>>You might get "on the dole " easily but what you get is not a lot of money. Your "friend" is probably on some sort of long term disability benefit.
>>I can never understand why the UK is always the butt of these comments. The UK's welfare payments are some of the worst in Europe.
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>Yeah, but that's like saying "I own fewer guns than most people in Texas." <s>
>
>>There certainly are a small number of people living in the margins who have never had work and are largely unemployable but its certainly not an easy or profitable life choice. Going from employment to benefits is I would imagine a huge shock for most people.
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>People actually going to benefits from employment are to be sympathized with and helped in whatever way possible. The idea of a permanent welfare underclass is what I was talking about - for those people a three day work week would be a shock.
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>Is it true that in many European countries permanent government assistance (at whatever level) is there just for the asking?

Well I'm not an expert but my impression is that its not much money £60.00 per week I think here and after a period is subject to you taking up training and lowering your expectations. The right wing media like to push stories about the huge amount of fraud but usually expensive campaigns against it result in very small saving. So either,

the very clever fraudsters (you know the ones, thye have head with no neck , they read a newspaper with a reading age of about 3 and are happy to live in a damp flat in a grotty block) can evade the investigations with no effort.

or

there's not actually that much fraud.