Fed up with the British Welfare State?

Question

Why is it that in the UK, dole money/social security/housing benefits etc. seem to be FOR LIFE and not a short term plan to allow people who have fallen on hard times to get back on their feet? How many of you are totally fed up with busting a gut to go to work each day, and then paying a large percentage of your hard earned income to pay for lazy, spineless timewasters?

Lillypops - I know everyone is different and I have NO problem at all with state handouts to those who have fallen on hard times. Good for you to have got yourself sorted out so quickly - and with a young baby. I admire you for this.

Elvis - now who is being judgemental? I do have an open mind and did not ask this question in order to be insulted!
Keefer - I don't mean to insult anyone who has fallen on hard times and is doing their best to sort out their lives!
The question really is "who is fed up with those permanently living off the state and therefore the taxpayers".

Answer 1

Me, I was talking about this recently, let me be prime minister for a year, long enough for the lazy so and so's to get real hungry and be homeless when I don't dish the cash. I would force these people to attend a set place each morning at 7.30am, they would be given a slip of paper telling them what their job for the day is, painting old folks homes or doing their gardens, any community jobs, they would get paid a fair wage at the end of the week for the days they work. Nothing else. That's what the real workers get. So, vote for POTTY DOTTY !!!!

Answer 2

Sally J ... I share your feelings here, but the truth is that when people get into the benefit system, it becomes part of their life and often their culture. That's the way it is. It is much harder to come off benefits and have to struggle again ..... although to be fair, life on benefits is a struggle for most people anyway. The real problem arises when the benefits become 'untargeted' and remain in payment to people who don't really need them or who continue to claim with undeclared income/circumstances on the side. Benefit fraud/abuse is rife and will never change all the time that we make it so freely available. I know lots of people who are have been on high levels of benefit for most of their lives and simply have a better quality of life in many ways ... they seldom work, if ever and have lots of leisure time for meeting friends/drinking wine etc. Yes, that makes me angry because I work in a stressful job for very little more than they seem to enjoy and their lifestyle seems so much more relaxed. But I stress that many, many people on benefits remain on the poverty line. It is the cheats that we need to target but investigation resources continue to remain dismally low. It is therefore up to every member of the public to report benefit cheats ..... simply don't just moan ... do something about it. The benefit system was designed to be a redistribution of wealth to the not so well off ... a great idea in principle ... but some people just want that little bit too much and as you say, forever. We need a radical overhaul of the system but the problem remains public spending ... not enough resources to manage and control ... and add that to Human Rights and Data Protection, and you have the basis for a cauldron of abuse! Yes, I go to work and bust a gut each day too ....

Answer 3

Yup.
How you can pay tax (income tax, sales tax, death duties and the rest) amongst the highest in the world, when those on the dole are going to Ibiza or making life choices the workers cannot afford to make, is beyond me.
It seems to be changing for the better now, but time was that nearly every youth spent his dole down the pub.
Welfare and Medical is a very important part of any civilised society, and must be available to anyone who needs it - but some more thinking must be done.

Answer 4

Britain and the USA have constant high levels of Unemployment, its created deliberately to control Inflation, some get Unemployment compensation for a short time, then its Welfare or Starve. In such a system someone is always going to be without a Job, and they will always wind up on Welfare sooner or later, some remain there, some willingly some not so willingly.
When we have full Employment , that is the time to Complain, not before.

Answer 5

Yeah quite right! let's give everyone the lash who has been out of work for more than 6 months! Yeah! Lets chain them together and make them mend our crappy road system! Yeah! Let's bring back stocks and lock any malingerer in them so we can throw old food at them! Yeah! Lets throw rocks through their windows and spit on them in the street! Yeah! Lets give them all badges to wear so we know who they are and we can systematically abuse them! Yeah? Lets round them all up and place them in work camps! Yeah. Lets build gas chambers so we can eradicate them from our society so we can sleep in peace at night.... its a slippery slope folks.

I had a good job and have been trying hard to get another. JSA is around £55 quid a week. Housing benefit does not pay all my rent. Out of the £220 I have a month, I have £150 to live on. Plus bills. I am in the cheapest room in someone else's house I could find. I haven't been on holiday for 20 years since I started working. I certainly can't afford one now. Things are tough but I am not complaining. I still am so much better off than other people in the world who only have a few dollars a week to live on and no medical care and no fresh water and who have to worry where their next meal is coming from. So I am not fed up with the Welfare State. It provides a safety net for honest people who hit hard times through no fault of their own. You might need it one day. You will be glad then something is in place for you.


Ah. Sorry Sally if I misunderstood the question. I do agree that people should not see the Welfare State as a permanant situation to be in. I was so much better off working. I am a little sensitive that anyone who is unemployed tends to be seen as the same as the cheats and time wasters. As for drinking all day, and holidays to Ibiza, how do they manage that? I apologise for ranting! Kx

Answer 6

Sally J , you are far to judgemental I hope you do not have a job where you need to have an open mind. If all these people wanted to get lots of money for being lazy spineless time wasters I am sure the the UK police authority can find a role for them.

In stead of sweeping generalisations why don't you offer some sort of a positive answer to the problems we all face in society.

Answer 7

It's a tough issue, to be sure, when you can go down to a local boozer and see the same people, day in, day out, drinking their dole and having a great time because they know they don't have to get jobs. The UK is the laughing stock of Europe on this, and I wish we were more like Spain, with her previously mentioned welfare system. I'd feel bad for the people who don't abuse the system, but - in the public eye, at least, more people abuse it than use it for good.

Answer 8

Just look in Mc Donalds or somewhere similar during the day it's full of these obese ponces in designer gear give them six month to find work, if they don't/wont .. find it for them, if that means helping out our pensioners, washing off graffitti or filling holes in the road so be it, we've become a nation of selfish social climbing brats more concerned with a laptop than another human being.

Answer 9

I am fed up with the whole British state, not just the welfare part of it. It is the most ridicilous country in the world and the living proof that capitalism does not work.

Answer 10

The government really have shot themselves in the foot over this one, rules need to be far tougher, here in Spain, one can only get a benefit if one has paid in long beforehand, no such things as child benefit, so you have your child and you pay for it, simple, and no such things as housing benefit, the Uk is the laughing stock of Europe over this one!