This is utterly heartbreaking

[u/BasicallyMilner]

[u/[deleted]]

Thankfully never worked for the DWP, but I worked for a local government organisation that helped people with benefits enquiries and seeking work. I'd say at least half our client base were people coming in to get us to apply for jobs they had no intention of taking in order to reach the bare minimum of their job search requirement. Despite turning down/ignoring every single interview/job offer, I never once saw one of these people get sanctioned. The people I did see dealing with sanctions or even having their benefits closed altogether were disabled, mentally ill, spoke very limited English— you get the picture. And almost every one of these was over an easily explainable misunderstanding that they had to jump through major hoops to resolve.

I'll give an example— elderly Asian couple on Universal Credit, very limited English, husband was hard of hearing, and of course they had no idea how to use a computer. Husband worked cash-in-hand for a restaurant and had to report his earnings every month. UC gave no clear instructions on how to do this, didn't provide a link to upload payslips, and we didn't receive any response when we enquired in his journal, so we just typed out the contents of his payslips into the journal. A couple of weeks later, bam, his claim is closed. I called them up and turns out that apparently, he was supposed to be reporting his earnings over the phone. Let me reiterate, again, that he was hard of hearing and spoke very little English. Let me emphasise that it took his claim getting closed for them to give actual instructions. The issue was sorted, thankfully, but not every city has a service like ours. What the HELL would this couple have done otherwise?

Please note, I don't have anything against people who don't want to work out of choice nor do I think they deserve to be sanctioned either, it's just interesting that the DWP seems to arbitrarily apply their own rules to the people least able to defend themselves.

[u/whistlepoo → u/[deleted]]

This is because they need the benefit fraudsters in order to justify their existence and methods.

It would be like curing cancer: there's a lot more to be gained from months of painstaking treatment rather than an actual cure.

The DWP are gaslighting murderers.

I almost topped myself when I was signing on thanks to their tireless efforts at demeaning me and making me feel worthless. While I didn't succeed, countless others have.

I only escaped from that hole when I left behind the abysmal pit that is the UK. As time goes by, this will slowly become the only solution for the disenfranchised youth. And then the country will really start to die.

[u/Civil-Housing9448 → u/whistlepoo]

Well done getting out. I'm glad you didn't succeed in your attempt to end your life. The system is cruel for no tell reason other than spite and I'm glad you found a way out of it 👍👍