If it makes you feel better, there's nothing magical about a university degree. You need one to do certain jobs, that's all. They are not necessarily the best paying jobs however.
strange that it is estimated that £1bn is lost in errors in my 18 month experience of becoming one of cameron's lost generation.i have never known an error in my favor infact i have lost about £500 in that time in errors, over 3 cockups. My mate had worse he got kicked off the dole for 6 months because he had been told it was a certain day and it turned out to be the day before at 8 O'clock he was rang in the afternoon and was asked why he missed the appointment. Promptly explaining why, obviously thought it were an excuse, they said they'd send it to a decision maker and then he was kicked off. £1300. Once he'd got back on again and after a few months we decided to look for a hob by walking industrial estates and shopping centres that week they told him they didn't believe he'd looked for work that week and that was that that weeks money lost after 24 hours of job searching and planning. Plenty of others on the dole, DLA and incapacity have found that same that I've heard of. Also Housing benifit, child benifit and tax credit cockups for working and non working famillies. So I seriously think the net of errors is in favour of the government. Oh and no worker ever is at fault they have their arses well covered when they know they made the error and would rather see someone, who is living with their partner in a house that struggles to get food in week in week out lose weeks of money, than admit fault. Mind you woe to them if they were ever greeting their old collegues on the other side of the desk. How come I never get this monopoly card benefit error in your favour collect £100. Also I like the touch where they give claiments appointments at 9:00 am in freezing winter and stand around chatting and gabbing till everyone's phone or watch is saying its gone 9:10. Or how when there is a waiting room full of people signing on at least half the stations haven't accepted anyone in 15 minutes because half of that half is stood chatting to the others and rarely about anything serious. Or when advisor appointments come up and they say "what have you been doing in regards as to looking for work... ye...ye.. ye" "okay" " found anything " "okay thats it come back at 9 tomorrow for your signing on" Which should really come with an appology such as "sorry for wasting the 10 minute it took you to get out the house for nothing, the half an hour walk (if you walk fast) here for nothing, 10-20 minutes you sat here waiting while i clicked a screen that had nothing on it for 10 minutes after the last guy went, the 10 minutes you sat here and i asked you questions that you will be asked tomorrow, oh and sorry for the half hour walk homea and the 10 minutes will take you to get settled again" "all in all sorry for wasting 1 hour 50 minutes - 2 hours of your day and I appologise in advance for you having to do the exact same tomorrow except you get to sign a peice of paper and get told to leave so maybe only an hour and forty of your time wasted."
I dont know about that I'd be getting £60-80 a week more in a minimum wage job if my partner and I live on our own if all the benifits on top such as tax credits were done properly by us. and we'd begatting a vast amout more if we stayed living with her family. Full time work usually pays more if your eligible for tax credits.
Skimmed most of this thread but this post caught my eye. I was unemployed for 4 months. Ended up going to a food bank twice and eventually got on EI. Going from someone who made a good living to someone who had to ask for handouts is hard. So not everyone in that situation is a Bum. Far from it. I got royally screwed over. But I am ok now. Almost making as much a I was. In another year I will be. This Friday I am going to volunteer at the food bank. Going to try and give back what I took.
Well done, that’s exactly what I said. They take around £15 a week out of your JSA/ESA/IS/PC dependant on which one you are in receipt of to pay it back. If you refuse and you commence work, they can take more Nino contributions to cover it. That’s last resort and Mr Bailiff often steps in long before then. Just saying the money helps people get the stuff they need when they need it and no ‘true’ expense to anyone? Seems like you have an issue with the welfare system in general dude. *sharpens stick* Silence you. Everyone has Job Centre Plus horror stories. Like I said I’ve had it where the DWP have cancelled claims on 90-year old persons without the blindest bit of consideration for what they’ve done. Because people eventually equate down to numbers when you aren’t speaking to them on a day to day basis. Your mates is one of the shittiest I’ve heard but I’ve heard ones that nigh rival it… people losing benefits and being accused of fraud because they saw their girlfriend. There’s lots of things, someone made the comment about an overly defensive and fraud-preventative benefits system being in place that causes a lot of it. I’m not going to deny that. As for having our arses covered you’ll find that most people have the honesty to turn round and go “Sorry I made a mistake, I’ll get that sorted right now.” I’m one of them, I’ve made mistakes, I’m only human and I’ve sorted it there and then for a person and got things corrected and right. We aren’t all that bad, saying that there are some arseholes who do work within the benefit system… that’s the worst part. Hit me with this then, if you got a job in a supermarket, do you really give a **** when the customer is telling you their life story? Or do you just nod and agree regardless of your customer service facing attitude you may have? It’s kind of the same but with JCP staff these are people who get some of the world’s worst insults thrown at them daily. They work on around £14-£15K to be insulted and potentially assaulted if it gets bad. My mom’s friend works for the JCP and she’s one of the nicest people I’ve ever come across, Honest, Hardworking and commited. Doesn’t stop people being royal ******s to her at work does it? That includes management. Because we’re allowed to be angry at anything we think is morally wrong. That’s just how it is.
