Dec 02 2008
Benefit Cheats Reforms: Too Little, Too Late
Every time I hear a story about benefits cheats and how hard it is for those on benefits to get back into work I feel my blood boil and find it extremely difficult to keep my cool. I have extremely strong opinions on the topic, which is only compounded by watching chat shows like The Jeremy Kyle Show every morning.
Before I go any further I want to clarify that this article is not referring to the millions around the world that have been made redudant as a result of the credit crunch. My husband has been made redundant in the recent past and I fully empathise with all households trying to make ends meet. The pressure in our houshold is immense and we don’t have children so I can only imagine what it is like for those people. Neither am I talking about legitimately disabled people or the retired.
Anyway, on with the opinion…
I have worked since I was 13 when I had a newspaper round. I attended university until I finished my Master Degree and worked all the way through that too, coming home to do three night shifts at the local nursing home over the weekend. I am now self-employed and work harder than I have ever worked before but I could not imagine sitting around doing nothing all day. Worse still, I could not even contemplate sponging off the rest of the country’s taxpayer money without earning it. I’m too proud to do that because it is against everything my parents taught me.
I am working all hours God sends to make ends meet at the moment and all of my friends are too but it really riles me when I hear of people that have been on the dole for years and years without even trying to get a job. My taxes are paying for them to sit on their backsides and do nothing all day when the rest of us have to work hard all our lives and pay for everything from dental treatment to rent to prescriptions. It is absolutely disgusting that we are effectively penalised for wanting to earn a living. Furthermore, benefits cheats that can work complain when they are encouraged to find a job because they just might have to lift a finger every now and again.
Now the government has announced that they are going to implement measures to prevent benefits cheats claiming millions of our taxpayer money every year. Wow! It’s taken them 11 years and what will they do about it? Well, they will stop people from claiming benefits that do not even try to get a job. That’s it! So effectively if you do try to get a job then you can carry on living at my expense.
I read a BBC article today that just typifies the attiudes of benefits cheats and those that just cannot be bothered to get a job. And I quote: “But it’s not that easy to get a job straightaway, you’ve got to write out your CV and everything and then hand it in to places” Whoopie doo… is that what you have to do to get a job? How ever did we who work hard for living cope? I have the utmost contempt for the family in the article. They typify everything that is wrong with the country, socially and monitarily. The full article can be found here.
I sympathise with some people that genuinely struggle to work, such as those that look after genuinely sick relatives, but the rest sicken me. Reforms need to be hard hitting. They need to be comprehensive and they need to have no loopholes. Get a job or starve should do it. However, those people would then take jobs from the unfortunate that have lost ther jobs when their employers have gone under in the credit crunch, who of course deserve to work far more.
This then begs the question of why the government did not do it when the country was financially sound. Now Labour can save money by forcing people back into work they actually care. Well, it’s too little, too late and the damage is already done.
