So called "benefit cheats".

[IrishWorker]

I seen this article cause interesting debate on another forum, personally I think fair play to them if they can get away with it in a society that fucks 99% of the workers its nice to see some "bending the rules".
Although this particular family disgusts me the way they have let the capitalist media take advantage of them.
Obviously this could not happen in a Marxist society as every person is obligated to contribute in some way.

http://www.newsoftheworld.co.uk/multimedia/archive/00076/benfits580_516x316_76764a.jpg
The Lolly and the Skive-y

14 kids and one on the way..but crazy benefits system means it's Xmas every day for Cain family





By Matthew Acton & Guy Basnett, 27/12/2009
MEET the mum and dad with an incredible FOURTEEN kids who prove Britain's benefits system has gone bonkers - showering them with a whopping tax-free £36,847 a year in handouts.


Pregnant Dawn and Sean Cain's huge family - aged from 21 down to 19 months - have just enjoyed a very merry Christmas, with every mouthful of their turkey dinner, and every present stuffed under their tree, paid for by YOU the taxpayer.
Gift

To match their breathtaking haul from the public purse Sean (pictured above with family) would have to clinch a job paying a gross salary of £51,500 - a near impossibility in this recession.

Our list of jobs below shows how Britain's crazy system values courage, dedication and hard graft - paying front-line soldiers in Afghanistan just £22,000 and junior NHS doctors £33,285.




And although Mr Cain is able, he's definitely not willing. He and wife Dawn admit their New Year's resolution is never to find work, because no job they'd get in Britain's recession-hit economy will come close to paying the same. They're sticking with the gift that just keeps on giving - benefits.

And unlike most of Britain's workforce they're in for a PAYRISE - as Dawn expects child No 15 in April.

One-time landscape gardener Sean admitted: "With the social giving us £700 a week why should I work for anything less? There's no point me even trying to look for a job. I've got a family of 15 to support.

"I'm better off staying at home and helping Dawn with the kids.

"People could call us scroungers but what would they do in the same situation?" The Cains' situation just spotlights the country's barmy benefits bonanza.

First the family get the RENT paid on their home in Wythenshawe, Manchester. They don't pay their £1,023-a-year COUNCIL TAX bill either.

They get CHILD TAX CREDITS of £439 a week, CHILD BENEFIT of £138 a week and eight of the kids enjoy FREE SCHOOL DINNERS worth £48 a week.

Despite vowing not to work, 41-year-old Sean gets JOBSEEKER'S ALLOWANCE of £150 every fortnight.

It all adds up to that £36,847 grand total which dwarfs the take-home pay of millions of hardworking families. Britain's average salary is £21,320 before tax and national insurance.

Dawn, 39, has never worked since she became a mum at the age of 18. And Sean hasn't lifted a finger since 2003 when he took time off to help Dawn handle a problem with the kids. He soon realised he was better off on benefits and has stayed home ever since.

Research director of the Taxpayers' Alliance Matthew Sinclair blamed the scandal on the system. He said: "All those complicated benefits often add up to so much it's not worth working. It's absolutely shocking."

http://www.revleft.com/img/icons/pullquote_open.gifWe get £700 a week on the social. Why work for less? There's no point looking for a job http://www.revleft.com/img/icons/pullquote_close.gif



Dawn says she only planned for six kids but then felt obliged to carry on in a state-funded bid to become the perfect mum.

She said: "Whenever I have a baby I always think, 'I'm not having any more!' But then I get this urge to have another because I want to do it better."

Dawn, who smokes 20 cigarettes a day, added: "I'm a good mum. I breastfed them all and with each one I learn a bit more, so I think, 'Well why not have another one?'

"People expect us to be scruffy and dirty because we're such a big family, but we're not. I look after my kids well and make sure we get by. And every Christmas I make sure they get everything they want."

With a bit of help from the taxpayer.
Bikes

This year we funded a huge £2,000 gift list including mobile phones, bikes, scooters, a camcorder, hair straighteners and a Wii games console for Dawn's brood.

She insisted: "I don't want them to miss out on what other kids have got. If they ask for a mobile, I'll get them one."

And the money-spinning family tradition looks all set to continue - for her 19-year-old daughter Katie has already made Dawn a grandma by giving birth to a son 18 months ago.

