottles of the strong cider white lightening etc every day, he will give you a note.

I am sympathetic towards people who are genuinely unable to work, also the situation mentioned by Grimupnorth where people are expected to move after spending a large part of their lives in a home.

What I am completely against is what the previous government did making it far too easy to claim benefits for those who choose not to work, and throwing benefits at them in an attempt to meet child poverty targets they set themselves.

The bottom line is, I don't believe any individual or family on benefits should be financially better of than someone who has a full time job.

An interesting example.

http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wa...-given-6905668

[Jimmy-J]

Escapee, here's another story from the DM, meant to get the heart pounding and the blood boiling...

Gipsies have revealed how they are claiming thousands of pounds every month in benefits after moving to Britain and milking the generous state benefit system.

The admissions were made in a damning new Channel 5 documentary which follows the lives of Roma gipsies in Britain.

One of the gipsies featured in Gypsies On Benefits And Proud is Katarina Cisarova, 43,who brought her eleven children and eleven grand-children with her to an estate in Rotherham.

The documentary which will air April 11, also features Ion Lazar, 36, who came to the Britain with five other immigrants when the work restrictions on Romanians were lifted in January.

He admits he is just planning to stash his benefits to take home to his family in Romania.

'I need maybe forty thousand from benefits.... four zero thousand pounds for my family and I think this money I can make in one years maybe two,' he said.

He says on the show: 'I know it’s very, very easy to take benefits in England… She’s give me home free, she’s give me money free, she’s give me everything.'

Peter, who has not had a job for two years says: 'My country, I no had a job, no food, nothing. No going back, never. Thank you so much England.'

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...t-workxxx.html

I agree there ae some on benefit that shouldn't be and i also don't believe lifestyle illnesses should be classed in the same way that medical illness through no fault on the part of the person is. As for immigrants i thought they had sorted that and no benefit could be claimed for a periofd of time after entry to the UK or was that just a plan that never went anywhere ?. No one sensible is saying the welfare system doesn't need an overhaul because it clearly does but we need a real overhaul not the the rubbish this coalition is doing which is actually not hitting the hardened fraudster at all.

I'd also like to see an end to private companys being handed multi billion pound contacts to prrovide a lousy service and for total government waste to be cut before draconian measures that hit the genuine and needy in our society. Preferably the welfare system would be overseen by an independent panel that had to explain their performance and remove the politicians and their misuse of the system totally. Osbourne is no different to any other politician as soon as he see's an advantage to putting people on welfare he will as many have before him.

[Mr Angry]

Originally Posted by MarkC1984

Universal Jobmatch. Been having trouble with it since Christmas, and I email them every day and never get a reply back from them. Useless.

You might find this interesting.

Non means tested Disability Benefits were one of the most controversial, and subsequently contentious, types of benefits that the Tories introduced.

[Pierre]

Originally Posted by GrimUpNorth

We've just set up a standing order to pay Mrs G's sister £60/month to help her out.

Good on you, long before people got use to sucking on the nipple of the state, families helped each other out.

[Gary L]

Originally Posted by Pierre

Good on you, long before people got use to sucking on the nipple of the state, families helped each other out.

A few quid.

compared to the top people of the state and their friends screwing millions of pounds from you and I and everybody else. the latest fraud being Royal Mail shares.

[GrimUpNorth]

Originally Posted by Pierre

Good on you, long before people got use to sucking on the nipple of the state, families helped each other out.

We're more than happy to help her out.

Cheers

Grim

[denphone]

Dying Merseyside man was told by benefits assessors ‘you’re fit to work’

http://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/news/...55QGg.facebook

Was he was sucking on the nipple of the state?.