| Does anyone on here claim benefits? 12:15 - Oct 7 with 7706 views | Billywitch |
I've never received a single penny of money/or had any help from any government.
And the more I read, the more it seems I'm a minority.
Interested to see the landscape of this forum [Post edited 7 Oct 17:29]
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| Is anyone on here claim benefits? on 09:57 - Oct 8 with 788 views | eireblue |
| Is anyone on here claim benefits? on 18:39 - Oct 7 by Billywitch |
You don’t need to buy anything, as I’m not selling it.
Many of the replies on here have been incredibly genuine and those people I’d like to thank them. They’ve answered the question in a mature manner, and not tried climb that all important superior hill.
Some of the aggression shown by others has been an embarrassment.
Regardless, I hope you have a nice evening. |
“ I've never received a single penny of money/or had any help from any government.
And the more I read, the more it seems I'm a minority.”
“…not tried to climb that all important superior hill”
Not sure your OP and, other thoughts, really put you in a position of suggesting other posters are being superior.
Bit hypocritical. [Post edited 8 Oct 10:00]
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| Is anyone on here claim benefits? on 10:14 - Oct 8 with 725 views | Tractor_Buck |
| Is anyone on here claim benefits? on 18:01 - Oct 7 by J2BLUE |
Respect to you! A 4 day week is an absolute gamechanger.
I work 32 hours a week over 4 days. Earn a bit less than I could but so what? Never ever going back. [Post edited 7 Oct 18:02]
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Thank you. By twiddling the hours and breaks around a bit in consultation with the staff, we made sure that no one lost a penny in wages.
Happy team, increased productivity, reduced costs. And I get to be profiled as a dosser in the supermarket. Everyone's a winner. |  | | |
| Is anyone on here claim benefits? on 10:30 - Oct 8 with 676 views | Bugs |
| Is anyone on here claim benefits? on 13:17 - Oct 7 by leitrimblue |
An excellent and insightful post |
Replied to the wrong post. [Post edited 8 Oct 10:32]
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| Is anyone on here claim benefits? on 10:33 - Oct 8 with 661 views | Bugs |
| Is anyone on here claim benefits? on 13:02 - Oct 7 by J2BLUE |
I was on Jobseeker's allowance about 20 years ago for six months or so.
A lot of people seem to think it's one big party so let me tell you a few details I remember.
I was on about £50 per week I think. I was living at home and was fortunate to have parents who were happy to provide everything I needed for no cost so I had one night out per week spending about £20 in the Heathlands pub and the other £30ish went on stamps.
I was treated like sh1t by the job centre staff. I took in photos of about 100 letters in their stamped addressed envelopes I had sent out to every local employer I could think of. They barely acknowledged it. A few weeks later they gave me a print out of a job at Next where they said they knew it wasn't appropriate in any way but I could apply if I wanted to. I didn't because it was a role I was not qualified for, had no chance of getting and was nowhere near what I was looking for. They then suspended my JSA and investigated me...
At one point they offered to send me to a company called Seetec. Seetec had a government contract to help job seekers find a job. I went voluntarily. Once there, I quickly realised Seetec couldn't give a damn about helping anyone and were just trying to fill time to keep us there to get their money. One of the staff went out to a charity shop to buy some board games to entertain us. That was when I walked out. She phoned me later that afternoon and I told her why I left. She got stroppy and put the phone down on me.
I then volunteered for a charity in town two days a week. I hated it. However, a job eventually opened up in the finance department as a trainee. I applied and got it. It was 25 hours a week, minimum wage and by your definition likely still classed as benefits as it was a government funded job via the Future Jobs Fund. My six month contract was about to end and they were very keen to keep me. Then the newly elected Tories cut their funding and the job offer became a week by week offer. I left because I had another offer at a shipping office.
I found myself unemployed again about six months later for reasons outside of my control. I did not sign on again due to the utterly humiliating dehumanising treatment from the first time.
One moment that will stay with me for life is when I turned up for an appointment at the job centre about 10:00 in the morning to be told that it had moved to 14:30. I said no one told me and the woman rolled her eyes in a really exaggerated way and looked at her colleague before saying "we would have told you". I am not a violent person but if she had been a man I would have hit him.
Moral of the story: Most people don't want to be on benefits. It's mentally crushing, you're treated like a parasite and it's just utterly demoralising. I went for one interview with Britannia Building Society. It was in a pub as they had a flood. Stunning woman wearing a low cut top. I came out of that interview with a headache after spending an hour desperately trying to maintain eye contact. I got a follow up assessment morning before being rejected for not having any experience...something they knew from the first second from my CV. That was about 14k a year at the time and entry level.
If you know someone on benefits you might be better off taking them for a pint or a coffee rather than judging. [Post edited 7 Oct 13:16]
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I had a very similar experience. Except for one role I was pressured to apply for, I lacked both the necessary experience and the underlying knowledge—not even the type of knowledge that can be learned on the job! Somehow, I was still selected as the successful applicant.
