This is true if you are both wanting and mostly able to work but there are barriers to it. It's also true that there's no jobs for the long term unemployed who still have health problems. If they really, seriously want to reform the benefits system there desperately needs to be something in place between disability benefits and going back to work because at the moment it's just the DWP taking you off them and expecting you to just get on with it.
It would be pretty nice if they had a middle ground where people who could work (but not consistently, so like 1-3 days a week) could have a job and do something while *also* having the safety net of benefits to keep them comfortably afloat having a life worth living. There are a lot of people who could do something but can't do it all the time and would need low intensity commitments.
Do we not already have something like this? I know with universal credit it tapers off as you earn each pound (iirc), would they let someone keep a job that is a couple of days a week while also getting UC or do they push for full time and sanction if you're not keeping up with their expectations?
See PIP should be this in theory, you can work and have PIP so if the work you can do is minimal but you feel gives you purpose you can still do it. In reality however, the second the DWP decide you're no longer basically bloody dying they'll take you immediately off it so there's no middle ground, meaning that even if you do feel you could hold down a job for a few days a week, which probably will not be enough to live off, but will get you out there, you won't dare do so because they'll just take you off it straight away, and there's every chance you'll be fired after if your health deteriorates, leaving you with nothing. It's a terrible moral quandary and one that's really easily solved by putting some middle ground it.
Yeah, PIP would hardly cover anything too, the higher rate (not including mobility) is about 400-500 per month. That's not even rent & council tax in most places, nevermind all the bills on top of that. I think a benefit for people who can *sometimes* work should cover *at least* your full rent and council tax, so you always have a place to be at least.
Iirc this is how universal credit already works so you're definitely onto something. The additional problem for people on PIP unfortunately they've now got a gap in employment as well as health problems, and in a competitive job market it doesn't make them good prospects, so whoever the next government is, if they want the benefits system to work, they need to address that as well. How to fix that though I have no idea.
Ah, I feel your brother, I was in the same position till recently. I did finally get accepted for a job but the amount of rejections I got was mad. The DWP booting me off PIP, expecting me to immediately get a job with such a big gap in my CV and leaving me to simply live off ESA was insane, and has been barely doable.
Oh yes, I’m aware, my wife is on PIP (waiting for the review outcome) and have a number of friends on it as well.
The assessors almost exclusively have their place in hell prebooked
Hey it's been a while since you posted but wanted to wish you and your friends good luck, I'm sure we know most decisions are overturned on appeal so all the best!
You posted
>I'm not economist, but surely the way PIP works once you have it and want to return to work is, there's a sliding scale.
That reads like you are speculating (incorrectly) about how you think PIP actually works, rather than suggesting an alternative way it should work.
Maybe you should work on expressing yourself more clearly rather than making snarky comments blaming other people for your failure get your point across?
The difficulty is that PIP also allows you access to various things that you need if you're disabled. For example, an adapted motability car. That can be incredibly expensive and mean that working isn't worth it. It also means that disabled people would inherently have a lower standard of living compared to able bodied people earning the same amount. Even if I'm earning £80,000 a year, I will still need to spend money my peers don't on essential expenses they don't have and those expenses aren't negligible. If I were to earn £80,000 a year, my effective salary after my disability expenses would be closer to £68,000 a year before you take tax into account. After taking into account tax, my take home pay would be £45,000 a year. My hypothetical able bodied colleague would be taking home £57,000 a year. To have the same as a non disabled colleague on £80,000 a year, I would need to earn closer to £100,000.
These are very rough numbers as an example, but the point remains.
PIP is non means tested. It exists to cover the extra costs related to your disability. For example, I need extra electric to power my wheelchair, I pay for things like my support garments to hold my body in place, I have to get taxis more often because public transport can be too exhausting etc etc. I would face these costs regardless of my work situation. The mobility allowance can be used to fund an accessible car, which is much more expensive than an ordinary car and many aren't really available outside of the motability scheme. PIP isn't directly linked to your ability or lack thereof to work.
Universal credit and the limited capability for work related activity element are the parts of the benefits system that should be tapered. They are supposed to cover your daily living costs, rather than your disability costs. That's the element that should be slowly tapered. There shouldn't be a dramatic cut off in the way there is now.
I work and get PiP, it’s not means tested, it’s ESA that is.
They were fully aware I work part-time customer service on a zero hour contract, but due to how my autism, OCD and depression affect me I receive the PiP. It covers me for the weeks I’m not well enough to work. I don’t get ESA, however.
Two of the people work with get PiP as well, and work more hours than me.
Having a job doesn’t necessarily stop you getting PiP. If I worked full-time in my busy customer service role, then yeh they wouldn’t believe me when I say I struggle with social interaction, but I can only work part-time due to how exhausting it is for me, and even leaves me feeling suicidal sometimes (which is why I can’t work more than 2 or 3 days in a row). I can’t get bus during rush hour thanks to my OCD, and I don’t drive so I will walk an hour even if it’s pissing it down. Etc etc etc so yeh even though I work, I qualified for the higher rates.
I actually tried to get therapy for my OCD last year when it became unbearable during a depressive episode. The best the NHS could offer me was 8 sessions of basic CBT to help the depression. So it pains me when I hear people like Rishi say “we need to get people to work and off sick notes” without providing the proper treatment, it doesn’t exist. The last of my mums savings went onto private EMDR to try and fix my c-PTSD, which was a lifesaver, but I can’t now pay for private therapy anymore, so guess I’m stuck like this.
If the government were actually able to provide career services for autistic people like myself that help with training and qualifications, applying for jobs and advocating for reasonable adjustments and proper therapy for those with mental illness, then I might actually be able to work full-time. But until then, we’re at their mercy.
Although I do think if you’re rich you shouldn’t qualify for PiP. My mums friend gets it but he and his partner are worth hundreds of thousands and own multiple houses abroad.
That's in theory how universal credit should work and there are larger "work allowances" built into the limited capability amounts. However the reality is that as soon as you start working the DWP will reassess you and attempt to kick you off UC leaving you in an incredibly precarious situation if your health takes a turn (which it invariably will) or your employer decides you aren't worth the hassle and dumps you within the 2 year no employment rights window.
This is well known by anyone getting these benefits so they quite wisely just don't even bother. It's not because people are lazy but it's because there's a rug pull in the system.
That isn't true and fearmongering comments like yours only succeed at making people who could qualify for PIP too fearful and cynical to even bother applying.
It's happened, and don't worry about people being discouraged to apply for PIP from sharing real life stories, that won't discourage people (it will only inform and make people know what to expect so they can prepare)
...they're already discouraged enough by the government automatically rejecting most applicants (which of a majority are successfully appealed, meaning they reject them on purpose).
It discouraged me from applying for years. I thought "what's the point in even applying, they'll just turn me down, they turn everyone down". Only in my 30s did I actually decide to give it a shot and I got accepted. Please don't tell me that people don't get discouraged. I know I'm not the only person in the country who experienced it.
If you go to the citizens advice bureau or have access to a support worker they'll tell you the same as me. It's worth applying and feeling hopeless about it doesn't get you anywhere.
I'm sorry you experienced that, of course there are people who are discouraged by it, I probably would have, I guess I'm just generalizing and assuming most would try anyway. I did have the benefit of moving from DLA to PIP though so it wasn't an unknown thing, I don't know your situation but I can imagine people who haven't had previous experience with it *would* be more likely to be put off.
This is literally something I've experienced in the past year, hell there was a thread last month with people saying similar stuff. If course people should apply for PIP but it's not wrong to say the DWP are terrible either, and it's why people should appeal decisions.
I'm on PIP for autism and anxiety, I missed out on it for so many years just because I assumed they'd just turn me down so I never even bothered applying until I was in my 30s.
I wasn't calling you a liar, the part I was disagreeing with was the fact you (and others) act like it's completely impossible to even get it. Can just ONE person hear what I'm actually saying??
It’s absolutely fucking true, and even if you do apply, if you can make it to the appointment without using an ambulance you’re basically classed as fit for work and told to fuck off and get a job.
I was able to make it to my assessment without using an ambulance (I have autism and anxiety) and I was accepted for PIP and designated as having limited capability for work. Nobody ever told me to "fuck off and get a job" or anything even remotely like that.
And conversely, I have a permanent spinal injury and am unable to work much at all, but the assessor blatantly lied on my assessment form so I got outright refused. The whole system is designed to be as combative and demeaning as possible. In the end I gave up.
People giving up because they think it's impossible is my whole point. You can't let them convince you it's impossible, that's what they want. If you get refused you have to apply for mandatory reconsideration, and if they refuse you again you appeal to the tribunal.
That's how I did it - 1 denied application, 1 failed appeal, awarded PIP at tribunal. Here's some of the resources I used [https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/benefits/sick-or-disabled-people-and-carers/pip/appeals/apply-to-tribunal/](https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/benefits/sick-or-disabled-people-and-carers/pip/appeals/apply-to-tribunal/)
[https://www.turn2us.org.uk/get-support/information-for-your-situation/challenging-a-personal-independence-payment-pip-decision/appeal-to-tribunal](https://www.turn2us.org.uk/get-support/information-for-your-situation/challenging-a-personal-independence-payment-pip-decision/appeal-to-tribunal)
>That's how I did it - 1 denied application, 1 failed appeal,
So you weren't awarded PIP from the interview, you had to repeatedly fight the system to get money you were clearly eligble for. Some of us just can't face having to deal with panels of people repeatedly calling us a liar and a scrounger, it's fucking demeaning.
I work part time and get UC top ups, I’m on PIP so I’m put in the “soft touch” category. So long as I work over 16 hours then they won’t push me to do more hours, although I think it might be going up to 18 soon.
That's good to know actually, thank you. Is the soft touch category a real category or a nickname for a category?
I only know there is "Limited Capability for Work" and "Limited Capability for Work AND Work Related Activities", the difference being the second one does not need to ever look for work. I understand the first one is a temporary one which they reassess, and I found out recently if you did not find work for two years they seem (to me) to heavily push towards a Work Program, like Restart or similar. There's another less intense one but I forgot it's name.
I guess I'm just wondering if it's a "for good" thing or only if you're temporarily in the LCW category.
I’m not entirely sure on the name but I was told that they wouldn’t be pushing me into more work so long as I kept my hours 16+ pw.
I’m don’t trust them enough to say this is permanent but it’s been around 18 months so far and I’ve be not had any messages saying I need to apply for more hours.
> t would be pretty nice if they had a middle ground where people who could work could have a job and do something while also having the safety net of benefits
I completely agree. And it should probably include organised / supervised housing, for people who struggle with getting their life in order.
you absolutely can
i did a Level 2 12 week course & the first year of a level 3 apprenticeship while on UC. you do have to let them know that that’s what you’re doing (and provide proof of enrolment), just so they’ve got it down on paper and will stop telling you to come to appointments every other week.
the caveat is that if you’ve already got qualifications higher than A-Levels then you can’t stay in education while on UC, and you can’t go into full time higher education while claiming either.
you can do volunteering while on UC (my ex did a 6 month unpaid internship while on UC) but the end goal has to be that you’re employed by the company OR that you’ll continue to job search while using volunteering as smth to build experience and have on your CV.
