Our Welfare State. Is it broken?

Doodledog

One of the problems is that wages are so low that many people need means-tested benefit top-ups that leave them dependent and unable to increase hours or wages without penalty.

There are also poverty traps surrounding pensions, so that someone with a small private pension is excluded from benefits claimed by those without, and disincentives for working people who find themselves unable to access free entry to events and other things as they aren't on benefits. Childcare is ridiculously expensive, as are rents, so people see no point in working full time - if they do they will lose benefit and basically work to be out of pocket.

All this comes at a cost to the taxpayer, and reduces the number of people who are 'economically active'. It also means that the State is subsidising the profits of the employers who pay so little that people need benefits to survive. That needs to be sorted out.

Yes

One persons depression is going to be very different from someone else's.
Its daft to lump them all together with a "fix".

I met a woman years ago who had been reduced to a permanent, childlike state by post partum psychosis.

I couldnt believe what I was seeing.
She was shuffling around the house carrying a teddy, while her husband looked after their three year old child.

I asked after her a few months back, and was told she is now in residential care.

One of the problems is that wages are so low that many people need means-tested benefit top-ups that leave them dependent and unable to increase hours or wages without penalty.

There are also poverty traps surrounding pensions, so that someone with a small private pension is excluded from benefits claimed by those without, and disincentives for working people who find themselves unable to access free entry to events and other things as they aren't on benefits. Childcare is ridiculously expensive, as are rents, so people see no point in working full time - if they do they will lose benefit and basically work to be out of pocket.

All this comes at a cost to the taxpayer, and reduces the number of people who are 'economically active'. It also means that the State is subsidising the profits of the employers who pay so little that people need benefits to survive. That needs to be sorted out.

Oh I so agree GSM, but that is one giant leap. I mean going from being unable to decide whether to get washed, dressed, eat, cook, clean, shop and in what order those should be done let alone whether it even matters to anyone including one’s self, particularly oneself,
to then being “smiley happy customer facing retail assistant” eg

I had no break from work due to illness and always came clean about my health issues when changing law firms.

Someone who has been out of work ‘for decades’ is I think unlikely to find work much above minimum wage level except in exceptional circumstances. But if you suffer from mental health issues any work is better than just sitting at home living on benefits. Work gets people out of the home, enables them to mix with others and gives self esteem.

Quite so, Granmarderby10. Very many people are out of work because of redundancy. If the workforce is shrinking yhere are likely to be fewer jobs for them.

Every time I read comments about claiming welfare benefits because of illness, particularly anxiety and depression I come across the same phrases……Something along the lines of “ you’ll feel better if you return to work” / “you’ll be better off if you go back to work” as though there is an actual job there waiting for you.
Am I alone in thinking that in the competitive job market with young, healthy, biddable applicants in steady supply, that someone who has not been to work for decades perhaps, will not manage to get to interview stage let alone be offered a job (necessarily with training) and without actual proper help as apposed to the plastic attempts that countless governments have spent fortunes on.

Whilst I find it ridiculous, I understand that some people do have such problems. I would hope there is some sort of treatment for it, as there is for other phobias. I was surprised to read that he has a wife - that woman is a saint. If he were my husband I would be serving a life sentence.

Germanshepherdsmum

My own experience is that someone with depression - even severe depression - is much better off working than sitting at home. It should not be a condition which triggers an entitlement to benefits.

It is not a condition which is itself triggers entitlement to benefit.

Someone with depression who is already employed might well find that continuing to make the effort to go to work is helpful but much depends on the degree of the depression and whether there are any associated mental health issues.

Clinical depression (not a severe fed up ness) inevitably affects how someone performs their job. Jobs are so varied in nature I feel that it isn’t reasonable to apply a ‘one solution’ or ‘what worked for me’ to everyone because personal circumstances vary so much.

For anyone without a job, I’ve tended to find that employers aren’t that keen to take on a new employee with a history of clinical depression and/or anxiety.

Yes, that is exactly the sort of thing I mean.

Both of us, presumably, find the idea of being housebound in case of encountering a button as ridiculous?
A bloody button, I ask you!
The ones with the four holes are the worst, apparently.

Ridiculous, but there is someone (probably many) whose lives are blighted by buttons.

Will you have to take strong antidepressants for the rest of your life, do you know that eventually you will take your life and how and where you will do so, and think about it every day? That’s depression, without losing a child but brought on by having one no matter how dearly loved. I have no ‘reason’ to be depressed. But people always ask, seeing the smile (I am a good actress) what do you have to be depressed about? Even my husband of many years still asks that.

