How our benefits system costs the tax payer more money
Last weekend I watched I, Daniel Blake (late to the party, as always). It was moving and beautiful, but I’m aware there are many people in this country who think that a film about benefits does not apply to them. So, using this film as inspiration, I wanted to point out a couple of things to those people:
Our benefit system is costing you more money by punishing claimants.
- The benefit system makes sick people sicker for longer, so they claim for longer.
- The benefit system creates benefit cheats.
The benefit system makes sick people sicker for longer
We all know that stress is a killer, but stress also makes sick people more sick, so they can’t work, for longer. I had a brain injury, but what really prolonged my ability to get better was extreme stress. The stress was rooted in the accident, however, I didn’t show any symptoms of it until I tried to claim for benefits and that was clearly a trigger. One of the most stressful things you can experience is to have your survival in the hands of lying, incompetent people who don’t think of you as human. The film explores how this feels, how it destroys vulnerable people, breaks them down.
While claiming I found the system so relentlessly illogical and devoid of a duty of care that I became convinced that the government was trying to kill me, that was first sign of psychosis I experienced, after that it got worse. I was on benefits for six years, I think if I hadn’t been pushed to that point by the benefits system, if I could have relaxed, safe in the knowledge I was cared for and concentrated on recovery, I could have gone back to work in a year.
This may sound like a one off extreme experience (or maybe melodramatic), but it has happened to every genuinely sick person I have known who has tried to claim; because all illness, mental or physical, is made worse by stress. And everybody, no matter how ill, goes through the same system of being treated like a scrounger, lied to, tricked, dismissed.
Add to that the situations shown in the film – people being sanctioned and then not being able to eat properly or heat their home – all these things increase stress, prolong sickness and lead to the claimant needing benefits for much longer.
The benefit system works better for cheats than for the seriously ill – so the sick become cheats
The system is designed to be illogical and exhausting in order to put off benefit claimants. The problem with this is that benefit cheats have the mental and physical resources to deal with endless nonsensical and wrong instructions, they have the energy levels necessary to spend hours on the phone and they know the system so know just how to play it. People like Daniel in the film have never claimed benefits and don’t understand the system. They tell the truth (because they assume that is the right thing to do) and they are short on the strength necessary to play the game, all of which means they will not get money.
As a result, many seriously ill people give up trying, they rely on friends and family to survive or they kill themselves (see below for some info about casualties). Dan sold his furniture and went hungry; and this is a seriously ill man who has just had a heart attack. I was lucky enough to understand computers (which Dan doesn’t) and I had a good friend to take over filling out forms and calling up advisers. Even with this help, I learnt that if I was to get money to live, I needed to change how I acted. Honesty and doing what I was asked to do, simply didn’t work. So I learnt to lie and cheat and manipulate, and that was how I got the money I needed to live.
Which is where the problem lies for the tax payer: The benefits system creates cheaters because honest people don’t get money. And being a cheater doesn’t just go away when you get better. If you have ever had someone repeatedly screw you over when you are at your most vulnerable you will perhaps understand: it changes you, it creates a cynicism and an anger that don’t vanish, and cynical, angry people, who have learned to work the system, aren’t good for society.
This blog was originally going to be a review, but there are plenty of excellent reviews about this important film and I had nothing helpful to add. In case you missed them…
Some facts about the system:
- True Story that mirrors that of the film
- Some research into the possible effects of sanctions here
- Calum’s List – an attempt to keep track of people who have died as a result of people beaten down by the benefit system.
And finally a quote taken from the review above:
“I must emphasise one point. I, Daniel Blake is not a “poverty flick”, nor even a film about poverty. It’s about dignity, about society recognising you as a human being and not as a number. It’s about the relationships we create with one another to save us dying from state-imposed loneliness. The way we treat people on benefits becomes a metaphor for our society’s radical failure to recognise the humanity in others.”
inkbiotic 
Well said Inkbiotic. I am recovering from a mental health illness myself and I agree that there is no recovery in the true sense of the word and your are made more sick and depressed by being left on the shelf. I also know friends who consider it ‘not a bad life’ but for me it was dangerous. I removed myself from where I was to find the right kind of work and I am in the process of still healing myself. Its great that you post on these points because it is really just having the right kind of people in the right positions who can be empowered to help the sick and genuinely unemployed back into meaningful work which is what we all want. Thanks and I will post my own thoughts on this subject soon.
