Current Events > Single dad with just £4.61 took his own life after waiting weeks for help

(+) Yeah! (+)

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/single-dad-just-461-took-18457364

Hmm
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But Phillip had quit his job as a factory worker recently to look after his young kids and he got in to debt, which must have been difficult for him.

This is tragic, to be sure, but you can just quit your job and collect benefits in the UK?

I feel like they're leaving something out.
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50Blessings posted...

But Phillip had quit his job as a factory worker recently to look after his young kids and he got in to debt, which must have been difficult for him.

This is tragic, to be sure, but you can just quit your job and collect benefits in the UK?

I feel like they're leaving something out.

That felt odd for me too.

50Blessings posted...

But Phillip had quit his job as a factory worker recently to look after his young kids and he got in to debt, which must have been difficult for him.

This is tragic, to be sure, but you can just quit your job and collect benefits in the UK?

I feel like they're leaving something out.

Yeah. They mention that they were well off and then he quit his job to look after the kids. What's up with that and why wasn't he able to go back to work? Where was the mother?
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Well now... Found this looking up UC

https://www.bbc.com/news/newsbeat-49013769
Universal credit: Single mums being forced into sex work

Alison says she became a prostitute as a last resort after being left short of money by universal credit.

Her story is becoming familiar to the group of MPs looking into "survival sex" - women being forced into sex as a result of the changes to benefits.

"This is something that shouldn't be happening in a wealthy nation," says independent MP Heidi Allen, who's on that Work and Pensions Committee.

"I'm shocked, embarrassed and I'm angry."

Universal credit helps with living costs, replacing six benefits including housing benefit and child tax credit.

But since its introduction in 2013, it's been accused of making things harder for people receiving it.

Alison had her son - who is disabled - when she was 18 years old and has relied on the benefit system to support them both.

"There are some weeks after you've paid your bills, you don't have enough and you think, 'I have to do it'."

[...]

The Work and Pensions Committee - chaired by independent MP Frank Field - launched an inquiry in March after listening to the concerns of charities.

The English Collection of Prostitutes - which campaigns for the safety and decriminalisation of sex workers and has often linked universal credit to sex work - has given evidence to the group.

[...]

Heidi Allen says she quit the Conservative Party earlier in the year because of the party's rollout of universal credit.

"The welfare state should be there to pick you up when you are at your lowest.

"At the moment rather than a net that's holding people up, it's dragging them down and that's the bit we need to change."

Around 700,000 lone parents miss out on an average 2,380 per year because of universal credit, the Institute Of Fiscal Studies says.

Research economist Tom Waters says it's to do with timing: "You have to wait at least five weeks now to get your first benefit payment.

"Although the government has made advances available for that period, that can be a difficult time for people that don't have many other resources to draw on."

So basically, Britain should increase it's free money dispensation?
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Anyone from the UK mind explaining this "Universal Credit" ?

Why not just take his kids to daycare? If he made good money that shouldn't have been a problem.