The other night, BBC1 showed a programme called "We All Pay Your Benefits". I didn't see it, but from what I gather, the attitude of some of the claimants infuriated people across the internet.
Public perception of benefits is quite some way from the truth of it. Most people claim a benefit at some point in their lives. However, it is apparent that there are 'good' benefits, and 'bad benefits'.
Good benefits include child benefit, maternity allowance, state pensions, winter fuel allowance, and tax credits. Most people are unaware that state pensions are classed as a benefit - the idea behind them being that your national insurance contribution pays for your pension at the end. Alas, this is not so. Considering your NI contributions also pay for your NHS and several other benefits you might have to claim one day, state pensions are heavily subsidised by the government and thus included in benefit statistics. Approximately half of all benefit expenditure is on state pensions. Bear that in mind next time you see a shocking "£X amount spent on benefits this year" statistic.
Child benefit is now means tested. It's means tested in a completely unfair way - in a household where one resident parent earning more than £50k p.a, no child benefit will be paid. If both resident parents earn £49k p.a each, they'll still get it. People who earn more than £50k may still opt to receive it, and be taxed on it, in order for it to count as national insurance cotributions. Many parents in lower income brackets are entitled to claim tax credits, at varying rates depending on amount of children, and income.
Maternity allowance is paid if you don't qualify for statutory maternity pay because you've had interrupted employment. It's based on your NI contribution for the year before. It is virtually the same as SMP, but classed as a benefit rather than an employment right.
Winter fuel allowance has been in the news recently because they are talking about means testing it. Some old people freeze to death because they're terrified of their heating bill. Some old people, rolling in cash, claim it anyway because they can. Plans to stop people living in hot countries claiming have also been put forward, with mixed reception.
So, that's your good, socially acceptable benefits. These are considered a 'right' and any attempt to change them is seen as compromising that right.
Disability Living Allowance and Personal Independence Payment are viewed with some suspicion, not helped by ATOS and their tyrannical screening process. ATOS have declared people who can't walk 'able to manage stairs' without ever asking them to do so, cleared the terminally ill for work and generally are making a total hash of things. People who have to attend such interviews are terrified of doing so. The concept of the man with a "bad back" who hasn't worked for 28 years, when you see him doing his garden every weekend is endemic. ATOS is not helping this.
Now, the bad benefits. These are mostly based on household income. Income support, jobseekers allowance, housing benefit, council tax benefit, council housing, and employment support allowance.
Income support is highly frowned upon. It is a pitifully small amount of money - £71 a week at present - with which you're expected to feed and clothe yourself, top up housing payments if necessary, and pay utilities. However, the screening process is incredibly strict and few people qualify - it is only for people who are pregnant, a lone parent of a child under 5, a carer or unable to work through disability or sickness. This means the majority of people on income support are likely to be women, going from lone parent and carer statistics - women who are either pregnant, parenting pre-schoolers alone, or caring. You have to go to the jobcentre every six months, to talk about what might happen if you go back to work. It is a box ticking exercise.
JSA is for people looking for work. There are two types - contribution based is linked to NI payments. Income based is linked to household income. This is the bad benefit people usually end up on at some point in their working lives. You have to go to the jobcentre every two weeks to sign on, fulfil the tasks assigned for claiming (applying for jobs, going to interviews) and woe betide you if you don't turn up, or haven't done enough work. You get sanctioned, you lose your benefit for two weeks and you're done. I have heard grown men weeping in the jobcentre because they've been sanctioned and can't feed their children for two weeks. It's their own 'fault', but being on JSA essentially enslaves you to a routine of interviews, application and failure until you get a job, however shitty. If you're under 25, you get £56.80 a week. How can anyone live on that? If you're over 25, you get the same as income support.
ESA is what you get if you're too sick to work, but don't qualify for DLA or income support. Once you are on ESA, you are drafted into a similar programme to JSA, of interviews and work programmes.
Then there are the housing-based benefits. To get a council house, you have to be on a low income, to be unintentionally homeless (i.e. evicted, rather than leaving of your own free will) and to have a dependent child. The waiting list is long, the housing available usually limited, limited further now by bedroom tax. Housing benefit is for people who rent, to pay their landlord. In some cases, the money goes direct to the landlord. It varies in amount by council and by how big your housing need is - I have a three bedroom house, but I only get housing benefit for a two bedroom house as that is all I need. Council tax benefit was originally 100% for people on income support, but now everyone has to pay at least some of it. It is linked to housing benefit, but you can claim one and not the other.
I do not understand why some benefits are perceived as being good and acceptable, where some do not. The ones that are unacceptable are the ones related to living in poverty. If poverty is unacceptable; GOOD, so it should be. But being poor does not make a person inferior. It does not make them a moral outcast. It does not make them a workshy loser, a fraud or a whore. I've mentioned before that I went from home owning, financially solvent, working mother to unemployed benefit claimant literally overnight. We should be pleased that we have a safety net in this country, even though it fails many people - most often single men, and families who live on the very borderline of poverty. People working in the lower tiers of employment - manual and unskilled - don't get the same working benefits as those in higher tiers. No pension schemes, no additional sick pay, no death in service benefit, so the slightest accident or setback can lead to serious financial problems. Far more investment in infrastructure, in education, and in working opportunities needs to be done before the "Problem of Benefits" can just be made to disappear. The government could start by introducing a living wage, so income top-ups weren't necessary....but that is for another post methinks...
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