I managed to last a month before being let go, which I considered a decent outcome. However, claiming unemployment benefits and navigating the idiotic associated requirements was horrendous; it was one of the worst periods of my life | | | |
| Is anyone on here claim benefits? on 12:05 - Oct 8 with 548 views | 66notout |
| Is anyone on here claim benefits? on 13:28 - Oct 7 by J2BLUE |
Stop the clock. 27 years on TWTD and i've finally done it 
Cheers.
There are a lot more experiences. Recruitment agencies repeatedly sent me for jobs where I was rejected for not having experience. I eventually thought that I was a useful idiot for them. A CV good enough to be a viable candidate but not good enough to threaten whoever they thought was the real candidate for the job.
Other agencies called me in, made me write out my entire CV on their forms as part of my registration and then never contacted me again. Another one got angry on the phone with me after I said no to going for a job that was nothing like I had told him I was looking for and was significantly below the salary requirement.
It was a miserable time. |
Thank you for sharing your experiences and for being so open. I’ve got to ask….what are you doing now? | | | |
| Is anyone on here claim benefits? on 13:37 - Oct 8 with 450 views | Billywitch |
| Is anyone on here claim benefits? on 09:57 - Oct 8 by eireblue |
“ I've never received a single penny of money/or had any help from any government.
And the more I read, the more it seems I'm a minority.”
“…not tried to climb that all important superior hill”
Not sure your OP and, other thoughts, really put you in a position of suggesting other posters are being superior.
Bit hypocritical. [Post edited 8 Oct 10:00]
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not getting help from the government is now seen as being superior.. is that what you are saying?
As certainly wasn't my words - or thoughts | | | |
| Does anyone on here claim benefits? on 13:59 - Oct 8 with 387 views | DanTheMan |
As a child, almost certainly.
As an adult, I did get maintenance grants through University which was very helpful.
Other than that, no, I've been very fortunate not to require them. |  |
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| Is anyone on here claim benefits? on 14:09 - Oct 8 with 369 views | badadski |
| Is anyone on here claim benefits? on 13:37 - Oct 8 by Billywitch |
not getting help from the government is now seen as being superior.. is that what you are saying?
As certainly wasn't my words - or thoughts |
I claimed some universal credit during a period of time between jobs after being laid off after 16 years of service for a company. I have wife and child who was under 5 at time. I already had lots of outgoings which universal credit was not enough to cover however upon claiming for it how ever it was very helpful and lead me to learn a few valuable things in life.
during the period of claiming i was seeking other employment but it was peek lockdown so no joy, they did eventually say i could do one of those courses that another poster mentioned about. He is correct they get paid by the government for each person that attends and although they seem pointless actually are not. You had to spend essentially 2 weeks in a classroom environment and filling in forms and learning packs to get a few small minor vocation certificates. At the end of doing this you then had a day or 2 to actually have the opportunity to do get a construction site green card of a doorman bouncers card. That was the carrot to get people to attend for 2 weeks.
What it actually does as it showed who was truely willing to turn up each day, get schooled, go through 2 weeks of excercises for the opportunity to then sit for the bouncer of construction site card or those who literally not bothered about gaining employment and trying to get benefits. There ofcourse are some exceptions to this.
any way if people stated they were attending then they would not be harrassed by job centre to be finding work so were actively still get universal credit through out. job centre was ringing to see who was attending or not and those that pulled out likely would get universal credit pulled back.
any way i did end up for a year on a construction site as a yard mardshall even though am a lot more skilled during lock down just to earn money.
The funny thing is i actually also worked for the company that runs these courses for 4 months before they lost the govenrment contract and made me redundant again. any way what i learned is you have to work a minimum of 16 hours to claim benefits to not be chased by the government. Once a lot of people had done this then they used every excuse under the sun to do no more hours, 16 hours of employment didnt really dent the amount of universal credit they would get but working more would so they choose not too. Staying on 16 hours indeffinatly and claiming almost 100% of benefit including housing, childcare and all other top ups.
so the figure where they say "but so many people claiming are workers is actually a faux pas to ease the publics opinion as unless you are seriously not able to work and signed off indefinatlly you have to be working to claim a lot of the support in the first place but a lot will work the minimum forever to claim max top up."
again this is from expericence of people attending the course, speaking to the job centre employees and even the people themselves that were honest in their maniuplation of the system.
