sickness benefits

Private companies should never be allowed to run the welfare benefits system. The whole idea is disturbing.

Here's another interview with someone on a sickness benefit
You can read earlier interviews with people on benefits here
 

It's about two in the afternoon and Paul Thomas, 40, is sitting just outside the front door of the petrol station on Shoreditch High Street, begging away. He does this for several hours most afternoons.

He gets about £40 a week by way of the sickness benefit that he's been on for about a year. Unfortunately, his bills at home come to about £80 a week (he's lived in the same council flat in Bethnal Green for 16 years): thus the daily efforts outside the petrol station. Thomas, who is very articulate , possibly black, and fully political, says that his present way of life just sort of evolved for him after he was made redundant from a maintenance job about 18 months ago.

He is interested to hear there are people who think that scrounging for coins on the pavement on Shoreditch High Street is a lucrative lifestyle choice.

'It's humiliating. I've got two children - one 22 and one 18. They are always asking for money. Money, money, money. I do this, because I can't live on £40 a week. I'm not going to go around robbing other people.'

Other people rob him, though.