Katie said: "I love being a mum but I don't want as many kids as my mum. I've said I'll stop at three."


_______
HANDOUT BRITAIN

The Cain family's benfits bonanza:

SCHOOL DINNERS Free for 8 kids: £1,920 a year
FREE COUNCIL TAX £1,023 a year
CHILD TAX CREDITS £22,828 a year
CHILD BENEFIT £7,176 a year
JOBSEEKER'S ALLOWANCE £3,900 a year
GRAND TOTAL £36,847 a year or £708 a week
GROSS SALARY YOU WOULD NEED TO MATCH IT £51,500 a year

________
JOBS THAT PAY LESS

SOLDIER SERVING IN AFGHANISTAN £22,000
NEWLY QUALIFIED TEACHER £21,102
JUNIOR DOCTOR £33,285
QUALIFIED NURSE £19,683
SOCIAL WORKER £19,600
POLICE CONSTABLE £24,039
FIREMAN £27,851
CARE ASSISTANT £10,000
PRISON OFFICER £17,744
http://www.newsoftheworld.co.uk/news/652399/The-Lolly-and-the-Skive-y.html

[Demogorgon]

This kind of article is absurdly dishonest. Do you know how much it costs to raise a child, let alone fourteen of them? Hint, thirty seven thousand a year is going to be stretched mighty thin. The reader is meant to think how well off they would be if they were getting thirty seven thousand and think it is unfair that someone else is getting it for "free". Thing is the average reader doesn't have fourteen kids.

[IrishWorker]

This kind of article is absurdly dishonest. Do you know how much it costs to raise a child, let alone fourteen of them? Hint, thirty seven thousand a year is going to be stretched mighty thin. The reader is meant to think how well off they would be if they were getting thirty seven thousand and think it is unfair that someone else is getting it for "free". Thing is the average reader doesn't have fourteen kids.
This type of gutter press reporting only fans the flames for those who would cut the meager benefits some vulnerable people in capitalist society exist on.

[Kléber]

Obviously this could not happen in a Marxist society as every person is obligated to contribute in some way.Sounds like you're doing some wishful thinking comrade. Lenin said our challenge is to build a socialist society with people as they are now, not as we would have them be.

Most of my family are immigrants in Australia. I have some relatives who live comfortably solely off benefits and they disgust me. I won't even speak to them. Not because they live for free off the taxpayer, because they keep the money to themselves, while we have other relations who have worked difficult jobs every day of their lives, but live much poorer than these idle cretins who never worked at all, simply because they don't speak English well and don't know how to take advantage of the system.

That said, the number of children being paid for definitely makes the amount of money being "cheated" for here much less substantial. The real question is whether the state should be using welfare to encourage working class families to become babymaking facilities for the industrial reserve, and uniformed, armies.

[IrishWorker]

Sounds like you're doing some wishful thinking comrade. Lenin said our challenge is to build a socialist society with people as they are now, not as we would have them be.

Most of my family are immigrants in Australia. I have some relatives who live comfortably off benefits and they disgust me. I won't even speak to them. Not because they live for free off the taxpayer, because they keep the money to themselves, while we have other relations who have worked difficult jobs every day of their lives, but live much poorer than these idle cretins who never worked at all, simply because they don't speak English well and don't know how to take advantage of the system.

That said, the number of children being paid for makes the amount of money being "stolen" here much less meaningful. The real question is whether the state should be using welfare to encourage working class families to become babymaking facilities.

Wishful thinking? Probably not, it is possible to have a society of equals in which every person contributes to it I wouldn’t be a Socialist if I thought it was imposable.

I wouldn’t get too worked up about your relatives although it is sad they do not have a work ethic benefit systems within the parameters of capitalism will always be scammed in a society that breeds social injustice it is inevitable.

[Antiks72]

This family is small potatoes compared to the waste, fraud, and abuse taking place at the federal level. Take a look at all the corporate welfare as well, while you're at it. Fourteen kids? HFS.

[Jolly Red Giant]

Goes to show how site the pay is for the jobs listed.

[Andy Bowden]

You can expect more of this kinda fare in the run up to the general election. The Daily Mail has been running similar stories about folk getting loads of housing benefit to stay in swanky flats (and all the cases they've picked have been of Blacks, Asians or Gypsies; good old fashioned dog whistle stuff).

