My time is spent writing application after application, repeating the same information in different words. A wearisome and unproductive task: it is rare to receive an acknowledgment, let alone an invite to interview.
I lead a life without achievement. In fact my life is quite the opposite: a life waiting to begin again – a waste.
Oh, yes, I know exactly how Jeremy Messenger feels. Since my redundancy from Network Rail in November 2003, my fortunes have fluctuated wildly. Initially, the generous payout saw me through the first year while I started to build my self-employed work. Then this took a tumble, leading to agency work before I secured a lucrative contract. When that went, I finally found myself lining up at the local Jobcentre applying for JSA. I wouldn’t wish the desperate experience of doing the rounds trying to get benefits just to keep the wolf from the door while longing just to be in work, on anyone. So, yeah, it does feel like you are in limbo, waiting for things to start again.
And, yes, there are arrogant arseholes out there who assume that you are sponging off their taxes.
Finding myself unemployed I am no longer immune to the aggressive and hateful propaganda that is pitched against people in my situation. Regardless of our employment histories and efforts to find work, we are labelled scroungers and treated with contempt. Many people treat me with an air of superiority while others, some friends and relatives included, doubt me.
In my case, I had similar comments made here whenever I discussed my experiences as a claimant. Having been employed – and self employed – for most of my adult life, navigating the benefits system came as a shock to the system to say the least. Having paid in far, far more than I have ever drawn out, I do not consider myself a scrounger. Indeed, since securing work after three months claiming, I have already paid in more than I took out and what I took out just about kept us going. It was hardly living in luxury. So I take exception when people claim that they were paying for me. As I am a net contributor to the system, that one is dismissed out of hand and I also take exception when people expect that I should have been made to jump through even more hoops than I was. There seems to be a misanthropic idea that people who have need of a temporary safety net should be made to work for their benefits. Well, excuse me, but work for them I already have; time and time again over the past three decades while I paid in taxes far in excess of the pittance I drew out during the first three months of 2011. It is fortunate for you if you have never had to endure the misery of going from a decent income to nothing, living off your savings until they have all gone and then, and only then, having to go cap in hand to the state to ask for a pittance of what you’ve paid in to keep the roof over your head and food on the table.
These tutors lead mandatory group workshops, covering material such as communication, motivation and personal hygiene. We are treated as though we have never been employed or lived in the outside world. In reality we are an educated bunch and many were previously highly paid professionals – a very different picture of the unemployed to the one most often projected.
Again, same here. I attended a workshop especially designed for people who, like me, had not had to look for work for a long time having held fairly high level positions, so there was a level of understanding of our backgrounds from the tutor in this case, but not in all of the ones I attended. All of my fellow claimants, without exception, were desperate to get back into work and off benefits.
So, yes, I do understand Mr Messenger and I have no sympathy for the misanthropic attitude of some of my fellow travellers. Experience changes attitudes, I find…
I never did get that job (I don’t count Sainsbury’s as that was strictly temporary). In the end, I managed to get myself more self-employed work, which, frankly, suits me better anyway.
Likewise. I was unemployed for over 6 months in 2011. The money I received was far far less than I had paid in over the previous 27 years. No other tax payer paid for me, I had already paid it in national insurance contributions in only 5 months the previous year, in fact less than 2 months tax would have covered it. The bastards than decided it be classed as taxable when I went back to work. Any proper insurance would have paid me a sum equal to my wages, as it happened I had to take out extra insurance to cover my mortgage.
The first time I was self-employed I took out insurance against being unable to work due to sickness et al. It was fine until I needed to claim. They are happy enough to take the money in the good times, but when it comes to paying out, it’s a different matter. I realised then that it was a waste of money.
“Having paid in far, far more than I have ever drawn out, I do not consider myself a scrounger.”
I’d hope that anyone railing against the benefit system didn’t.
Leaving aside the Ponzi scheme nature of the NI & benefits system (whereby anything you paid in is likely to have gone towards someone else), what most people are irked about is not tiding over those who have fallen on hard times, but rather paying for a girl barely out of her teens to have three children by an unsuitable man… 😡
And I understand that irk. However, every time I discuss this from the point of view of someone who used the system as it was designed to be used, I am regaled with complaints about paying for me to lounge about – or words to that effect. Even a few days ago we had a regular commenter wanting me to have turned up at the job-centre to kick my heels for several hours to get me used to a routine. FFS! I’ve worked for over thirty years, I don’t need to get used to a routine. As a self-employed cove, I am more likely to have a greater sense of self-reliance and motivation than the employed – it’s how I get to eat. I turn up at the time and place dictated by the client and will be a damned sight more flexible about it than many employed folk I know.
“..I am regaled with complaints about paying for me to lounge about ..”
Such people are idiots, and can be safely dismissed. As well as anything else they might say!
Such people are idiots, and can be safely dismissed. As well as anything else they might say!
Unfortunately they cannot be safely dismissed, because it is such people that the government is appeasing in its policies on benefits. They have been encouraged in their views by the reporting of the tabloids, which make sure that there is a full page spread on a benefits cheat every two of three days. You don’t need many cases to do that, but gives people the impression that fraud in the system is rampant. This is done for a very cynical political reason, for when people are convinced that fraud rates are much higher than they are, you can get them agree with reductions in benefits and more draconian conditions imposed on claimants. It is a pure propaganda and it must always be challenged.
Well said Mr L. The vast majority of claimants are like you. They have no desire to be unemployed and wish to get back into steady employment as soon as they can. The problem is that there are simply not enough jobs to go around. There are at least 4 job seekers chasing every vacancy. This means that a very large number of diligent, hardworking, qualified people are going to be unemployed.
I was disgusted by, though not surprised by, many of the conservative views expressed on that article. If Messenger had been poorly educated and inarticulate they would have condemned him for that. Because he is articulate and well educated they condemned him for being “unrealistic” and “picky”.
But they won’t condemn the economic policies which have led to people like him being unemployed, and those are the policies that were consciously adopted by Thatcher, to prioritise low wage inflation at the expense of employment. This has naturally led to much, much higher rates of unemployment since 1980, and has nothing to do with people being lazy, because they are not (*)
(*) Okay, some people are, but they are not statistically significant and the benefits system should not be administered on the assumption that every claimant is a wastrel.