A shoddy way to treat our disabled

“You see... You can if you try...”

“@agewait, thank you, I feel enlightened! Here's some facts I looked up:

There are lies, damned lies and statistics.
Mark Twain

I can prove anything by statistics except the truth.
George Canning

Be able to analyze statistics, which can be used to support or undercut almost any argument.
Marilyn vos Savant

Statistics are used much like a drunk uses a lamppost: for support, not illumination.
Vin Scully


Read more at http://tinyurl.com/anc6uga”

“@Karinfall1955: the actual amount of fraud is 0.1% the expenses fraud, it is till with us, is 31 times higher. Of course there are those who exploit the Benefit and Tax systems. Indeed, those people do discredit everyone… and the media propaganda highlights the 0.1%, whilst foraging with the others to get their snout into the trough.
@Wayne65: I do not advise others, I encourage… Are you now complaining about the quantity of factual information? Which blows softminded 'scape-goat' tactics of those who simply indulge in gossip-mongering perpetuating lies and blatant inaccuracies. Fraud is indeed fraud – Yet David Laws MP can wait awhile, after his conviction for fraud before he steps up to take a post in the current shower of hired-hands, whilst those who have been sanctioned face months if not years without any money – Is that Just? The statistice I shared were NOT 'mere' statistics they represent peoples lives, and early deaths due to the imposition of cuts on the poor whilst cronies get tax cuts and receive an extra £2,000 a week, whilst those on JSA get 0.71p per week – Is that Just?
You're pathetic attempt to label the provision of factual statistics has being "narrow minded" is simply that… pathetic. Try to stop and think once in a while before adding more inaccuracies to the 'tsunami' of lies and inaccuracies being peddled.”

“@Agewait, for someone who advises others to "think for themselves" you do use a lot of statistics and others research!

Statistics can be used to show what you want them to show, and are the narrow minded persons defence.

Fraud, ie benefit fraud relates to those caught claiming for something they say they can't do, then get caught doingit! What I refer to are those who won't do what they are able to do and to do nothing and expect payment for doing nothing!

Ask anyone what their free thinking criticism of the benefit system is, and it won't be the "disable" receiving them, but the "unabled"... No doubt you will trawl the web for some more stats to support your views.

Good luck with that!”

“@agewait. Blame those who take the pee out of the system; they are the real culprits and they do exist. Like the person who told a friend with bi-polar to "milk the system and apply for disability living allowance. Just make out every day is like your worst day" when he was managing quite nicely without any help at all. Those people discredit everyone.”

“"@agewait... you clearly have too much time on your hands and clearly don't work within the field of benefit use!" (And you clearly swallow every lie peddled by career politicians and their lackies the media).

@Wayne - So Not only are You unable to think for yourself, unable to discern propaganda/Lies that seek to divide and rule. But you also, display presumptuous tendencies, thus no doubt reflecting a softminded approach to important issues - preferring untruths, lies and spin regurgitated via the red-tops.

I note with interest that you do not and cannot refute the FACTUAL evidence I shared with you to enable you to address you mistaken softmindedness to actually repeat (parrot fashion) the blatant inaccuracy of a right-wing government fed 'media'.

It is a great shame that you, and thousands like you cannot raise your game, and actually begin to think for yourselves.”

“@agewait... you clearly have too much time on your hands and clearly don't work within the field of benefit use!”

“Myths and stereotypes abound. These serve not only to unfairly stigmatise claimants, but to obscure the questions we might want to answer about how best the state can provide support
to people who need it.

MYTH: There is a major problem of 'families where generations have never worked'

Reality: The academics Paul Gregg and Lindsay MacMillan looked at the Labour Force Survey, the large-scale survey of households from which we get most of our statistics about who's in work. In
households with two or more generations of working age, there were only 0.3 per cent where neither generation had ever worked.
In a third of these, the member of the younger generation had been out of work for less than a year.When they looked at longer-term data, they found that only 1 per cent of sons in the families they tracked had never worked by the time they were 29. What's more, while sons whose fathers had experienced unemployment were more likely to be unemployed,this only applied where there were few jobs in the local labour market. So 'inter-generational worklessness' is much more likely to be explained by a lack of jobs than a lack of a 'work ethic'.

