Unemployed & Benefits

[illdecide]

Being a tight b**tard, I was wondering about what poverty was when I was walking round Tesco the other day - ps have you noticed the price of cheese lately? Anyway, I saw Tesco noodles priced at 10p! Feck - 20 packets of these would feed a man for a week. So that's a man fed and with 2 packets of 6 pack cheese and onion to sprinkle over, sure that's a feast. So, we have a culinary delight for the price of 4 quid - add 2 loaves - another quid each say - and that is a square meal for six quid a week. Then, for dessert, 7 tins of mixed fruit added would cost 1.40 - 7.40 to be fed. Now we get to the essentials. I think that a man could smoke (if you do) 2 packs of that Drum tobacco with papers ... 50g for £12 quid .... that's a week's smoking - add papers for a pound and that's food and smokes sorted for £20. Now the big issue is beer. Best value is that Strophenhaun Czech beer at £3.57 for 4 .. so multiply that by 7 and that is ...........£25 quid. That is a man's needs attended to for £45 a week. I feel that if secretly I kill the cats and dogs in the street and put them on the fire - sprinkle the burnt bits on top of the noodles - and I could live rightly. However, if you have a wife, kids, a mortgage, a life or debts, this might be a bit hypothetical. But I have a mate who says that kids can survive on vitamins (and that is something that can be got at the doctors) so: party on!!!

Hurler...what can i say. you have it sorted, is your surname thatcher

[illdecide]

Thanks lads for all your contributions...

[seafoid]

But very few people in NI would be earning £200 per week.
And how is anyone in NI with kids supposed to subsist on £65 per week? 

It all comes from the English contempt of those in a spot of bother. This is alien to Irish catholic culture .I don't know about the unionists but how is someone in Larne say supposed to get his life back together after falling into unemployment on a stipend of £65 per week ? £65 is not enough to enable someone to get through the week with any sense of dignity.

How much does NI spend on unemployment benefit anyway? where does the rest of the money go?

utter rubbish, if that were the case why doesn't Ireland have a health service which is 'fit for purpose', which gives a massively different standard of care to those who can pay than to those who can't - education is reverting to the same structure too.

Bogball

The below the poverty line levels of UK welfare go way back. This is a meme that has its roots in history.

: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/dec/07/national-insurance-british-welfare-poverty?INTCMP=SRCH

"Scandinavia doesn't do it. The Germans don't do it. The French don't do it. Not even the Americans do it. Britain is almost alone among rich countries in its willingness to pitch its workers into poverty-level incomes when they lose their jobs.

Tim Horton, research director of the Fabian Society, thinks the crucial difference between us and comparable nations is that our system developed from the poor laws of the 16th and 17th century. We saw welfare as taking care of the destitute at the bottom, and our attitude towards it has always been slightly begrudging. We see it as something we give to others, not something we may need and want to invest in ourselves.

As welfare has become focused on the needy, we have become less generous towards its recipients. Benefits are now set at well below poverty levels, and most of us no longer care. Whereas in 1985 42% of us thought it was definitely the government's responsibility to provide a decent standard of living for the unemployed, by 2006 only 10% thought that true."


It's driven by a very English attitude to poverty.  Which is not appropriate to Northern Ireland.

[seafoid]

Thanks lads for all your contributions...

I hope you find something soon Illdecide .

[NAG1]

Yes Good Luck Illdecide!

Just taking up on your point Seafoid, I think attitudes have hardened towards the benefit system in general due to the amount of fraud and miss-use of the system by the scammers.

Tax payers of NI have no issue with paying a decent tax so that genuine unemployed people get the benefit they need when they are out of work (and looking to get back into it) but its the people who dont even try plus claiming all benefits under the sun that cause the shift in attitude.

[nrico2006]

Yes Good Luck Illdecide!

Just taking up on your point Seafoid, I think attitudes have hardened towards the benefit system in general due to the amount of fraud and miss-use of the system by the scammers.

Tax payers of NI have no issue with paying a decent tax so that genuine unemployed people get the benefit they need when they are out of work (and looking to get back into it) but its the people who dont even try plus claiming all benefits under the sun that cause the shift in attitude.

I agree with you NAG1. 

illdecide - hope you get a bit of luck soon.

[Minder]

Seafoid - England hold the purse strings, so what is "appropriate" in England is appropriate in Northern Ireland.

[seafoid]

Seafoid - England hold the purse strings, so what is "appropriate" in England is appropriate in Northern Ireland.

I'd like to see the numbers. Where does the NI budget go? 
what's the point of having a devolved government if it has no power to decide anything ?
Does Scotland have the same social welfare rates as England?  Or Wales?   

[delboy]

I will soon be unemployed (haven't been told yet but i know it's coming) and i was wondering what benefits i would be entitled too, i have 2 kids and a wife who only works 16 hours a week (small wage). I have been in constant employment for 21 years...

The Southern Brethren can add to this to compare what North get compared to South

There may well be a thread similar to this so sorry in advance...

P.S. I work in Civil Engineering (Consultants) and the construction industry is dead (you already know this) but apparently manufacturing has picked up? Can this lead onto the Construction Industry improving or not?

Im an a very similar position job wise (getting the push come feburary) hope you find something soon.

[Tony Baloney]

Seafoid - England hold the purse strings, so what is "appropriate" in England is appropriate in Northern Ireland.

I'd like to see the numbers. Where does the NI budget go? 
what's the point of having a devolved government if it has no power to decide anything ?
Does Scotland have the same social welfare rates as England?  Or Wales?

The local MLAs would have to look after the funding of the welfare state themselves and this would have meant making big decisions and they wouldn't have been able to blame the Brits for their poor lot. Hardly going to happen.

[Banana Man]

Yes Good Luck Illdecide!

Just taking up on your point Seafoid, I think attitudes have hardened towards the benefit system in general due to the amount of fraud and miss-use of the system by the scammers.

Tax payers of NI have no issue with paying a decent tax so that genuine unemployed people get the benefit they need when they are out of work (and looking to get back into it) but its the people who dont even try plus claiming all benefits under the sun that cause the shift in attitude.

+1

[Ulick]

what's the point of having a devolved government if it has no power to decide anything ?

It's not a 'government' as NI is not a sovereign state, country or anything else. Stormont is nothing more than devolved administration put in place as a holding position pending a final decision on the national sovereignty. 

[Hereiam]

Some good advice so far. Its really stressin me out at the minute as to what to do next. Have to get up in the mornings and go into a work place that is throwing me to the kerb. Will be the longest month going.

[Canalman]

Some good advice so far. Its really stressin me out at the minute as to what to do next. Have to get up in the mornings and go into a work place that is throwing me to the kerb. Will be the longest month going.

Grin and bear it imo. Give it your all for the last month as you will need their goodwill and reference in the future when you go for another job. Don't burn any bridges despite the obvious temptation to do so.

Best of luck to you.

[illdecide]

Good advise there Canalman, Hereiam grit your teeth and don't do anything foolish. I had a friend years ago told his boss what he thought of him and a few weeks later a company phoned for a reference and his ex boss sunk him like the titanic.

Good advise and help from you lads here...thanks