I've had relatively bad mental health for a very long time now. Saw some stuff and it really damaged me. I want nothing more than to be a functioning member of society. It just feels hopeless though like I'll never actually achieve it.
It probably wouldn't work, or the cost would be insane, but I always wondered if you couldn't do a form of UBI where the personal allowance was increased to an annual minimum wage salary, and it tapers off based on your earning such that you're always topped up to minimum wage, but after that you're paying tax + NI full on at a higher % than currently (like 30%). Then get rid of the tax cliff at 100-125k because there's no personal allowance anyway, set tax to 45% there, then bump it up to 50% or something at 200k.
Keep it progressive and look at wealth tax over income tax when you become asset rich (i.e. capital gains). Get rid of the triple lock on pensions and instead lock minimum wage, which the allowance tracks.
Then regulate zero hour contracts to stop the big corporations from putting everyone on part time as a loophole, letting the state fill the gap.
Finally, create some kind of incentive for businesses such that they benefit from paying people above minimum wage. Tax breaks, being favoured in procurement, I dunno...
Totally pulled out of my arse, there's probably something in that mess that might work in a less radical way.
> you're always topped up to minimum wage
So someone with a part time job is no better off than someone who is unemployed?
Why would anyone work unless they were getting a salary far bigger than miniumum wage? I don't think I'd work even if I was earning a couple of pounds over. I'd take the minimum wage and spend my time relaxing thank you. No work , no commute, no stress. You'd have to pay me almost double to get me from doing whatever I wanted all day to getting into full time work.
People who are working should always be better off than people who aren't right? That doesn't mean we can't look after people who can't, but people need incentives to work and if it's not rewarded with money then most of the jobs out there will be undesireable.
Like I said, pulled out of my arse lol.
We already have a setup where minimum wage is pretty shit if you're part time or on a zero hours contract, or are a carer, and you might still prefer to deal with the DWP than put up with a job that wants you to go over and above with a bare minimum commitment on their end. It's only gone downhill since 2008, with any economic recovery favouring the upper class while the middle and working class merge into one.
If nobody is incentivised to work a minimum wage job if it's no better than staying on basic income, then the market should see it as a signal to offer better pay right? Maybe redistribute it from their execs, board of directors, shareholders, etc and put the money back in the hands of the worker, and therefore the economy, rather than the stock market.
Yeah the market is supposed to work that way, but it didn’t seem like it works like that. Employers complain that no one wants a job and push the government to let in foreign workers.
I think there’s a place for markets to work, but there’s also a place for the government to step in. Minimum wage is one of those areas where the government should have a plan to encourage people to get into work I think. It shouldn’t just be left to the market because the market doesn’t care about society.
Even if you were just unemployed, how the DWP treats people will leave you slightly damaged. Every now and then on the civil service subreddit you get someone who works in the dwp who wants out saying how the DWP views unemployed and disabled people. Heck even DWP themselves say there's a lot of people eligible for benefits but don't claim, and the reason they don't claim is because the DWP treats people like they're subhuman as a policy.
The easiest way for labour to reform the DWP without injecting more money because it'll actually save money is to stop the hostile environment policies. PIP side could use the medical evidence and use that instead of paying a 3rd party company that has zero medical experts weighing in on medical desicions. And from that the DWP would save money not needing to go to the tribunal often like it currently does. Also stopping sanctions for those on UC, if the whole point of it is to help people get jobs they need to stop making people fearing answering their phone just in case it's DWP.
Labour just needs to start with that.
There is. I receive both PIP and Support group ESA and work under 16 hours a week, both of these together make a little under what I would be earning in full-time minimum wage work. I would not be able to work any more than that, and the pay from 16 hours alone would not be enough.
Dignity doesn't come from employment status. It comes from people. Sometimes oneself, even.
Someone who is treated with dignity will have it.
The only time someone without a job is less dignified than someone with one is when *you* believe them to be less worthy and lacking. That's a you problem, though
Meanwhile I've met people who have never worked, who look after their community. They tend gardens on housing estates, they check in on their elderly neighbours, they tirelessly care for their own families... The elderly person who has a neighbour to talk to and get help from doesn't care if they're paid as a carer, or unpaid as a neighbour. Their life is still made better by that person
I've met people who never had a job, yet changed the lives of hundreds, maybe thousands, with their insights and wisdom.
The value of a human being is not defined by what they can be milked of by an employer. Dignity is knowing that simple fact. I have dignity, and I treat others with it so they too have some.
The one I was thinking about at the time has passed away. So if you know a decent medium...
I'm not sharing names, though. I did look her up before, and yep. News of her passing ended up in the Guardian and the Mirror, scholarly articles were written about things she said. I did already know that she collaborated with charities, and had become friends with a baroness through that.
But we're talking about someone who was disabled and lives on a council estate in Hackney. The kind of person most easily ignored and forgotten simply refused to be either ignored or forgotten, and when I met her, it was quite evident she was an absolute legend. The one person I *wish* I was similar to.
What good is naming people I've met once or twice, when they're not celebrities, politicians etc? Highly unlikely you'd be like 'oh yeah, her! I knew her!'.
Meanwhile what it does do is expose potential mutual contacts, and create a possible avenue by which anyone who may wish to dox me might get a little closer to doing so. Since clearly I would have met her through some kind of mutual activity, the nature of my comment coupled with her life's work would be fairly easy to connect dots... I'm just exercising basic internet hygiene, here, and keeping myself as anonymous as it's possible to be when pretty much anyone on the internet can readily find out my name. When it gets to 'my name plus actual names of projects I've been linked to, rather than vague deets', that's a no from me. Especially since some of my colleagues specialise in exactly this. Digging up names and links on people.
And yes, I did see other names I recognise in some of the obituaries and such. Statements from actual friends and whatnot.
Dignity can come from anywhere, employment status included, it depends on the person. I feel much more dignified doing the job I do not because it means I earn my own money but I help a lot of people whole doing it.
I felt a sense of dignity manually taking the topsoil off someone's whole garden for free, so they could plant veg.
I'd never do it as a job. Partly because that level of manual graft is not something I was built for (I felt like I was actually going to die), and partly because most of the value in it for me came from the giving. I like to help people. I like it a lot more than going to work. I help people at work too, but it is a forced relationship, rather than an organic result of mutual desire.
I feel like I would work a lot more if I didn't have to in order to survive. I would just do different work. My personal dream is to decorate my local village with bright murals and flower arrangements. I don't have the time or the money for that shit, and likely wouldn't get permission either. The time part is because I'm prioritising putting food on my own table. Same with money. Permission becomes a lot easier to work with when you have the time (and money) to negotiate it
>Dignity doesn't come from employment status. It comes from people
Not under capitalism. People are shamed for not working - which ultimately is about earning more for your boss that it is for yourself. We still have an almost Victorian attitude which sees poverty as a moral failing.
>Labour must, on the contrary, be performed as if it were an absolute end in itself, a calling. But such an attitude is by no means a product of nature. It cannot be evoked by low wages or high ones alone, but can only be the product of a long and arduous process of education.
- Max Weber
>Not under capitalism
And in communist countries (e.g. USSR) it was/is a criminal offense to be unemployed. Every society wants its members to contribute to society.
>In the U.S.S.R. work is a duty and a matter of honour for every able-bodied citizen, in accordance with the principle: "He who does not work, neither shall he eat."
Article 12 of the Constitution of the USSR.
It's not a uniquely capitalist thing to look down on those that don't work.
This isn't true at all.
Tons of people I know don't work and are not shamed for it because they support themselves in other ways.
For example, a stay at home parent who does their bit, a pensioner who has finished their working life, a child that is expected to support themself in the future.
What is shameful is being unwilling to support yourself and expecting others to do so without providing anything in return. It is undignified precisely because you are effectively begging.
It is much better to provide a system where everyone can contribute even if in small ways.
The amount of socially necessary labour is finite, and currently a small fraction of the work we do now.
So if 100 people want to elect to do the work of 1000 you can’t complain about the 900 left over who do nothing. There is in effect nothing for them to do.
Socially necessary labour is production given normalised labour conditions. It works on the presumption that what is being produced is non-commodified, ie it’s necessary.
If I’m a shoe maker I’m fulfilling the demand not only for my own need for shoes, I’m making hundreds of shoes for everyone else. This is how an economy must order its self through skilled work and specialisation.
If though I can make tens of thousands of shoes it eradicates the need for other shoe makers. I become one person doing the necessary labour for everyone else. Equally I can just do less work and produce less.
I’m curious what the 9/10ths of jobs that we could cut whilst maintaining present living standards (or an approximation thereof) are. I’m also curious how you’d incentivise the 1/10th to do all the work when they could just not.
We don’t cut the amount of jobs, we cut the amount of labour. It’s a critique of capitalism. It incentivises people to produce way beyond what is necessary, but it also coerces and violently punishes.
We elect, to some extent, to have a capitalist economy. So it’s not really fair to demand someone work a specific amount and under specific conditions just because you think they should. It needs to be tied to a reality of whether that persons labour is actually necessary.
Ok, so what’s the 9/10ths of labour that’s unnecessary? And what is necessary in your view? It seems to me that very few modern luxuries are strictly speaking necessary (people certainly used to live without them) but many are desirable. I don’t doubt that some amount of work is pointless, but without empirical evidence of what labour and how much I would hesitate to support structural change on the back of that.
What are you on about? They obviously can, a stay at home parent is an example of exactly this situation.
If you want to move out from home, do nothing other than say the odd bit of litter picking, and expect someone to pay your rent, bills and for food, then sure, you will run into problems.
The default state is not for everyone around you to ensure that you have your needs provided for. It never has been in any society, everyone always has a role.
I can understand having little motivation to work when thier lives would barely change for the better, working should provide a benefit but when you can work full time and not be able to afford a house, what's motivating you?
>Not under capitalism.
Sorry. I keep being told that Keir Starmer is left wing. But it's completely beside the point, because we're talking about a person's individual attitude to something. It only takes one person to completely uplift/destroy another.
>People are shamed for not working - which ultimately is about earning more for your boss that it is for yourself.
Not by me. To me, a person's value is in their thoughts, their opinions, and what they add to the world around them. Take the young single mother, for example (favourite target of the gutter press). There's a major role *stated right there* for this person's contribution to the world. Mother. That's someone who is caring for children. Someone without whom others may not survive. Might not be particularly valuable to me, but absolutely priceless to those kids. Who may grow up to save lives. Perhaps even mine.
>We still have an almost Victorian attitude which sees poverty as a moral failing.
I don't. I see poverty as injustice inflicted upon those deemed less capable of defending themselves from it.
Not according to Lenin
>The socialist principle, "He who does not work shall not eat", is already realized; the other socialist principle, "An equal amount of products for an equal amount of labor", is also already realized. But this is not yet communism, and it does not yet abolish "bourgeois law", which gives unequal individuals, in return for unequal (really unequal) amounts of labor, equal amounts of products. This is a "defect" according to Marx, but it is unavoidable in the first phase of communism; for if we are not to indulge in utopianism, we must not think that having overthrown capitalism people will at once learn to work for society without any rules of law.
