Bedroom Tax

[MickCheese]

What a load if middle class pineapples, I've been unemployed since January, I have my rent paid and my council tax paid, I currently get a little over £80 per week to feed myself, my wife and 2 kids. The same allowance has to pay for gas electricity and water, put fuel in the car and clothes in our backs.
I could stop using the car I hear people think, however I live in a very rural part of the country, with extremely limited public transport, so if I have no car I have even less prospects for work. I have searched for a job for at least 3 hours everyday I have been unemployed but as yet not secured a position anywhere, why because I am too qualified for the lower paid jobs and there simply arn't any in my normal line if work.
I am looking and planning on self employment, but funding a new venture is extremely hard, the banks don't want to know, the government had no cash, and outside investors say that manufacture is a bad investment.

I'm not saying that there are not people who do milk the system, there are on both sides. But what's worse someone milking a hundred quid a week from the taxes you all pay, or someone milking millions out of the money you save?

Anyone who takes offence to what I have written beads to go back and re-read this entire topic from the top, and think how you would feel in different circumstances.


~Nil carborundum illegitemi~

It seems to me that you are exactly the person the benefits safety-net is there to assist. I just have difficulty with the woman in the YouTube clip posted above that seems to think that benefits are a life style choice.

I readily accept I have no personal experience of this and I hope I never will and that I am often relying on the media for my information but I do work in a job where I see the underclass at their worse. My experience is those I come into contact with who are on benefits are also working illegally for cash and in my book they are just fraudsters. Maybe we need to get to those first but most seem to see this as a victimless crime so not a priority.

Mick

 

[Dusty]

http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=10151799412899867

Top Man Max , proof is in the pudding !

 

[Dusty]

Deserter ...I am sorry to hear of your plight and wish you all the best in your future , as said you are one of those who do deserve it but because you have morals you are probably not working the system to the max .

And to add more fuel to the fire , I had a long run of work for a customer who owned a series of houses in a town near my , most were in , well less desirable areas , we nicknamed the the area as the Bronx . it was a true SH1TE hole , more than half the residents were drop outs and Skags / skanks / dross / scum /junkies etc . After a few weeks you soon recognise the faces and learn their pattern of life , mainly doing naff all . One house was on a main route through the estate in to town and every day all day they just amble through with their 300 kids , F,ing and blinding , groups of young mums with their respectable ( sarcasm ) looking partners and spawn in toe on the way to town .

The landlord admitted all his tennants bar one were DSS and it showed . lack of respect for each other , drinking lambrini by mid day with all their kackking friends . The partners would spend all morning lounging around and then off down the pub for lunch or going for a drive in their typical Kev'd out car , normaly a BMW or Imprezza .

And another little gem for you , after my partner had an operation for a smashed up shoulder , I had to pop in to town to do some shopping for her during the day ( special bras lol ) . I commented on the amount of lay abouts and she said to me " how do you know it is not their day off " . To which I said , " what half the population of the town ! And before the do gooders jump on me and scream how can you tell they have not got a job , when you have been around long enough , and seen it too much , you know !

And as for long queues for work , no chance . the doll is to easy , it is known around here that if they put as much effort in to working as they did avoiding work , the whole world would be a better place . I know a few large scale farmers and they all employ a large amount of foreign labour . Yes they pay the minimum wage , and they constantly get asked for more work / my mother inlaw runs a large firm and employs 90% foreign labour and pays good money . They all give the same reason .............when ever they advertise for people , no " native" lasts more than a week or after the interview never turn up . SO there is plenty of work , but they have created a situation where by it may look like there is no work but what it sums up to be is that there is not a job that they want to do !

And as for the £75 a week thing , bull poo . it's more like £75 PW , council tax £25 PW , rent £150 PW , gives you £250 , above the national minimum !

Kind regards Sam

 

[RogerS]

Sam..Sam....Sam...you are dreaming. According to Jacob, none of this actually happens. Jacob lives in a perfect world.

 

[Lons]

Hi Deserter.

