Family life on benefits

[simondjuk]

Where do they get these people.  Have a read and look at the diagram.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-16812185

They spend £582 a week to live.  This includes £15 a week on Sky, £32 a week on mobile phones and included in their shopping bill 24 cans of lager, a pouch of tobacco and 200 fags.

The bloke says he was made redundant in 2001 as his skills were no longer needed.  Its now 2012, did he not think of retraining?

Im sorry but why the fuck do these people complain about having little cash spare but they can afford to drink, smoke, have Sky and mobile phones?

Its simple maths, they would lose about £82 a week.  By my reckoning a pack of fags is what £6-£7?  200 a week thats £60-£70 saving right there and 24 cans say £12.  Get rid of Sky and get Freeview, so that makes them £15 better off.  Theres your £82 saving with a bit extra.  Simple?!

I work for a living and always have and if for any reason I lost my job, id cut back on luxuries.  Why cant these do the same instead of scrounging off the tax payer?

[Fly]

Isn't Sky, booze, fags and mobiles for those that actually work, and can afford these luxuries ?

I'm sure that report is a comparrison of the money they are claiming for, for what ever.
Not what they are claiming for.

Still stinks 

[therealjr]

The one I can never figure out is the jobseekers allowance. I worked September of 1981 till May 2007, I paid tax and NI on salaries ranging from £8k to £32k during that time.
When I went to sign on in July of 2007 I was told I was entitled to 12 weeks jobseekers allowance and after that, zip, nowt, b***** and f*** all. So how does this guy still qualify after 11 years?

[Slacker]

Joint family income?

[therealjr]

They never asked!!

[emmz]

Everyone gets the 12 week period then it actually goes onto jobseekers. I wont rant again like i did in the previous thread. I dont understand how on earth anyone can spend £500 a week??? It makes people like myself who is on the benefit sysyem look like a scrounger

[k4blades]

I have seen 3 completely different / independent stories in the media this week about clinically obese people living off benefits.
The one I read yesterday was about a woman weighing over 40st, living off pop and chocolate. So fat, she struggles to get out of bed, and can't leave the house. She has barely worked ever in the 20 or 30 years since leaving school. Not only is her life style funded by our taxes, but she also gets £300 a week worth a care from the council to help her wash and go to the toilet!


And yet we have genuine disabled people, old and infirm, struggling to get help with their needs.

There is something seriously wrong if we think this is the way society should be. They should stop with immediate effect any care she gets, and be told to wash herself. And she should be given 3 months notice that she won't get no more benefits unless she can show she is actively looking for work.

If someone makes the conscious decision to shove crap down their throat, it does not make them disabled, nor should they be treated that way. Its an insult to all those  in genuine need!

[Slacker]

May have mental health issues

[Pete]

Good point Slacker - I met an obese woman a few years ago and, being a bit fatist, I thought she should just stop eating as much. I then found out she had serious mental problems and felt really guilty about it.

[k4blades]

And the way society deals with mental health is to allow the person to develop physical health issues???

If we had a properly managed and intergrated benefits system, anyone who had genuine health issues should have those issues identified early on and dealt with. The sad fact is over the past decade or more, 100,000s declared themselves "disabled" and have lived off benefits when they shouldn't have been. Those in authority turned a blind eye as it kept unemployment figures down. Thats exactly why we should give thorough examinations to anyone claiming any sort of benefit, and then determine what help they really need, rather than just handing out money willy nilly!

[Gerty Gumdrop]

I have to agree with Slacker and Pete about the possibility of mental health problems.  Nothing is ever as simple as it seems with stuff like that.  It's best not to generalise and judge when you don't know the while story. 

However, that's rather an aside to the main topic which is about the family on benefits.  I agree that too many abuse the benefits systems and the government are long overdue for examinations to people claiming any sort of benefit (K4blades). 

And as for that obscene amount that  family get through with Sky, booze, fags etc, while I'm not surprised - I AM sickened because people who work their backsides off to keep body and soul together struggle to afford such luxuries.  At one time I actually held down 3 jobs to keep a reasonable standard of living while elder daughter was at Uni.  I had a main full time day job, a pub job 2 nights a week and a party plan job for another 2 nights.  Even so, none of us had a swanky mobile, no big telly, only ran an old banger of a car, and maybe went out once a week (we counted ourselves lucky to get that).   

[k4blades]

I'm sorry but you don't seem to understand my last post.

Of course, if someone has mental health issues they should be helped. I don't consider it helpful to them to ignore that issue, give them a fortune in taxpayers money, so that they can eat themselves into an early grave, and at the same time rob other people needing help of much needed money, just so that the governments official unemployment figures don't look as bad, which is what happens when someone is left on disabilty allowances. How anyone can support that and then consider themselves compasionate, I don't know.

Much better to find out at the beginning of when someone puts in a claim, if they have any issues that would stop them working, be it health or anything else, then help them deal with that so that they become a useful and contributing member of society, and insuring that the limited public funds are spent on those who really need it.

This woman is likely to die of obesity in the next couple of years, the fact that she may or may not, (and the report suggested not), have mental issues, is ignorig the facts. People shouldn't just be fobbed off, if they have issues, then as a decent society we should help tackle those issues, and just saying she has mental problems is a cop out because some don't want to see whats glaringly obvious.

And apart from anything else, for someone to die of obesity, its an insult to the starving millions around the world!

[Pete]

That's all well and good if the person is diagnosed with mental illness BEFORE they put on weight.

[k4blades]

1) You, well Slacker, but you agreed with him, brought the issue of mental illness into the discussion, not me.

2) If someone is obese and does not have a mentil illness, then they should be given a kick up the arse and told to get off benfits, which is exactly the point I was making before you and Slacker brought in the point raised above in 1) 

[Pete]

>> If someone is obese and does not have a mentil illness, then they should be given a kick up the arse and told to get off benfits

Agree with that.