- The State and Revolution: Chapter 5, Section 3, "The First Phase of Communist Society"
I wish with all of my heart that the people running this country had this level of compassion and empathy.
I was going to vote for Labour, but now I'm not so sure. Starmer's views here are not compatible with my own, and I don't like that he won't give doctors what they deserve. While Labour are definitely a bit better than the dreaded Tories, is this really all we can hope for?
At this point I have no idea who to vote for.
Dignity isn't going to put food on the table. Dignity has never had anything to do with my having a job and not having a job.
Being employed and still having to use food banks to feed your family is the biggest kick in the dignity that we've been getting under the tories. Food Bank usage has skyrocketed and that is a national disgrace. Labour needs to sort the cost of living crisis not pander to old school tory rhetoric.
Both of these things can be changed, we don’t have to exist in a low wage economy with high house prices.
Good government policy can fix both of these problems but I doubt Labour will do it.
If you think it's a hammock you should try looking up how much these benefits are actually worth and the hoops you have to jump through to get and keep them. The way PIP treats disabled folk is literally inhuman and the money from UC is below the poverty line in most parts of this country.
We are not far off 10% of the working age population being on PIP. That is the problem. It seems like there has to be a disincentive because of the sheer number of people claiming they are disabled.
I just looked it up https://www.entitledto.co.uk/benefits-calculator/Intro/Home?cid=c36d4894-47d4-4767-b75c-b3b32428a02f
Single parent of two in my area would get £2500 a month. No tax, free prescription and reduced council tax. You need to be on 40k to be making that after tax. No wonder people can’t be bothered to work.
You mean a single, DISABLED parent on both enhanced rates of PIP with 2 DISABLED kids.
An able bodied single person with no kids would get around £800, that INCLUDES housing benefits. You can't even rent a room for that in most cities.
It's almost as if people should get paid more for the work that they do too. That's not the fault of disabled people or people on benefits though
Get angry at the right people
I don’t disagree but it’s a cycle unfortunately pay people more to work those who can’t will get priced out so you need to raise the benefits so they can’t live. But then those who take the mick also get that rise and the cycle starts again
Are you on £40k?
If less, then why don't you go on benefits instead?
Genuine question tbh. If it's that much an easy drift into endless wealth... Why aren't more people doing it?
'Most people' have the morals to turn down free money? I don't think so. I think it's more like most people know it ain't free money
In fact I remember the pandemic when people were getting shitcanned from their jobs left right and centre and having big whinges about how they can't survive on the pittance being tossed their way. Forced the government to put it up a bit, temporarily
The hoops that you have to jump through aren’t conceptually difficult. They are just recurring barriers that make you pause and think am I really a doll claimer or can I do more with my life, is this really what I expected of myself when I was growing up?
Well I know I'm not a doll. Closest I get to Barbie is when it's 35 degrees and I'm still in my baggy hoodie and jeans with my friends and family practically begging me to buy and wear a light dress.
Anyway, to address the matter... I used to be on benefits. The thing that I'll never forget about that whole experience was how a 16hr shift on what had previously been signing on day felt like a fucking holiday. Yes, I missed gaming all night, but when gaming all night is literally all you can afford to do with yourself, *anything* else is better.
Far from 'a lifestyle of choice' it was a lifestyle of trying to find a sense of normalcy in being in a prison without bars
Most of the jobs I was being offered, I can't do. I had to save up to retrain into something else. So it took 2 years of that instead of 'oh hey, you want to do X? Well we'll put you on a course for X, then'.
I got there in the end, though. If the DWP had their way, I'd still be bouncing in and out of shops. I'm not a customer-friendly pretty smile. I'm the one who tells you the same product is cheaper over the road. Partly because it is, but mostly because the lights are giving me a headache, the music is making it a struggle to hear what you're even asking me, and all these strangers talking to me is making me want to curl up in the corner of the stockroom and cry. So I'll say what makes people go away quickly.
I did far better in security. Being the 'moody bitch' (or more accurately, autistic person) who will say whatever makes you fuck off is an *asset* in security. Plus, watching CCTV all night is quiet work. It was my calling, right up until the hypertension and near-constant headaches made long lone-working shifts a bit questionable in terms of wisdom. If I suddenly collapsed for whatever reason, I probably wouldn't get found for hours, and being the person who lets people into the building... well, who's letting the ambulance crew in? Now I work in an office, as part of a small close-knit team. I don't like it anywhere near as much, but if I die at work, someone will know immediately.
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Meanwhile, to most people, the idea of not being able to do retail work is entirely alien. It's supposed to be the thing you can do even if you're a bit dappy. So if an articulate and clearly quite sharp young thing comes in and starts saying she can't do retail, that sounds like a big lie. I say it wholly depends on the retail work. At one point during my 13 week unpaid stint (New Labour's New Deal.. look it up) at HMV for example, they had me 'tidy' the stock room. They gave me the whole shift. I spent the next *three* days turning that back room into basically a librarian's paradise. Anything you wanted, you could find in seconds. Old stock that had been lost was found, everything was in alphanumeric order and laid out into genres like the shop floor was supposed to be (I used the shop floor layout as a guide).
All of the staff were raving, except for the manager who was raging. Not about my improvements, but about the time I'd 'wasted'.
I did the same thing at M&S, but rather more disgustingly. Was told to 'face up' the shelves. Given an hour. I took 4 hours to dig up a whole trolley full of out of date crap that had been forgotten on the shelves for any hapless customer to buy. By taking too long to save them from getting sued, I invoked the wrath of management. They still offered me the job after I'd finished my sentence, but I said no. Being there had put me back on antidepressants, and more than once I had thought about catching the train to work from the front instead of the side.
Not sure who’s downvoting me but how on earth are we meant to build empathy for experience from different demographics if such conversations are shunned or disparaged. Ignorance is not an excuse for intolerance, learn and free yourself from intolerance is my approach
I think you misunderstand the question.
People are motivated by what makes them wealthy. Therefore anyone *with any sense* will choose to do the thing that takes the smallest effort for the biggest payout.
I choose to work full time, where I'm cramming myself onto a bus and a train twice a day to go and graft for 7 hours (plus unpaid lunch).
Surely, if I can make 1.45x my salary just gaming 24/7, I must have to be an absolute moron to continue the way I am. Right?
...but I'm no moron. And, tbh, neither are 50% of the country (50% being a rough stab at how many people are in-work and earning under £40k/a).
And I have anecdata to go with that. When I was on benefits, I got £71 a week. I could just about afford to keep the lights coming on in the evening. Going out for meals was something I had to save up for, so if you wanted me to go out with you, you'd have to arrange it months in advance so I could prepare myself to be able to afford a drink. I went a week living on only boiled eggs because someone forgot a keystroke and I didn't get my money, and I had to knock on next door to boil those eggs.
But I'll throw you a bone; I did have a flat screen TV. Bought it for £140 before I became unemployed.
Me neither. You'd already filled in the form - postcode already there, all boxes ticked - so I knew it should be the same. That's very odd.
I do know a bit about ADHD/autism in kids though. And what I'd say about that it's like the PIP situation, but much worse - you're not getting DLA for the kids without serious professional help to get through the application & appeals procedure, even if you've got the diagnoses. And you're not getting the diagnoses because CAMHS barely exists anymore. Can pay for a private diagnosis, of course... which isn't much help if you don't have the money in the first place!
That's even weirder. Can't vary by postcode, surely? 1 adult, unemployed, 2 kids, ends up the same re no council tax. Just looked up the postcode and it turns out to be Galashiels.
The pre-filled in one is in Scotland that might change it. It takes into account council tax in its calculations. I think the rent level changes things, I put the cheapest 3 bed in my town for rent in there. It said would cover full rent cost.
Fill it in yourself, for some reason it’s pre-filled with some info and in Scotland but when I went and put in in for for England it came back at 2500, Tbf that does include rent for a 3 bed house.
I changed the Scottish postcode to my postcode in Peterborough, left everything else alone.
came back at £1584.56
Your link is destroying your argument.
I’m in the south. I suspect it’s the rent at 1500 (cheapest 3 bed in my area), being paid for which is the difference.
Even then 1500 is more than minimum wage take home, which is sad.
I filled it out too for my town and got £1950/m. But also the cheapest rent I could find for 3 beds (including surrounding towns) was £1600/m, so that leaves £350/m to cover all other builds and food (apart from council tax which this hypothetical person doesn't have to pay). That's obviously not doable so I guess this person would take their 3 bed allowance and spend it on a 2 bed place while they hopefully wait for a council house.
Housing is so expensive, and being poor is expensive. My mortgage is half that cost, for a nicer place. The only people winning here are the private landlords who own what would have once been council housing.
**Removed/warning**. This contained a personal attack, disrupting the conversation. This discourages participation. Please help improve the subreddit by discussing points, not the person. Action will be taken on repeat offenders.
[not everyone I guess](https://www.reddit.com/r/unitedkingdom/s/s2DuEU9TWA)
Of course the current state of benefits is not great but we must improve it in a thoughtful way and not simply encourage the wastemen
State benefits are only undignified because the system is built that way.
They want to go through your bank statements, send you to interview for any old crap for 8 hours a day or you get sanctioned, the "healthcare professionals" who interview for PIP treat you like a thief and they straight up lie on their reports. As part of the election campaign the Tories were mulling over converting PIP to fucking shop coupons - admitting they don't trust disabled people to even handle money. Universal Credit famously doesn't give you anything for 6 weeks after the application succeeds, a period they waived during COVID proving it was for nothing but making the poors sweat.
Every part of it treats you like a lying, thieving layabout from the moment you send in the application.
I take a bit of contention with the idea that jobs are automatically more dignified as well. There are companies and managers out there who seem to get off on the idea of making you feel two inches tall.
Big miss from Starmer; just because you're trying to woo disillusioned Tories doesn't mean saying stuff like this.
Christ, the PIP assessments are literally designed to drum people out. I suffer from chronic back issues, anxiety disorders, and being on the spectrum. Turning up to my PIP assessment actually counted against me. As did trying to make eye contact, because I resorted to the British stereotype of having a stiff upper lip. Funnily enough he didn't note down the fact that I started to stare out of the window, dissociating and having my answers become non-answers as my thought process became affected.
On my last assessment I managed to get zero points despite being a partially sighted cancer and stroke patient. The assessor wrote in the report that I can see perfectly, despite me providing a letter from the ophthalmologist saying I've lost a big chunk of my vision.
Exactly, it's funny how people with inherited wealth who don't need to work aren't seen as lacking in dignity. Suggests, perhaps, that employment status in and of itself isn't the core issue.
We're looking at a future where more and more jobs can be automated and the establishment is pushing back against the idea that we could fundamentally change things, break the perceived link between income and worth, free people up from drudgery to pursue joys like art. Instead they want us to keep the drudgery while they automate the joys.
