30 Apr 2015

Benefits - A True Story

This is a true story.

In 2007, two young people got married. They'd been together for six years precisely, and owned their home. He was an electrician, she worked in administration. Their joint income was around £40k, so plenty of money for the mortgage, bills and frivolity. Eighteen months later, their first child was born, and she cut her hours at work to take care of him. Childcare was provided, for free, by his mother, so the overall change in income wasn't too bad. Sixteen months after that, she was pregnant again, but things weren't so good. He left her in her 15th week of pregnancy. There was no hope of reconciliation. 

Overnight, her income went from around £40k+ per annum to £6k per annum. The mortgage and bills still needed to be paid, but he was reluctant to help since he didn't live there anymore. A solicitor's letter was sent, some money was acquired from him, but it in no way made up for the massive shortfall in income. She couldn't take on more hours, and even working full time, her annual income would have only been £13k. There was no safety net, no rich family to fall back on, not even to lend her money.

So the benefits system, quite literally, came to the rescue. She could only claim additional tax credits to begin with, as housing benefit only applies to rented accommodation and she worked too many hours to claim income support. The tax credits bumped her up to a survivable income, but it was not what most people would consider liveable. After going on maternity leave, she moved away from her free childcare source, and gave her house up to relocate to an area with better transport links as she couldn't drive. He continued to live in relative affluence, even after the chunk of income handed over in child support.

She went on income support after her maternity pay expired. This entitled her to more housing benefit, and she managed well (although lost £200 total a month from moving from working to income support) but was still poor. Meals and shopping had to be planned with military precision. New clothes for her were a luxury (the children's were often supplemented by their father). The house she chose to live in turned out to be in rather poor repair, with a somewhat dismissive landlord. When things broke, they were replaced with the cheapest possible option.

Things got better. She met someone else, they're married now, they still get some benefits but nowhere near as much as of old.

Obviously, she is me. But I'll never forget the stigma of going to the jobcentre, of being publicly told I should spend my time volunteering instead of being 'lazy', of having my educational achievements disdained because we live in a culture where employment is the only value, of being ashamed of my clothes full of holes, my feet getting wet because of holes in my shoes, of turning to empty cupboards and trying to conjure meals out of nothing much. Even tiny things like not being able to get to the doctors because it's a bus ride away and I had no spare money for the bus. You don't forget. You don't stop feeling poor even when you're less poor.

I was totally reliant on benefits for one year and nine months. Not long. Not my fault. Not my choice.

Nothing makes me angrier than people who claim they would never stoop so low as to depend on benefits. I was in a situation where we would have been homeless in a very short space of time if the benefits system had not been there for us. I chose to survive. I chose to swallow any remnant of pride I had and look after my children. I paid tax and national insurance for eight years, and was still paying tax for eighteen months after my first husband left, but this is ignored by the government. The electioneering is all about putting the tax payer first, as though people on benefits pay nothing. What of the thousands of families working, paying tax, and being topped up by tax credits? Does that not count?

What many people don't realise is how close to needing benefits most people are. One redundancy. One bad injury. One bereavement. One marital breakdown.You don't think it will ever happen to you, but when it does, you are fucked. Not only do you have the trauma of whatever event triggers it, you also have the trauma of suddenly not knowing who to phone, in what order, what to say. The sheer quantity of admin you have to do makes many people quail in fear - the half hour income support phone interview before they'll even send you an application form is one such horror.You fall to the bottom of a very big heap of similarly fucked souls, and you have to find your way back up. You have to wait for your money to come, if they decide you qualify for it - I had to wait five months for a change in housing benefit to go through when my husband first moved in. Thankfully I had planned for this, and didn't desperately need the money, but if I had, no "Sorry, you're in a queue" would have saved me from the debts.

The benefits system is not a bad thing. It's flawed - and even as a grateful recipient, I can see countless flaws in the system - but it is necessary. And, unless you're extremely rich (in which case good on you, vote Conservative) you're not immune to needing it.

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