If people know they can steal with zero chance of getting caught then mostly they will. We see this with video games for PCs where the theft rate, by illicit online download, can be 90% or more. Add to this the culture of entitlement built up by over 60 years of socialism and you end up with a potent combination which gives us a welfare state system that punishes the hardworking, honest members of our society whilst rewarding the indolent and feckless who abuse the system.
Invalidity Benefit (IB) was a social safety net for those who were unable to work because of their disability. And it was massively abused. All you had to do was fill in a form and you received money. Civil servants would check the forms and the occasional claimant would be called in for a medical, but mostly they weren’t. So why work, when all you have to do is fill in a form instead? And once you were on IB you automatically received other benefits.
In fact you didn’t even have to fill in the form. The staff at Citizen’s Advice Bureaus and Job Centres kept a supply of the forms and would fill them in for you with answers optimised so you would receive the benefit. So it was hardly surprising that nearly 3 million people ended up on IB. This is about one in thirteen of the workforce, which is patently ridiculous, there is absolutely no way that one in thirteen people are so disabled that they can’t work. So the majority of recipients were just stealing off the state. Which means that they were stealing off you and me.
Now obviously as a society we need a safety net for those who are genuinely unable to work through disability. But merely having a disability doesn’t make a person unable to work, as Frank Williams, Stephen Hawking and the thousands who go to work on wheelchairs or work from home with disabilities prove.
The situation with IB got so blatantly out of control that even a Labour government was forced to do something about it, so they introduced a new benefit for new claimants called Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) that involved actually having a medical to see if it was merited. And obviously the level of new claimants dropped enormously as all the parasites were weeded out. This was so good that the government decided to use ESA to replace IB for existing claimants. So right now those nearly 3 million people on IB are having medicals, most of them for the first time. And the results are startling.
36% of claimants just don’t bother continuing with their claim. They know they are stealing, taking money off hard working honest people that they have no right to. So there is no point them turning up for a medical where this will be found out. Which means that about a million people knew that they were blatantly stealing.
39% went through with the medical and were found to be fit for work. Another million people who were being given taxpayer’s money when they had no right to it.
17% were found to be capable of work if given some support. As a society we should give this support.
And just 7% of claimants were found to be incapable of any work. Which sounds about right. Most taxpayers would have no problem with looking after these people.
So common sense and a measure of fairness has been brought to the system. Gradually the millions of people on IB are being given medicals as they are transferred onto ESA. The burden of millions of people receiving our money when they had no rights to it is being removed. A fantastic victory for common sense and morality.
You can tell how good it is because the do-gooder, leftie, noodle knitters are up in arms. They think that it is everyone’s right to steal off the state, the government can just borrow more and more money to pay for it. And the honest, hard working citizen can continue to be punished by the feckless and the indolent.
So sorting IB out is a start. The problem is that our whole welfare state is just the same, it is the product of socialist dogma which takes no account of how people behave in the real world. So to a very large extent it punishes the good whilst rewarding the bad. There are millions of people receiving taxpayers’ money who shouldn’t be getting it. We have an entire underclass who, generation after generation, don’t work and don’t want to work. Why should they when the state will provide everything? People to whom having another baby is seen as an income opportunity, which puts yet more children into poverty (the cash isn’t spent on them) perpetuating the cycle.
The next thing the government needs to introduce is workfare as a replacement for jobseekers allowance. With this system the unemployed turn up and do work for which they get paid. If they don’t turn up they don’t get paid. This would cut the numbers on jobseekers allowance by 50% overnight. All those people who work in the black economy can’t be in two places at once, can they?
The welfare state is a moral disgrace. It is more often abused than used as the socialist theorists intended. It makes everyone who works for a living far worse off. It acts as a brake on enterprise and advancement of the individual. It destroys the soul of the country. What we need is a minimum safety net based on real need, not the entitlement system for an entire parasitic underclass that we have now.