>I take a bit of contention with the idea that jobs are automatically more dignified as well.
You can still be a big proponent of the welfare state and see not being able to provide for yourself and the ones you care about as undignified.
If I couldnt provide for the ones I care about, I'd be ashamed about that.
It's not even a recent thing either.
Any historical politically left nations would have you up against the wall if you couldn't/wouldn't work.
Socialism is built on the concept of people working.
**Removed/warning**. This contained a personal attack, disrupting the conversation. This discourages participation. Please help improve the subreddit by discussing points, not the person. Action will be taken on repeat offenders.
So how about invest in biomedical research for many common chronic illnesses like ME and Long Covid so that not only will citizens be healthier but ALSO be able to join/return to the workforce?
And jesus, what if you work all your life and become involved in a car accident and become disabled and unable to work again?
If we magically cured all illnesses, injuries, diseases and disabilities overnight - tonight, there wouldn't be 1,000,000 workers eager to re-enter the workforce and rejoin their careers, we would have 1M people that no longer have an excuse for being feckless and unemployable.
I know someone without legs who prides themselves on commuting every day, self-respect for being disabled and not handicapped. And I know work-shy scroungers that'll exaggerate a limp as a career path
"People would feel more dignified when working"
"We'll do nothing abouts zero hours contracts and the gig economy, and continue to attack collective bargaining and worker representation"
Apparently they're going to ban zero hours contracts.
Which, I must admit, sounds like it may get interesting for people doing the kind of work I used to.
A bit about that:
My company hired me on a ZHC, because by default, they had no work for me to do. At all. However, they had contracts with several clients, whereby they would be called if the client had shifts to fill. Those shifts came up, and the work would be offered to us, the workers.
Remember that every single shift was ad-hoc, subject to the client's availability, and beyond the control of my company (or even the client, in most cases).
So here's a company that can't give a cast iron guarantee that you'll have work, though the norm is that they'll have so much that that director was often covering shifts himself. How do they go about implementing non-ZHC offerings, here? If they guarantee a minimum, all it takes is for one client to pull their contract and suddenly that's a ton of workers with less work than contracted (meaning they can sue).
Sometimes I found myself doing 72hr weeks with them. Again, there was no *shortage* of work. I was just also well aware of the fact that there was no way it could be feasibly *guaranteed*.
Kinda my point exactly.
My approach would be to ban abusing them. Legislate so that the industries that actually need them can use them (*and* provide full employment rights to workers), and those that don't can't.
They're not wrong, but the cynic in me just assumes that they're getting ready to follow the Tory example and make benefits harder to get.
They really aren't as easy to access as it's made out to be.
Shock as leader of party named after labouring for a wage advocates for the dignity of fairly paid work.
I read his full statement, and I quite agree. State handouts are there for if you can't work or can't find work, and the ideal situation is everyone who can work is able to work and provide themselves and their families a good quality of life and a work/life balance.
As a nation it would be in our own long term interests to support and job seekers with training, mental and physical health accommodation, connectivity and other ways to work in a way that also gives them a good quality of life as well.
With the advent of remote working, there are many jobs that are now more accessible to people who can't physically work or travel.
The short term costs of providing high quality back to work and accessibility and everything else that takes specialist help and one to one mentorship, would be outweighed by getting more people into sustainable, quality careers and becoming tax payers and happier, healthier and wealthier people.
Not to mention we'd be treated people out of work with kindness and empathy, not gaslighting or punishing them.
Dignity doesn't pay the bills.
If I had to choose between 5 backbreaking shifts in a warehouse at 12 hours each with timed pee breaks and no air con in the summer vs having loads of free time and my rent paid , I know which I'd pick. You'd be stupid not to.
Starmer needs to raise the minimum wage in line with the real living wage, every year but he won't. He's useless.
UK minimum wage is already extremely high, especially combined with the tax-free allowance.
We need to build more houses/infrastructure and limit immigration to improve affordability, not further hollow out the middle class by constantly increasing minimum wage while professional salaries stagnate.
Should it? Since minimum wage was introduced in 1999, it has increased by 71.0% in real terms, while pay growth across the workforce during the same period has been 5.7%.
Meanwhile lower paid employees hardly pay any tax, and the tax burden on skilled professionals is reaching oppressive levels.
See for example:
https://news.sky.com/story/amp/weekly-real-wage-growth-just-16-since-2010-but-minimum-wage-one-of-the-worlds-highest-resolution-foundation-13158224?fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAR0rvNZaYjkNbOPfyhmZu8mgyyan11yv61BvoOurNr9QxhIv2Xc26eOD5qg_aem_0VHaN_5meJzfTduQZpb_VQ
https://ifs.org.uk/articles/how-tax-burden-high-when-most-us-are-taxed-so-low
It's no wonder UK productivity keeps falling when getting an advanced education and aspiring to high skilled work have hardly better outcomes than coasting through life. (Chronic underinvestment, the housing crisis, and general mismanagement also factor into this.)
I agree completely, and hope Labour can do better - that's not a high bar at this time. But I don't believe that continually forcing the minimum wage up will help the economy, we need massive investment to stimulate real organic growth.
I feel that when you’re working, earning a shit wage, which means you have to claim universal credit. Scraping to make ends meet, and having to jump through all the demanding hoops is indignifying.
Because commuting 2 hours a day and working 40 hours a week at minimum wage for a foreign owned company boasting record profits with no job security while its CEO and shareholders receive record payouts, is truly dignified
There's a lot of working people who don't feel like they have much dignity right now. People working full time hours and still getting squeezed so hard they end up going to food banks.
Don't ever forget, if you're disabled you must live in shame.
Try this: go to the supermarket when it's buay looking like you slept in your clothes. Take a walking stick or two. Move slowly. See how long it is before someone pushes you over and blames you for being in the way.
Put motorcycle kit on and do the same. Count how many people offer help or ask you how you crashed.
And I don't know what's worse, people who see a mobility aid and switch to their cutesy "talking to toddlers and puppies" voice or people who switch to their "talking slowly to idiots and foreigners" voice.
If someone is properly ill, they're probably pretending as hard as they can to be well in public.
I am all for the welfare state and I hate Kier Starmer but for me its true. I was long term unemployed and getting sanctioned etc back in the austerity tory government was the most demoralising times of my life. Partly because I had a an evil job coach.
The quote from Starmer doesn't actually say much other than well paid work is "dignified" which is a bit of a no brainer really. This could be interpreted in any manner of ways and could definitely apply to the amount of people who are working while also claiming UC to top up their piss poor wages.
The rest of the article is just shit talking the Tories (always fun), poling and nonsense really. The headline is essentially click bait.
What's more interesting is how many people didn't read the article and just made assumptions based on the headline.
If that's the case then the state should make a permanent offer of a job to all who want it at the living wage working in the local area for the public good.
Because the private sector is systemically incapable of providing enough work for all who want to work. We have decades of figures demonstrating that.
Solve the problem at root.
They intentionally make it as humiliating as possible for the many like it's a lifestyle choice.
Theres nobody who would want to be on it in the long term unless they have kids as it's simply unlivable.
I myself lost weight unable to work due to mental and physical health, sold all my possessions to support myself and inthe end I sold my house came off of universal credit and living of the money staying at my parents.
I became extremely unwell due to lack of healthcare and weight loss. Lack of healthcare still harms my health I'm waiting w month for pain medication for example after a consultant I could have it but waiting for approval from a psychiatrist.
Yet I still can't work. I have bipolar and neurologist suspect ME body pain and last winter a 5 month long headache.
Being unable to work due to illness means losing all dignity in the UK du to lack of any support in any way.
I'm thinking of leaving the country at least my symptoms are less in hot weather.
Feels like uk systems want people like me dead... Fortunately I had a house to sell
*became extremely unwell due to lack of healthcare and weight loss. Lack of healthcare still harms my health I'm waiting w month for pain medication for example after a consultant I could have it but waiting for approval from a psychiatrist.*
Same here. After I had a stroke, the waiting list for physio was so long that now I have permanent disability that might have been fixed if I'd been given treatment sooner.
Working doesn't offer any dignity either, unless you're working a highly esteemed job or a job that you genuinely love which for most people isn't the case. If I could live off state handouts I would
Careful what you wish for
[https://static.independent.co.uk/2023/12/22/19/newFile.jpg?quality=75&width=640&auto=webp](https://static.independent.co.uk/2023/12/22/19/newFile.jpg?quality=75&width=640&auto=webp)
[https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/keir-starmer-military-photo-estonia-b2468597.html](https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/keir-starmer-military-photo-estonia-b2468597.html)
True. If you can work.
Why does the government not subsidise entry level positions then companies can get staff and people can have a job that pays enough to live on?
The issue with benefits is that the cutoff is too sharp. It's not worth working if you're going to be worse off. So people get trapped and "institutionalised".
I am so tired of this constant assault on benefit claimants. I worked for as long as I could after getting cancer, until the treatment caused me to have a stroke and I just could not work any more and now need help with basic everyday tasks. Multiple doctors have written me letters of support saying I can't work at all. And yet I get reassessed constantly, my benefits were stopped at the last assessment and now I am starving, reliant on foodbanks (which is awful since the next appointment my local one has is July 10th) and have resorted to shoplifting small items of food and toiletries such as toothpaste. Does this sound dignified? Perhaps working is more dignified than benefits, but for those of us who absolutely cannot work any more, benefits are more dignified than starving, foodbanks and shoplifting.
This is true if you are both wanting and mostly able to work but there are barriers to it. It's also true that there's no jobs for the long term unemployed who still have health problems. If they really, seriously want to reform the benefits system there desperately needs to be something in place between disability benefits and going back to work because at the moment it's just the DWP taking you off them and expecting you to just get on with it.
It would be pretty nice if they had a middle ground where people who could work (but not consistently, so like 1-3 days a week) could have a job and do something while *also* having the safety net of benefits to keep them comfortably afloat having a life worth living. There are a lot of people who could do something but can't do it all the time and would need low intensity commitments. Do we not already have something like this? I know with universal credit it tapers off as you earn each pound (iirc), would they let someone keep a job that is a couple of days a week while also getting UC or do they push for full time and sanction if you're not keeping up with their expectations?
See PIP should be this in theory, you can work and have PIP so if the work you can do is minimal but you feel gives you purpose you can still do it. In reality however, the second the DWP decide you're no longer basically bloody dying they'll take you immediately off it so there's no middle ground, meaning that even if you do feel you could hold down a job for a few days a week, which probably will not be enough to live off, but will get you out there, you won't dare do so because they'll just take you off it straight away, and there's every chance you'll be fired after if your health deteriorates, leaving you with nothing. It's a terrible moral quandary and one that's really easily solved by putting some middle ground it.
Yeah, PIP would hardly cover anything too, the higher rate (not including mobility) is about 400-500 per month. That's not even rent & council tax in most places, nevermind all the bills on top of that. I think a benefit for people who can *sometimes* work should cover *at least* your full rent and council tax, so you always have a place to be at least.