Correct, but this isn't a case where fire is against fire. This is a case where one person has more petrol than the other and how they aquired it. The fire in this case is social ideals. A lot of media reports on benefit claimants who can get thousands and thousands of pounds of gifts for their kids while the working actually end up barely eating over christmas. The main issue for people is that alone. Why work? It's a massive question that looms over you everytime you open a newspaper (Thus why I don't read them anymore, that and they're all biased ********). Everyone has fuel to add to the fire of social ideals... but how you got the fuel (Working, Benefits, Inheritance, Having a big wang, whoring yourself in clogs and a red dress) is what matters to people more than anything.
On a lighter note we had a family dinner recently, i was asked by some extended family why my plans where for moving out, settling down and having kids. To which i said; 'Go down the local night club, bolt my load in the thickest bint i can find, pop out 5/6 kids and sponge off everyone else, working is for mugs'. In all seriousness though my girlfriends older sisters both have 8 kids each, by all different kinds of fathers. Both of whom have never had a job, they get a house, a mini bus each. One of them deals drugs on the side, and the other puts all of her kids into childcare on a daily basis so she can go spend up her child allowance on fags and nice clothes. On the other side of the scale my cousin who is my age (22) had an unplanned baby when her contraception failed (she was using it, shes just one of the small number where it just didnt work) Super sperm maybe? Anyhows she works her arse off for her kid, shes a single mum, has 2 jobs, pays her way (yes she gets help but knowhere near the amount she could claim for). Then you have me and my girlfriend, combined income of about £35k, savings, excelent credit rating, no debt enogh for a deposit on a modest flat. Can we get a mortgage? No. So what gives, i am utterly bamused by the entire situation. Should we just bang out a few kids, 'Pass Go' and collect a free house?.
My wife knows all too well about this - as a primary school teacher she sees that kids are a mere inconvenience to parents who clearly just want the money... that is, the parents who aren't in rehab or in jail. Granted, she works in a rough part of the city, but the attitude is prevalent among many parents. It reminds me of a friend we have who has been on disability allowance with all the trimmings for in excess of 20 years. She doesn't pay for accommodation, buys nice things, saves for holidays, goes to zumba classes... but never lifts a finger to work. Since the govt decided to reassess the benefit system, naturally my friend is screwed and is having all her allowance revoked... but - unbelieveably - she is furious and wants to get a medical certificate from her GP to show that she is "unfit to work," even though she told me herself that she would work if she could get a job. Some people make me mad, really.
This is true. Personally, I've given up on the benefits, they're more trouble than they're worth for people actually trying to get by. I got my jobseeker's allowance suspended for four months because I failed to apply for one job they'd given me a number for (I forgot about it until five days later, when the deadline had passed for applications). This despite the fact that I'd applied for 14 other jobs in the meanwhile. I can't make any sense of it. Every system the government creates seems to manage to punish the legit people for using it whilst being wide open for exploitation by people with enough nerve and spare time to exploit it. **** them all, I say. Tl;DR: being on benefits turned me Tory. edit - +1 to this, in a perfect world this kind of guidance wouldn't be necessary, but it obviously is here :/
Fortunately I just started a new job after 5 months of being on JSA, but I agree the whole benefits system needs looking at. Even before I was signing on, still working 10 hours a day on site and earning money my sister (who is a young single mum) seemed to have way more disposable income than I ever did. It can't be right that she had her own flat, could afford months of driving lessons and a cheap car (she never passed her test so it never got insured or used mind) and go on a 2 week holiday this year while I was living at home and struggling to keep up with my direct debits, surely? The Jobcentre also needs to get tough on alot of people. I swear every appointment I had there was ALWAYS someone at a desk near me who hadn't brought their job diary. When asked why they'd just reel off some half-arsed excuse and just be asked what they can remember they did for that 2 week period ("Er, looked on the internet.... checked the papers, uh... phoned up about some warehouse job"... a load of BS basically), but still they get paid. It was crazy there though, I was out of work for almost 2 months before I signed on (out of sheer pride, that was the first time i'd been signed on since I was 17 years old) and even when I did say i'd been offered a job the women I had seen every 2 weeks for so bloody long was still trying to chuck money at me. "You need new work clothes now then, we can get you those", NO I DONT! JUST SIGN ME OFF I DONT WANT YOUR MONEY ANYMORE!
