The BIG and bouncy benefits thread.

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Are you on benefits? What do you think of the govenments plans to reform them?

I am on UC and PIP. I get more money than I need to live on but if they say that's OK then I need to go with it. Once my savings get to £16,000 I will need to come off UC and partly live off my savings.

What reforms are these mate

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/bigg ... king-again

Have you been in a jobcentre lately

Nope, not for a year or so.

I went in one about 3 years ago and there was no jobs

I don't know if benefits are too generous or not to be honest but I know that people seem to struggle in them

Yea, it's unfortunate. I don't think they take mental health problems seriously enough. I struggle to deal with shopping so god knows how I could hold down a job.

Yeah I know what you mean

It's all box ticking these days mate and they don't ask the right question and they don't really want to know about you either...bureaucracy gone mad

I've been helped to get in benefits before by social workers etc because I can't fill forms in...I think that was about 3 or 4 years ago during one of the lockdowns

He almost forced me to claim

I'm like "nah I'm ok" and he's there signing me up

I was going off the rails at the time so it did give me a bit of respite

It's a bit long, and has no headings. I looked for a couple of key words - "cut" and "reduce" - but found nothing about cutting benefits. Looks like it's more about improving the health service and other positive things, but it's hard to imagine they won't use that as an excuse to stop paying benefits - "refuses reasonable offers of help back into work" or something like it. Overall the document makes it look good, but I don't trust governments when it comes to benefits. It's a big bill for them and they don't want to run out of money.

I guess in practice things will go on much like they did before, i.e. not very good.

They're always on about getting the country working again. Pity they never talk about stopping people doing socially unworthy jobs like advertising and making cigarettes.

I wouldn't say they are particularly generous. Some people do better out of the system than others. It is very circumstantial.

e.g. I know someone who was homeless for quite a while. He got higher rate PIP (both care and mobility) and higher rate ESA. He quite happily used this to pay for clothes, mobile phone, travel, and hotel rooms when it was cold/raining. Many homeless people however would not be entitled to so much - they'd only get Jobseekers allowance (or UC equivalent) at the most - IF they know how to make a claim.

It is unfortunate that the jobcentre don't help people to find jobs. I did a scheme years ago where they were pretty much just trying to harass me off benefits, which ultimately made me more ill and less likely to find a job. I went in to the jobcentre a couple of years ago, and was enthusiastically told that one local employer in particular was good at hiring disabled people. I told her that it was that employer who discriminated against me in the past. She looked embarrassed and tried to hurry me out of the place.