You are clearly one of the very many genuine claimants for whom the benefits system was originally set up to support. A couple of months out of work hurts and from your tone I would think you probably feel loss of pride, helplessness and desperation as any normal hard working person would when trying to provide for his family. If you didn't then you wouldn't be looking for work or contemplating self employment!

Unfortunately, it is a fact of life that a sizeable group of people exist with no such values and any of us who can look at it impartially will see it. These claimants have inherited their outlook and way of life and have attitudes which are so deep rooted that it will take decades to change them, if even possible. The system is understaffed, over complicated and relatively easy to manipulate if the inclination exists. It's honest guys like you who get the thin end of the wedge and the media are quick to pick up examples which unfortunately the "sheep" who believe all they read or view to be gospel then preach to others that every benefit claimant is a scrounger.

The benefits system was only ever intended to be a short term safety net until claimants found work, but mismanagement and politics has allowed it to become a career for a large section of society.

I've been in your situation, twice in succession when both national companies I worked for went bust (though the longest I was unemployed was 4 weeks). Salary, company car, pride and hope disappear overnight, which is why I decided to work for myself - not an easy choice, as I also had 2 kids and a mortgage. I received not a penny in benefits btw as I had saved hard and my wife was working!

I'm definitely not middle class. I grew up in a council house, my father was a miner, a shop steward and dyed in the wool labour whatever happens supporter, ( my vote goes to the party I feel has the best manifesto, whatever colour flag they fly ).
I try to keep an open mind and look at both sides and I think my posts reflect that but it does not stop me resenting the part of my taxes that are paid out to the ones who are benefit cheats whose actions are undermining the economy. I feel the same way about the financial institutions and tax evasion policies but citing them as an alternative is plain silly.(That's not aimed at you btw). It is a separate argument and should be dealt with but 2 wrongs don't make a right.

Best wishes on the job front and if you can find a way to be self employed you should seriously consider it as in my experience it's worth every bit of the hard work needed to be in control of your own destiny.

Bob

 

[RogerS]

.....
Knocking the poor has become the new racism.

(hammer) :-({|= ] ](*,)

 

[Phil Pascoe]

Whiskywill - didn't you know that the people on Jeremy Kyle Show are only actors? that it's a right wing plot to discredit the deserving poor, made to fill the coffers of the Daily Mail? Shame on you!
Deserter - the reason you get a rough deal is precisely because the system's abuse is widespread. You haven't years of experience of abusing it.

 

[RogerS]

Whiskywill - didn't you know that the people on Jeremy Kyle Show are only actors? that it's a right wing plot to discredit the deserving poor, made to fill the coffers of the Daily Mail? Shame on you!.....

Oh bless...

 

[deserter]

Appologies, I honestly don't meen offence, I just hate being grouped in with the kind if people whom do manipulate the systems.
Not every one is out for whatever they can get for free, but still I get this attitude from people all the time, not least being the people who work at the job centre, the very people who are supposed to be helping.


~Nil carborundum illegitemi~

 

[nanscombe]

... And as for the £75 a week thing , bull poo . it's more like £75 PW , council tax £25 PW , rent £150 PW , gives you £250 , above the national minimum !

Kind regards Sam

And, with that £75pw (approx £300 pcm), you would probably have to pay:
Telephone / broadband (for job hunting)
Stamps / stationary (for job hunting)
Any required travel (for job hunting / signing on)
Gas
Food
Electricity
Water rate
TV license
...

 

[RogerS]

... And as for the £75 a week thing , bull poo . it's more like £75 PW , council tax £25 PW , rent £150 PW , gives you £250 , above the national minimum !

Kind regards Sam

And, with that £75pw (approx £300 pcm), you would probably have to pay:
Telephone / broadband (for job hunting)
Stamps / stationary (for job hunting)
Any required travel (for job hunting / signing on)
Gas
Food
Electricity
Water rate
TV license
...

Not sure exactly what point you are making, Nigel.

 

[nanscombe]

That council tax and rent aren't the only, and possibly not the largest, bills.

More money is probably handed over to utility companies and supermarkets.

I usually include rent and mortgages, when I speak about where peoples benefit goes, but that's already included this time around.

