The Big Benefits & Employment Thread

shoes

Well-Known Forumite
I'd be inclined to agree with gk, perhaps also ignoring the upper interquartile range also as I'm sure this skews the result a lot for a relatively small population of people.
 

Gramaisc

Forum O. G.
The problem is that statistics are used to justify things to people who can't be bothered to understand the finer points. They are used to justify things that are going to be done anyway. Imagine putting the above post into a tabloid newspaper....
 

Rikki

Well-Known Forumite
A box and whisker diagram would look a bit out of place in the star.


Edit
I have imagined it and it sounds like a good idea to me, graphs and naked ladies = win.
 

MarkHeenan

Well-Known Forumite
Thought this might be of use:

_45835015_uk_income_gra466.gif
 

My Name is URL

Well-Known Forumite
So if the median is £375 a week before tax and benefits... I make that £19,500 a year = a "take home" of £1281 per month....
 

My Name is URL

Well-Known Forumite
Sofa said:
This reminds me of George Osborne and David Cameron going on about getting 500,000 people off disability benefits and back in to work. That's right, show your true colours, boys - pick on the weakest and most vulnerable in society. How can they do this? Because millionaires don't have to care.
Whilst you almost had me convinced for a minute there, I think you're well off track with the above tbf.

As a few replies aluded to on the other thread, they are hardly "pick(ing) on the weakest and most vulnerable in society"

I watched Benefit Busters a few weeks back, I hope everyone else did too, it was a real eye opener...

One lad fell off a balcony on holiday (being a tool) and screwed his back up for the rest of his life. Could still walk / sit etc just sitting still for too long and touching his toes caused him any pain.

He went to see a medical assessor and went it with "I can't do this, I can't do that, do you want to see my vertebrae sticking out"

The woman looks up and says "I don't want to hear about what you can't do, only what you CAN do"

I was just amazed at this use of common sense...

Anyway the upshot of it all is that he then got turfed off disability and back on to job seekers because they assessed he was capable of work.
 

tek-monkey

wanna see my snake?
Can't belive I'm defending the Tories, but....

I know people who lie about a disability to claim benefits. I know people who make sure they are clued up on exactly what benefits they can get, what is easy to blag, and end up better off than me both financially and in the free time they have got to do as they please. These people are frikkin parasites, and NEED to be kicked off disability benefits. I for one would welcome a second look over a large number of benefits claimants, just to get scum like this off them.
 

tek-monkey

wanna see my snake?
Funnily enough the new plans for girls who gte knocked up to secure a flat seem to be just about that!
 

shoes

Well-Known Forumite
tek-monkey said:
Funnily enough the new plans for girls who gte knocked up to secure a flat seem to be just about that!
No they appear to be like that. They won't be. Not even close. They'll be almost as nice as a YOI and probably just as expensive.
 

tek-monkey

wanna see my snake?
Probably, but at least they don't get a nice flat out of it, which I know people from school did it for. Although that was quite a few years ago, I cannot believe its not still an incentive to some.
 

shoes

Well-Known Forumite
yeah my cousin currently lives with his asbo other half and their urchin child (they're both 21 and the baby is nearly 3 !!!!) in a £350,000 house in Poole, in Dorset. Anyone who knows Poole will know that its is NOT a cheap place to live, in fact I'm fairly sure it was listed as the most desireable place in Brittain to live not so long ago.

Anyway, neither of them have every worked, he has been into the YOI twice, once for mugging an old lady with a BB gun and once for ripping tiles off the roof of his school after he got expelled. And, yet, after alll that, at the age of 21, he's still free.

The house they live in is gratis, a nice 3-bed semi with a ridiculously large garden, driveway for the car that I have no idea how they afford and a dog for which they get an allowance!!!!!

I know life isn't fair but this isn't even close to being remotely fair.

As you can imagine I am not in regular contact with him other than to update him on how much of a low life piece of sh*t i think he is from time to time.
 

Sofa

I'm a Staffooooooordian
@ Shoes and Tek - from the buses thread:

I see benefit fraud for what it is - criminal theft. No question - it is deplorable.

But, what really gets me ready to throw up is the kind of Tory macho posturing which the 500,000 claim is. Where did they get that figure from? It is nonsense. They cannot know whether that many are illegally making false claims, or whether the figure is more or less. This sort of broad claim, if translated to policy will inevitably end up with people who really need that crucial support having it withdrawn.

The Tories want to see us heading back to days of Scare in the Community, ladies and gents. This is not fair and not acceptable.
 

shoes

Well-Known Forumite
tek-monkey said:
Probably, but at least they don't get a nice flat out of it, which I know people from school did it for. Although that was quite a few years ago, I cannot believe its not still an incentive to some.
When £5.80/hr, less tax and all the other decuctions you have to pay when you're a real grown up is the legal minimum wage I imagine free accomodation is pretty attractive.

I used to rent a room in a house for £340/month all in. It was shit. So shit in fact I stayed for less than 9 months whilst I saved up the money to live where I am now.

Imagine you have a 35 hour/week job (which, BTW, IMO is NOT a full working week but apparently it is.... whatever) at NMW gives you around £600/month to take home after the government has raped you, so less that rent which I am informed is pretty cheap for all inclusive living, you have £260 a month or £65/week. Which is about what you get on the dole, yes? Only you have to work for it.

Reduce JSA to merely food stamps and housing benefit if you are in contract in your rented accomodation (otherwise get your ass into a hostel), and raise NMW to £6.50.

Job done.
 

tek-monkey

wanna see my snake?
I agree the number cannot be known, until they assess everyone properly. So the 500,000 is a load of crap, but doing something about the thieving scrotes is still needed. How many people are actually on incapacity or disability benefit in the UK?

I also have to say I was glad to see one party (forgot who) say that if you refused help to return to work, you'd lose your benefits. I just wish I knew whose policy it was to let them refuse in the first place.
 
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