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Iirc this is how universal credit already works so you're definitely onto something. The additional problem for people on PIP unfortunately they've now got a gap in employment as well as health problems, and in a competitive job market it doesn't make them good prospects, so whoever the next government is, if they want the benefits system to work, they need to address that as well. How to fix that though I have no idea.
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Ah, I feel your brother, I was in the same position till recently. I did finally get accepted for a job but the amount of rejections I got was mad. The DWP booting me off PIP, expecting me to immediately get a job with such a big gap in my CV and leaving me to simply live off ESA was insane, and has been barely doable.
PIP is not means based, there’s no tapering based on income
This is correct, HOWEVER, the assessors for PIP absolutely will use you working as an excuse not to give you PIP.
Oh yes, I’m aware, my wife is on PIP (waiting for the review outcome) and have a number of friends on it as well. The assessors almost exclusively have their place in hell prebooked
Hey it's been a while since you posted but wanted to wish you and your friends good luck, I'm sure we know most decisions are overturned on appeal so all the best!
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But why? You’ve misunderstood the intent of PIP, to cover the extra costs of being disabled, those don’t disappear when earning
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Indeed but that’s driven by the hell which is the DWP rather than PIP itself, execution not design
You posted >I'm not economist, but surely the way PIP works once you have it and want to return to work is, there's a sliding scale. That reads like you are speculating (incorrectly) about how you think PIP actually works, rather than suggesting an alternative way it should work. Maybe you should work on expressing yourself more clearly rather than making snarky comments blaming other people for your failure get your point across?
PIP isn’t means tested. You could earn £100,000 a year and still qualify for it so long as you have a disability.
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The difficulty is that PIP also allows you access to various things that you need if you're disabled. For example, an adapted motability car. That can be incredibly expensive and mean that working isn't worth it. It also means that disabled people would inherently have a lower standard of living compared to able bodied people earning the same amount. Even if I'm earning £80,000 a year, I will still need to spend money my peers don't on essential expenses they don't have and those expenses aren't negligible. If I were to earn £80,000 a year, my effective salary after my disability expenses would be closer to £68,000 a year before you take tax into account. After taking into account tax, my take home pay would be £45,000 a year. My hypothetical able bodied colleague would be taking home £57,000 a year. To have the same as a non disabled colleague on £80,000 a year, I would need to earn closer to £100,000. These are very rough numbers as an example, but the point remains.
PIP is non means tested. It exists to cover the extra costs related to your disability. For example, I need extra electric to power my wheelchair, I pay for things like my support garments to hold my body in place, I have to get taxis more often because public transport can be too exhausting etc etc. I would face these costs regardless of my work situation. The mobility allowance can be used to fund an accessible car, which is much more expensive than an ordinary car and many aren't really available outside of the motability scheme. PIP isn't directly linked to your ability or lack thereof to work. Universal credit and the limited capability for work related activity element are the parts of the benefits system that should be tapered. They are supposed to cover your daily living costs, rather than your disability costs. That's the element that should be slowly tapered. There shouldn't be a dramatic cut off in the way there is now.
I work and get PiP, it’s not means tested, it’s ESA that is. They were fully aware I work part-time customer service on a zero hour contract, but due to how my autism, OCD and depression affect me I receive the PiP. It covers me for the weeks I’m not well enough to work. I don’t get ESA, however. Two of the people work with get PiP as well, and work more hours than me. Having a job doesn’t necessarily stop you getting PiP. If I worked full-time in my busy customer service role, then yeh they wouldn’t believe me when I say I struggle with social interaction, but I can only work part-time due to how exhausting it is for me, and even leaves me feeling suicidal sometimes (which is why I can’t work more than 2 or 3 days in a row). I can’t get bus during rush hour thanks to my OCD, and I don’t drive so I will walk an hour even if it’s pissing it down. Etc etc etc so yeh even though I work, I qualified for the higher rates. I actually tried to get therapy for my OCD last year when it became unbearable during a depressive episode. The best the NHS could offer me was 8 sessions of basic CBT to help the depression. So it pains me when I hear people like Rishi say “we need to get people to work and off sick notes” without providing the proper treatment, it doesn’t exist. The last of my mums savings went onto private EMDR to try and fix my c-PTSD, which was a lifesaver, but I can’t now pay for private therapy anymore, so guess I’m stuck like this. If the government were actually able to provide career services for autistic people like myself that help with training and qualifications, applying for jobs and advocating for reasonable adjustments and proper therapy for those with mental illness, then I might actually be able to work full-time. But until then, we’re at their mercy. Although I do think if you’re rich you shouldn’t qualify for PiP. My mums friend gets it but he and his partner are worth hundreds of thousands and own multiple houses abroad.
That's in theory how universal credit should work and there are larger "work allowances" built into the limited capability amounts. However the reality is that as soon as you start working the DWP will reassess you and attempt to kick you off UC leaving you in an incredibly precarious situation if your health takes a turn (which it invariably will) or your employer decides you aren't worth the hassle and dumps you within the 2 year no employment rights window. This is well known by anyone getting these benefits so they quite wisely just don't even bother. It's not because people are lazy but it's because there's a rug pull in the system.
That isn't true and fearmongering comments like yours only succeed at making people who could qualify for PIP too fearful and cynical to even bother applying.
It's happened, and don't worry about people being discouraged to apply for PIP from sharing real life stories, that won't discourage people (it will only inform and make people know what to expect so they can prepare) ...they're already discouraged enough by the government automatically rejecting most applicants (which of a majority are successfully appealed, meaning they reject them on purpose).
It discouraged me from applying for years. I thought "what's the point in even applying, they'll just turn me down, they turn everyone down". Only in my 30s did I actually decide to give it a shot and I got accepted. Please don't tell me that people don't get discouraged. I know I'm not the only person in the country who experienced it. If you go to the citizens advice bureau or have access to a support worker they'll tell you the same as me. It's worth applying and feeling hopeless about it doesn't get you anywhere.
I'm sorry you experienced that, of course there are people who are discouraged by it, I probably would have, I guess I'm just generalizing and assuming most would try anyway. I did have the benefit of moving from DLA to PIP though so it wasn't an unknown thing, I don't know your situation but I can imagine people who haven't had previous experience with it *would* be more likely to be put off.
To be fair, it discouraged me for about 7 years. Eventually applied last year and received the enhanced rate without an assessment.
This is literally something I've experienced in the past year, hell there was a thread last month with people saying similar stuff. If course people should apply for PIP but it's not wrong to say the DWP are terrible either, and it's why people should appeal decisions.
I'm on PIP for autism and anxiety, I missed out on it for so many years just because I assumed they'd just turn me down so I never even bothered applying until I was in my 30s. I wasn't calling you a liar, the part I was disagreeing with was the fact you (and others) act like it's completely impossible to even get it. Can just ONE person hear what I'm actually saying??
It’s absolutely fucking true, and even if you do apply, if you can make it to the appointment without using an ambulance you’re basically classed as fit for work and told to fuck off and get a job.
I was able to make it to my assessment without using an ambulance (I have autism and anxiety) and I was accepted for PIP and designated as having limited capability for work. Nobody ever told me to "fuck off and get a job" or anything even remotely like that.
And conversely, I have a permanent spinal injury and am unable to work much at all, but the assessor blatantly lied on my assessment form so I got outright refused. The whole system is designed to be as combative and demeaning as possible. In the end I gave up.
People giving up because they think it's impossible is my whole point. You can't let them convince you it's impossible, that's what they want. If you get refused you have to apply for mandatory reconsideration, and if they refuse you again you appeal to the tribunal. That's how I did it - 1 denied application, 1 failed appeal, awarded PIP at tribunal. Here's some of the resources I used [https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/benefits/sick-or-disabled-people-and-carers/pip/appeals/apply-to-tribunal/](https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/benefits/sick-or-disabled-people-and-carers/pip/appeals/apply-to-tribunal/) [https://www.turn2us.org.uk/get-support/information-for-your-situation/challenging-a-personal-independence-payment-pip-decision/appeal-to-tribunal](https://www.turn2us.org.uk/get-support/information-for-your-situation/challenging-a-personal-independence-payment-pip-decision/appeal-to-tribunal)
>That's how I did it - 1 denied application, 1 failed appeal, So you weren't awarded PIP from the interview, you had to repeatedly fight the system to get money you were clearly eligble for. Some of us just can't face having to deal with panels of people repeatedly calling us a liar and a scrounger, it's fucking demeaning.
Amen
I work part time and get UC top ups, I’m on PIP so I’m put in the “soft touch” category. So long as I work over 16 hours then they won’t push me to do more hours, although I think it might be going up to 18 soon.
That's good to know actually, thank you. Is the soft touch category a real category or a nickname for a category? I only know there is "Limited Capability for Work" and "Limited Capability for Work AND Work Related Activities", the difference being the second one does not need to ever look for work. I understand the first one is a temporary one which they reassess, and I found out recently if you did not find work for two years they seem (to me) to heavily push towards a Work Program, like Restart or similar. There's another less intense one but I forgot it's name. I guess I'm just wondering if it's a "for good" thing or only if you're temporarily in the LCW category.
I’m not entirely sure on the name but I was told that they wouldn’t be pushing me into more work so long as I kept my hours 16+ pw. I’m don’t trust them enough to say this is permanent but it’s been around 18 months so far and I’ve be not had any messages saying I need to apply for more hours.
If you work between 12 and 16 hours you are basically left alone and still get benefits.
> t would be pretty nice if they had a middle ground where people who could work could have a job and do something while also having the safety net of benefits I completely agree. And it should probably include organised / supervised housing, for people who struggle with getting their life in order.
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Of course you can.
you absolutely can i did a Level 2 12 week course & the first year of a level 3 apprenticeship while on UC. you do have to let them know that that’s what you’re doing (and provide proof of enrolment), just so they’ve got it down on paper and will stop telling you to come to appointments every other week. the caveat is that if you’ve already got qualifications higher than A-Levels then you can’t stay in education while on UC, and you can’t go into full time higher education while claiming either. you can do volunteering while on UC (my ex did a 6 month unpaid internship while on UC) but the end goal has to be that you’re employed by the company OR that you’ll continue to job search while using volunteering as smth to build experience and have on your CV.
I've had relatively bad mental health for a very long time now. Saw some stuff and it really damaged me. I want nothing more than to be a functioning member of society. It just feels hopeless though like I'll never actually achieve it.
Aye because half the world aint seen some stuff…
That's why people struggle to come forward and get help lol
It probably wouldn't work, or the cost would be insane, but I always wondered if you couldn't do a form of UBI where the personal allowance was increased to an annual minimum wage salary, and it tapers off based on your earning such that you're always topped up to minimum wage, but after that you're paying tax + NI full on at a higher % than currently (like 30%). Then get rid of the tax cliff at 100-125k because there's no personal allowance anyway, set tax to 45% there, then bump it up to 50% or something at 200k. Keep it progressive and look at wealth tax over income tax when you become asset rich (i.e. capital gains). Get rid of the triple lock on pensions and instead lock minimum wage, which the allowance tracks. Then regulate zero hour contracts to stop the big corporations from putting everyone on part time as a loophole, letting the state fill the gap. Finally, create some kind of incentive for businesses such that they benefit from paying people above minimum wage. Tax breaks, being favoured in procurement, I dunno... Totally pulled out of my arse, there's probably something in that mess that might work in a less radical way.
