£42,000 a year benefits

[timwilky]

Several issues about this and the comments from Org members.

Morally this is so wrong, to breed for income and expect the state to pay.

Re other stuff minimum wage etc. I have a real issue with the whole way this works out. The system provides little incentive for claimants to benefit from working. The mimimum wage is an excuse to permit unscrupulous companies to pay the minimum and expect the state to make up the rest to reward them for breeding.

Politically I am slightly to the right of Genghis Khan and dont understand why we tolerate the won't work attitude of some. We should create an environment where claimants have to demonstrate they cannot work rather than have no work before we provide free money. I would then use the benefit money saved to create community work for those without work and pay them their wage through that. No work, no money.

[Luckypants]

Originally Posted by gettin2dizzy

£42k for 10 people is a pretty dire situation,

I haven't posted yet in here but these were my thoughts also (which will surprise G2D and others!). £42K to keep a family that size is not a huge amount and with the economic situation on Anglesey there is almost no way they could afford to live if they were working, I doubt they would earn that much with a full time job each. 2 cars? Necessary in a rural location and with so many kids needing to be taken hither and thither IMO.

I do object most strongly to her attitude where she sees it as a 'right' to have as many kids as she likes with no way of supporting them and it is up to 'those working' to pay for her kids. This aspect of benefits drives me crazy and I have some sympathy for those who want to limit benefits to these kind of families. I object to anyone who thinks it's OK to live on benefits and makes a choice to do so - the system as it stands makes this an option though.

The being 'better off on benefit' mentality is a result of the system going wrong. I don't think benefits should be withdrawn as soon as you start to work, you should feel the benefit of work financially so it is worthwhile to find a job.

I'm far too annoyed with the attitude of the family to be able to write anything sensible, but...I Wish to god someone would bring in a law to stop people having more that 1 or 2 children.
I hate people like them, seriously I do.
Goddamn, I could crush a grape!!!

Grrrrr
Ste.

The way my Wife put it is perfect imho.
A family member has just been given a brand new £400,000 house because her, her husband (both of whom have never worked a day), their 20 various pets, 5 kids + 1 on the way, can't all live in their current house.
The council WAS going to change 1 room into another bedroom to allow them to stay but needed to move a boiler to do this, they simply denied the council entry to do this and ended up having to be moved to a brand new house....

This is a very nice place that me and the wife who have both been working since before it was legal for us to work and bust our butts, will probably NEVER be able to afford.
Combined with the benefits they recieve they should be quite well off, yet live in pretty squalid conditions....which ironically...gets them more money/sympathy from the council.....

Now her words were, in the early days, when they were on benefits, and not very well off, they survived but I had nicer things than them because I worked for them, it was OK....
Now they keep popping out kids and are in the situation now where they have a house, and disposable income the two of us combined can only dream of...and its coming out of our tax money, and THAT ****es her off, (and me also).

Sounds a bit eletist in some respects (I'm fine with the benefits system as long as they are not better off than me)...but it kind of makes sense really!
It's our tax money paying for it, why should we pay for someone perfectly capable of working, to NOT work AND live better than us who are paying for it!.
Where is the incentive for them to work and improve their lot.

When I was close to loosing my job a while ago the council told us effectivly that as we had both paid into the system and worked all our lives, we were entitled to nothing and would have to be given notice of eviction, our stuff reposesed, and bankrupted before they would even put us on a council housing list, despite her being pregnant.

Luckily I didn't loose my job but it cement our anger than had we never worked a day in our lives, the coucil would have immediatly paid most of our rent FOR US (something about means based or income bases testing...), and we wouldn't have had to go through all the legal guff destroying our lives and any chance of every recovering, just to get on a council housing list....
The system seems to favour the lazy and the work shy.

Don't even get me started about "depression" being counted as a disability...

Don't get me wrong I know that for many people on benefits, it sucks, I've tried to live during 6 months of joblessness after redundancy on job seekers and had to quit my flat, sell almost everything I own and move in with my mum just to survive..forget raising a family!

The trick is it tends to suck more for those that find themselves on the system due to circumstance after having worked for much of their lives, and often want to get off the system.

The ones that seem to rake it in don't work and have never worked, and seem to get given so much more for it and as such, don't want to get off the system, in fact in our family members case, they would be STUPID to come off it as they would have to earn a FORTUNE between them both to have the life style they have now!, oh sure honour, decency etc are all well and good...but if I had 5 kids, 3 dogs, a dozen snakes, several birds etc to look after and a £400,000 house on the council...I would think twice about starting work ....

[Biker Biggles]

Originally Posted by PsychoCannon

The way my Wife put it is perfect imho.
A family member has just been given a brand new £400,000 house because her, her husband (both of whom have never worked a day), their 20 various pets, 5 kids + 1 on the way, can't all live in their current house.

This is a very nice place that me and the wife who have both been working since before it was legal for us to work and bust our butts, will probably NEVER be able to afford.
Combined with the benefits they recieve they are quite well off, yet live in pretty squalid conditions....which ironically...gets them more money/sympathy from the council.....

