Disability related benefits
So, disability benefit.
I have, perhaps foolishly, been spending a lot of time on the Guardian news website lately, reading the CiF section. The first thing that bemuses me about many of the commentators on there is how many are horrifically right wing, and apparently only come to that website to be annoyed. The second thing that bemuses me is how terribly bad most of them are at arguing their point. The more I read the CiF section, the more left wing I become, mostly because the near monstrous lack of compassion, empathy and basic humanity shown by half those posters actually makes my skin crawl. The third thing that bemuses me is the overwhelming lack of internal consistency in many of the arguments on benefits, employment and specifically disability which tend to crop up on there.
I am, therefore, going to talk about the primary inconsistency which befuddles me the most right here. I don’t think many of the CiF right wing posters (who I am not calling ‘trolls’ because I don’t think they just post there for the sake of the conflict) are likely to read this, but there may be a couple of right of centre types lurking around here, or just people who understand the thinking better than I do who can just explain to me how this is all meant to work.
Now, the main area of confusion I have is that the same posters seem to be fighting very hard for two totally contradictory points. One is that there shouldn’t be too many government rules limiting what businesses can do. They are all very opposed to maternity pay in the first place, they don’t like extended maternity leave, and they really think that businesses should only have to hire people who are fit, well, able to work, never have to take time off, happy to do lots of overtime etc etc. The other is that there are too many people on disability benefit who are scrounging bastards who could be working, and, frankly, if you are not incontinent, brain damaged and lying in a pile of your own bodily fluids 23 hours per day you should be able to work.
And I don’t think those two make sense.
Now, on one hand, I do agree that there are many people on benefits who could, in theory, do some kind of work. I do, however, feel that at present there are probably relatively few of them who could actually get a job.
Let me try and explain this with a theoretical example.
Let’s say we have a disabled person. Let’s call her Alice. The nature of her disability isn’t important; she could have mental or physical disabilities. Let us say, however, that the nature of Alice’s disabilities are such that she could, in theory, do some form of work. She wouldn’t be able to work all the time. Shall we say that she would probably be off work sick for between 60 and 80 days per year on average, due to the variable nature of her condition. The kind of work she could do would be limited. She can sit at a computer, sure. She can’t, however, get up and move around the office much, and she really can’t lift things. So, even doing the filing isn’t really feasible, and helping lift boxes, or shift desks around is totally out of the question. She also, for some reason, isn’t really able to deal with customers or members of the public. Perhaps she has a speech impediment which makes her very hard to understand, or perhaps she has an anxiety related condition which means she can’t cope with people. It doesn’t really matter. What does matter is that she can’t deal with the public at all.
Oh, and because of Alice’s disability she sometimes has difficulty getting into work and will regularly be late into the office. It’s not her fault; say there are only a few specially adapted buses she can get, or maybe she relies on getting a lift with a friend or family member because she can’t manage public transport. She is willing to work later to make the time up, but Alice tends to get tired and is a bit useless after 4 pm anyway.
Alice isn’t a genius in her field. She’s not that one brilliant scientist who could cure cancer. She’s not that amazing writer who could change the world with her pen. She’s just a fairly normal 20-something. She has a 2.2 in English Literature and Sociology from Hull University, or maybe she’s got a General Science Degree from Edinburgh University, or perhaps she’s got a Third in Theology from Heythrop College in London. She’s done a couple of data entry jobs in the past, but her CV is pretty thin apart from that and she’s not worked in three or four years.
First of all, can Alice work? Should Alice be signed off on incapacity benefit?
And if you said ‘yes’, what should Alice do? What kind of job would be suitable to her, with her limitations? And finally, if you were an employer, would you hire her?
I have, perhaps foolishly, been spending a lot of time on the Guardian news website lately, reading the CiF section. The first thing that bemuses me about many of the commentators on there is how many are horrifically right wing, and apparently only come to that website to be annoyed. The second thing that bemuses me is how terribly bad most of them are at arguing their point. The more I read the CiF section, the more left wing I become, mostly because the near monstrous lack of compassion, empathy and basic humanity shown by half those posters actually makes my skin crawl. The third thing that bemuses me is the overwhelming lack of internal consistency in many of the arguments on benefits, employment and specifically disability which tend to crop up on there.
I am, therefore, going to talk about the primary inconsistency which befuddles me the most right here. I don’t think many of the CiF right wing posters (who I am not calling ‘trolls’ because I don’t think they just post there for the sake of the conflict) are likely to read this, but there may be a couple of right of centre types lurking around here, or just people who understand the thinking better than I do who can just explain to me how this is all meant to work.
Now, the main area of confusion I have is that the same posters seem to be fighting very hard for two totally contradictory points. One is that there shouldn’t be too many government rules limiting what businesses can do. They are all very opposed to maternity pay in the first place, they don’t like extended maternity leave, and they really think that businesses should only have to hire people who are fit, well, able to work, never have to take time off, happy to do lots of overtime etc etc. The other is that there are too many people on disability benefit who are scrounging bastards who could be working, and, frankly, if you are not incontinent, brain damaged and lying in a pile of your own bodily fluids 23 hours per day you should be able to work.
And I don’t think those two make sense.
Now, on one hand, I do agree that there are many people on benefits who could, in theory, do some kind of work. I do, however, feel that at present there are probably relatively few of them who could actually get a job.
Let me try and explain this with a theoretical example.
Let’s say we have a disabled person. Let’s call her Alice. The nature of her disability isn’t important; she could have mental or physical disabilities. Let us say, however, that the nature of Alice’s disabilities are such that she could, in theory, do some form of work. She wouldn’t be able to work all the time. Shall we say that she would probably be off work sick for between 60 and 80 days per year on average, due to the variable nature of her condition. The kind of work she could do would be limited. She can sit at a computer, sure. She can’t, however, get up and move around the office much, and she really can’t lift things. So, even doing the filing isn’t really feasible, and helping lift boxes, or shift desks around is totally out of the question. She also, for some reason, isn’t really able to deal with customers or members of the public. Perhaps she has a speech impediment which makes her very hard to understand, or perhaps she has an anxiety related condition which means she can’t cope with people. It doesn’t really matter. What does matter is that she can’t deal with the public at all.
Oh, and because of Alice’s disability she sometimes has difficulty getting into work and will regularly be late into the office. It’s not her fault; say there are only a few specially adapted buses she can get, or maybe she relies on getting a lift with a friend or family member because she can’t manage public transport. She is willing to work later to make the time up, but Alice tends to get tired and is a bit useless after 4 pm anyway.
Alice isn’t a genius in her field. She’s not that one brilliant scientist who could cure cancer. She’s not that amazing writer who could change the world with her pen. She’s just a fairly normal 20-something. She has a 2.2 in English Literature and Sociology from Hull University, or maybe she’s got a General Science Degree from Edinburgh University, or perhaps she’s got a Third in Theology from Heythrop College in London. She’s done a couple of data entry jobs in the past, but her CV is pretty thin apart from that and she’s not worked in three or four years.
First of all, can Alice work? Should Alice be signed off on incapacity benefit?
And if you said ‘yes’, what should Alice do? What kind of job would be suitable to her, with her limitations? And finally, if you were an employer, would you hire her?