Permalink
you know many people who just had to “was fill in a form and you received money”, do you? I mean is that based on actual facts, rather than it being something that fits your argument better than actuality?
an interesting point on the subject of invalidity checking was just made on the Jeremy Vine show; I have to say I don’t know this for a fact either, but it sounds like a lot of outcome-related subcontracts that the government uses; but anyway, the point was that the agencies used to make such checks are paid £300 if they get positive outcomes – ie. they report that the person -is- able to work. so it’s naturally in their interest to report that. but when it’s then taken to appeal, it turns out a lot of those people -aren’t- able to work, but do the subcontractors have to refund their £300s? nah, of course not.
Permalink
@jba
What makes you think that the payment for medicals is outcome related? I seriously doubt this.
As for appeals. Lots of people do this to work the system, they have nothing to lose. There are even websites that charge for information about how to work the system. Appeals did not involve a second medical, which seems very weird. I believe this might be changing to bring some sense to a system that was obviously being abused.
Permalink
“So right now those nearly 3 million people on IB are having medicals, most of them for the first time. And the results are startling.”
The percentage figures you go on to quote are actually for new claimants of ESA – the PDF that accompanies the DWP press release yesterday is at pains to point out that it’s not talking about the IB->ESA tests.
http://research.dwp.gov.uk/asd/workingage/esa_wca/esa_wca_26072011.pdf
Permalink
@Peter St. John
The principle is just the same. Once confronted with a medical most applicants are proven not to be genuine.
Permalink
The “peice of paper” form was a massive booklet at least 38 pages long filled with intrusive humiliating questions like how often did I pee myself a week and how much severe pain was “reasonable” essays from family and friends, doctors and specialist. And repeated every 3 years. Every 3 years i had to appeal the inaccurare decision made from this “peice of paper” and won every single face to face tribunal. Even when it was finally discovered my illness was actually a genetic condition that will only cause me to deteriorate and experience more pain I still had to be reassessed every few years. Being reassessed now. It’s generic, the fault is in my very DNA, I will never get better! I, my family and friends paid national insurance contributions as a safety net for those unlucky enough to need it. I am not a flaming criminal, I am just unlucky!
Permalink
@ “RIVER”. I’m on DLA, too. I have also seen people abuse the system, and it would be better for genuine claimants, such as yourself, if the fraudulent claimants were weeded out.
Permalink
River is spot on here. Not continuing a claim is NOT proof that they were stealing; people are abandoning their claims due to the ordeal that is applying for it. People who, let’s not forget, are declaring themselves _incapable of work_ have to battle red tape, voluminous forms, work capability assessments that are a joke, dealing with appeals, and dealing with endless administrative errors. By the time my wife, with severe ME, successfully appealed, they withdrew the benefit as it’d been 12 months since she applied.
As for the medicals “proving” people not to be genuine, I’m afraid you just do not know what you are talking about. They are not fit for purpose. They address immediate condition, with no regard for continuous capability. “Can you pick a pen up from the floor, once?” is considered an indication that you’re fit for a day’s work. I sat through my wife’s “assessment”. It was a torment; she could barely answer the questions, and could carry out NONE of the physical exercises. When the result came back, she was awarded 0 points—100% fit. She’s not alone. People just get rubber-stamped fit; over half of those who appeal win their appeals.
The whole process of applying for ESA is utterly toxic and fundamentally broken. People give up on it—some apply for jobseekers’ allowance to pay the bills, despite knowing they couldn’t take any job they were offered. Result? Ministers pat themselves on the back while boasting about how many people they’ve moved from incapacity to looking for work. Then they take the JSA away from people who shouldn’t be claiming it due to being unable to accept any job in the first place.
I can understand how you could reach the conclusions that you have, but I’m afraid you’re being somewhat naïve in your assessment of the statistics. If you look at them in any depth you’ll see that they do not prove what you think they do. You’re not alone.