Comment by lawlessone
6 days ago
The same way many think about welfare/unemployment/disability schemes.
Constant hoops to jump through to prove they're looking for work or still incapable.
Or in the case of illness to prove they're still sick. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-59067101
There is a rather famous book written on this subject.
Catch-22.
In order to be given disability you must jump through so many hoops that no one whom is actually sick could complete them. Or how in unemployment you must prove you must spend your time proving you are looking for a job so you cannot spend you time actually looking for a job. My personal fav because its almost universal is sick-day policies that codify 100% abuse of sick days because people are punished for not using them because some people were "abusing" their sick days.
In the case of the book to be discharged from military service they must prove they are insane which no insane person could complete.
Minor correction, but in the book the act of asking to be discharged on account of insanity is taken as proof that one is sane, because no sane person would want to keep flying bombing missions day after day with low odds of survival.
That honestly doesn't make much sense when presented like that. It doesn't seem obvious that every single insane person would pick the insane choice in every scenario. It sounds more like a case of "necessary but not sufficient" in terms of sanity. (I imagine the book probably had plenty more nuance than the oversimplified strawman that I'm criticizing).
Yeah but in the UK there actually are lots of people claiming benefits that probably shouldn't be. Especially Personal Independent Payments.
It's enough of an issue that even Labour (left wing) is having to deal with it. Though as usual Starmer has chickened out (I think this is like the third thing that was obviously a good move that he's backed down on after dumb backlash).
Can you provide sources for your claim?
If you're looking for hard numbers on how many people shouldn't be getting them then you won't find it. Only the government has access to the details of individual claims.
However you can infer a lot from a) the insane rise in claims, especially mental health related:
https://obr.uk/docs/box-chart-3-f.png
Has the mental health of the nation got twice as bad in 2 years? Obviously not.
And b) whenever the BBC does touchy feely profiles of people there are always some weird red flags:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cx2gpl4528go
£400/month help with her bills because she struggles with time management? I'm sympathetic to her problems but that is a shit ton of money!
Even some of the people receiving it agree:
> "I was shocked by the ease with which it was granted. I was expecting to be interviewed, rightly so, but it was awarded without interview and he received backdated pay for the maximum amount." > > She was also surprised that her husband got mobility allowance for not having a car, even though she had a car and could drive him around.
(This reminds me of WFA where plenty of people receiving that also thought it was ridiculous.)
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cn0ry09d50wo
> Paul Harris, from Barnard Castle, gets £72.65 a week in PIP payments to help with extra costs associated with his anxiety and depression - such as for specialist therapy apps and counselling.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cn4llx4kvv8o
> Nick Howard, 51, from Cambridge, is neurodivergent and has been claiming Pip for five years. > > "Without Pip I would not be able to work as it pays for my transport to and from my workplace. > > "I'm currently buying an electric bike on credit, others I have had have been stolen or vandalised," he added.
Great... but I don't think paying PIP for 5 years is a good way to buy someone a bike.
Obviously not all cases are like this, but clearly something has gone wrong. And this isn't a partisan issue. Both parties agree that it has to change. The Tories just ignored the problem and Labour gave up after predictable "N people will die!" press.
And to be clear I'm not anti-poor or anything like that. I also thing WFA is ridiculous and that mostly goes to the rich. Child benefit also goes to lots of people (myself included) who totally don't need it. They all need reform, but look what happens when the government tries...
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Sometimes proving that you need it ends up costing more than the money that would have gone to people that didn't actually need it.
The general logic is that money is going to be taken from people no matter what (crime, expensive late interventions, etc.) and that relatively preventative measures are preferable because they cost less while preserving the social contract.
Sorry, but citation needed. Means testing might seem “obvious” from first principles, but from a policy point of view, it makes little to no sense.
The macroeconomic effects of welfare programs create a society that is better for everyone to live in. Reducing the issue to a matter of personal responsibility is a reframing that allows you to completely lose sight of the big picture, and create programs that are destined to fail by not reaching many of the people they need to.
Citation needed for the right to other people's money.
Government running charity interferes with the normal feedback in society. And the need to ask politely, justify one's apparently bad decisions and change failing behavior.
People become "entitled" to regular cash so a lot of the fear that ordinarily motivates the rest of us goes away.
Any system that asks nothing of people is a bad system.
I grew up on welfare. I've also seen how a lot of people on welfare actually live and how they spend their time. They don't spend it cleaning, I can tell you that.
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there is lots of welfare fraud. if you think money should just be handed out without question then you start handing your money out first.
Source? DOGE couldn't find any, even with all the ruckus they made.