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[–]jet199[S] 6 insightful - 2 fun6 insightful - 1 fun7 insightful - 2 fun -  (2 children)

My dad worked for a big country council in the UK and they decided they would be progressive and offer full paternity leave and pay, equal to maternity pay, to all fathers. Then someone pointed up it should also be offered to a women's partner even if he wasn't the biological father because that person might actually do more to look after the kids than their real dad. Then someone said a woman's brother or father might help bring up the kids so she if the father bailed so she should also be able to name one of them as a recipient. And so on.

Then after 6 months of this policy someone decided to double check the records to make sure everyone was claiming what they could.

Of course all the women were declaring more than one man as a father so their mates or family members could get months of work on full pay. The worst was one pregnancy which had 7 men claiming they were playing a father role in some way and all getting paternity benefits.

And these were all people employed by the council for years doing proper jobs. They weren't people with a criminal or parasitic lifestyle previously.

The whole policy was then scrapped for all men.

[–]Nona_Biba 2 insightful - 2 fun2 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 2 fun -  (1 child)

someone always has to take it to far and ruin a good thing for everyone

[–]jet199[S] 3 insightful - 2 fun3 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

Which is why having rigorous checks and tests isn't mean or gatekeeping, it means benefits can be justified and can be supported by most people.

The head of a food bank actually pointed this out to me. He told me the story of a Labour MP who came to the food bank and said something along the lines of "great work you do here but it's a shame you have to exist at all". The owner pointed out to the MP that most of the people they gave food to were just waiting for their benefits claim to go through the system which takes a couple of weeks. If they weren't checked thoroughly and the government just gave money away then people would lose faith in the benefits system and start voting against it.

The trouble is a lot of middle class people see benefits as like a charity where they pay taxes and it goes to the poor needy people beneath them. They don't care if people con the system because in their eyes those people are victims just because they are lowly working class.

Meanwhile the majority of people who are working class see benefits more as a social insurance scheme were you all pay in so that if you fall on hard times to have a safety net. They see people who cheat the system as harming the whole of society and taking resources away from genuinely needy people.