Now her words were, in the early days, when they were on benefits, and not very well off, they survived but I had nicer things than them because I worked for them, it was OK....
Now they keep popping out kids and are in the situation now where they have a house, and disposable income the two of us combined can only dream of...and its coming out of our tax money, and THAT ****es her off, (and me also).

Sounds a bit eletist in some respects (I'm fine with the benefits system as long as they are not better off than me)...but it kind of makes sense really!
It's our tax money paying for it, why should we pay for someone perfectly capable of working, to NOT work AND live better than us who are paying for it!.
Where is the incentive for them to work and improve their lot.

When I was close to loosing my job a while ago the council told us effectivly that as we had both paid into the system and worked all our lives, we were entitled to nothing and would have to be evicted, our stuff reposesed, and bankrupted before they would even put us on a council housing list, despite her being pregnant.

Luckily I didn't loose my job but it cement our anger than had we never worked a day in our lives, the coucil would have immediatly paid our rent FOR US, and we wouldn't have had to go through all the legal guff destroying our lives and any chance of every recovering, just to get on a council housing list....
The system favours the lazy and the work shy.

Don't get me wrong I know that for many people on benefits, it sucks, but the trick is it tends to suck more for those that find themselves on the system due to circumstance after having worked for much of their lives, and often want to get off the system.

The ones that seem to rake it in don't work and have never worked, and seem to get given so much more for it and as such, don't want to get off the system, in fact in our family members case, they would be STUPID to come off it as they would have to earn a FORTUNE between them both to have the life style they have now!, oh sure honour, decency etc are all well and good...but if I had 5 kids, 3 dogs, a dozen snakes, several birds etc to look after and a £400,000 house on the council...I would think twice about starting work ....

Hes right you know.
It cant be right that being on benefit makes you better off than working.Thats insane if its true.But it was in the Daily (hate)Mail so who really knows?

Before more people start banging on about £400,000 houses remember the following.

Councils must house families in flats or houses that have one room per child because, quite rightly, we set very high standards for the welfare of children (and if you're the kind of horrible ******* who wants children to suffer because their parents make bad decisions then please go die in a ditch). Because of our absurdly overpriced housing market and because Thatcher encouraged councils to sell off their larger houses in the 80s, the only place where those houses can be found is the private sector. The private sector has a vested interest in driving prices up so it's inevitable that councils have to house large families in expensive places. On top of that, most of the families that the Daily Mail and other rags like to bang on about are in areas like Kensington where there is no cheap housing for councils to rent when needed.

Combine that with the number of children per family tending to be higher in social classes I and II, it's not surprising that we end up with the kind of problems people are moaning about in this thread. The correct solution is not to bitch about the benefits system and demand that it gets cut to the bone while advocating for the return of poorhouses/workhouses. It's to advocate for a living wage and a higher minimum wage along with a stronger welfare state to prevent families from ever getting to the stage where they're totally dependent on the state.

[Biker Biggles]

How much would a living wage be for a family of 7 kids?
There is an issue of responsibility here too dont you think?Just how much should responsible people who have a couple of kids and support them be forced to fork out for those who sprog out as a career move and contribute nothing?Im not saying there shouldnt be benefits,but there needs to be a reasonable balance struck.IF this story is true,the balance is not in the right place.

Good point well made, and I apologies if I come across as advocating stripping the poor and going back several generations to the dickenson era poor houses!

I fully support a saftey net and "benefits system" though I think we need a new name for a system that has been dirtied as it has.

And I also agree that it sucks that it involves these children who are not at fault.
(I won't get started on this whole generational work shy families thing...)

I also agree that the housing situation is crazy! but I can't see that resolving any time soon .

My anger is more at those deliberatly gaming the system to "upgrade" their lives and think hmm...need a bigger house, one more kid should do it...
In fact forget that, it's more at those that are prefectly capable of working but just WON'T and aren't made to.

Raising basic wage etc may get some of the genuine cases back into the work system, but it simply has to be raised too high to make it in the worst abusers benefit, and even then...they probably won't bother...

It needs to be combined with a filtering out those abusing the system, not just gaming the rules but just churning out kids for income and bigger houses...but how do you do that without hurting the kids....

I remember one woman who kept having kids taken away by social services and vowed to just keep pumping them out until social let her start keeping them....
I know I don't want to be the one who has to fix this problem...

[timwilky]

You know, it was only a couple of years ago that I found out that local councils provide for the housing of the idle. WTF is that?

I had to pay my own mortgage, nobody helped me why rates went upto 15%. So WTF is my council tax going to put a roof over the head of the work shy. No wonder they have no incentive to get off their backside. If I was to have lost my job, they wouldn't have paid the interest despite it being less than current rents.

Bring back work houses. Make them work for their gruel. Separate them into single sex dormitories to stop them breeding. and if they transgress, throw them out to fend for themselves.

[L3nny]

Why should kids be entitled to a room each? When I was growing up every family I knew of who had 3 kids or more had to share rooms, they all managed fine.

All the people who are defending the benefits system seem to forget it is their money that is being given to these people. Money they have worked for money that is taken from them without asking and means they have to go without some of the luxuries the people receiving the benefits take for granted.