What kind of society tolerates poverty and deprivation, then because of dogma attacks the poorest and most vulnerable of society, who are already struggling to survive on meager benefits, by removing those benefits, leaving them to starve or survive without income in a money orientated society? This is a vindictive and vicious subservience to an ideology of cutting money to social service to allow for greater tax benefits to the rich and the corporate world. These decisions are not god given, they are not the inevitable results of unavoidable circumstances. They are adherence to a dogmatic ideology of plundering the poor to maximise private wealth of the privileged few, in a corrupt system of greed and profit before humanity. This savage policy against the poorest and most vulnerable in our society, is designed and implemented by people with names, sitting in comfortable surroundings, completely out of touch and not particularly interested in, the circumstances of the needy in our society. It is how capitalism works, and we will not see a remedy to this viciousness against the poorest, until we destroy the inhumane system of capitalism.
This from Welfare Weekly:
Food Banks, an engineered necessity in the fifth richest country in the world.
Charities have called for an urgent investigation into the Government’s flagship Universal Credit benefit and sanctions regime, as new figures reveal that over 250,000 people on the new benefit have seen payments slashed.
Figures released by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) show that a shocking 256,000 Universal Credit claimants were hit by adverse benefit sanction decisions between May 2016 and April 2019.
The data also reveals that 5% of Universal Credit sanctions have been for six months or longer.
The DWP insist that sanctions are only ever used as a “last resort” and that claimants are helped to understand what is expected of them in exchange for payments, otherwise known as ‘conditionality’.
Benefit sanctions have been blamed for pushing the poor to foodbanks.
However, today’s figures have led some to believe that too many sanctions are being imposed unfairly and unnecessarily.
From February 2019 to April 2019, 84% of all Universal Credit full service decisions resulted in a sanction, up 13% from November 2018 to January 2019.
Citizens Advice Scotland (CAS) called for an investigation into the sanctions regime and a moratorium on sanctions while this is carried out.
CAS Social Justice spokesperson Mhoraig Green said: “The Citizens Advice network in Scotland helps hundreds of thousands of people every year and we have long raised concerns about cases where people have had their benefits unfairly sanctioned, leaving them without any income for a sustained period, causing them to require crisis support including foodbank referrals.
“Today’s statistics show a worrying trend of an increase in the proportion of people facing a sanction since the introduction of Universal Credit.
“People should never be left with no income at all as a result of a benefits sanction, there should be an urgent independent investigation into the sanctions regime, with a moratorium on sanctions during that period.”
