[Herr]

In recent years there sure seems to be lots of talk with regard to people on benefit that shouldn't be on benefits.

Today 1 in 6 children in Britain grow up in a workless household. It is estimated that around half of people who are claiming JSA have been doing so over the long term.

One rather interesting thing that happens in Switzerland, the moment we talk of people who abuse the welfare system, in our minds it conjures up image of a foreigner or immigrant family and for the most part even in countries where welfare benefits are rather generous like in Sweden or Denmark, usually the moment they think of people who abuse the welfare it is always some immigrant family from an Islamic country with a battalion of badly behaved children in tow..... but not in Britain where even junk like Daily Express would highlight native population being scroungers while it is usually the case that immigrants are the benefit fraudsters.

Interestingly, the left like to say there is a lack of jobs.... if that is indeed so why then has employment rates among the foreign born been on an ever increasing trend? You can't blame them being paid under minimum wage either as ONS stats doesn't cover those in work illegally and a very small minority of legal jobs pay under minimum wage, these are usually trade jobs anyway that are paid by per job basis rather than a flat hourly type salary.

What exactly is the root cause of the culture of worklessness in modern Britain and the sudden influx of benefit scrounging?

[SpiggyTopes]

People will always take advantage of a generous system, for some it's just the natural thing to do.

[curtis871]

Is "over the long term" 6 months? I wouldn't say people on JSA for over 6 months are scroungers tbh. I was on JSA for longer than that but applying (this is including speculative applications) at over 100 places a week some weeks. I was also volunteering 3 days a week and at college another 2 days. I continued both for several weeks after I got a job meaning I was doing anywhere from 63 hours up to 74 hours a week plus travel time. You (op) seem to be extremely judgemental often unfairly. Yes there is a problem with some people being workshy and choosing to live on benifits but it's a far smaller problem than you appear to believe it to be.

[OU Student]

*yawn* another benefits thread.

[Jack22031994]

We are soft


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[Steve1654]

Welfare has just created lazy parents who produce lazy children who go on to produce lazy children. I see it everyday where i live and it's not good!! But on the other hand i think that the system is so generous and slack that it's so tempting and easy to take advantage of it!

[madders94]

(Original post by Steve1654)
Welfare has just created lazy parents who produce lazy children who go on to produce lazy children. I see it everyday where i live and it's not good!! But on the other hand i think that the system is so generous and slack that it's so tempting and easy to take advantage of it!

Most families I know on benefits has produced children - myself and my brother and sister included - who are so determined that we will never end up on benefits because we know that it's a horrible way to live - it's just that the Daily Mail would have people believe that we live the life of Riley

[curtis871]

(Original post by madders94)
Most families I know on benefits has produced children - myself and my brother and sister included - who are so determined that we will never end up on benefits because we know that it's a horrible way to live - it's just that the Daily Mail would have people believe that we live the life of Riley

I've not been in that position but the majority of those I know in it are also the same so I do think that the problem is smaller than op believes.

[Ham22]

Maybe the immigrant families don't feel a sense of belonging here and thus don't feel compelled to contribute to society by working. Also the system can be very generous (to reckless baby makers) so its open for exploitation and people will always be willing to take advantage. Its human nature.

[Martyn*]

(Original post by SpiggyTopes)
People will always take advantage of a generous system, for some it's just the natural thing to do.

What generous system? The amount that the law stipulates one should receive whilst not working is the bare-minimum.

[Martyn*]

(Original post by Steve1654)
Welfare has just created lazy parents who produce lazy children who go on to produce lazy children. I see it everyday where i live and it's not good!! But on the other hand i think that the system is so generous and slack that it's so tempting and easy to take advantage of it!

Welfare does not create laziness. There are people, like myself, who have been in receipt of benefits for some time, but continue with an active lifestyle. This notion that welfare creates lazyness or idleness is part of the modern hysteria grown up around the media propoganda campaign to antagonise the class system.

