Re: DWP scams benefit claimants (again)

And you don't understand the need for a decent benefit system that catches people as they fall.

Re: DWP scams benefit claimants (again)

And you don't seem to understand that the money needs to come from somewhere to pay for that.

Re: DWP scams benefit claimants (again)

Tarantula how can you live in the real world of the underprivileged when you give cars and vast sums of money away ?
Also noticed you hoped NS&I would increase the amount of Premuim Bonds a holder could have meaning you already have what’s allowed.
I have friends who are having to live on the minimum benefit and have to visit food banks and they’re genuine not scum of the earth .
That’s the real world they’ve been forced into .

Re: DWP scams benefit claimants (again)

Can I ask you Zu ... do these friends of yours have mobile phones? Broadband? Own a car?

Re: DWP scams benefit claimants (again)

Morticia they are obliged by the DWP to apply for jobs .
This they have to do online now.
So either they have to have their own broadband or use library computers.
Mobile phones are also a necessity as part and parcel of the same requirements.
None of those I’m talking about have a car .

Re: DWP scams benefit claimants (again)

See... this is the bit I have a bit of a sticking point with.

True .. to be available for work they likely do need a mobile phone, broadband and a car.
It could be said without them they'd be at a disadvantage. Public transport ain't what it used to be .. though I work and don't own a car.

But ... any kind of benefit is a temporary stop gap ... whilst folk are down on their luck until they manage to rejoin the workforce. A safety net. Nothing more. Or should be.

Sadly, what I often see is claimants on benefits who expect to maintain a lifestyle in line with a 'worker'. Worse, some claimants figure out they do quite well for doing nothing so lack incentive to bother to get off their bums.

I'm not referring to disabled here, in the main, they, quite genuinely might not be able to hold down a job.

Re: DWP scams benefit claimants (again)

I was wondering that too. So many of the people who claim to be on their beam ends seem to have no problem using the Internet, having expensive iphones, owning a car and having pets, which are expensive to keep. They probably also frequent the local pub on a regular basis.

I know someone who was in charge of a food bank was most annoyed when one woman, claiming she had no food, answered her expensive looking iPhone whilst she was helping herself to the largesse!

As I have said before, when my husband and I married in 1969 we had to be extremely careful with our money, as we had very little, even for those days. I only had £4 a week house keeping, which wasn't riches. We cut our coat according to our cloth and only spent money on the bare essentials, like food and heating. We did that for many years. We are reasonably comfortable in our old age, but only because my husband worked long hours throughout his working life.

Re: DWP scams benefit claimants (again)

Many people going onto benefit already own things would you have them actually throw away stuff just so they look poor enough to you ?

You can't make a claim or get a job without broadband or a phone btw so it would be daft to get rid of them.

My cars paid for and we are going onto benefit oh that's bad get rid of it quick make myself unemployable and unable to get to hospital appointments etc. Make child walk 6 miles to school and back.

Re: DWP scams benefit claimants (again)

Tarantula .
I don’t have an iPhone although I could easily afford one .These expensive looking phones will be on monthly terms as essentials as I’ve explained above .
Its no use whatsoever comparing 1967 to now .Everyone who was a housewife in those days knows it .
What you keep on doing
is to keep on enforcing the way you had to live ,without thinking 50 yrs have gone by and whole new generations you seem to despise have to live differently .

Re: DWP scams benefit claimants (again)

But Zu .... the fact remains that though times have changed .... we also come from a generation who had parents who invariably considered benefits to be charity.
If you couldn't afford something you simply did without.
Some of us were brought up that way.
Some of us probably don't know a tap abut claiming benefits because it never enters our heads to do so.

My own observation is that many benefit claimants have a lifestyle on a par with a working man (or woman).
I knew one who even managed to fit in a holiday in America.