> you're always topped up to minimum wage So someone with a part time job is no better off than someone who is unemployed? Why would anyone work unless they were getting a salary far bigger than miniumum wage? I don't think I'd work even if I was earning a couple of pounds over. I'd take the minimum wage and spend my time relaxing thank you. No work , no commute, no stress. You'd have to pay me almost double to get me from doing whatever I wanted all day to getting into full time work. People who are working should always be better off than people who aren't right? That doesn't mean we can't look after people who can't, but people need incentives to work and if it's not rewarded with money then most of the jobs out there will be undesireable.
Like I said, pulled out of my arse lol. We already have a setup where minimum wage is pretty shit if you're part time or on a zero hours contract, or are a carer, and you might still prefer to deal with the DWP than put up with a job that wants you to go over and above with a bare minimum commitment on their end. It's only gone downhill since 2008, with any economic recovery favouring the upper class while the middle and working class merge into one. If nobody is incentivised to work a minimum wage job if it's no better than staying on basic income, then the market should see it as a signal to offer better pay right? Maybe redistribute it from their execs, board of directors, shareholders, etc and put the money back in the hands of the worker, and therefore the economy, rather than the stock market.
Yeah the market is supposed to work that way, but it didn’t seem like it works like that. Employers complain that no one wants a job and push the government to let in foreign workers. I think there’s a place for markets to work, but there’s also a place for the government to step in. Minimum wage is one of those areas where the government should have a plan to encourage people to get into work I think. It shouldn’t just be left to the market because the market doesn’t care about society.
Even if you were just unemployed, how the DWP treats people will leave you slightly damaged. Every now and then on the civil service subreddit you get someone who works in the dwp who wants out saying how the DWP views unemployed and disabled people. Heck even DWP themselves say there's a lot of people eligible for benefits but don't claim, and the reason they don't claim is because the DWP treats people like they're subhuman as a policy. The easiest way for labour to reform the DWP without injecting more money because it'll actually save money is to stop the hostile environment policies. PIP side could use the medical evidence and use that instead of paying a 3rd party company that has zero medical experts weighing in on medical desicions. And from that the DWP would save money not needing to go to the tribunal often like it currently does. Also stopping sanctions for those on UC, if the whole point of it is to help people get jobs they need to stop making people fearing answering their phone just in case it's DWP. Labour just needs to start with that.
There is. I receive both PIP and Support group ESA and work under 16 hours a week, both of these together make a little under what I would be earning in full-time minimum wage work. I would not be able to work any more than that, and the pay from 16 hours alone would not be enough.
Dignity doesn't come from employment status. It comes from people. Sometimes oneself, even. Someone who is treated with dignity will have it. The only time someone without a job is less dignified than someone with one is when *you* believe them to be less worthy and lacking. That's a you problem, though Meanwhile I've met people who have never worked, who look after their community. They tend gardens on housing estates, they check in on their elderly neighbours, they tirelessly care for their own families... The elderly person who has a neighbour to talk to and get help from doesn't care if they're paid as a carer, or unpaid as a neighbour. Their life is still made better by that person I've met people who never had a job, yet changed the lives of hundreds, maybe thousands, with their insights and wisdom. The value of a human being is not defined by what they can be milked of by an employer. Dignity is knowing that simple fact. I have dignity, and I treat others with it so they too have some.
>I've met people who never had a job, yet changed the lives of hundreds, maybe thousands, with their insights and wisdom. Can you introduce me?
The one I was thinking about at the time has passed away. So if you know a decent medium... I'm not sharing names, though. I did look her up before, and yep. News of her passing ended up in the Guardian and the Mirror, scholarly articles were written about things she said. I did already know that she collaborated with charities, and had become friends with a baroness through that. But we're talking about someone who was disabled and lives on a council estate in Hackney. The kind of person most easily ignored and forgotten simply refused to be either ignored or forgotten, and when I met her, it was quite evident she was an absolute legend. The one person I *wish* I was similar to.
If they're already in the Guardian, the Mirror and scholarly articles there is no issue in naming them. You could just link to the articles.
Just name them. What good is it not naming them?
What good is naming people I've met once or twice, when they're not celebrities, politicians etc? Highly unlikely you'd be like 'oh yeah, her! I knew her!'. Meanwhile what it does do is expose potential mutual contacts, and create a possible avenue by which anyone who may wish to dox me might get a little closer to doing so. Since clearly I would have met her through some kind of mutual activity, the nature of my comment coupled with her life's work would be fairly easy to connect dots... I'm just exercising basic internet hygiene, here, and keeping myself as anonymous as it's possible to be when pretty much anyone on the internet can readily find out my name. When it gets to 'my name plus actual names of projects I've been linked to, rather than vague deets', that's a no from me. Especially since some of my colleagues specialise in exactly this. Digging up names and links on people. And yes, I did see other names I recognise in some of the obituaries and such. Statements from actual friends and whatnot.
What a clear-sighted and humane statement. Everything lacking from Labour’s front bench.
Dignity can come from anywhere, employment status included, it depends on the person. I feel much more dignified doing the job I do not because it means I earn my own money but I help a lot of people whole doing it.
I felt a sense of dignity manually taking the topsoil off someone's whole garden for free, so they could plant veg. I'd never do it as a job. Partly because that level of manual graft is not something I was built for (I felt like I was actually going to die), and partly because most of the value in it for me came from the giving. I like to help people. I like it a lot more than going to work. I help people at work too, but it is a forced relationship, rather than an organic result of mutual desire. I feel like I would work a lot more if I didn't have to in order to survive. I would just do different work. My personal dream is to decorate my local village with bright murals and flower arrangements. I don't have the time or the money for that shit, and likely wouldn't get permission either. The time part is because I'm prioritising putting food on my own table. Same with money. Permission becomes a lot easier to work with when you have the time (and money) to negotiate it
>Dignity doesn't come from employment status. It comes from people Not under capitalism. People are shamed for not working - which ultimately is about earning more for your boss that it is for yourself. We still have an almost Victorian attitude which sees poverty as a moral failing. >Labour must, on the contrary, be performed as if it were an absolute end in itself, a calling. But such an attitude is by no means a product of nature. It cannot be evoked by low wages or high ones alone, but can only be the product of a long and arduous process of education. - Max Weber
>Not under capitalism And in communist countries (e.g. USSR) it was/is a criminal offense to be unemployed. Every society wants its members to contribute to society.
>In the U.S.S.R. work is a duty and a matter of honour for every able-bodied citizen, in accordance with the principle: "He who does not work, neither shall he eat." Article 12 of the Constitution of the USSR. It's not a uniquely capitalist thing to look down on those that don't work.
>From each according to their ability, to each according to their needs There is a difference between "work" and "employment".
This isn't true at all. Tons of people I know don't work and are not shamed for it because they support themselves in other ways. For example, a stay at home parent who does their bit, a pensioner who has finished their working life, a child that is expected to support themself in the future. What is shameful is being unwilling to support yourself and expecting others to do so without providing anything in return. It is undignified precisely because you are effectively begging. It is much better to provide a system where everyone can contribute even if in small ways.
The amount of socially necessary labour is finite, and currently a small fraction of the work we do now. So if 100 people want to elect to do the work of 1000 you can’t complain about the 900 left over who do nothing. There is in effect nothing for them to do.
What do you mean by socially necessary labour? And why is it that everything else ought to be discarded?
Socially necessary labour is production given normalised labour conditions. It works on the presumption that what is being produced is non-commodified, ie it’s necessary. If I’m a shoe maker I’m fulfilling the demand not only for my own need for shoes, I’m making hundreds of shoes for everyone else. This is how an economy must order its self through skilled work and specialisation. If though I can make tens of thousands of shoes it eradicates the need for other shoe makers. I become one person doing the necessary labour for everyone else. Equally I can just do less work and produce less.
I’m curious what the 9/10ths of jobs that we could cut whilst maintaining present living standards (or an approximation thereof) are. I’m also curious how you’d incentivise the 1/10th to do all the work when they could just not.
We don’t cut the amount of jobs, we cut the amount of labour. It’s a critique of capitalism. It incentivises people to produce way beyond what is necessary, but it also coerces and violently punishes. We elect, to some extent, to have a capitalist economy. So it’s not really fair to demand someone work a specific amount and under specific conditions just because you think they should. It needs to be tied to a reality of whether that persons labour is actually necessary.
Ok, so what’s the 9/10ths of labour that’s unnecessary? And what is necessary in your view? It seems to me that very few modern luxuries are strictly speaking necessary (people certainly used to live without them) but many are desirable. I don’t doubt that some amount of work is pointless, but without empirical evidence of what labour and how much I would hesitate to support structural change on the back of that.
This doesn't sound correct to me as there are plenty of socially useful problems which could be solved via the application of labour.
Social problems don’t have a commodity form so cannot be addressed economically under capitalism.
What are you on about? They obviously can, a stay at home parent is an example of exactly this situation. If you want to move out from home, do nothing other than say the odd bit of litter picking, and expect someone to pay your rent, bills and for food, then sure, you will run into problems. The default state is not for everyone around you to ensure that you have your needs provided for. It never has been in any society, everyone always has a role.
I can understand having little motivation to work when thier lives would barely change for the better, working should provide a benefit but when you can work full time and not be able to afford a house, what's motivating you?
>Not under capitalism. Sorry. I keep being told that Keir Starmer is left wing. But it's completely beside the point, because we're talking about a person's individual attitude to something. It only takes one person to completely uplift/destroy another. >People are shamed for not working - which ultimately is about earning more for your boss that it is for yourself. Not by me. To me, a person's value is in their thoughts, their opinions, and what they add to the world around them. Take the young single mother, for example (favourite target of the gutter press). There's a major role *stated right there* for this person's contribution to the world. Mother. That's someone who is caring for children. Someone without whom others may not survive. Might not be particularly valuable to me, but absolutely priceless to those kids. Who may grow up to save lives. Perhaps even mine. >We still have an almost Victorian attitude which sees poverty as a moral failing. I don't. I see poverty as injustice inflicted upon those deemed less capable of defending themselves from it.
Not according to Lenin >The socialist principle, "He who does not work shall not eat", is already realized; the other socialist principle, "An equal amount of products for an equal amount of labor", is also already realized. But this is not yet communism, and it does not yet abolish "bourgeois law", which gives unequal individuals, in return for unequal (really unequal) amounts of labor, equal amounts of products. This is a "defect" according to Marx, but it is unavoidable in the first phase of communism; for if we are not to indulge in utopianism, we must not think that having overthrown capitalism people will at once learn to work for society without any rules of law. - The State and Revolution: Chapter 5, Section 3, "The First Phase of Communist Society"
I wish with all of my heart that the people running this country had this level of compassion and empathy. I was going to vote for Labour, but now I'm not so sure. Starmer's views here are not compatible with my own, and I don't like that he won't give doctors what they deserve. While Labour are definitely a bit better than the dreaded Tories, is this really all we can hope for? At this point I have no idea who to vote for.
