Benefits sanctions kill

I know from personal experience that benefits sanctions wreck lives.

Recently I have gained new employment as a warehouse worker and have personally experienced the distressing process of benefit sanctions.

I was being unfairly sanctioned by my government work programme provider on three different occasions (and for relatively very trivial reasons), each of which I eventually managed to have overturned, because they were simply not in the right about the issues they had raised against me.

So I fully understand how the stress and worry of benefit sanctions can get people down and greatly affect any prospects of finding new employment.

Fortunately I’m in good health, which is something I appreciate in a world where such a lot of bad things are happening.

I was able to cope better, seek advice from others and managed by improvising and persevering. But for people who suffer (or had suffered) from life-threatening health conditions, such as David Clapson, one benefit sanction virtually guaranteed the end of his life.

The story of the former soldier was brought to notice by the Mirror. David died because he didn’t even have the money to keep his refrigerator powered on where he kept his life-supporting diabetes medication.

What concerns me greatly is that Iain Duncan Smith (MP) claims to be saving the government money and saving people’s lives. But in reality he has saved the money by unfairly swindling benefit claimants out of essential daily living expenses and in fact has cost people their lives.

I think it’s grossly unfair, disproportionate and is now certainly life-threatening to reduce somebody’s income to absolute zero.

Before I heard of this case I believed that people would likely end up hospitalised or die prematurely as a consequence of Iain Duncan Smith’s welfare reforms, as it seemed obviously foreseeable to me (and probably did to many others).

I was shocked to learn that these things are actually happening to people, but have felt powerless to do anything about it, because I had previously been experiencing the effects of benefit sanctions myself, it’s enough to give people nightmares.

I don’t feel it’s my place to provide any financial solution here, but I can at least understand the thoughts, coming from the point of view of other workers, that in the case whereby somebody was late for work they would only be docked for the time not worked, rather than losing their full pay for a whole month.

I think to reduce somebody’s income to absolute zero for a minimum period of a one month, for being a few minutes late, or missing a single appointment, is totally uncivilised and inhumane, especially living within a supposedly democratic society.

To read about David Clapson’s story click here.

*Name changed to protect author

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