Absurdity

[hmpf]

In Germany, when you earn very little money and don't have a lot of capital (no more than six times the amount of savings that I have), you can get some money from the state to help you pay your rent. Nice, isn't it? Why am I not making use of this, you wonder?

Well: I'm too poor to qualify for that type of help. See, the support is only granted when you earn very little money - not when you earn *none*. When you earn nothing at all, the social services people will assume you must be hiding something from them, because, after all, nobody can *live* when they earn no money at all, right?

Comments

[beccatoria.livejournal.com]

Dude that's insane! In Britain you just have to submit bank statements, etc. to prove you have no income. And then if they find out you were lying about it later they demand you repay them. Which they often don't and is probably why the Conservative party have such traction when complaining about the broken benefits system or whatever but frankly I'd rather know that when I am flat broke, I'll qualify for help.

(Of course this is the same system that decides you don't qualify for help because you made yourself "intentionally homeless" for all manner of insane things; I currently know someone who has theoretical capital due to the sale of a family property that due to various issues she is completely unable to access and likely won't be for a good long while, yet now qualifies for no social assistance because she has this nebulous conceptual money floating someplace. Our system is far from sensible.)

It gets better:

[hmpf.livejournal.com]

my healthcare insurance fees are calculated based on a fictitious income of 800 or so euros, because it's assumed that anyone who isn't in a traditional form of employment will either be on welfare (which I'm not, due to the fact that my savings are in the wrong form, even though they're far below the allowed total) or will be earning at least 800 a month. So I pay 140 euros a month on healthcare, while someone who earns less than those 800 euros, but more than nothing, will have to pay significantly less.

Being poor in Germany really is a lot of fun - if you can see the humour in absurdity.

Addendum

[hmpf.livejournal.com]

The first paragraph of your comment makes moving to Britain very appealing... (though, would I qualify for support of that kind, as a non-Brit?)

Ha. Conservatives here are very worried that people from poorer countries will move to Germany to sponge off our social security system. And here I am considering doing the same in Britain... ;-)

Re: Addendum

[beccatoria.livejournal.com]

I can actually check this for you at work on Tuesday but I think that you would certainly qualify for social assistance if you were to come to Britain and sign on for Jobseeker's Allowance. Because if you do that you are officially a "work-seeker" which grants you access to certain public funds including Housing and Council Tax Benefit to help with your accommodation. If you're on Jobseeker's Allowance you are entitled to full Housing Benefit and Council Tax Benefit allowance, though this will not necessarily be as much as your rent, especially if you're renting privately, and there is an insane lack of public housing so you'll probably have to. You'll also have to find a place that's willing to accept Housing Benefit for rent, not an impossible task by any means, but sometimes people are unwilling to start renting to those on benefits. Kind of like having pets.

You'd also be entitled to Working Tax Credit if you worked at least 30 hours a week to supplement your income I think (though that might be dependent on you not earning a huge amount).

However, a downside to being on Jobseeker's Allowance is that you have to actively look for work and like, go in to the Jobcentre once a fortnight and put up with them asking you why you haven't found work yet and occasionally trying to make you apply for unsuitable work. You are entitled to put "reasonable restrictions" on the type of work you apply for, but that didn't stop them from once badgering Kev about why he had not (a) applied for a job which required him to speak welsh (which he did not) and (b) for a job driving a boat (when he could not swim). "It doesn't say here you have to be able to swim," the man said. Though it's not usually quite that awful.

OH WAIT, also, you might have to wait 4 - 12 weeks before being able to sign on for Jobseeker's Allowance as you'll need to prove that you are "habitually resident" in the UK. To do that you basically just need to show that you've been here for a while (usually 4 - 12 weeks, depending), and show them stuff like you opened a bank account, proof of where you're living, etc. It's not hard, it's just annoying.

So, um, basically, yes, you would qualify for this support provided you were actively looking for work or employed, but you might have to wait a month or two. But that wouldn't leave you a great deal of time to do, like, internships and stuff if you wanted to get experience doing awesome work instead of whatever you can find to make ends meet.

Housing Benefit isn't usually dependent on Jobseeker's Allowance, it's just dependent on having less than a certain amount of money, but in your case, I think our right of residence might be dependent on either being employed or being on Jobseeker's Allowance. Which is where the issue of working rather than volunteering comes in.

But since I work at the Citizen's Advice Bureau, I can go and ask for you and make sure I'm not lying! ;) And all that was probably far more information than you wanted for an idle thought. But that's what you get for asking someone whose day job consists of writing people letters about this kind of thing all the time.

Next up, I can walk you through our disability benefits system and what you'd have to do if you were immigrating from Poland! *facepalm*

Wow!

[hmpf.livejournal.com]

Dude, you've suddenly turned into a *very* convenient friend for someone who may still end up moving to Britain someday! ;-)

Oh, hey:

[hmpf.livejournal.com]

we really do need to talk on the phone sometime soon because I've kinda sorta pimped Redactica to the Museum of Communication here... obviously, pending your approval. So far, I've only talked about it a bit to my internship advisors. It's not like they'd be able to *show* it, anyway - they can't show stuff that's so, well, borderline-illegal. ;-) But it might be possible to exhibit the DVD covers as an example of fannish media production. Possiblymaybe.

Or we could go and print out a cover for The Phantom Edit, I suppose.

Or both. ;-)

(Well, to be honest, at the moment it's not even sure yet if we'll even do a part on fannish media production in the exhibition... but it looks at least marginally likely, so...)

[dune-drd.livejournal.com]

Can't you apply for money anyway? I have a distant acquaintance who gets a lot of money for Ditching His Degree Because It Was No Fun... which is kind of unfair, don't you think?