It is too easy to do.
any way that was a good few years ago but my biggest learning experience through not working and having to cut back was how much money you actually need to earn just to get to work. I got rid of my car that was on a lease and by not having the car finance, insurance, mot tax running costs blah blah blah i was actually almost cutting £700 off my monthly expenditure. on top of that i cut down on meal deals, pints at the pub for lunch, news papers etc that i only got because i was at work. That cut off another £200 a month. After tax at the time that was over half of my salary taken for just the means to get to work.
slowly dawns on me how easy it is to not work if you have manipulated the system from the get go or don't have the overheads to begin with such as some one who was working and was legitimatley laid off where universal credit was helpful but not really something you could fall back on to indefinatly.
any way just my experience | | | |
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| Is anyone on here claim benefits? on 15:02 - Oct 8 with 309 views | J2BLUE |
| Is anyone on here claim benefits? on 12:05 - Oct 8 by 66notout |
Thank you for sharing your experiences and for being so open. I’ve got to ask….what are you doing now? |
I have a job I don't mind at all working from home for a betting company.
Most of my previous work has been in customer service. I thought I would be stuck in CS for life so when I escaped it for a move to another department earlier this year I was very pleased.
I think once you work in CS for any length of time it can really difficult to escape from. I think if I ever needed to, I would rather go and stack shelves than return to dealing with the general public. |  | | |
| Is anyone on here claim benefits? on 15:11 - Oct 8 with 281 views | baxterbasics |
| Is anyone on here claim benefits? on 15:02 - Oct 8 by J2BLUE |
I have a job I don't mind at all working from home for a betting company.
Most of my previous work has been in customer service. I thought I would be stuck in CS for life so when I escaped it for a move to another department earlier this year I was very pleased.
I think once you work in CS for any length of time it can really difficult to escape from. I think if I ever needed to, I would rather go and stack shelves than return to dealing with the general public. |
If you do go for the shelf stacking option, you'll need to do it overnight/out of hours because if the shop is open at the time trust me you'll still be dealing with the general public. |  |
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| Is anyone on here claim benefits? on 15:46 - Oct 8 with 234 views | BurnsisBurns |
| Is anyone on here claim benefits? on 13:37 - Oct 8 by Billywitch |
not getting help from the government is now seen as being superior.. is that what you are saying?
As certainly wasn't my words - or thoughts |
Not yet…..But things are grim in the world of employment. | | | |
| Does anyone on here claim benefits? on 16:38 - Oct 8 with 172 views | Wallingford_Boy |
No way!
And I am a little offended you even asked! |  |
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| Is anyone on here claim benefits? on 20:18 - Oct 8 with 71 views | benrhyddingblue |
| Is anyone on here claim benefits? on 15:35 - Oct 7 by wrightsrightglove |
The fact that people think like this, let alone show this level of ignorance publicly, absolutely amazes me |
Unfortunately they do, still spouting the same rubbish that has been spouted about benefits since they first existed. But I agree with you, the level of ignorance of some people is astounding [Post edited 8 Oct 20:20]
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| Is anyone on here claim benefits? on 20:24 - Oct 8 with 65 views | benrhyddingblue |
| Is anyone on here claim benefits? on 15:52 - Oct 7 by oldbeardy |
Benefit fraud/error is not at all insignificant - totals around £10 billion and for benefits that are more susceptible such as universal credit the rate is not far short of 10%. Add to this the way that the rules, complex as they are, allow - or force - people to arrange their lives to hang onto and maximise what they get and it's clear there remains a lot of waste in the system. So while the large majority rightly claim their entitlements, a significant minority defraud or game the system. Equally, lots don't claim when they could do so - again, complexity is part of the issue. Definitely an area in need of reform though it is difficult to achieve. |
How much does that compare with that lost by those who ‘game’ the UK tax system? Nothing is perfect but easier to stigmatise those at the lower end of society | | | |
| Is anyone on here claim benefits? on 20:28 - Oct 8 with 57 views | Mullet |
| Is anyone on here claim benefits? on 20:24 - Oct 8 by benrhyddingblue |
How much does that compare with that lost by those who ‘game’ the UK tax system? Nothing is perfect but easier to stigmatise those at the lower end of society |
And if the Tories/Reform and their mates paid their taxes you would see less people think they should/can do it too. |  |
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| Is anyone on here claim benefits? on 21:08 - Oct 8 with 12 views | You_Bloo_Right |
| Is anyone on here claim benefits? on 20:24 - Oct 8 by benrhyddingblue |
How much does that compare with that lost by those who ‘game’ the UK tax system? Nothing is perfect but easier to stigmatise those at the lower end of society |
Benefit Fraud and Error - Net cost £8.6bn
https://www.gov.uk/government/
Unclaimed Benefits - Net saving £24bn
https://policyinpractice.co.uk
Cost of tax evasion - £5.5bn (maybe £7bn, maybe a lot higher)
https://committees.parliament.
So if fraud & error in the benefits system were eradicated, everybody claimed the benefits to which they are entitled and tax evasion was wiped out then the country would be ........
..... approximately £10bn a year worse off.
The Chartered Institute of Taxation has some interesting things to say on taxaxtion in general
https://www.tax.org.uk/APPG-ec |  |
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