What is a fair benefits system?

[jon1965]

Re: What is a fair benefits system?

I think you are giving "working" people too much credit when you say they plan for kids. There are plenty of working families who also produce multiple children. I have some (non blood) family who had 5 kids and got a larger council house..admittedly two sets of twins when they were both working but didn't have two pennies to rub together.
Religion may also come into this as a "good" catholic may follow the teachings of no birth control (playing devils advocate here)so you are penalising them for having faith.

Finally when you are on JSA you do have to jump through many hoops not to get it sanctioned. You have to be applying for jobs and showing proof of it.

This is a subject that I do believe it misunderstood. If you have never had to claim HB etc you may well think it is easy. Until 2 years ago I thought so, yet without family I would have been homeless as it took the council 6 months to sort out my HB. It is so infuriating when they ask you questions so you give them answers then they tell you that the questions they asked weren't the right ones , but do not know what the right ones are. You feel so helpless and it makes you so angry.

You also have to remember that in all this the children are innocent so you need to make provision to look after them, what do you do, take them off the parents?

[CleverClogs]

Re: What is a fair benefits system?

Exactly right Inca, no one should have children unless they can afford them, yes I know there's exceptional circumstances such as widowhood and these ladies should be supported in full, but on 'London tonight' was a couple of women one with 2 kids and one with 6 kids whinging about losing the money, but there was no mention where the fathers are, so shouldn't the fathers be contributing to the upkeep.

Assuming, of course, that they know who the fathers might be and that those sperm donors had not been gaoled for drug trafficking or controlling prostitutes.

[CleverClogs]

Re: What is a fair benefits system?

Religion may also come into this as a "good" catholic may follow the teachings of no birth control ... so you are penalising them for having faith.

You also have to remember that in all this the children are innocent so you need to make provision to look after them, what do you do, take them off the parents?

See above.

[Inca]

Re: What is a fair benefits system?

.
I have some (non blood) family who had 5 kids and got a larger council house..admittedly two sets of twins when they were both working but didn't have two pennies to rub together...........Hardly an example then.

Please don't bring religion into this.

I saw that report Sapph and totally agree with you.

And.......why is it 'jumping through hoops' to apply for jobs and prove it? Maybe if that system had been in place a few years ago there wouldn't have been the 'dole dossing'.

[jon1965]

Re: What is a fair benefits system?

Inca
The first example was that working people planned kids and I was just disproving that theory.
Why not bring religion into it, some catholic people follow those teachings of no contraception to the letter , has an impact. Not only here but also in third world countries
Forcing people to apply for x jobs per week is counter-productive because they will apply for anything . The employer then gets lots of applications and has to waste their valuable time sifting out the rubbish before interviewing . It is all stick these days...what has happened to the carrot?

[FlamingParrot]

Re: What is a fair benefits system?

There are far too many variables at play here and, as good as they may sound when posted here, many ideas cannot be made into law without going against our basic freedoms. For example, how can you limit the number of children people have? Would you force them to have an abortion? Make them give the child up for adoption? Take the baby into care? This is the sort of thing that can only be done within a dictatorship like China, where you were only allowed one child.

Or would you just restrict benefits for large families, to discourage them from having more kids? If you look at the third world, you'll see this principle just doesn't work, people keep having kids even when they can't feed them! Is that the sort of thing we want here? Barefoot children begging instead of attending school? Because that's what we'd get! And it's not the kids' fault that their parents are scroungers, is it? Why should they suffer?

You can't force employers to hire parents of large families for the jobs that pay the most either, so even if those parents work, they'll probably still need some benefits, notably HB. I wholeheartedly agree with the idea of making fathers responsible for their kids, there are some out there who go round having children with different women and not seein or taking care of any of them, however, those fathers are often unemployed or on minimum wage and you can't get blood out of a stone.

In the end, it's a question of whether we want to live in a civilised, democratic country, in a dictatorship or in the third world. The system may be prone to abuse but it's still preferable to the alternatives. :decision:

[CleverClogs]

Re: What is a fair benefits system?

It is all stick these days...what has happened to the carrot?

Or, for that matter, the piece of freshly peeled ginger root? (link) msl:

[shell]

Re: What is a fair benefits system?

