The Mail vs Benefits

smod · **Posted:** Tue Mar 20, 2012 1:56 am

Truth about your tax bill: Everyone to get statement revealing THIRD of tax goes on welfare

According to their lovely graph most of the wealthfare money covers the elderly and not the unemployed. But, given the readership expect the opposite reaction.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... z1pc8Q1lQI

satnav · **Posted:** Tue Mar 20, 2012 10:35 am

A quick look at the figures shows that by far the largest chunk of the welfare budget goes to people who receive pensions yet the bulk of the comments seem to be about all the money 'being wasted' on unemployed people who don't want to work.

I think the real problem with this kind of initiative is that even though you are given the figures there is very little you can do if you object to certain bits of spending because most of the taxes are taken directly from your wage packet. I'm sure there are thousands of people who disagree with taxes being spent on nuclear weapons but there is nothing they can do about it apart from giving up work and stop paying income tax.

bluebellnutter · **Posted:** Tue Mar 20, 2012 12:23 pm

I notice they allowed the small figure of EU contribution to be shown...

smod · **Posted:** Tue Mar 20, 2012 12:28 pm

bluebellnutter wrote:

I notice they allowed the small figure of EU contribution to be shown...

And foreign aid.

bluebellnutter · **Posted:** Tue Mar 20, 2012 1:54 pm

"Scandal as Government spends 1/4 of budget spent on Religion on EU"

(To show how the Mail might report it when hell freezes over)

cycloon · **Joined:** Sun Jun 10, 2007 4:07 pm **Posts:** 3247

Of course, that list won't do anything but confirm prejudices.

Malcolm Armsteen · **Posted:** Tue Mar 20, 2012 5:35 pm

I really rather resent the fact that my pension, into which I paid for 30+ years and which actually runs at a surplus, is described as 'welfare'.

Timbo · **Posted:** Tue Mar 20, 2012 6:00 pm

I don't know about you guys, but I certainly get well more than my money's worth out of almost all of those headings every year. I seem to recall official statistics a while back that confirmed this to be the case for the overwhelming majority of the population. I think you have to earn over about £45k per year for a large chunk of your career before you're actually making a net contribution to the system (when you factor in whole-of-life costs)

Arnold · **Posted:** Tue Mar 20, 2012 7:10 pm

It's quite simple according to some recent Mail and Express headlines. 50% of my annual income went to baling out the banks, 50% to baling out Greece and Portugal, and another 50% to pay public service gold-plated pensions.

Bones McCoy · **Joined:** Mon Aug 16, 2010 9:08 am **Posts:** 7339

smod wrote:

bluebellnutter wrote:

I notice they allowed the small figure of EU contribution to be shown...

And foreign aid.

But nothing about Royalty.

Samanfur · **Posted:** Sat Mar 24, 2012 12:08 am

How on Earth did this get approved?

Quote:

British people are committing suicide to escape poverty. Is this what the State wants?

In the last few months of his life, Craig Monk attempted several overdoses and was described as 'vulnerable' by his family. An accident a few years before had resulted in the partial amputation of his leg and he had suffered unnecessary, and anxiety-inducing, obstructions in receiving state assistance - even though his disability was clear for all see.

Over time he slipped further into poverty, the ends could no longer meet. Finally, the fear of there not being a light at the end of his personal tunnel overwhelmed him and Mr. Monk, a 43-year-old from Burnley, was found hanging in his home in October last year.

I would love to say this is an anomaly, a one-off. That here was someone who was psychologically unhinged and motivated by his own selfish considerations. I cannot. For there is far more to it than that.

As I write there have been almost 150 deaths related to sick and disabled citizens who fear being plunged further into poverty as our benefit system - designed to protect the vulnerable - increasingly cuts people adrift leaving them to fend for themselves.

Stopped clocks etc.

satnav · **Posted:** Sat Mar 24, 2012 1:04 pm

To be fair to Poulton she has written a couple of articles pointing out the flaws in the welfare reforms but sadly it one voice up against all the bigots such as Littlejohn and Philips.

The problem with the invalidity benefit crackdown is that it will hurt the most vulnerable without necessarily dealing with the fraudsters that it is intended to weed out. Any professional fraudster you will make it their job to find out all the ins and outs of the new assessment system and they will be properly prepared by the time they are assessed. In the unlikely event that they are rumbled they will just move on to a new area of fraud.

The people likely to fall foul of the assessments are vulnerable people who are either not very articulate or who don't cope well under pressure. Any assessment is merely a snapshot of how the person is on that particular day. My grandma suffered chronic arthritis for the last 10 years of her life in the winter she was in constant pain and had trouble sleeping so was always too tired and in too much pain to do anything in the Summer she was much better and after a good nights sleep and the right medication she was often able to walk to the shops and go out for the day. She was very proud and very independent so she would often tell people she was well when she clearly wasn't. I just wonder how someone like my grandma would get on in one of these new style assessment? If vulnerable people do lose their benefits they are not equipped like the professional fraudsters to move on to new ways of making easy money.

Gourami · **Joined:** Wed Jul 20, 2011 10:51 pm **Posts:** 2005

I agree, some people who may fall foul are those who are very proud and/or find needing help embarrasing. I know an old chap who was very eager to show the social worker or OT that he could still do some things. According to reports he plastered on a smile and happily showed how he could carry out various tasks, despite being in absolute agony but not letting on. He then spent the rest of the day laid out recovering, while his family berated him for hiding his difficulties. He favoured this over what he saw as the humiliation of being a 'charity case'.

satnav · **Posted:** Tue Apr 17, 2012 10:25 pm

Staggering rise of the British food bank: One opens every week after rise in families unable to afford to eat
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2131010/Staggering-rise-British-food-bank-One-opens-week-families-pay-packet-away-having-money.html#comments

I think many of the comments under the article show how the drip drip of stories about people having comfortable life's on benefit affect the way Mail readers view people on benefits.

shyamz · **Posted:** Tue Apr 17, 2012 11:22 pm

satnav wrote:

Staggering rise of the British food bank: One opens every week after rise in families unable to afford to eat
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2131010/Staggering-rise-British-food-bank-One-opens-week-families-pay-packet-away-having-money.html#comments

I think many of the comments under the article show how the drip drip of stories about people having comfortable life's on benefit affect the way Mail readers view people on benefits.

If you are not on benefits and use such a bank to feed your family then you are a tragic victim of the heartless self-serving, middle England hating government. If you use these banks to feed your family and you are on benefits, then you are a lazy scrounger, afraid to work and happy to get something for nothing even if you are not entitled.

The Mail vs Benefits

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