treated like thieves by welfare officer

When the small business run by Minette and her husband folded, they spent four months looking for employment and, after many job rejections and mounting debts, they asked the welfare office for financial assistance -- as was their right to do -- but never expected to be humiliated and treated like thieves.

"Honestly, we were treated like thieves trying to gain unlawful benefits or something," says Minette. "We had to expose every aspect of our private lives to a supercilious clerk who, at another time in history, would have made a great concentration camp guard, and when she saw that we had quite a bit of equity in our home she enquired why we were seeking benefits when we could sell our home and support ourselves."

"When we protested, she pointed out that selling up would allow us to move to an area with higher employment prospects," explains Minette. "We sat there stunned and wondered about all the tax we had paid over the years to protect us from this very situation."

"Why should we sell our home? We weren't expecting to be unemployed forever," cries Minette. "Every industry goes though seasonal slumps and if we couldn't find employment in the areas of our expertise then we needed help finding alternative employment. That help, and financial assistance, was why we turned to the welfare office in the first place and we couldn't believe how unhelpful and rude the social security clerk was!"

"Were they running a racket or something? Was the game to target the more well-off unemployed, brow beat them, encourage them to sell their homes at a loss and either buy them up themselves or get a cut from the agent or purchaser?"

"Sure, we'd heard horrible stories about the welfare office," says Minette, "but that sort of stuff only happened to the deadbeats, the drug addicts and the serial single moms didn't it? Wrong, it happens to decent people like us, too."

"So, what is the alternative to accepting welfare?" asks Minette. "Sure, we could have sold our home at a loss and used the money to rent a place and pay for expenses while waiting for a suitable job to materialize -- but eventually we would have been forced into a career change, having to re-train and do all of that stuff -- and in the meantime we would have lost our home and eroded our finances to such an extent that it might be years before we built up enough to pay a deposit on another home."

"I know that a lot of people are so turned off welfare and being treated like a social pariah that they resort to pawn shops and loan sharks, run up huge credit card debts, redraw from their mortgages until the debt is worth more than the asset or beg loans from family members," says Minette. "Some even think that prostitution and crime are better alternatives than going to the welfare office for assistance."

"And this is the sort of reckless behavior that our government encourages by making welfare benefits so hard and humiliating to get, and by turning all welfare recipients into thieving social pariahs."

"Proposals to cut payments and bring in a system of food, gas and clothing vouchers is just another draconian idea designed to abuse the unemployed -- and the sick, disabled and elderly," says Minette. "Sure, they say it is to prevent abuse of the system, but in countries where food stamps are used their recipients only exchange them at half face value for drugs -- and the point I'm making is this: why should the majority of genuine unemployed people looking for work be penalized by the minority of those abusing the system?"

"We both found good jobs eventually," says Minette, "but our experience with the social security system -- which is a total misnomer -- will live in our memories forever as the most humiliating experience of our lives and never again will we be so naive as to believe that the taxes we pay are any sort of insurance for us and that our government cares."

"The government, as far as we are concerned, is a big fat thief," says Minette. "It takes our money and pretends it's using it for social services, but when you need to tap into those social services you're given a kick in the guts."

"Frankly, we have less respect for the government than we have for the guys who regularly raid our neighborhood for items of value they can sell to support themselves," says Minette, "and we've now found a clever accountant who has arranged our finances and assets in such a way that we hardly pay any tax and can draw on our own funds should we ever get into trouble again."

"And that, guys, is the best alternative to welfare should you be in a position to do it," laughs Minette. "If we had known these 'tricks' when we had our business maybe we could have remained afloat, but we were young and naive and thought we knew it all, you know how it is."

beating up the underclass

Valda believes that the welfare system will never be scrapped because governments and society in general benefit from having an underclass of dependant and docile citizens to beat up.

"Think about it," says Valda, "if you removed welfare you will create a desperate underclass of people and this will not only threaten the security of the nation but the jobs of everyone else."

"In theory, if you forced everyone off welfare it may be much easier to exploit them -- desperate people will work under any conditions for any pay -- but their desperation will lower wages for other workers and those currently employed won't like that, will they?"

"By keeping an underclass of dependant and docile citizens on welfare, the government effectively uses them as scapegoats," says Valda, "and their vilification and ill treatment serves as a threat to low paid workers not to risk losing their jobs and joining the underclass by asking for more pay."

"Also, it suits business to have a pool of docile unemployed people on welfare because it provides them with a ready reserve of workers should existing staff get too uppity in their wage demands and need to be sacked," says Valda. "And, during holidays and prolonged sickness, when regular staff are off work, employers have no trouble finding short-term replacement staff."

"We all know someone -- or have been there ourselves -- to know how badly you are treated by government officials and society in general when you lose your job and are forced on to welfare," says Valda. "For me, It was an abominable experience, and it struck me as terribly cruel that I was persecuted for something beyond my control."

"Nobody's job is 100% secure and we are all at risk of becoming unemployed if not sick or even too old to work," says Valda. "And what are we paying exorbitant taxes for if not for social security when we need it?"

"I survived for seven months on benefits before I found another job," says Valda, "and in that time I was forced into various draconian schemes deliberately designed to thwart me from looking for a job and to drain every drop of my self-esteem. It was as if they didn't want me to find work and wanted to keep me as a dependent underclass citizen so that they could benefit from my unemployment."

"Regularly reporting to the welfare office with evidence that I was looking for work was like visiting a parole officer for committing a criminal offence," sighs Valda. "The whole experience was degrading and intended to be so. And, except for one person who went out of her way to be kind, all of the people employed at the welfare office were petty, mean, sub-human little tyrants who wouldn't last a day in the real world with real work."

"My new job didn't pay very well," says Valda, "but I was so glad to get out of the welfare system that I accepted it happily. And isn't this just another facet of the cycle of perpetual slavery and welfare that our system promotes?"

"As I see it, the system exists because there are not enough jobs to go around and maybe that's because those who do have jobs are being paid a lot more than they are worth (such as the welfare clerks) or doing the work of two people (as many of my high-paid friends are)," says Valda. "And, as more or us lose our jobs and are forced to take lower paid jobs after a humiliating period on welfare, wages across the board are going to reflect this change."

"I've never heard of anyone coming off welfare getting a higher paid job than they had before, have you?" asks Valda. "It stands to reason, then, that everyone in a job, especially a highly paid one, should thank the welfare underclass for their good fortune."

"So, don't blame the people receiving benefits and don't vilify them," says Valda. "Most of us got there because we lost our jobs and the pittance we receive is hardly worth the additional humiliation we suffer -- and you or a loved one may be next."

"During the seven months I was on welfare, it seemed to me that helping me get back into the workforce was never the intention of the officials I saw," says Valda. "On the contrary, their intention seemed to be to humiliate me and keep me in the system forever."

"Because I knew that the longer I stayed unemployed the harder it would be for me to get out of the system, I had to drop my standards to absolute rock bottom to get a job, " says Valda. "This really surprised the welfare officials managing me. I guess they thought I'd be turning up for my regular humiliation sessions with them forever!"

"With people like that depending on the unemployed for the existence of their jobs," says Valda, "you get to understand who the real parasites are and why the welfare system will never be scrapped."

"If you don't have the intestinal fortitude to overcome the harassment and claw your way out of the system you will remain with the welfare underclass forever," says Valda. "It's a terrible fate and the type of people who succumb to it are often the sweetest of people, gentle and kind, trusting and naive, who have no natural defences against vilification and mistreatment."