Debunking the Stereotype of the Lazy Welfare Recipient

there are two things i think worth pointing out here.

1.) the study focuses on the developing world, which is a very different environment than the developed world. as such i do not believe its conclusions can be considered to say much about that, despite the title of the submission suggesting otherwise. that 'welfare' a phenomenon of the developed world, does not go to lazy recipients.

2.) the nature of the problem of undeserving people receiving state-sponsored benefits. so i am living in the uk and i know people who receive benefits. one person i know who admits to this, imo is deserving, and they represent a small proportion of people i know who admit to receiving state funded benefits.

the people i talk about who are happy to admit to receiving help from the state tend to have more resources and support at their disposal than seems fair. they are better off than me - a single man earning ~£60k a year - /before/ they earn benefits, and these people have no problem telling me that i am /stupid/ for working hard to earn my money.

literally. i have been called /stupid/ multiple times for earning my own survival and lifestyle.

most of these people make money illegally from doing things like drug dealing, loan sharking or illegally renting out the property they own (yes you can receive support if you own £100ks worth of property - disgusting imo when that is enough worth to sell your property and survive for considerably more than a year on the earnings without working.)

they are not representative of the general case though - i think most people who receive help and actually need it would be too ashamed to admit it. but people like the ones i know, in my case, enable me to continue to have the opinion that there are people getting help who simply don't need it.

to sum up, this study does nothing to alter my opinion on the idea that state sponsored benefits are abused. its just another thing telling me that people who need help do not abuse it - but those who do not will.

I'm having meetings with local branches of the English Department for Work and Pensions to try to get some clarification around their rules for people claiming out of work disability benefits who also do work of various types.

The out of work disability benefits are currently Employment and Support Allowance (contributions based), Employment and Support Allowance (income related), and Universal Credit.

People on ESA might be in the work related activity group (can work, should work), or the support group (probably could work at some point, or with correct support, but DWP (and probably society) have given up on these people).

The work might be "therapeutic activity" (a regular activity, unpaid, organised by certain approved providers); "voluntary work" (needs to be for a charity, or approved by DWP), "service user participation" (sometimes paid, but not always, and this is the stuff I'm working hardest on to get some clarification about. Many people do it, and they probably should be declaring it in advance (disabled people need to ask permission before they do work!) and then declaring the small amounts of income, although the rules are unclear, or paid work.

If anyone wants to see the rules for this you can have a look at the Decision Makers Guide and the Advice for Decision Makers. (The ADM is for Universal Credit).

I know a bunch of people who do service user participation and they have no idea how to declare it, and the DWP have no idea what it is (even though it's in their rules) and so a bunch of people are inadvertently not in compliance with the rules. That's bad enough, but when DWP change their mind they treat the claimant as a fraudster and stop benefits, when the claimant has only ever done exactly what they were told by DWP.

https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/decision-makers-gu...

Any journos: Download the decision makers guide. Then print it all out and stack it up. Then find a handful of real people and try to make a decision about their case.

Thanks! I hadn't seen Vox article, and it didn't show up in results when I checked for prior submissions.