The Daily Mail tells the story of Mrs Taylor, an unemployed mother of five, who had four of her children while receiving benefits. She has now been ordered to look for a job or have her benefits drastically reduced. Her husband is also unemployed.
Together the couple collect £501 a week in benefits – £179 child tax credit, £64 child benefit, £90 job seeker’s allowance, £126 housing benefit, £24 discretionary housing payment and £18 towards their council tax.
They also receive free school meals and around eight pints of milk a day, making an annual total of £26,052, or the equivalent of a £33,000-a-year salary before tax. [Emphasis mine]
There are two things at work here. The first is the so-called “benefits trap”. It is not Mrs Taylor’s fault that the Government has made it more advantageous in certain cases for people to claim benefits rather than work. She is simply taking advantage of the system in place. The second factor is down to Mrs Taylor herself. If she is in a position where the only work she can get would attract the minimum wage, that would most likely be because she lacks the relevant skills, training and experience to get a better paying job. For that, she should take some responsibility.
Anyway, what shocked me most was not even the size of the benefits payments, but Mrs Taylor’s reaction to the ultimatum by the council:
“The world’s gone mad,” [she declared] “What’s the point of going to slave your guts out for 40 hours? What do you get for it? Absolutely nothing.”
Yes, darling, the world’s gone mad. Only not in the way you mean. It is a truly mad world which pays you more to sit at home than people with a lot more skill, learning and experience than yourself can hope to earn. These people traipse to work everyday, work as hard as they can, suffer heavy burdens of taxation, and make financial sacrifices. They do all this in order to deliver to you a lifestyle even more comfortable than that which they have. Yes, the world has gone mad. Isn’t it great that you have, up until now, been the beneficiary of such madness?
She is lobbying her local MP to help her make her case. As she lives in the Camborne, Cornwall area, I take it that her MP is the Lib Dem’s Treasury spokesman, Julia Goldsworthy. Perhaps Goldsworthy will deliver a few home truths to this deluded woman. Then again, judging by the Lib Dems’ general approach to public finance, perhaps not.
February 22nd, 2007 at 9:21 pm
Actually I have some sympathy for the family. In many ways the benefits trap is mad and it makes life both hard and dispiriting. That said you do have to wonder why her husband can’t get work.
February 22nd, 2007 at 9:41 pm
I sympathise with their plight, but what infuriates me is the entitlement mentality displayed by her comments: ‘the world’s gone mad’.
February 23rd, 2007 at 12:35 am
Am currently kneedeep in a project on this topic and have been hearing it from every side. I am sorry - but one goes to work to support your family because that is what you are meant to do. I would LOVE to sit home and do nothing but it doesn’t quite work that way. I have to go out to work to address my financial responsibilities and so that my son has positive role models to look at. Sadly I also have to be sure that Mrs Taylor is well taken care of. Look I have no problem helping people who NEED help - it’s those that just WANT help that I have no patience for.
February 23rd, 2007 at 11:47 am
It is not a benefits trap in my opinion. Bel touched on this in her post - it is an alternative lifestyle choice that has been provided, rather than a safety net to cover the basics until you can get back into work.
Would Ms Taylor have had four more children if she had gone back to work? I doubt it, because she and her husband could not have afforded them. It is a poor society that allows this to happen.
February 23rd, 2007 at 2:16 pm
This is a sad and dispiriting tale. As an addendum 27% of all our government spending goes on ‘the social’ in one form or another.
Comparable to the 13% education, 7% health and 6% defence. In a market economy you will always have people out of work and unemplyed and a safety net is in principle a good thing.
However, this is now way out of control and needs massive reigning in. For all that he is unpopular you could do worse than look at the American reforms of the past 10 years under Clinton and then Bush. They have lowered the social costs and increased employment. Unsurprisingly crime has fallen too.
Ending this nonsense will benefit the country in a multitude of ways; I am not sure this is Cameron’s BluLab thinking though…
February 23rd, 2007 at 4:19 pm
Bel, I agree it is infuriating. I also agree as someone who pays tax out of less money the remainder of which I get to spend on my family it is doubly so.
As Cityinslicker says we need to find ways of reforming the system so that work pays! At the moment for a lot of people it does not. Mind you neither does saving for a pension!
February 23rd, 2007 at 6:36 pm
This is why limits should be put on benefits. After your second child you should not receive any benefit for any more children. 2 is enough for the government to provide for.
As for unemployment benefit it should be given in tokens for food and other neccessities. If you want luxuries the government should not be providing them.
As for housing council tax benefit she doesn’t need it. I would allow all people on low incomes to live rent free and council tax free in council accomodation so they aren’t poorer when they get a job.
In the end this would probably halve their financial benefits.
February 23rd, 2007 at 7:03 pm
Wayne, what happens if the claimant has triplets?
I have no problem with benefits being given in cash, actually. I feel that tokens etc mmay stigmatise. I am happy for benefits to be paid to those who need them, but the system should be rejigged so that, as Benedict says, ‘work pays’. Also, as Tony points out, in cases such as these, benefits seem to be used as a lifestyle choice, rather than as a means to survive before going (back) into the workforce. That should be discouraged.
Like Cityunslicker, I note that this is not Cameron’s policy, in so far as one can be determined. The Conservatives are probably afraid to address the issue in case the Left seize on it as a chance to paint them as harsh and uncaring. I feel that such fears are probably groundless. Ten years under Labour has shown people that the welfare system needs to be revised. I think the public is fed up with people abusing the system.
Morag echoes the frustrations of many who wish to work and provide for their families, and who also care for the poorest in society, but who are increasingly concerned by the way the welfare system operates to penalise the hardworking.
February 24th, 2007 at 12:07 pm
Wayne, what happens if the claimant has triplets?
lol. Make it two births unless they have more than two babies at the first time they have children.
I feel that tokens etc mmay stigmatise
It will also be embarrassing which will encourage them to get off benefits. The more we make benefits a bad thing for people to have the less time they will spend on them.
March 6th, 2007 at 10:43 am
Yes, hanging’s too good for them. There should be no benefit from benefits. Hadn’t realised the internet had spawned quite so many obnoxious bullies. What’s that again, Bel? Arbeit macht frei, wasn’t it ?
December 4th, 2007 at 4:59 pm
I think this is absolutely disgusting!! I know somebody in my local area who has made it her duty to have as many kids as her body will allow to stop herself from working so that she can sit on her behind all of her life and not pay a penny towards the countries growing taxes!!
This woman is suffering from Diabetes, which is an awful thing to go through.. but in turn, her husband is her F/T carer and gets allowances from tax-payers money for this.. to virtually stay at home and look after them all. I imagine it must be hard for all of them but they lay it all on themselves.. bu having 5 children and continuing to concieve knowingly.. of course they can cope with all these children.. they both stay at home.. they have family and friends to support them.. they have plenty of money to support themselves..
They have a car for which most of the mileage is paid for.. they have a plasma TV with all the extras.. Sky, Broadband, laptops, computers.. dishwasher, newly fitted kitchen.. new appliances..
It’s is you.. the taxpayer.. that is buying all of this stuff for these kind of families. Disgusting!
I am a single mother of one.. I am not planning on having any mmore children until I have myself a career and a job that will support me and my children. I dont wish to sit on my behind for the rest of my life.. I have absolutely no respect for people like that.