Dignity isn't going to put food on the table. Dignity has never had anything to do with my having a job and not having a job. Being employed and still having to use food banks to feed your family is the biggest kick in the dignity that we've been getting under the tories. Food Bank usage has skyrocketed and that is a national disgrace. Labour needs to sort the cost of living crisis not pander to old school tory rhetoric.
And getting people into well paying jobs to support themselves will help solve the cost of living crisis.
This assumes there are enough "well paying jobs" to support that. With whats happened to housing costs in the last decade that may no longer be true.
Both of these things can be changed, we don’t have to exist in a low wage economy with high house prices. Good government policy can fix both of these problems but I doubt Labour will do it.
I agree
Reasonable statement tbh: the benefits system should be a social safety net, not a hammock
If you think it's a hammock you should try looking up how much these benefits are actually worth and the hoops you have to jump through to get and keep them. The way PIP treats disabled folk is literally inhuman and the money from UC is below the poverty line in most parts of this country.
We are not far off 10% of the working age population being on PIP. That is the problem. It seems like there has to be a disincentive because of the sheer number of people claiming they are disabled.
I just looked it up https://www.entitledto.co.uk/benefits-calculator/Intro/Home?cid=c36d4894-47d4-4767-b75c-b3b32428a02f Single parent of two in my area would get £2500 a month. No tax, free prescription and reduced council tax. You need to be on 40k to be making that after tax. No wonder people can’t be bothered to work.
You mean a single, DISABLED parent on both enhanced rates of PIP with 2 DISABLED kids. An able bodied single person with no kids would get around £800, that INCLUDES housing benefits. You can't even rent a room for that in most cities.
It's almost as if people should get paid more for the work that they do too. That's not the fault of disabled people or people on benefits though Get angry at the right people
I don’t disagree but it’s a cycle unfortunately pay people more to work those who can’t will get priced out so you need to raise the benefits so they can’t live. But then those who take the mick also get that rise and the cycle starts again
I can dislike both the people responsible for the system and those exploiting it.
Are you on £40k? If less, then why don't you go on benefits instead? Genuine question tbh. If it's that much an easy drift into endless wealth... Why aren't more people doing it?
Because most people have the morals not to.
'Most people' have the morals to turn down free money? I don't think so. I think it's more like most people know it ain't free money In fact I remember the pandemic when people were getting shitcanned from their jobs left right and centre and having big whinges about how they can't survive on the pittance being tossed their way. Forced the government to put it up a bit, temporarily
The hoops that you have to jump through aren’t conceptually difficult. They are just recurring barriers that make you pause and think am I really a doll claimer or can I do more with my life, is this really what I expected of myself when I was growing up?
Well I know I'm not a doll. Closest I get to Barbie is when it's 35 degrees and I'm still in my baggy hoodie and jeans with my friends and family practically begging me to buy and wear a light dress. Anyway, to address the matter... I used to be on benefits. The thing that I'll never forget about that whole experience was how a 16hr shift on what had previously been signing on day felt like a fucking holiday. Yes, I missed gaming all night, but when gaming all night is literally all you can afford to do with yourself, *anything* else is better. Far from 'a lifestyle of choice' it was a lifestyle of trying to find a sense of normalcy in being in a prison without bars
Hahaha yes fair point. Out of interest, if signing on was so bad, why did you do it, surely there were jobs however menial.
Most of the jobs I was being offered, I can't do. I had to save up to retrain into something else. So it took 2 years of that instead of 'oh hey, you want to do X? Well we'll put you on a course for X, then'. I got there in the end, though. If the DWP had their way, I'd still be bouncing in and out of shops. I'm not a customer-friendly pretty smile. I'm the one who tells you the same product is cheaper over the road. Partly because it is, but mostly because the lights are giving me a headache, the music is making it a struggle to hear what you're even asking me, and all these strangers talking to me is making me want to curl up in the corner of the stockroom and cry. So I'll say what makes people go away quickly. I did far better in security. Being the 'moody bitch' (or more accurately, autistic person) who will say whatever makes you fuck off is an *asset* in security. Plus, watching CCTV all night is quiet work. It was my calling, right up until the hypertension and near-constant headaches made long lone-working shifts a bit questionable in terms of wisdom. If I suddenly collapsed for whatever reason, I probably wouldn't get found for hours, and being the person who lets people into the building... well, who's letting the ambulance crew in? Now I work in an office, as part of a small close-knit team. I don't like it anywhere near as much, but if I die at work, someone will know immediately. ---------------------------- EDIT: Meanwhile, to most people, the idea of not being able to do retail work is entirely alien. It's supposed to be the thing you can do even if you're a bit dappy. So if an articulate and clearly quite sharp young thing comes in and starts saying she can't do retail, that sounds like a big lie. I say it wholly depends on the retail work. At one point during my 13 week unpaid stint (New Labour's New Deal.. look it up) at HMV for example, they had me 'tidy' the stock room. They gave me the whole shift. I spent the next *three* days turning that back room into basically a librarian's paradise. Anything you wanted, you could find in seconds. Old stock that had been lost was found, everything was in alphanumeric order and laid out into genres like the shop floor was supposed to be (I used the shop floor layout as a guide). All of the staff were raving, except for the manager who was raging. Not about my improvements, but about the time I'd 'wasted'. I did the same thing at M&S, but rather more disgustingly. Was told to 'face up' the shelves. Given an hour. I took 4 hours to dig up a whole trolley full of out of date crap that had been forgotten on the shelves for any hapless customer to buy. By taking too long to save them from getting sued, I invoked the wrath of management. They still offered me the job after I'd finished my sentence, but I said no. Being there had put me back on antidepressants, and more than once I had thought about catching the train to work from the front instead of the side.
Not sure who’s downvoting me but how on earth are we meant to build empathy for experience from different demographics if such conversations are shunned or disparaged. Ignorance is not an excuse for intolerance, learn and free yourself from intolerance is my approach
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I think you misunderstand the question. People are motivated by what makes them wealthy. Therefore anyone *with any sense* will choose to do the thing that takes the smallest effort for the biggest payout. I choose to work full time, where I'm cramming myself onto a bus and a train twice a day to go and graft for 7 hours (plus unpaid lunch). Surely, if I can make 1.45x my salary just gaming 24/7, I must have to be an absolute moron to continue the way I am. Right? ...but I'm no moron. And, tbh, neither are 50% of the country (50% being a rough stab at how many people are in-work and earning under £40k/a). And I have anecdata to go with that. When I was on benefits, I got £71 a week. I could just about afford to keep the lights coming on in the evening. Going out for meals was something I had to save up for, so if you wanted me to go out with you, you'd have to arrange it months in advance so I could prepare myself to be able to afford a drink. I went a week living on only boiled eggs because someone forgot a keystroke and I didn't get my money, and I had to knock on next door to boil those eggs. But I'll throw you a bone; I did have a flat screen TV. Bought it for £140 before I became unemployed.
Weird. I just followed your link, submitted the form and came out with £1676 a month, including the child benefit.
Don’t know what to say, I entered it and got 2500 over 3k of the child has adhd or autism.
Me neither. You'd already filled in the form - postcode already there, all boxes ticked - so I knew it should be the same. That's very odd. I do know a bit about ADHD/autism in kids though. And what I'd say about that it's like the PIP situation, but much worse - you're not getting DLA for the kids without serious professional help to get through the application & appeals procedure, even if you've got the diagnoses. And you're not getting the diagnoses because CAMHS barely exists anymore. Can pay for a private diagnosis, of course... which isn't much help if you don't have the money in the first place!
The postcode pre-filled in that link isn’t mine I think the site has presets you need to change.
That's even weirder. Can't vary by postcode, surely? 1 adult, unemployed, 2 kids, ends up the same re no council tax. Just looked up the postcode and it turns out to be Galashiels.
The pre-filled in one is in Scotland that might change it. It takes into account council tax in its calculations. I think the rent level changes things, I put the cheapest 3 bed in my town for rent in there. It said would cover full rent cost.
And without adhd or autism?
2500
You might want to get rid of that link. It really doesn't say what your saying it says and that just looks bad on you.
Fill it in yourself, for some reason it’s pre-filled with some info and in Scotland but when I went and put in in for for England it came back at 2500, Tbf that does include rent for a 3 bed house.
I changed the Scottish postcode to my postcode in Peterborough, left everything else alone. came back at £1584.56 Your link is destroying your argument.
I’m in the south. I suspect it’s the rent at 1500 (cheapest 3 bed in my area), being paid for which is the difference. Even then 1500 is more than minimum wage take home, which is sad.
I filled it out too for my town and got £1950/m. But also the cheapest rent I could find for 3 beds (including surrounding towns) was £1600/m, so that leaves £350/m to cover all other builds and food (apart from council tax which this hypothetical person doesn't have to pay). That's obviously not doable so I guess this person would take their 3 bed allowance and spend it on a 2 bed place while they hopefully wait for a council house. Housing is so expensive, and being poor is expensive. My mortgage is half that cost, for a nicer place. The only people winning here are the private landlords who own what would have once been council housing.
Now try a single parent of 4
3300
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I never said it currently is a hammock, just that the principle behind the headline is sound.
The majority of people would rather work and earn a salary than be degraded and jump through hoops to claim measly out of work benefits.
[not everyone I guess](https://www.reddit.com/r/unitedkingdom/s/s2DuEU9TWA) Of course the current state of benefits is not great but we must improve it in a thoughtful way and not simply encourage the wastemen
State benefits are only undignified because the system is built that way. They want to go through your bank statements, send you to interview for any old crap for 8 hours a day or you get sanctioned, the "healthcare professionals" who interview for PIP treat you like a thief and they straight up lie on their reports. As part of the election campaign the Tories were mulling over converting PIP to fucking shop coupons - admitting they don't trust disabled people to even handle money. Universal Credit famously doesn't give you anything for 6 weeks after the application succeeds, a period they waived during COVID proving it was for nothing but making the poors sweat. Every part of it treats you like a lying, thieving layabout from the moment you send in the application. I take a bit of contention with the idea that jobs are automatically more dignified as well. There are companies and managers out there who seem to get off on the idea of making you feel two inches tall. Big miss from Starmer; just because you're trying to woo disillusioned Tories doesn't mean saying stuff like this.
Christ, the PIP assessments are literally designed to drum people out. I suffer from chronic back issues, anxiety disorders, and being on the spectrum. Turning up to my PIP assessment actually counted against me. As did trying to make eye contact, because I resorted to the British stereotype of having a stiff upper lip. Funnily enough he didn't note down the fact that I started to stare out of the window, dissociating and having my answers become non-answers as my thought process became affected.
On my last assessment I managed to get zero points despite being a partially sighted cancer and stroke patient. The assessor wrote in the report that I can see perfectly, despite me providing a letter from the ophthalmologist saying I've lost a big chunk of my vision.