But, people don't stop to consider others' feelings.
People ride roughshod over others hurt and pain.

I meant to say it, so that others will know how it feels to be judged from someone else's perspective.

It is an awful, terrible thing to say though, I know.
I feel rotten.

I’m sure you don’t mean to say that nobody who hasn’t lost a child knows what depression is, MissA.

The notion that the state cannot help people through life's 'ups and downs' may sound very fine, but not from the lips of politicians whose party has been responsible for so much of the 'downs', and the depths of them, for thousands of people.

George Osborne and austerity, together with Brexit lie behind so many of the redundancies that lie behind so much of the poverty.

Lack of investment in education lies behind our low-skilled workforce, and lack of investment in preventive health lies behind so much rumbling low grade ill health.

Truly this government has a nerve.

Grantanow

If government thinks taking kids out of school to go on holiday at cheaper rates is a bad thing it should increase the fine payable so that going during term time becomes unprofitable. Personally, I doubt limited school absences make a lot of difference to achievement - there was plenty of it when I was at school and I recall the Blairs did it but one might think being on holiday in Tuscany and meeting the Blairs' Italian friends compensated educationally.

I'm sure going to Florida and meeting Mickey Mouse also has huge educational benefits too. Absence fines should be much higher, I agree. Non of my kids or my grandchildren were taken out of school, we holidayed where we could afford, in school holiday time.

If we all just judge from our own very limited perspective, well..... it's not good to say or hear, is it?

By the same token then, I'm ok to ask "well, what have you got to be depressed about?"
"I've lost a child, you haven't, you can't know the meaning of depression until that happens".
Is that ok for me to say that?

I believe too many people nowadays say they are depressed when they are a bit down or fed up. That is not being depressed

I agree with GSM on this one. I have intermittently suffered from depression and panic attacks all my life. It did not prevent me from having two successful careers, gaining several excellent degrees and latterly running my own business. It made me a stronger, harder tougher person. When I read about all these school leavers and young people with "mental health" issues I suspect that what they really need is a bit of a kick up the backside to get them out of bed.

It’s been possible to buy your council house since the 1930s Namsnanny, but at a minimal or no discount compared to the market value. Councils rebuilt replacement homes when they were sold.
It wasn’t until 1979 that the heavy discounting started, that’s where the current issues stem from.

M0nica

Social housing was imtroduced because the poorest in society could not afford decent housing. It was built to safe hygenic standards and the rents were set at a level that those on the lowest wages could afford them.

The Conservative governments since 1979 have effectively reversed this policy, selling off council houses, many of which are now for rent in the private sector, encouraging private landlords to meet housing needs, which mean rents are set at market levels, not affordability levels.

As well as that 4.6 million homes are now in the private rental sector and 20% of households now have to rent. One of the reasons many families struggle with every day living and qualify for benefits is because rents in the private sector are so high.

We need to restructure our housing market. Encourage councils and Housing Associations to build more properties for rent, to be let at rents, quantified in terms of % of take home pay and do more to discourage private landlords and return mainly smaller first time buyer properties to the ownership market. There will always be a demand and need for a private rental sector, for the young and the intinerant, for all reasons.

But if the housing market continues to operate as it dows now it will drive more and more people into poverty.

Close family bought their council house from a Labour Council.
I think it was in the late 60's, before the Cons brought it about for the rest of the country.

I'm not sure it makes a whole lot of difference, with the exception of retrospectively understanding the Labour stance of the day.

The real scroungers are those not paying their proper amount of tax despite having the means to do so

This.

Be prepared for more of the same as the election looms ever closer. Everything that has gone wrong in the past 14 years will be either the fault of:

the previous Labour administration
Transgender activists
'Bogus' asylum seekers
'Benefit cheats'

Luckily, most of us are intelligent and knowledgeable enough about the reality of life on benefits to not be taken in by this malicious nonsense.

Probably not the ideal employee, someone who is struggling themselves.

My employer wouldn't allow me to work when I was depressed.

PamQS

Someone mentioned ‘Mandy’, the character from the TV series of the same name. She will confidently take any job she’s offered, regardless of experience, because she reckons even a few hours pay before she gets sacked is better than nothing!

😂😂😂
Love ‘Mandy’ that’s the attitude