That people who are alcoholics or drug addicts live on incapacity benefit doesn’t surprise me at all. In one way, at least…for they are, one would assume, incapable of working.
The bit that does surprise me is how anyone can afford drugs or alcohol on 78 pounds a week. Which would, I assume again, mean that they have some other form of income to pay for their intake which rather neatly proves that they are not incapable of working.
Something of a conundrum there.
At a rough guess, the “other forms of income” will come from activities which most respectable people would hestitate to classify as honest work.
Its common for people to have multiple factors for being incapable of work and claiming benefit. Addiction could be combined with mental or physical illness or impairment or susbstance abuse could be causing these.
For folks at the margins of mainstream society – they are a varied bunch.
Its not as easy as isolating addiction as the route cause of incapacity. There’s a hardcore minority of folks not in work who have multiple barriers to working.
Anyhow in London it seems many of these people beg for money for their addiction, or are employed in some form of casual labour.
Along with Incapacity Benefit, most of them will also get Housing Benefit and exemption from Council Tax.
Housing Benefit alone is worth a few bob.
I think they use that method called crime.
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