I don't think the Left should just brush "benefit cheats" aside or encourage it though. There's loads of folk who are working class and don't get any benefits and go mental when they read stuff like this. Also benefits come from either taxation of working people or taxation of the wealthy (who get their wealth by and large from the work other people do) so one way or another, it is society's money being doled out, and you cant have people living off it without doing something for it.

The best argument to make imo is that people having a job, and education, training or some other role in society isn't just a right it's a responsibility a Socialist government would enforce. When you go into the dole you should hand in a cv and the govt should actively take a role to find you something that you can work in that's beneficial to yourself and your community.

[cenv]

Hah. This article is scapegoating at its finest. "Look at this family who's stealing you're money!" Well, what about the bourgeois pigs who are stealing our lives?


Research director of the Taxpayers' Alliance Matthew Sinclair blamed the scandal on the system. He said: "All those complicated benefits often add up to so much it's not worth working. It's absolutely shocking."

http://www.revleft.com/vb/../img/icons/pullquote_open.gifWe get £700 a week on the social. Why work for less? There's no point looking for a job http://www.revleft.com/vb/../img/icons/pullquote_close.gif
This in itself should be a damning indictment of capitalism. Instead, malicious journalists twist it into a judgment against ordinary people who are doing what's best for themselves and their families.

Not to mention that the whole issue is flipped upside-down. "Oh, the real problem is that welfare is too much, not that wages are too little." That's a shitty, underhanded attempt to blame the problems of capitalism on workers.

[Holden Caulfield]

The local BNP press officer, was on incapacity benafit and yet had a jag with private plates, paid for by his business as a drug dealer.
The same man who talks of immigrants ruining our society and stealing benafits etc.

i think he is scum.

[Lord Testicles]

The banks get a £400 bn bailout and I'm supposed to be enraged with a family that is "stealing" pennies in comparison. Pull the other one.

[Holden Caulfield]

Ciaran Murphy - Anti-Social
youtube it

[ls]

That said, the number of children being paid for definitely makes the amount of money being "cheated" for here much less substantial. The real question is whether the state should be using welfare to encourage working class families to become babymaking facilities for the industrial reserve, and uniformed, armies.

You'd better not be saying you support bourgeois state reform to start cutting down on "welfare cheats", if you are then you disgust me.

[Kléber]

they do not have a work ethic benefit systems within the parameters of capitalism will always be scammed in a society that breeds social injustice it is inevitable.Once again, you're thinking in reductionist, utopian terms: socialism is a nice system so people will become nice. We aren't going to build socialism with our hands covering our eyes. People are greedy and some clever bastard will find a way to cheat the system and lie on forms no matter how high the standard of living is. I think a better argument would be that social security institutions will become irrelevant in a society with full employment and fair wages.


You'd better not be saying you support bourgeois state reform to start cutting down on "welfare cheats"Um no I criticized the fact that the bourgeois state is selectively funding programs with ulterior motives instead of really trying to help the working class.

[A.J.]

Well, i'm all for "stealing" as much of the bourgeois state's social security provisions as possible.
However, looked at dispassionately, is it not the case that the lumpenproletariat/underclass have no revolutionaray potential and often support fascist parties. Just look at the BNP in England. Bribed tools of rectionary intrigue, indeed.

[revolution inaction]

http://www.revleft.com/img/icons/pullquote_open.gifWe get £700 a week on the social. Why work for less? There's no point looking for a job http://www.revleft.com/img/icons/pullquote_close.gif


thats £43.75 each

[NecroCommie]

thats £43.75 each
A fact that the article conveniently ignores. :closedeyes:

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

This particular family seems to have gone bonkers. 14 children, and a will not to work, is not helpful in any society, be it Capitalist, Socialist or otherwise.

However, that distracts from the point of welfare. If you dismantle the benefit element of the welfare state, just because of some emotive, biased story like this, then hundreds of thousands of people who genuinely need benefit payments will lose out.

Besides, even if you disregard such an analysis, the fact is that we have been cost hundreds of billions by the banks in terms of bailouts, downward pressure on productivity and tax receipts, and less consumer spending in the recession, yet the poorest 'benefit cheats', who in total cost our economy less than 1% of what the bankers have cost us(and even by the tories' admission, at most 20% of benefit claims are fraudulent) are scapegoated by the Capitalist press.

