Our Welfare State. Is it broken?

So, if someone is kind enough to do all that, buying lunch is the least I can do. (Hence, I never get to go out for lunch!)

Besides which, mental health is far more complex than being depressed.

MissAdventure

I fail to see what is to be gained by sending someone to work 2 months earlier, when they are crying uncontrollably in the job centre, at the shops, at home, and trying to sort out counselling for themselves.

Is that 2 months of benefit money SO important??

There’s no benefit whatsoever, to you, or any employer either. It’s an awful way to treat anyone and not something I’d have done as a work coach, though, sadly, many of my colleagues would have!

It's an absolute humiliation to end up being rocked like a baby in a strangers arms, in the middle of the job centre, with everyone looking on.

Real depression must be absolutely dreadful and clearly there are some people who are in no fit state to work, but how can it possibly be that the numbers claiming benefits for stress and depression have more than doubled over just three years?

The welfare State is a temporary lifeline for those who are struggling, but it has now ballooned into a huge, unaffordable monster.

Something has to change or those in genuine need will lose out.

Could it be that ot has only just become (sort of) accepted to even speak about mental health issues?

Even then, people are subject to "if I managed to do this, why didnt you?" type judgements.

* Besides which, mental health is far more complex than being depressed.* and the hardest to diagnose

Real depression is absolutely dreadful. I have had severe depression for nearly forty years. I take medication, and will almost certainly always have to do so. It enables me to function. I never once took a day off work because of depression. Difficult though it was, I had obligations to fulfill. I still do (to my dog). I believe too many people nowadays say they are depressed when they are a bit down or fed up. That is not being depressed.

It's pretty obvious to me if someone has OCD.
I don't mean the kind of people who fold their pillowcases a particular way - more people who cannot make it out of their front door because of their endless rituals, washing the skin literally off theor hands, turning the light off then needing to check it's off 25 times.

I used to work for the old DHSS and then the old Dept of Employment so I have experienced quite a bit of the admin of the welfare state. About the DHSS I won’t comment, but I will say that what I saw happening there over forty years ago has laid the foundations for much of the mess the welfare system is in today. The D of E, divided into Jobcentre and benefit services, played a much more proactive role in helping people into work or training. This included the long term unemployed as well as special groups like young people, returners (often women who had been out of the workforce for a while), the disabled, ex forces, graduates etc. There were government run training schemes, subsidised college courses, schemes to support the enterprising self employed, job clubs and many others. Now all job centre staff seem to do is interact online or occasionally face to face with jobseekers who are largely left to search and apply online for vacancies-or not. We need a determined and government led push to improve the take up of work by those able and a prevalent can-do attitude. The present system (like SO many others including the NHS) is NOT working and change is needed overall before the truly awful policy decisions of successive governments (not just this one!) bankrupts our struggling country.

Me and my girl saw a programme that featured a man who was afraid of buttons.

Sounds absolutely ridiculous - until you see how this mans life is impacted by this fear.

We could all sit in judgement and say well, we aren't afraid of buttons. Wear velcro! and other such things.

The fact was that for this man the fear was crippling overwhelming, for both him, and his long suffering wife.

Then of course, are the suggestions that any partner who is annoying must be "on the spectrum".
It does a huge disservice to people whose lives are impacted by these matters.

Oh, and before I climb down from my soap box.
Work coaches who don't actually have any skills or info being put into customer facing roles, too.

I asked about childminding - would I be able to find a childminder if going back to work full time, since my grandson was 10.
No family to have him, would it be discounted from wages earned, and how would it work with the 12.5 hour shifts that the job (the one I already had!) required.

The answer. Silence.
Not a bloodý clue!!!
So shouts it across the whole building "this woman's daughter has died... blah blah blah...."

What kind of "help" is that?!?

The government set out proposals to support disabled people into getting back to work, but we all know that there will never be the funding or the right people employed to do that job.
Nor will employers favour a candidate with health problems over a healthy person, so suitable jobs won't be there, despite discrimination laws. A physically disabled person is unlikely to be able to fill the many vacant jobs in crop-picking or hospitality, or suddenly achieve the qualifications to fill the thousands of vacant posts in the NHS.
There was also a statement that the way we work has changed to facour working from home, which will enable many disabled people to do some work - and yet employers including the Civil Service, urge people back into the office.
I am not saying that people should not work but it is not an easy-to-achieve alternative to being on benefits if you are long-term sick or disabled, yet I can see benefits being stopped before someone actually gets a job, the way the system works.

Grandmabatty

I was a single parent, not by choice, and didn't apply for anything. I brought up two children alone and they turned out hard working, sensible members of society. As am I. I really don't like single parents, usually women, being stereotyped

Grandmabatty
I also detest this stereotyping of not just Women by Men as well .
I raised my Children by holding down 4 jobs at one time but never considered myself a ‘single parent’ as my Children had a father . He just didn’t live with them !

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

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

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.