[Caribbeantwist]

In my opinion the immigrants are actually the ones doing the jobs that lazy britons can't be bothered to do. I read somewhere that a british supermarket needed I think 7000 new lorry drivers. The vast majority of the jobs filled were by polish immigrants who came to work here as they get better pay and better conditions than in their home country. Don't believe all the "scroungers" are immigrants... They are the ones filling the jobs that British people are too lazy to do


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[Martyn*]

(Original post by Ham22)
Also the system can be very generous (to reckless baby makers) so its open for exploitation and people will always be willing to take advantage. Its human nature.

It cannot be exploitation if that is what the law stipulates, if that is what one is legally entitled to.

[Rarrgh]

People are lazy and don't want to do anything. They find a way to act in a way which requires minimal effort and minimal work so they take it.

[Ham22]

(Original post by Martyn*)
It cannot be exploitation if that is what the law stipulates, if that is what one is legally entitled to.

I think deliberatley sitting back and popping out a huge family so you never have to get off your arse and support yourself financially is abusing the system. People are having children as a career move.

[Martyn*]

(Original post by alexandraa)
In my opinion the immigrants are actually the ones doing the jobs that lazy britons can't be bothered to do. I read somewhere that a british supermarket needed I think 7000 new lorry drivers. The vast majority of the jobs filled were by polish immigrants who came to work here as they get better pay and better conditions than in their home country. Don't believe all the "scroungers" are immigrants... They are the ones filling the jobs that British people are too lazy to do


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I also read somewhere that a certain haulage company in the North West had targeted all their jobs towards Polish immigrants because they were perceived to be much more reliable workers. Those Britons that did apply for the job were rejected because of some unfounded notion that all Britons are lazy, workshy and unreliable.

[FluxD]

One of the reasons it is so rampant is because our welfare system is a joke. Take tax credits for instance. Labour introduced them and structured them so claimants (which HMRC and DWP call 'customers') afford them the faculties and trustworthiness of self-employed people.

Like self-employed people who fill in a self assessed tax return each year, claimants of many means tested benefits, such as tax credits, fill out their own self assessment. The procedures are similar but difference between the self employed and the claimant is qualitative; one is entrepreneurial, the other is from the lowest rung of society (I am not saying all claimants are the lowest rung, but many really are)

Both are expected to tell the truth. What shocks me is by the time it is discovered that a claimant is lying there is already thousands of pounds of tax payers money in their bank and spent. They have no means to pay any debts back and the legal proceedings to obtain it back would cost more than it is worth.

I think the entire system needs to move away from viewing a claimant as a faultless 'customer'.

Also to the girl above romanticising immigrants "taking jobs British don't want to do". How come in areas with low immigrant populations, British people do all jobs? I think many students your age would like to work in a bar or restaurant part time. Sorry, Bratislav and Evana will work that job for less pay, more hours and without talking back to their manager.

20% youth unemployment yet an increase in number of foreigners working in traditional student and entry level jobs = "taking jobs British people don't want to do."

You would cry if you saw how many large immigrant families I see at work racking up 30k a year Child Tax Credits.

[Caribbeantwist]

(Original post by Martyn*)
I also read somewhere that a certain haulage company in the North West had targeted all their jobs towards Polish immigrants because they were perceived to be much more reliable workers. Those Britons that did apply for the job were rejected because of some unfounded notion that all Britons are lazy, workshy and unreliable.

Probably because polish nationals are used to working long hard hours for very little pay?


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[Martyn*]

(Original post by Ham22)
I think deliberatley sitting back and popping out a huge family so you never have to get off your arse and support yourself financially is abusing the system. People are having children as a career move.

You've swallowed the media hysteria-pill that people on benefits have children in order to garner more benefits in a cycle of popping out huge families. There are some families who take this path, but many more families do not. Moreover, I know of some large families where mum stays at home and dad works or vice-versa, or where both go to work, or where they work intermittently. The notion that there are whole swathes of communities where the parents of large families choose a benefits career is not unlike a notion that Ian Duncan Smith and the other right-wing dolts of the Tory party would subcribe to.

[Martyn*]

(Original post by alexandraa)
Probably because polish nationals are used to working long hard hours for very little pay?


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I would say that there is some truth to that, but I know of the same disastrous workaholic attitude (and that's what it is) amongst some Brits. Fortunately, not all Brits have this attitude, and I think that is a good thing, not a bad thing.