thier welfare system is worse than ours.. and that lady thats over jk s welfare was a bitch "well then you shouldn't have left the baby's father" so im guessing shd rather jk be dead because of him... and also not bother to find a job just stay on welfare or be broke and homeless with a job andchild in tow? not to self never move to the uk!!!
The extreme always makes an impression.
- Jeff Hardy
you do all understand that most of this 'movie' was utter crap made up by writers, right?
i'm british, i've also in the past been unemployed.
just to be clear, nobody would be spoken to like that, not unless the person behind the desk wanted to get fired.
also, this heartwarming story of a single mother writing her book whilst trying to feed her child on government handouts would be great if it wasn't a fact that Rowling decided to not work and claim handouts so that she'd have time to write her book.
hope i've cleared that up for you
"Come on Tom, lets finish this the way we started it...TOGETHER"
Well it's stated in the movie, that unless she was able to make enough to live and feed her daughter and pay for child care, it was pointless because she'd lose the welfare, and she needed to think of her daughter first. (She got the teaching job and was able to stop living on welfare because she could afford child care). it's a tight situation to be in. Damned if you do damned if you don't. So she wrote while living off the checks, and the teaching job came along.
of course it's dramatized, and we don't know what really went on, however, that's what the movie presented to us, that she didn't take the welfare checks and not get a job so she would have time to write, she took them because if she got a job, she wouldn't be able to afford child care unless she got a job that would pay enough for it.
From what I've read about J.K. the movie is not mostly "utter crap" but seems pretty accurate.
shareFrom the movie's perspective, JK didn't remain on assistance until she wrote her book, she remained on assistance until she was able to get a real job that allowed her to pay her rent and afford child care. In the movie version(I don't know its accuracy) Rowling was already a teacher and off of assistance when she got the call from the agent.
Also, this is how people even in the US get "stuck in the system". As depicted in the movie, Rowling was able to get a decent paying teaching job, since she already had a college education. Think of someone in a similar situation who doesn't have a degree. How does this person get themselves a decent enough job to pay for housing, food, healthcare, and the cost of raising a child?
I read many blogs and comments from people who think people on the system are lazy and pathetic. Though I hate it happened to Rowling, it highlights how it really is. One poster said the case workers don't talk to you like that. Oh, they most certainly do! If you're surprised by this behavior, know that its common. I lost my job several years ago and had no benefits. People, doctors, all types of professionals talk to you like you are an idiot. Anyway, the system is designed for you either to not work or work and still be terribly behind.
You just HAD to see what was behind this spoiler, didn't you?
i'm british, i've also in the past been unemployed.
just to be clear, nobody would be spoken to like that, not unless the person behind the desk wanted to get fired.
Sounds like you were in the minority, because people on welfare often get treated poorly by the staff. Many of them are under the impression that they have the right to judge people in difficult circumstances just because they themselves have never been in a position to need assistance.
also, this heartwarming story of a single mother writing her book whilst trying to feed her child on government handouts would be great if it wasn't a fact that Rowling decided to not work and claim handouts so that she'd have time to write her book.
If you remember correctly, she wanted to get a job, but without the extra assistance, she wouldn't be able to afford to put her daughter in daycare while she was working. She chose to write her book during that time because what else was she supposed to do? She couldn't find a job that gave her enough to get off of assistance, so she had to fill her time with something.
Not all people who recieve assistance are taking handouts from the government. Believe it or not, some people actually can't afford to feed themselves or their families and need some extra help. Since you yourself were unemployed, you're certainly in no position to judge.
I agree Hugo. It was completely inaccurate about the "welfare" system.
We don't call it "on assistance" either (unless it's got another name in Scotland). It's normally referred to as "on benefits".
I think the writers deliberately made UK "welfare" look a lot worse than it is in order to emphasise the negative for the US audience. I'll take being on UK "welfare" over US any day.
I also agree. While the system is pretty screwed up and defies all common sense, the actual people who run it and work in it are nowhere near as condescending and downright Victorian as shown here.
Seriously, reprimanding a single mother for leaving the child's father? If any member of staff dared speak to a benefit claimant in that way they'd find themselves out of a job (or at least their front teeth).
It's also worth remembering that this film, and the book it was based on, may well be exaggerating the harshness of the system and it's staff. JK Rowling may very well feel humiliated and violated by being asked 'personal and private' questions by a total stranger but (in this movie at least) that's only because she's not been in that position before where she's HAD to answer those questions in order to be entitled to the money to support herself. In all objectivity though there wasn't anything out of the ordinary or deeply intinate that she was asked to share. Just standard questions (and no, the woman would NOT keep calling Jo 'homeless' once it was so evident that the term was both inaccurate and offensive to her).
As I've said in another thread, bruised pride and ego plays a big part in how people perceive how harsh the system really is. And people who have lived comfortable and well off lives suddenly finding themselves on benefits have more of a culture shock and perceive things to be a lot worse than they objectively are.
Now as for the amount of money they expect you to live on. That's another story.
I don't know what the British assistance system is like, but I have to agree with the people who think what the lady behind the desk said was harsh. 69 British pounds is 107 U.S. Dollars today, I don't know how much it was back then, but regardless that's not a lot.
shareThe point is being missed here - I agree that the benefits system in Britain is pretty soul destroying if you get stuck in that kind of trap - but the main point being made was that the film was pretty awful. I totally agree with the earlier poster who said that the accents were awful, the locations were inaccurate and the research was non existent.
I started to watch it when it was on the television because I thought it was going to be a documentary. I continued watching out of some weird voyeuristic fascination - like watching a train wreck in slow motion. It was so bad it was laughable.
The system is very different now, that was 1993 I think, before Labour
share