Xenophobia?

[The Grand Nudger]

In my opinion, it is dishonest (and fraudulent) if you either:

1) Are not entitled to the benefit, but try to obtain it or keep it.
2) Actively change your situation so you are worse off, in order to claim more in benefits.

Now, the instances of (2) are probably low, but the number of cases we hear about concerning (1) benefit fraud is very high. Usually it is people who received disability benefits because they were unable to work due to an injury, but continue to claim the benefit after they are healed and able to work again.

In the child case, it's not people lying about the number of children they have, but purposefully having more children in order to gain the additional child benefits. Like I said though, the instances of this are probably low.

I'm on-board with you, being that neither of us imagine that people are popping out kids left and right to get higher benefits one has to ask - are immigrants (for example, being the initial group in question) a majority of the demonstrated cases of benefit fraud via dodgy disability checks? You need a SS number to claim disability here btw.

Well, luckily for our modern society we operate on "innocent until proven guilty", so you don't have to do anything to defend yourselves if you are innocent; the prosecution won't be able to demonstrate anything that a jury could accept as "beyond reasonable doubt".

I should point out though, that even if prosecuting people for this is near impossible, it is still fundamentally dishonest and fraudulent if they do it.

Right, but unfortunately (at least in the case of the US) benefits don't work exactly like a court or legal system. They can be revoked or suspended for a wide variety of questionable this and that's(it's not a right or anything) - and while you could (and I'd say should) hammer them to reinstate said benefits...that won't really help you in the interim. This is the gov we're talking about, "the interim" could be a very, very long time. They also aren't interested or responsible if you lose what little you had left in said interim due to their foot dragging.

But I suppose it isn't much of a problem, because neither of us expects to find too many cases of this yeah?

I'm not sure I understand the question. I understand that in your country, welfare queens might be a myth from the Reagan era. However, in any welfare system which is as badly mismanaged as ours, welfare queens are a real thing, and sadly, an inevitability.

A few moments on Google will find reputable media sources talking about them:

http://articles.businessinsider.com/2010...ange-99ers
http://www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/comm...131444.ece

I'm not making a comment on welfare queens in the US, only in the UK...because I live in the UK and I know more about the state of affairs here than in the US.

I see two articles about a grand total of two families Tibs, who may or may not actually be doing anything illegal (don't see anything about a conviction or revocation of benefits). I'm not sure if I'm ready to cry epidemic or anything even remotely close on that count. I get that you think it's dishonest or unfair (and I'm not exactly disagreeing with you here - but precedent is precedent- and We should be careful with precedent). How many people in your country are currently claiming some kind of benefits? Would we expect any system handing out resources to be crime free in any case? Why even continue the use of a term manufactured as a fairy tale if criminal, or fraud works just as well and is all you're talking about anyway?