 

[Jacob]

People on low wages also get a rake of benefits. Not so low either - council tax benefit and tax credits come in at quite a high level. It makes comparisons complicated. Basically wages are too low or rents too high if people can't survive without benefits.
Housing benefit benefits landlords and bad employers paying low wages. Tax evasion costs us ten times as much as benefit fraud. Most unemployment is temporary - there will always be a large number of people in between jobs.
Many working illegally find this the only way to move from benefits to employment (the benefits trap) and a year or so on may be legal and paying taxes.
There a many issues, but ranting on about a few pathetic twerps at the bottom of the pile is an irrelevant distraction.

 

[Jacob]

Appologies, I honestly don't meen offence, I just hate being grouped in with the kind if people whom do manipulate the systems.
Not every one is out for whatever they can get for free, but still I get this attitude from people all the time, not least being the people who work at the job centre, the very people who are supposed to be helping.


~Nil carborundum illegitemi~

You aren't causing offence and no need to apologise.
The offence is being caused by the ranters in this thread who would offend many people who are down on their luck, often temporarily and often no fault of their own
Often the accusations are wrong - there was a scheme to shop fraudsters but it turned out to be seriously inaccurate - most of them proved to be working or claiming non fraudulently. It happened to me many years ago - we were living a slightly scruffy lifestyle and enjoying ourselves a lot and we discovered later that most of the village thought we were on benefits. We weren't, we were working hard from home, quite legitimately and doing quite well.
We got a local paper to do a spot on us "cottage industry success" etc etc and the locals were surprised.

 

[Richard S]

I would hazard a guess that the original poster has no such first hand knowledge of anything of the sort but is rather re-hashing some lurid tabloid rubbish and repeating it to suit his own twisted view of the world. The fact is a life on benefits is no easy thing, it is very easy to look in from the outside and think they have it made. The truth is, these are usually some of the most ill educated and deprived members of our society and for the majority of them life on benefits is hard. The truth is there has been and always will be an underclass of criminals, scrounges and ner do wells as far back as the dawn of man, if you lot of jingoistic whiners can finda way of solving that you are better than 2000 years of history that has gone before you. I for one am tired of the "what's happened to this great country" attitude, perhaps you would all like to go back 150 to when Great Britain ruled the world? Assuming that none of you are descendants of the landed classes you might want to think for a while about what your life would be like then compared to now, personally I am quite happy for a small proportion of my tax liability to be "wasted" on "benefit scroungers" in exchange for the society we now have with the opportunities it presents for hard working individuals of all colours, casts and creeds irrespective of birthright or upbringing. I suppose we could always go back to the times when virtually everyone but the landed class was condemned to a life of unbelievably hard work for barely substance pay, with no realistic prospect of it ever improving, not to mention a severely curtailed life expectancy, although for many this may have been viewed by many as something of a blessing in disguise.
So my advice is stop moaning, ignore the under class and let them get on with their meaningless existence while you get on with yours, they will never be happy with their life I assure you, but only you can ensure that you are happy with yours. As the old saying goes "you really have never had it so good"

 

[Walter Hall]

Interesting that in less than fifty years we have gone from being a society in which unmarried mothers were forced to give up their babies for adoption to one in which having an illegitimate child is an acknowledged route to subsidised accommodation. Surely no reasonable person could consider either of these extremes to be ideal?

 

[Phil Pascoe]

I see the mother of the poor girl that was killed by the dogs lived in a council maisonette on benefits, and still had enough spare cash to keep five large dogs. Many working people couldn't afford it.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

Walter - does your elephant need its anal glands looking at?

 

[whiskywill]

So my advice is stop moaning, ignore the under class and let them get on with their meaningless existence while you get on with yours,

I am offended! Who are you to call my existence meaningless? And no, I am not part of the underclass. I work and, apart from a two week break between jobs, I have always worked.

 

[Jacob]

Interesting that in less than fifty years we have gone from being a society in which unmarried mothers were forced to give up their babies for adoption

Yes things are a lot more civilised now

to one in which having an illegitimate child is an acknowledged route to subsidised accommodation. .......

Complete nonsense. It's an "acknowledged route" only in the stunted imaginations of the moaning classes.