h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I was just wondering this the other day.

The people I know have two cars and a camper van, actually. It's also nice that the council gave them a bigger house with a garden when they had their third child, and they don't have to pay things like council tax.

The more time chav scum spend out of the country, the happier I am, frankly. Leaves more room in this lovely land for nice people like me and the Polish people who are here doing the jobs these feckless cretins can't be bothered to shift themselves to do.

And I'd rather they had their own car than steal mine. Paying tax to support these useless eaters is so much less hassle bureaucratically than claiming on the insurance.

Its good for the children certainly.

What kind of cars (and what year) and campervan? How long have they owned them?

What is their general standard of living like?

Have they inherited any money in recent years?

What were the adults doing before they were unemployed?

How long have they been unemployed?

Why are they unemployed?

Do they own their own house?

Do they work under the table jobs?

Are they the legal owners of both cars and the campervan?

Where do their parents live? What are their standards of living like?


All of which is to say, that you can't tell anything meaningful about that family from the information in post 1.

They might well be smart bludgers ripping off the system (and good luck to them, because someone needs to be using up the tax dollars of selfish, chip on the shoulder, individualistic fundamentalists like Hoo )

Or they might have legitimate reasons for appearing well off without actually being well off.

For the newbies: Hoo = SoRB (Son of Roj Blake).

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Good for their children. Shame it's not so good for mine or anyone else's who works and has to arrange time off.

How does it hurt your children?

Think I will go on the dole rather than having to get up everyday and work and watch the doleites boasting they get away with it, and using my tax money to pay for it. The Big Issue sellers look rather well dressed around here too, strange they spend all day selling it but don't go out looking for work!

I don't know if it actually 'hurts' children, but it sure as hell is annoying to have your kids come home and ask "Why should I work? They are much better off than we are, and don't have to do a thing for it."

I'm old fashioned and like knowing that what-ever I have, where-ever I am, I've done it on my own. Without hand-outs. A little thing I call personal pride, I guess.

I can only conclude that there must be something else going on there, as Kea suggests.

Jobseeker's allowance for a couple is 92.80, plus another 59.15 if they've paid sufficient National Insurance.
http://www.jobcentreplus.gov.uk/JCP/Customers/WorkingAgeBenefits/Jobseekerallowance/index.html

And it's 18.10 per week Child Benefit for the eldest child, and 12.10 for second and subsequent children.
http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/childbenefit/ch2-2007-notes.pdf

So, let's say a maximum of around 150 Jobseekers and 42 child benefit, and you have 192 per week for a family of five people to live on. Housing benefit might cover the rent, but nothing more, and a council rented house would have maintenance paid for (and possibly furniture, but I'm not sure about that). There might also be some one-off payments connected to having a new baby, but I'm not sure.

So no, unemployed people in the UK can't afford to run two cars and take two month holidays. Benefits pay barely enough to live on, and certainly not enough to afford luxuries. So we must conclude that they have another source of income or access to money.

But I can't agree with Kea that cheating the system is a good thing. It has a corrosive effect on individuals and on society. Having said that, I get far more annoyed by tax dodgers than benefit cheats. They're the ones who are really stealing from the rest of us.

Even if the parents are good for nothing scroungers which I'd consider unproven I still can't see a way to penalise them that doesn't punish their children too. Hows that fair?

Plus having been at various points unemployed I can say that I'd rather have a job, any job, than put up with the mind-numbing bureaucracy and jumping through hoops that you have to go through to recieve benefits. Its a fulltime job being unemployed in this country.

Personal pride is fine, as long as you are in a position to support yourself. If you're not you can't eat pride, nor can your children.

The reality is that all of us in the UK, US, Australia, NZ, and probably much of Western Europe have lifestyles that are dependant on there not being full employment. The ways all those economies are run ensures that there are not enough jobs to go around. We don't have to have it that way but that is how those societies currently choose to do it.


For every 'dole bludger' that you think should sort themselves out, that person can only get a job if someone else loses one.

Another thing to consider is that a HUGE amount of voluntary work is done by people who are not in (full) employment. If you insist that all those people have official 'paid' jobs, then who is going to do the voluntary work?

In the past it used to be women. Now it's the unemployed.

I know some people on the dole who are quite happy to bludge. But most people I know who are unemployed actually work, they just don't get paid in the usuual way. They do childcare, elder care, community work, help each other out (because poor people can't generally afford to buy service that salaried and even waged people take for granted) etc.


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Think I will go on the dole rather than having to get up everyday and work and watch the doleites boasting they get away with it, and using my tax money to pay for it. The Big Issue sellers look rather well dressed around here too, strange they spend all day selling it but don't go out looking for work!
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I really wish you would quit your job and go on the dole Strangely. Anyone who thinks that living on unemployment benefit is (a) easy or (b) desirable, is an idiot who doesn't know what they are talking about.


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I do agree that young people need to be given different messages and socialisation about work. I think much of this has to do with how they are raised (the number of parents I know who think it's wrong to expect children to help out around the house ), and to do with how society is - if you're 18 and your only prospect is to work minimum wage in a shit boring job for the rest of your life (or even the forseeable future), why bother? (and because of the way society works currently, there are always going to be shit jobs for minimum wage that someone has to do).

Otto, I was being mostly facetious (in response to Hoo's prejudice laced rant).

Although I do have some sympathy for the anarchist political view that society keeps its poor oppressed to support the lifestyles of the middle and upper classes, and that bludging is an appropriate political response to that at times. Most people I know who believe that, use their time for political activism in some way.


I too am more annoyed by tax cheats. Also, why is it wrong for poor people to be entrepreneurial when they work the system but it's not for corporations?

Because poor people can't keep accountants and publicists and lawyers in 'gainful' employment?

Kea you don't live in Britain as far as I am aware so can't talk about this country, the dole scroungers around here are too busy down the pub to do voluntary work, once again you are giving lectures on a country you don't even live in.

Quite.

Strangely Strange I do live in this country
Dole barely pays for neccessities so the people you are complaining about must be working in the black economy or otherwise supplementing their income, relatively uncommon in my experience.
Still why spend all your time condemning them and not the people who employ them but don't want to pay a decent wage, holiday pay, pensions NI etc etc?

Strangely, we have alot of British living here. Plus alot of NZers live in Britain and then return. I've been on h2g2 listening to and talking to Brits for years. And I read alot.

It's true that I'm not in the UK, but I'm not completely ignorant of the place either.

So, why not respond to my points directly, instead of coming up with irrelevant arguments?

For instance, if you think I am wrong when I say that the UK economy needs unemployment, then tell me how and why I am wrong.

And, given you see so many unemployed people in the pub, I am curious as to how you know they are unemployed? Do you make the unemployed wear a yellow star on their jacket so you can tell them apart from all the good citizens?

Exactly Kia you don't know what it is like in this country, I certainly couldn't comment on your country as a few visitors from England and h2g2 wouldn't give a true picture, but that has never stopped you giving lectures to people in Britain before.
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Blackberry, so now they are not only scrounging off the dole down the pub they are working illegally too, strewth, I must be a real mug for working legally and paying tax money for them.

Selling the big issue is work. [insert an insult of your own choice here Strangely as I suspect anything with more than two sylables in it might go straight over your head]


What are "Chavs" SoRB I hear it use a lot and Im bewildered that most times it is used to describe what it seems to me to be a wide range of people in a wide range of situations. Do you have to wear burberry to be a chav? Or be unemployed because I know people who wear burberry but have jobs.