Wednesday, January 30, 2013

Entitlement

Interesting article in the Mail this morning reporting on the ITV This Morning programme with a young couple on who believe that because their parents pay tax they are entitled to live on benefits in a two bedroom flat. Note that they have worked and paid into the system though certainly not steadily or regularly and believe because their family members do, they are 'entitled' as will be their daughter when she grows up.
Mail. (usual caveats)
A young couple who receive more than £17,000 a year in benefits appeared on ITV's This Morning to defend their taxpayer-funded lifestyle.
Danny Creamer, 21, and Gina Allen, 18, who live in a comfortable two-bedroom flat in Portsmouth with their four month old daughter, Talulah Rose, say they are better off on £17k benefits and argue that unless they are able to find jobs that pay £18,000 a year or more, there's no point in working.
The couple also hit back at those who describe them as scroungers, arguing that because their hard-working parents have paid tax all their lives, they are entitled to claim some of the money back.
Now this is definitely a lifestyle choice, though it can be argued that the minimum wage at the lower levels of employment has also become the maximum wage too. However it's the sense of entitlement that really gets my goat. There are people out there unemployed who would love any kind of job and have been left on the scrapheap by age, illness and sometimes sheer bad luck, but they are often those who have worked in the past and would work in the future given a chance and they don't see living off the state as a healthy option. Yet this young couple do as the state itself has made it easy for them to do so. They simply don't have to work, they can go through the motions with the jobcentre, but really they are quite comfortable where they are and that's the rub. Unemployment benefit after a certain period of time if you haven't paid in should not be a comfortable area. If you've paid in all your life fair enough there should be some benefit to this, but if you've paid in nothing then perhaps it should not be a comfort zone.
Claiming that because your parents pay in gives you entitlement though should surely be a non-starter?
Life is tough for the genuinely unemployed who are really seeking work, this couple are truly taking the piss here.

3 annotations:

Anonymous said...

I was horrified when I saw this. As a single Mum of three, existing on benefits alone I was mortified. Mostly because I have suffered abuse and stigma for being on benefits, because, I assume, every tax payer in Britain assumes I am like this couple.
I'm not. I was married to the father of my three children right up till the day he told us to fuck off (his words, not mine). I'm actually still married to him (8 years after he kicked us out) as he refuses to meet me half way on the divorce costs. In his opinion, I get everything for free from the government so I should just charge the tax payer another £600 to get divorced. He paid no child support until this year and yes, he is a tax payer, in fact he works for the NHS. I am desperate for a job but bringing up three children, on your own, with no childcare support is hard, if not impossible. I never planned to be a single Mum, I never thought that I would one day become a pariah. Yet here I am, a 39 year old married yet single Mum of three who is represented by a pair of selfish, spoilt, lazy little fucking shits. I'm not like them yet the tax payers of Britain are made to think that I am. It really is about time the MSM and Bloggers alike started digging a little deeper into this story. Why does it take two different organisations to help me find a job. We have Job Centre Plus and A4E or some such outside organisation agency paid gazillions to help me find a job.
I turn up to every meeting, every fortnight/month yet they have yet to offer me a single job and Job Centre Plus seem to struggle with the simple concept of pressing the button that marks me as attended/didn't attend.
The biggest blockage to job seekers finding jobs is the whole job finding industry. I mean seriously, if your overly inflated civil service wage relied on nothing more than actually finding your clients a job would you bother?.
Nah, I wouldn't either, cos if you found them all jobs, well you'd sharp find yourself unemployed, wouldn't you.
That's my rant over, I'm off to spend another day (3 hrs a day, 5 days a week) job hunting, because that's what I have to do to keep the Job Centre and A4E happy. I'm hoping my JSA will go in this afternoon as it is my eldests 15th Birthday today, and no, her hard working, tax paying father didn't send her a fucking card, let alone a fucking present. I'm assuming, like always, that he is relying on you, the tax payer to buy the cards and presents, and me the hideous benefit scrounging single Mum of three to actually go out and get them.
You're Welcome.

Anonymous said...

Yea, the money went in, I'm so blessed that someone, at JCP got the e-mail,from the guy at the switch board, which was very busy yesterday, and was closed this morning, I'm off to buy my daughter, who never asked to be born into this situation, her birthday presents. And in case you are still convinced that benefit scrounging single mums are the ones buying up all the 42" plasma screen tvs. Nope. I'm off to buy my daughter her £10 onesie, from Peacocks and a shit load of wool (she is loving the crochet but wants to learn to knit). In fact I am just about to hunt down a real crochet needle and some real knittng needles too.

Anonymous said...

Oh, and in case you didn't get the point, Daddy (the hard working, tax payer) is off in May for a two week diving holiday in Indonesia, with his new girlfriend. The old one, the one that he was living with, rent free, when eldest child (daughter) went to visit for two weeks, is long gone. Sadly when daughter turned up, for a two week visit, to try out living with her wonderful father, he couldn't wait for her to decide if she was going to stay or not. He phoned child benefit 2 days after she arrived to claim his benefits (and his god given right to a two bedroom, government supplied flat) and he got them all. Meanwhile, his benefit scrounging wife and two remaining children were forced to find a new home, in 30 days, and did so. And then, 3 weeks later the daughter decided to come home, because the loving fathers girlfriend turned out to be a mental head, and the loving father turned out to be a fucking asshole.
So, long story short, the loving, tax paying, hard working father has dumped the mental head partner, but has retained his very lovely tax payer funded two bedroom flat (£300 p.c.m - whilst earning approx £27,000 p.y). Meanwhile his wife, and 3 children are now living in a shitty, mouldy, 2 bedroom house that costs the tax payer £650 a month (privately rented - no council houses down south) and have become, thanks to shit like this in the MSM, the utter scum of society. The funniest thing is that had I been a sleep around benefit scrounger I would have been so much better off than my sleep around tax paying husband.
Ah well, I guess you can't predict the future, and you can't predict how your husband will leave you looking like a benefit scrounger.
I don't expect you you publish my comments but I hope you have read them, and will perhaps, god willing, take them on board.
We are not all like this shameful couple, some of us single mums are just that. Single mums, trying to bring up our children the best we can.
Thankyou for listening to my rants x