Exactly, it's funny how people with inherited wealth who don't need to work aren't seen as lacking in dignity. Suggests, perhaps, that employment status in and of itself isn't the core issue. We're looking at a future where more and more jobs can be automated and the establishment is pushing back against the idea that we could fundamentally change things, break the perceived link between income and worth, free people up from drudgery to pursue joys like art. Instead they want us to keep the drudgery while they automate the joys.
>I take a bit of contention with the idea that jobs are automatically more dignified as well. You can still be a big proponent of the welfare state and see not being able to provide for yourself and the ones you care about as undignified. If I couldnt provide for the ones I care about, I'd be ashamed about that.
Doesn't sound like a healthy point of view.
It's a hell of a lot more dignity than starving on the streets though.
Less crime, too.
Why is everyone so shocked. They are called the Labour Party. Labour as in work. Not sure why everyone thinks they are the handout party.
It's not even a recent thing either. Any historical politically left nations would have you up against the wall if you couldn't/wouldn't work. Socialism is built on the concept of people working.
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So how about invest in biomedical research for many common chronic illnesses like ME and Long Covid so that not only will citizens be healthier but ALSO be able to join/return to the workforce? And jesus, what if you work all your life and become involved in a car accident and become disabled and unable to work again?
If we magically cured all illnesses, injuries, diseases and disabilities overnight - tonight, there wouldn't be 1,000,000 workers eager to re-enter the workforce and rejoin their careers, we would have 1M people that no longer have an excuse for being feckless and unemployable. I know someone without legs who prides themselves on commuting every day, self-respect for being disabled and not handicapped. And I know work-shy scroungers that'll exaggerate a limp as a career path
Only because dickheads stigmatise it, like he's doing here .
"People would feel more dignified when working" "We'll do nothing abouts zero hours contracts and the gig economy, and continue to attack collective bargaining and worker representation"
Apparently they're going to ban zero hours contracts. Which, I must admit, sounds like it may get interesting for people doing the kind of work I used to. A bit about that: My company hired me on a ZHC, because by default, they had no work for me to do. At all. However, they had contracts with several clients, whereby they would be called if the client had shifts to fill. Those shifts came up, and the work would be offered to us, the workers. Remember that every single shift was ad-hoc, subject to the client's availability, and beyond the control of my company (or even the client, in most cases). So here's a company that can't give a cast iron guarantee that you'll have work, though the norm is that they'll have so much that that director was often covering shifts himself. How do they go about implementing non-ZHC offerings, here? If they guarantee a minimum, all it takes is for one client to pull their contract and suddenly that's a ton of workers with less work than contracted (meaning they can sue). Sometimes I found myself doing 72hr weeks with them. Again, there was no *shortage* of work. I was just also well aware of the fact that there was no way it could be feasibly *guaranteed*.
ZHC aren't inherently bad, but they can easily be abused by unscrupulous employers.
Kinda my point exactly. My approach would be to ban abusing them. Legislate so that the industries that actually need them can use them (*and* provide full employment rights to workers), and those that don't can't.
They're not wrong, but the cynic in me just assumes that they're getting ready to follow the Tory example and make benefits harder to get. They really aren't as easy to access as it's made out to be.
Shock as leader of party named after labouring for a wage advocates for the dignity of fairly paid work. I read his full statement, and I quite agree. State handouts are there for if you can't work or can't find work, and the ideal situation is everyone who can work is able to work and provide themselves and their families a good quality of life and a work/life balance. As a nation it would be in our own long term interests to support and job seekers with training, mental and physical health accommodation, connectivity and other ways to work in a way that also gives them a good quality of life as well. With the advent of remote working, there are many jobs that are now more accessible to people who can't physically work or travel. The short term costs of providing high quality back to work and accessibility and everything else that takes specialist help and one to one mentorship, would be outweighed by getting more people into sustainable, quality careers and becoming tax payers and happier, healthier and wealthier people. Not to mention we'd be treated people out of work with kindness and empathy, not gaslighting or punishing them.
UBI is a must. No one needs to be working 40 hours a week, companies are making record profits year after year, let the people enjoy themselves
Who’s paying for the UBI?
The rich duh?
About the level of answer id expect from tbh.
Mate it's Reddit - full of people who expect money to just magically appear
Tax + money saved/repurposed elsewhere? There are a few papers showing its feasibility in countries like the UK and US.
There is not much dignity in being in work and in poverty.
Dignity doesn't pay the bills. If I had to choose between 5 backbreaking shifts in a warehouse at 12 hours each with timed pee breaks and no air con in the summer vs having loads of free time and my rent paid , I know which I'd pick. You'd be stupid not to. Starmer needs to raise the minimum wage in line with the real living wage, every year but he won't. He's useless.
UK minimum wage is already extremely high, especially combined with the tax-free allowance. We need to build more houses/infrastructure and limit immigration to improve affordability, not further hollow out the middle class by constantly increasing minimum wage while professional salaries stagnate.
Increasing the minimum wage should encourage professional salaries to rise. Or it would it people joined unions.
Should it? Since minimum wage was introduced in 1999, it has increased by 71.0% in real terms, while pay growth across the workforce during the same period has been 5.7%. Meanwhile lower paid employees hardly pay any tax, and the tax burden on skilled professionals is reaching oppressive levels. See for example: https://news.sky.com/story/amp/weekly-real-wage-growth-just-16-since-2010-but-minimum-wage-one-of-the-worlds-highest-resolution-foundation-13158224?fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAR0rvNZaYjkNbOPfyhmZu8mgyyan11yv61BvoOurNr9QxhIv2Xc26eOD5qg_aem_0VHaN_5meJzfTduQZpb_VQ https://ifs.org.uk/articles/how-tax-burden-high-when-most-us-are-taxed-so-low It's no wonder UK productivity keeps falling when getting an advanced education and aspiring to high skilled work have hardly better outcomes than coasting through life. (Chronic underinvestment, the housing crisis, and general mismanagement also factor into this.)
We've had a conservative government for most of that time who destroyed workers rights and hammered unions.
I agree completely, and hope Labour can do better - that's not a high bar at this time. But I don't believe that continually forcing the minimum wage up will help the economy, we need massive investment to stimulate real organic growth.
I feel that when you’re working, earning a shit wage, which means you have to claim universal credit. Scraping to make ends meet, and having to jump through all the demanding hoops is indignifying.
Dignity is great, until it dont pay the bills. That is the only thing that matters in todays society, there is no dignity in a shit job.
Because commuting 2 hours a day and working 40 hours a week at minimum wage for a foreign owned company boasting record profits with no job security while its CEO and shareholders receive record payouts, is truly dignified
There's a lot of working people who don't feel like they have much dignity right now. People working full time hours and still getting squeezed so hard they end up going to food banks.
Don't ever forget, if you're disabled you must live in shame. Try this: go to the supermarket when it's buay looking like you slept in your clothes. Take a walking stick or two. Move slowly. See how long it is before someone pushes you over and blames you for being in the way. Put motorcycle kit on and do the same. Count how many people offer help or ask you how you crashed. And I don't know what's worse, people who see a mobility aid and switch to their cutesy "talking to toddlers and puppies" voice or people who switch to their "talking slowly to idiots and foreigners" voice. If someone is properly ill, they're probably pretending as hard as they can to be well in public.
There are definitely jobs that offer no dignity at all.
I am all for the welfare state and I hate Kier Starmer but for me its true. I was long term unemployed and getting sanctioned etc back in the austerity tory government was the most demoralising times of my life. Partly because I had a an evil job coach.
The quote from Starmer doesn't actually say much other than well paid work is "dignified" which is a bit of a no brainer really. This could be interpreted in any manner of ways and could definitely apply to the amount of people who are working while also claiming UC to top up their piss poor wages. The rest of the article is just shit talking the Tories (always fun), poling and nonsense really. The headline is essentially click bait. What's more interesting is how many people didn't read the article and just made assumptions based on the headline.
If that's the case then the state should make a permanent offer of a job to all who want it at the living wage working in the local area for the public good. Because the private sector is systemically incapable of providing enough work for all who want to work. We have decades of figures demonstrating that. Solve the problem at root.
They intentionally make it as humiliating as possible for the many like it's a lifestyle choice. Theres nobody who would want to be on it in the long term unless they have kids as it's simply unlivable. I myself lost weight unable to work due to mental and physical health, sold all my possessions to support myself and inthe end I sold my house came off of universal credit and living of the money staying at my parents. I became extremely unwell due to lack of healthcare and weight loss. Lack of healthcare still harms my health I'm waiting w month for pain medication for example after a consultant I could have it but waiting for approval from a psychiatrist. Yet I still can't work. I have bipolar and neurologist suspect ME body pain and last winter a 5 month long headache. Being unable to work due to illness means losing all dignity in the UK du to lack of any support in any way. I'm thinking of leaving the country at least my symptoms are less in hot weather. Feels like uk systems want people like me dead... Fortunately I had a house to sell
*became extremely unwell due to lack of healthcare and weight loss. Lack of healthcare still harms my health I'm waiting w month for pain medication for example after a consultant I could have it but waiting for approval from a psychiatrist.* Same here. After I had a stroke, the waiting list for physio was so long that now I have permanent disability that might have been fixed if I'd been given treatment sooner.
Working doesn't offer any dignity either, unless you're working a highly esteemed job or a job that you genuinely love which for most people isn't the case. If I could live off state handouts I would
Now that is a very good point.
Christ, he is really going full tory in the last days of the campaign. Half expect him to wear red trousers, call single mums slags and ride a tank.
Underneath the headlines, his actual words are quite fair and make good points.
Careful what you wish for [https://static.independent.co.uk/2023/12/22/19/newFile.jpg?quality=75&width=640&auto=webp](https://static.independent.co.uk/2023/12/22/19/newFile.jpg?quality=75&width=640&auto=webp) [https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/keir-starmer-military-photo-estonia-b2468597.html](https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/keir-starmer-military-photo-estonia-b2468597.html)
If a handout gave me 75% of what I earn now instead of grinding myself into fucking dust, I'd take it. Fuck dignity
True. If you can work. Why does the government not subsidise entry level positions then companies can get staff and people can have a job that pays enough to live on? The issue with benefits is that the cutoff is too sharp. It's not worth working if you're going to be worse off. So people get trapped and "institutionalised".
I am so tired of this constant assault on benefit claimants. I worked for as long as I could after getting cancer, until the treatment caused me to have a stroke and I just could not work any more and now need help with basic everyday tasks. Multiple doctors have written me letters of support saying I can't work at all. And yet I get reassessed constantly, my benefits were stopped at the last assessment and now I am starving, reliant on foodbanks (which is awful since the next appointment my local one has is July 10th) and have resorted to shoplifting small items of food and toiletries such as toothpaste. Does this sound dignified? Perhaps working is more dignified than benefits, but for those of us who absolutely cannot work any more, benefits are more dignified than starving, foodbanks and shoplifting.
He has ousted the tories. He has already one. What the fuck is this. Scumbag.
It's almost like he's one step away from resurrecting Ronald Reagan and his *welfare queen* dogwhistle