MYTH: Benefit fraud is high and increasing

Reality: The latest Department for Work and Pensions estimates show that in 2011/12 just 0.7 per cent of benefit expenditure was overpaid due to fraud, including a 2.8 per cent fraud rate for jobseeker's allowance and a mere 0.3 per cent for incapacity benefits. Even if we put together fraud with 'customer error' – people who are not entitled to benefits but not deliberately
defrauding the state – the rate of false claims is 3.4 per cent for JSA and 1.2 per cent for incapacity benefit.
MYTH: The claim that benefit fraud is increasing is similarly false.
Because there have been changes in how fraud has been calculated over time, we have to look at combined fraud and 'customer error' for JSA and income support. This declined from 9.4 per cent to 4.8 per cent of spending from 1997/98 to 2004/05, and has since stayed roughly flat.”

“"Its a disgrace that those who need & benefit from DLA or any other form of benefit will suffer because of those that misuse the benefits system!...Lets not kid ourselves here, the reason DLA is being stopped/replaced is because of cost, the cost of misuse, those claiming who have no disability other than an inability to get up and work! 2nd, 3rd generation families who now expect benefits, who see it as "pay"!!!"

Wayne You really must be MORE discerning...

Try to think before you speak. Otherwise you are a pawn in the cultural production of ignorance, labelling, categorising and dismissing... and ways to punish the poor...
First, divert attention away from what lies behind poverty (lack of jobs, part time work and low pay). Second, manufacture public doubt with respect to those causes. Third, ignore any alternatives to the problem of poverty and thus welfare, in Britain.

IT'S A LIE
There are 8.5 million people receiving benefits in this country. There are more people IN WORK who get benefits than not working. There are 4.95 million households claiming housing benefit. The vast majority of all housing benefit claimants are IN WORK. The Welfare state is actually a massive state subsidy to business which enables it to pay poverty wages and charge exorbitant rents.
You're all sick of paying a huge swathe of chavs to lay about watching Jeremy Kyle all day?
IT'S A LIE.
Less than 5,000 people, out of over 9 million 16-64 year olds who don't work, have been on Job Seekers Allowance for more than 5 years. Historically, whenever jobs get created, they always get filled. The idea that there is a vast horde of the work-shy is a myth.
Living on benefits is a lifestyle choice?
IT'S A LIE.
More than 80% of benefit claimants are aged over 35. The vast majority of unemployed claimants have worked, and paid taxes, for years and are now on benefits due to redundancy, sickness, disability or having to care for someone. Millions more are receiving benefits due to poverty wages.
People won't work because benefits are too high?
IT'S A LIE.
Average benefits amount to £3,400 a year. These people are living in poverty. Since 1997, benefits have fallen sharply year on year in real terms. In 1971, JSA equalled 20.9% of the average wage. Today, it is worth 10.9%, virtually half what it was.
People should get off their ****s and look for work?
IT'S A LIE.
When Iain Duncan Smith suggested the jobless in Merthyr Tydfil should "get on a bus" to Cardiff to find work, Merthyr had 43 people for every job vacancy. Problem was, Cardiff already had nine unemployed people for every job vacancy. The jobs just don't exist. Unemployment is over 2.5 million, with a further 1.4 million working part time. In 2012, there are 25 people chasing every job vacancy.
Benefit cheats are bankrupting the country?
IT'S A LIE.
Benefit fraud does amount to about £1.5 billion a year. About 1% of the entire budget. Meanwhile, £1.3 billion gets underpaid each year, whilst £16 billion goes UNCLAIMED every year. Meanwhile, a company like Vodaphone is allowed to evade paying £6 billion in tax last year. So who is really shafting the country? Not one of the major parties will openly state the real truth. The biggest causes of poverty in this country are lack of jobs, poverty wages and part time work. All the parties have social policies that they KNOW are based upon outright lies, lies that are allowing a whole section of society to be vilified.

Folk who are so self-absorbed, are indifferent but wear a mask to pretend it is ObjectivityThey all should hang their heads in shame.”

“Its a disgrace that those who need & benefit from DLA or any other form of benefit will suffer because of those that misuse the benefits system!

Lets not kid ourselves here, the reason DLA is being stopped/replaced is because of cost, the cost of misuse, those claiming who have no disability other than an inability to get up and work! 2nd, 3rd generation families who now expect benefits, who see it as "pay"!!!”