It’s a massively visible problem. The fact you don’t see it leads me to believe you had a rather comfortable upbringing.
I’m not saying punish the scroungers, but there are a lot of champagne socialists out there who don’t see the genuine problems out there from their village bubbles. There are millions out there who are completely unincentivised to better themselves in any way whatsoever. Many who stretch the definition of sick, and many who are just apathetic about society in general.
This is why the left struggles with courting the genuine working class, because they don’t understand their legitimate grievances or even worse just brush away glaring social problems because of their idealistic view of people on benefits.
By the way, I’m absolutely not advocating punising those who need it.
Unless anything magical has happened in the last few years, I still live in one of the “worst” inner city places to be in the UK for income, employment, crime and reputation etc (i.e. you can still buy a 3 bed terrace on my street for less than £100k) - but, yes, I’m probably only ten minutes walk away from a “nice bit”, and the “worst bit” is over a mile away, in a direction I generally don’t need to go in - but it’s definitely no leafy village :)
Regardless, I do know what you mean - I think I just look at it more optimistically (or naively) and assume the best in everyone.
I used to do work with community groups round here (and in the “worst bit”) so I was constantly meeting and working with desperate people trying their best, but being shat on by the world/benefits system - so obviously my view is skewed a bit in favour of those who’d turn up to such things - and I’m not going to meet any of those that truly don’t care.
I’ll accept my numbers are likely a bit off and biased, but I still feel The “scrounger” number is tiny compared to the genuinely struggling.
The difference between my time on the dole (~18 years ago) and my partner’s time on the dole (~7 years ago) is astonishing. I was respected and supported to set up my own business. She wanted to do the same but was treated like a criminal.
It’s a massively visible problem. The fact you don’t see it leads me to believe you had a rather comfortable upbringing.
I’m not saying punish the scroungers, but there are a lot of champagne socialists out there who don’t see the genuine problems out there from their village bubbles. There are millions out there who are completely unincentivised to better themselves in any way whatsoever. Many who stretch the definition of sick, and many who are just apathetic about society in general.
This is why the left struggles with courting the genuine working class, because they don’t understand their legitimate grievances or even worse just brush away glaring social problems because of their idealistic view of people on benefits.
By the way, I’m absolutely not advocating punising those who need it.
Unless anything magical has happened in the last few years, I still live in one of the “worst” inner city places to be in the UK for income, employment, crime and reputation etc (i.e. you can still buy a 3 bed terrace on my street for less than £100k) - but, yes, I’m probably only ten minutes walk away from a “nice bit”, and the “worst bit” is over a mile away, in a direction I generally don’t need to go in - but it’s definitely no leafy village :)
Regardless, I do know what you mean - I think I just look at it more optimistically (or naively) and assume the best in everyone.
I used to do work with community groups round here (and in the “worst bit”) so I was constantly meeting and working with desperate people trying their best, but being shat on by the world/benefits system - so obviously my view is skewed a bit in favour of those who’d turn up to such things - and I’m not going to meet any of those that truly don’t care.
I’ll accept my numbers are likely a bit off and biased, but I still feel The “scrounger” number is tiny compared to the genuinely struggling.
The difference between my time on the dole (~18 years ago) and my partner’s time on the dole (~7 years ago) is astonishing. I was respected and supported to set up my own business. She wanted to do the same but was treated like a criminal.