Symptomatic of the fake 'aspiration' that is propagated into the minds of ordinary Britons by the establishment politicians and their media lackeys.

[ls]

AJ, so those who claim welfare are lumpenproletariat fascist supporting stealing first-worlders with no revolutionary potential. Right. :rolleyes:

[Jimmie Higgins]

Once again, you're thinking in reductionist, utopian terms: socialism is a nice system so people will become nice.
This is a straw-man - people won't become "nice" because the system is "nice" people will become less alienated from society, won't need to compete to survive and therefore have less reason to "cheat the system".

I don't have any figures to back this up but I would bet that worker cooperatives have far less employee stealing and "slacking off" than regular workplaces with more corporate structures.

It won't be automatic or instantaneous, but I think that petty things like littering, stealing from work or stores, wasting time at work (like playing computer solitaire, not socializing - which will and should continue IMO) just won't be as frequent. If people have more control over their lives and their own labor efforts and actually feel that they share and benefit from everyone's efforts, then there won't be the alienation and demoralization that is a constant in modern life.

As for the OP, 14 kids! I'd rather be sent to prison for 18 years than have to care for 14 kids - well it would be a difficult choice between these two options at any rate. These parents could be getting 6 figures and it wouldn't be enough to make me want to have 14 kids.

It's like in the US there is a strange trend among some people - they won't give homeless people money, but they take them to a store and buy them a sandwich or something. If you give them money, goes their reasoning, they'll just spend it on alcohol and drugs. Well that's fine by me - it's a shitty fucking deal to be homeless and so why not shoot some H if you're going to be out in the cold hoping a nazi doesn't burn you alive while you try to sleep under some bushes? Underlying the assumption that bums are just going to do drugs is the idea that poverty is the fault of poor people for being lazy or doing drugs or whatnot. Even if every homeless addict cleaned themselves up, there would still be joblessness and extreme poverty and people who couldn't cope with life under capitalism.

Underlying the ideas of benefit cheats is the idea that poor people are poor by choice and therefore welfare and so on should be eliminated.

[ls]

Underlying the ideas of benefit cheats is the idea that poor people are poor by choice and therefore welfare and so on should be eliminated.

Exactly. You are playing straight into the hands of the right-wing anti-welfare media, by coming out with some of the reactionary garbage that is on this thread. They too class the majority of welfare claimants as "untermensch" and stuff like that, it's clearly disgusting anti-worker filth that should be combated at every turn.

[The Red Next Door]

You'd better not be saying you support bourgeois state reform to start cutting down on "welfare cheats", if you are then you disgust me.
No, he not supporting the bourgeois system but there are other working class folks who do not get this type of benefits like this family does and 14 is nothing, how about being poor having 20 children or more? it not fair to the others that they get so much of that money, at least they should share the cash with their friends and family and the people in their neighborhood instead on themfuckingselves. They are no better than the bastards on wall street and the London exchange.

[The Red Next Door]

14 kids is nothing, try taking care of 20 or fucking more. They should at least share the money with their fellow working class neighbors instead of keeping, all of the money like that to themselves. This is just the example the right wing want to use keep those less fortunate down, people do not seem to realize that in the world of politics if a person committed one negatived act. The opposition will use it against us.

[ls]

14 kids is nothing, try taking care of 20 or fucking more. They should at least share the money with their fellow working class neighbors instead of keeping, all of the money like that to themselves. This is just the example the right wing want to use keep those less fortunate down, people do not seem to realize that in the world of politics if a person committed one negatived act. The opposition will use it against us.

Do have the first clue of how much £43 a week amounts to? When you are on full JSA as an adult, you get £50 a week roughly, most people actually get less, do you understand that babies need constant nappychanging and stuff as well and probably cost more in gas, nappies, food etc than adults? Are you finished attacking working people for not being rich enough to share money out?

If you don't know what something is worth or what's going on, don't open your mouth, just a tip.

[cyu]

Obviously this could not happen in a Marxist society as every person is obligated to contribute in some way.