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I’m really sorry you went through that David. It’s especially important that people suffering from M.I. feel secure and understood, not stressed and judged – unfortunately that just doesn’t happen with the current system. The more people who speak out the better, so I hope to see you write about it soon. Take care of yourself,
Ink.
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Thanks, I am talking to a counsellor now but I agree that you have the illness but unemployment and lack of clear assistance impedes the recovery and sometimes makes it worse.thanks and good luck.
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having been through such similar circumstances, but not as severe as you, I can relate – and the “pain” of trying to work through a system that is set-up to work against you from the start – makes it all the harder – especially when still suffering physically – it all just contributes to the burden of the psychological – which makes it so much harder to bear. and even after all this time, it leaves a huge and bitter aftertaste … so yes, it’s true – some do cheat the system – really – but for the so many who really do need help and genuinely want and desire to reclaim some form of independence and a life such as they had before – it’s a waking bloody nightmare. Great article and perspective – thanks for sharing. 🙂
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Thank you wordwitch, I appreciate the comment. I think in any system designed to help, a small percentage (think it’s 0.5% for benefits) will take advantage. And I suspect many of those have already been let down by the system in other ways. I hope you are doing a bit better now. Take care
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This is such great writing – passionate but reasonable, a call for decency and honourable conduct from our government and the benefits system.
I have a good friend who works in an advice centre (well, just about as their funding is being trimmed all the time) and she finds it hugely depressing and stressful hearing people’s stories, trying to do her best for them when the system in place is designed to be obstructive.
Now the centre is so short of staff they don’t even have the resources to help people fill out forms, people who have to do this online and who don’t own a computer, are barely literate and often suffering from mental health problems or drug or drink addictions.
It’s a callous and uncaring world we’ve built for ourselves and our citizens. A society shows its worth by how it treats the most vulnerable of its people – what does this system say about us?
Thanks for the follow and for introducing me to your creative, intelligent blog
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Oh thank you! it means a lot to hear you say that. It can’t be easy at all for your friend, it truly shocks me the kind of world we’ve created. I keep hoping that something will shock people out of it, make the public see that vulnerable people are not just scroungers, but it keeps not happening. Still, the more people speak up and spread awareness, the greater the hope. Take care of yourself 🙂
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I hope like you, that things will swing round and people will regain some empathy for others. In the meanwhile tragedies continue to happen. All the best
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I’ve lost hope in so many things. I haven’t seen this movie. I lived it trying to get help for depression. Medication only made it worse, talk therapy “Come back next week!”-shouldn’t talking it out HELP so you don’t go every week….you wean yourself off? There’s just so many unanswered questions for everyone who …..no matter what…is different………and I’m babbling because I am in such pain for a possible broken sternum and there is no point in going to the doctor because they can’t do anything for it except charge me a stupid amount of money to tell me I hurt myself.
Have a wonderful rest of your week….
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I’m so sorry, it sounds like you’re having a rough time! Are you sure you shouldn’t see a doctor if it’s broken? That sounds dangerous. Sending you healing vibes, look after yourself x
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I can go to the doc, he’ll take an X-ray, tell me I hurt myself, take Tylenol for the pain and rest, send me on my way. In a week I’ll get a bill for $382 for him to have told me what I already know. THAT is the sad part. The expense because I have a $6,000 deductible on my policy.
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I’m sorry about that, it’s awful, I don’t blame you for not going. Take it easy, I hope you feel better soon.
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I would if people would stop bumping me and God hadn’t invented sneezes!! LOL
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