I think we should start a Benefits thread like this one.

[Small Geezer]

Alll comrades should share their experiences of being on the receiving end of government assistance. Also comparing their various countries' systems.

I really think this should remain in chit chat tho, because this sort of thing has a very personal angle to it and we would like to speak as freely as possible.

My experience is being on the sickness and invalids benefit for the majority of 4 years. The sickness benefit was $190 then $220 NZD a week and the invalids was $280 then $320 when I moved out of my parents to a flat.

The unemployment benefit was $210 and I received that on 3 separate stretches it wasn't always that much though but I think it was about $160 in 2004 when I left school after I lost my job. It is inflation adjusted like most OECD countries.

With the unemployment you could get that indefinately unless you fail to look for work. Some people manage to get away with not even visiting the Work and Income New Zealand (WINZ) office for ages when they slip through the bureaucracks (hehe). I envy those people. Except for the fact that they are jobless.

Now the new right wing government has passed a law saying you have to reapply once a year. I'm not sure what that means really, but I'd be pretty sure a lot of WINZ bureaucrats would find a way to reject your application.

Otherwise the new reforms mean that sickness beneficiaries are work tested quite stringently.

In New Zealand there are about 20-odd types of benefits but the government are going to change the (non-pension) types of benefits into 3 categories.

We also have a scheme brought in by the 5th 1999-2008 Labour Government (which I regard as welfare for stingy employers) called working for families which means that those who are working and receiving less than a certain amount (roughly 60,00 NZD per year) get a small income top up each week depending on your wage.

The conservative National government cut benefits quite drastically (though I'm not sure by how much) in 91'. Before then it was sweet; if you didn't want to work you could live permanently on a decent allowance. Unfortunately those days are gone. Doing the Punk and indie scenes a great disservice.

[Quail]

I receive housing benefits to help pay my rent, and over the summer I get income support to live on. (I'm a single parent studying at uni.) I'm currently fighting off creditors because the DWP claim they overpaid me, but they actually didn't so I've sent in some evidence and just need to hassle them until it gets sorted. :glare:

In my experience, the Jobcentre is fucking useless. If you have a question or anything, expect to be dialing several different numbers and be put on endless hold queues, only to have the person on the other end of the phone tell you that they can't help you. The council, which is responsible for housing benefit, has a nasty habit of cutting your benefits off if they think that your circumstances may have changed, in case they overpay you. Then, when you give in all of your evidence to show that actually, you're still entitled to it, they seem to conveniently lose bits of it to delay your claim. Fucking dicks.

[Small Geezer]

Yeah thats the same here. I reckon that sort of thing is a concerted policy.

[Agathor]

I was on JSA for two years - 18-20, with a few part-time temporary jobs in between. If I was told I had to bear it again I would duly jump from the top story of a car park.

The DWP bureaucracy is complicated. The system was designed under the assumption that unemployment is enjoyable, and so the Job Centre need to provide balance by making the receiving of benefits as miserable and humiliating as possible. Signing on times will be switched with little notice from late in the evening to early in the morning; chairs aren't provided and waiting times are lengthy. However, many of the people who work there are decent people who try to be helpful. The government is reportedly trying to remedy this by assigning the workers compulsory quotas of people they need to remove from the system every week.

During the whole episode I was extremely depressed and having panic attacks and a perpetual existential crisis. The worst part is when you get sent off to take part in what they call a New Deal program, but is effectively day prison. Thirty of you sit in a room in front of computers for eight hours per day and apply for jobs. Then you go home, go to sleep, return early the next day. It's prison with commuting, basically.

Wouldn't do it again. Would rather squat or become a tramp.

[Ose]

The worst part is when you get sent off to take part in what they call a New Deal program, but is effectively day prison. Thirty of you sit in a room in front of computers for eight hours per day and don't apply for jobs.

Fixed. That shit was useless, I would have been far more productive if I had been out in the real world looking for a job. And I got a final warning for non-attendance even though I was there on time every single day. It took a whole day on the phone (at my expense, of course) to get that sorted.