I wouldn't say that... excerpts from equal pay for unequal work (http://everything2.com/title/equal%20pay%20for%20unequal%20work):

If you're "lazy" and don't feel like doing anything, nobody forces you to work. You are free to stay at home and watch TV or surf the internet all day. However, instead of being constantly bombarded with ads trying to get you to want more stuff, you are instead bombarded with ads trying to get you to want to go out and do stuff that society thinks needs doing.

Instead of trying to convince people to want things they don't want, instead convince them to want to do things that actually need doing. Seems like a much more direct method to me and a much better use of the skills of our great advertisers.

I would imagine different people would give their support to many different organizations. Each of these organizations would be supporting advertising for different activities. The more people supporting one organization, the more advertising you'd see for the jobs supported by that organization.

As long as people see value in doing something, they are free to support advertising for that kind of activity. Sports, for example, are good for people's health, and, in cases like swimming, can save lives. However, if some other activity could not only provide exercise, but also help out other people at the same time (for example, building a wheelchair accessible trail along a scenic mountain path), then I could easily see more people gravitating toward promoting that other activity.

[blake 3:17]

The article is totally stupid to begin with. I was going to challenge the math but...

The Cain family's benfits bonanza: What are "benfits"?



Exactly. You are playing straight into the hands of the right-wing anti-welfare media, by coming out with some of the reactionary garbage that is on this thread. They too class the majority of welfare claimants as "untermensch" and stuff like that, it's clearly disgusting anti-worker filth that should be combated at every turn.

The article and some of the comments are just stupid and ignorant. But if we are looking at broad social policy issues, it can get a little more complicated. Provision of social assistance is an essential working class demand. The way it plays out is almost always authoritarian and punitive to people who do try to make better lives for themselves. Here in Toronto, student loans (and I mean loans with interest attached to them) are considered income vis a vis people who are receiving child care subsidies. Fellow students with children had to drop out of my program because they lost the child care subsidy and had to pay full rates and couldn't afford care fees and school expenses. Likewise, a lot of folks with HIV/AIDS are forced into unemployment and welfare because that's the only way they can get access to medications.

There are similarities between social welfare and International Monetary Fund programs -- they came out of roughly the same historical period and can be both necessary and destructive of human capacity.

Do 'spouse in the house' rules apply in England?

[The Red Next Door]

Do have the first clue of how much £43 a week amounts to? When you are on full JSA as an adult, you get £50 a week roughly, most people actually get less, do you understand that babies need constant nappychanging and stuff as well and probably cost more in gas, nappies, food etc than adults? Are you finished attacking working people for not being rich enough to share money out?

If you don't know what something is worth or what's going on, don't open your mouth, just a tip.
sorry

[Coggeh]

See the trick is, have more and more children, that way its more likely one of them will grow up to be a millionaire :rolleyes:

I love this tabloid rubbish idea of thinking, like people are purposely having more kids in order to make more money off the state when its already been shown their getting a misely 40 quid per child per week. Who the hell can raise a child on 40 quid a week? and my favourite piece of the article is where they compared the welfare payments to the wages in certain jobs . As if its the welfare thats the problem and not the brutal pay workers are getting in the first place . No doubt you'll get thousands of people perpetuating this shit over a cup of tea with their friends " did ya hear about those immigrants stealing all the welfare? " :rolleyes:

[IrishWorker]

See the trick is, have more and more children, that way its more likely one of them will grow up to be a millionaire :rolleyes:

I love this tabloid rubbish idea of thinking, like people are purposely having more kids in order to make more money off the state when its already been shown their getting a misely 40 quid per child per week. Who the hell can raise a child on 40 quid a week? and my favourite piece of the article is where they compared the welfare payments to the wages in certain jobs . As if its the welfare thats the problem and not the brutal pay workers are getting in the first place . No doubt you'll get thousands of people perpetuating this shit over a cup of tea with their friends " did ya hear about those immigrants stealing all the welfare? " :rolleyes:

Very true mo chara.
Just because some one in a thousand lumpen wanker blows his/her labor down the boozer the Irish tabloid press and the political right automatically churn out the "benefit system pays too much" drivel.
Completely ignoring the fact that our tax and our childrens childrens tax is going strait into the pockets of the fat cat developers through NAMA (56BILLION) and the Anglo-Irish Bank bail out (7BILLION).
Not one mention of the cervical cancer screening being abolished social welfare cuts rent allowance cuts and all with the daily cost of living on the rise.