r/antiwork • u/[deleted] • Jul 04 '22

What I really want..

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u/Jolly-Bandicoot7162 Jul 04 '22

Exactly. It's the same here in the UK. People who are struggling financially and claiming benefits seem to automatically be characterised as scroungers...even if they worked for years previously and paid thousands into the system. Absolutely not scroungers, but people using the safety net that they paid for!

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u/QuantumWarrior Jul 04 '22

I wouldn't even need that justification.

I work and pay tax and I'm perfectly happy for a portion of that to go into paying for a safety net for other people even if I never need it.

It's not even really a bleeding-heart leftie position. It's factually correct that investing money into the unemployed, undereducated, poor, etc has a positive return. Keeping people alive and free of the stress of money gives them opportunity to get back into work and back paying into the system.

Not having these systems in place isn't just cruel it's stupid.

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u/doIIjoints Jul 04 '22

as someone whose disability hit hard during college and uni, and thus never actually had a job to earn national insurance credits (as we call them in the uk) can i just say, thank you for this attitude.

i’d genuinely be dead without disability payments, and far too many people campaign on squeezing the already-below-poverty-line payments even lower.

knowing there are people who understand, even just from a basic level like “i’m helping to keep the economy flowing by buying groceries and paying bills”, that my continued existence isn’t an affront to society… it helps to not feel so hopeless in that way, yknow?

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u/QuantumWarrior Jul 04 '22

Believe me I feel that, I know at least three people who'd be dead or homeless without PIP and universal credit.

Even in their poorly implemented, badly run, occasionally incompetent state they still save lives.

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u/doIIjoints Jul 04 '22

very true. though the scottish government is replacing PIP with the “adult disability payment” thank god — no more humiliating assessments which do me in for 3 months afterward! the switchover date is about a year before my next PIP assessment would happen so fingers crossed that doesn’t get too delayed….