#state benefits

[tearsofrefugees]

Greece: Further cuts to asylum seeker benefits

Athens is cutting asylum-seeker benefits by 30 percent and abolishing rental subsidies, shifting funds to language and job training. NGOs wa

[midoriiakina]

Starting a GLP-1 today, because nothing I've been doing for the last decade has helped me lose weight and I've only got a year left to do it, before the state takes away my benefits.

Wish me luck.

[chronicallycouchbound]

I refuse to call government assistance programs “welfare” or “benefits”.

I’ve been on government assistance programs my whole life. I have never lived above the poverty line.

It’s a system that doesn’t care about my wellbeing, they care about doing the bare minimum to keep people alive enough to function and work, and if you’re disabled and cannot work, they give significantly less of a fuck.

And benefits?? What benefits?

Food stamps that run out within two weeks because I am budgeting with 8$ a day with literally dozens of dietary restrictions? Or do you mean the housing voucher that I have to never even have a gift card, penny to my name, Sams club membership, phone bill, literally anything that could be “income” in order to qualify? That same housing voucher system that if I mess up even once with I not only lose all government aid for at least 5 years, it’s also mandatory PRISON time for 1 year?? “Oh but they would never do that, right?” Nope! I have several friends who are now felons for minor lease violations and unhoused as a result! Oh maybe you mean the state health insurance that doesn’t cover most treatments, specialists, and testing I need and if I tried to make a gofundme to cover, I would lose aforementioned housing? Oh and we can’t forget all the money I get for being disabled, which is exactly 0$. I’m still fighting for SSI and have been for 6 years! That’s over 6 years with absolutely zero income. ZERO. And guess what, whenever I *do* get on SSI, I will lose my housing voucher. And I won’t be able to afford my current apartment because even in subsidized low income housing it’s too expensive for the maximum SSI “benefit” amount. And on SSI you can’t have savings over 2000$. Oh and they do make housing for people who are low income where you pay 30% of your income but I can’t even be on the waitlist since I don’t have any income. And on top of all this, I can never get married because I’ll lose all of the programs.

I could keep going. That’s not even half of the programs I’m a part of.

• None of them give me cash in hand. Even for vouchers I have to provide receipts for everything.

• Food stamps just straight up won’t even cover ineligible items. Which includes hot foods.

• I genuinely don’t believe that there’s a way to “game the system” and why would you? You would gain literally nothing.

• It’s designed to keep people poor. Once you make over a certain amount, you lose all or almost all benefits. There’s no way to slowly transition out of the programs, if you’re someone who’s able to. It’s all in or all out.

• All of these barriers are made significantly worse while unhoused/homeless. I’ve been homeless for over half of my life and there’s so many fucked up rules. If I missed one night staying in the shelter, I lost my housing voucher because I no longer was “verified as homeless” even if I was sleeping outside still.

[earhartsease]

Overhaul ‘unsustainable’ incapacity benefits system, Lords committee urges

Peers call on Labour to carry out ‘fundamental review’ amid rising concerns over retention of Tory plans for £3bn in cuts

hmm we wonder why "incapacity benefit" spending might have gone up by £13bn over the last few years? it's not like there was a preventable pandemic that left hundreds of thousands of people chronically ill or whatevs

[upsettingandunfortunateclasshate]

One in 10 rental homes advertised as excluding benefits claimants

Shelter says landlords insisting ‘no DSS’ causes misery and is likely to be unlawful

Analysis of around 86,000 letting agents’ adverts on the property website Zoopla by the homeless charity Shelter and the National Housing Federation (a trade association for social housing providers) in England found 8,710 posts that ruled out tenants on housing benefit.

When I was looking for flats it seemed a lot higher than 1 in 10

[tearsofrefugees]

Germany: Rollout of payment card for asylum seekers remains patchy

A survey has revealed that the payment card for asylum seekers in Germany is far from being available in all municipalities, despite all but

[tearsofrefugees]

Germany's payment card scheme for asylum-seekers – DW – 03/05/2024

Germany is about to introduce a digital debit card for asylum-seekers, to ensure that state benefits can't be sent out of the country. What

[earhartsease]

British minister accused of trying to hide reports on impact of Tory welfare reforms

Thérèse Coffey ‘set out to minimise evidence’ on studies including research into deaths of benefit claimants and help for vulnerable