Iain Duncan Smith's new challenge - £53 a week

[Davidc]

How can you be in receipt of benefits if you are in work? I don't understand. The whole point of JobSeekersAllowance is that you are ACTIVELY looking for work. Surely to claim it whilst working would be benefit fraud and the DWP should be stopping this if they were doing their jobs properly.

Job Seekers wasn't the only benefit. There were others which were solely based on income being too low for subsistence, hence the 60%of benefit recipients being in work, without any need for fraud.

In effect the employers were being subsidised from the public purse for paying low wages.

I've used were because all the names of benefits have been changed, and I haven't read the paper thoroughly enough to have any understanding of the new ones.

 

[postman]

This is a minefield,we all have our own views from hearing stories or knowing someone.I would like to ask the young lady who was on tv last month.22st who complained she was victimised because of her size.Why she stole from a well known supermarket.She gets JSA,she gets clothing allowance for her interviews and help with fares for the Tube.Her own words were i have had 12 interviews in 5 years.And got no jobs.My dear that is an interview once every five months,yet she has claimed job seekers allowance every week for five years.52 x 5 is a nice little earner when you only go for a job interview twice a year.

 

[ColinJ]

Her own words were i have had 12 interviews in 5 years.And got no jobs.

My cousin has applied for about 500 jobs in that time, only got invited to 3 or 4 interviews, usually gets no reply at all, and has not found a job either!

 

[addictfreak]

I'm sure he could manage for one week, it's doing it for 52 weeks a year that's the problem

Of course he could, and then stand there with that smug look on his face. Give him a year doing it and that will wipe the smile off his face.

 

[numbnuts]

It's a funny old world everybody has been talking about benefit cuts, I've just found out that I could claim housing benefit worth £1382 per year and most lightly could have claimed it for the last nine years.
I've been scrimping and saving, having no heating on and only eating very basic food (tonight I had a boiled egg and that was my dinner) haven't been on a holiday in years and having to save to buy warm clothes ect, but now I feel guilty if I claim, I'm doing all right and I get by, but should anyone have to go without just to make ends meet.
What would you do ??

 

[Arch]

Where do I sign up for this free internet you make so much use of?

Eh? I never mentioned internet.

I mentioned food, and then the fact that just electricity alone could swallow up the rest. I didn't say those were my only outgoings. There's TV licence, water, Council tax, landline, mobile and yes, internet (£10 a month mobile broadband, as it happens). What's the problem?

 

[RedRider]

It's a funny old world everybody has been talking about benefit cuts, I've just found out that I could claim housing benefit worth £1382 per year and most lightly could have claimed it for the last nine years.
I've been scrimping and saving, having no heating on and only eating very basic food (tonight I had a boiled egg and that was my dinner) haven't been on a holiday in years and having to save to buy warm clothes ect, but now I feel guilty if I claim, I'm doing all right and I get by, but should anyone have to go without just to make ends meet.
What would you do ??

100 % claim for it. Now get some advice about getting it backdated as much as you can. No reason to feel guilty.

I think there's something like £16bn benefits go unclaimed each year. This dwarfs the amount of fraud that takes place.

 

[Arch]

It's a funny old world everybody has been talking about benefit cuts, I've just found out that I could claim housing benefit worth £1382 per year and most lightly could have claimed it for the last nine years.
I've been scrimping and saving, having no heating on and only eating very basic food (tonight I had a boiled egg and that was my dinner) haven't been on a holiday in years and having to save to buy warm clothes ect, but now I feel guilty if I claim, I'm doing all right and I get by, but should anyone have to go without just to make ends meet.
What would you do ??

Well, Crankarm would have you shot, probably. Never mind, karma will get him one day.

I'd say, claim. If you're entitled, take it!

 

[Moon bunny]

Claim. Every penny that goes on benefits cannot be given to the laughably named Ministry of "Defence" to waste on their organised hooligans.

 

[djb1971]

It's a funny old world everybody has been talking about benefit cuts, I've just found out that I could claim housing benefit worth £1382 per year and most lightly could have claimed it for the last nine years.
I've been scrimping and saving, having no heating on and only eating very basic food (tonight I had a boiled egg and that was my dinner) haven't been on a holiday in years and having to save to buy warm clothes ect, but now I feel guilty if I claim, I'm doing all right and I get by, but should anyone have to go without just to make ends meet.
What would you do ??

If you've worked and contributed to the country over the years you're entitled to it. If you've just got off a plane and never paid anything into the country or never worked since you left school because you couldn't be bothered ( or 'struggled to find work' as its being called on the ITV news) you don't deserve it.

You decide which of those you come under.

 

[djb1971]

[QUOTE 2390434, member: 259"](sorry, couldn't be bothered or 'struggled to find work' find work,according to djb1971) [/quote]

selective reading again

 

[MossCommuter]

Eh? I never mentioned internet.

I mentioned food, and then the fact that just electricity alone could swallow up the rest. I didn't say those were my only outgoings. There's TV licence, water, Council tax, landline, mobile and yes, internet (£10 a month mobile broadband, as it happens). What's the problem?

You have summarised my point very well. "Living" on £53 per week by adopting the parsimony you describe would not be much of a life at all. It think I was probably agreeing with you

 

[threebikesmcginty]

[QUOTE 2390434, member: 259"]So he's now admitting he's been unemployed (sorry, couldn't be bothered or 'struggled to find work' find work,according to djb1971) for two periods in his life and so he knows what it's like to live on the breadline. So, how much was he claiming back in the seventies and eighties, and how does that compare with what these feckless scroungers are raking in nowadays?[/quote]

Is his unemployment as true as his scholastic achievements do you think?

 

[snorri]

would like to ask the young lady who was on tv last month..

The clue is "on tv last month". People get on tv because of their unusual circumstances and not because they are one of many in the same boat.

 

[Alun]

Why all the posts about living on £53pw? Isn't the JSA rate £71pw, not that that's a great deal.