Of course what the government isn't telling us is how many outside agencies are making a fortune out of the unemployed as well. I'll give you a small example. Last year I started getting chest pains, went to my doctor and was sent to hospital with suspected angina. Now as some of you know I'm a HGV, I lost my HGV license. I work on an as needs basis, so no sick pay. My doctor told me to apply for statutory sick pay. I did, ended up doing the Atos thing, they decided \I was fit for work. Ended up at the Wise group who are one of the companies paid by the government to try and get people back to work. What a joke. First meeting was an introductory group meeting where they informed us that they don't help you with any outside training to maybe change career. Also if anybody wanted help with a CV or interview skills then they had to apply for ILA funding to pay for it. Second meeting was one to one where they decided that as I had an untreated heart problem and as I wasn't technically unemployed "I had a job to go back to", there wasn't really much they could do for me. About three weeks later I went back to my company to drive small vehicle and signed off. So yesterday I got a letter from the "Provider Payment Validation Team" (which is a government body) asking me to phone them. I did. They wanted to confirm that I had started work so that the Wise group could get paid for finding me work. I explained that they didn't find me work, I already had a job. That doesn't matter, I signed off, they get paid. To make matters worse, apparently I am on their books for the next two years and will get sparodic phone calls asking how I am doing. If I change jobs in those two years then the wise group will get paid a fee even if they have done nothing. Is it any wonder then that the unemployment bill is so high? The government is probably paying more to outside agencies than they are actual benefits.

[jon1965]

Re: What is a fair benefits system?

As normal FP puts it so well, sometimes I really hate her :hug:
It is almost impossible to find the right balance and I do believe we need to actually try and find the point it went wrong. Was in 1979, was it the building of tower blocks , was it the introduction of the pill and the permissive society (not that I am old enough to remember all that)

[CleverClogs]

Re: What is a fair benefits system?

It is almost impossible to find the right balance and I do believe we need to actually try and find the point it went wrong. Was in 1979, was it the building of tower blocks , was it the introduction of the pill and the permissive society (not that I am old enough to remember all that)

No.
It was when we gave women the vote. :behindsofa:

(Without the female vote, Iain Duncan Smith would not have been elected.)

[Inca]

Re: What is a fair benefits system?

Oh fgs,,,the days of the catholics producing copius amounts of kids and living in tiny rundown houses with the washing line in the street and grannys bloomers blowing in the wind are long gone.And we're not talking 3rd world countries on this thread,we're talking about here.

[leclerc]

Re: What is a fair benefits system?

Oh fgs,,,the days of the catholics producing copius amounts of kids and living in tiny rundown houses with the washing line in the street and grannys bloomers blowing in the wind are long gone.And we're not talking 3rd world countries on this thread,we're talking about here.

I'm not sure jon entiretly understands the Catholic dogma on the use of condoms either or the Catholic contraception which is a bit like the Iraqi Kuwait war in the early 1990's which is rush in and then beat a fast retreat as soon as you know something is cuming

[Inca]

Re: What is a fair benefits system?

'Forgive me Father for I have sinned' and a couple of dozen 'Hail Marys' sorted it out for me msl: (and I've only got one child. The outdated view of no contraception has no relevance nowadays (at least not in the world I live in).
I mentioned it to my niece last night and her words were 'If the Holy Bible and Popeydude wanna supplement me with food clothing and finances to raise 20 kids they can,,but until then I'll do what it takes NOT to have more kids'.

[jon1965]

Re: What is a fair benefits system?

Inca
Trust me the Catholic traditions are still out there although not as widely practised as they once were. I am fully aware of the Catholic view on how not to conceive, pretty unreliable by all statistics.
Don't think I am just anti catholic I am anti all organised religion as I believe that it is all about control and power but this is not the thread for it.

[leclerc]

Re: What is a fair benefits system?

Inca
Trust me the Catholic traditions are still out there although not as widely practised as they once were. I am fully aware of the Catholic view on how not to conceive, pretty unreliable by all statistics.
Don't think I am just anti catholic I am anti all organised religion as I believe that it is all about control and power but this is not the thread for it.

We are both in the same boat in terms of the anti organised religion bit but being brought up a Catholic, their doctrine on the use of condoms has softened dare I say that.