Benefit fraud: 85% of allegations untrue

Over 85% of allegations of benefit fraud between 2010 and 2015 were false, according to a Freedom of Information request by the Observer.

Tories and Blairites have encouraged working class communities to turn in on themselves and witch-hunt supposed benefit cheats. Establishment politicians want to criminalise the welfare state and scapegoat claimants.

But the government’s own figures show fraudulent claims made up a miniscule 0.7% of benefit expenditure in 2012-2013. The £1.2 billion cost doesn’t even reach the estimated £1.6 billion the Department for Work and Pensions underpaid to claimants. The capitalists who caused the financial crisis avoid £34 billion in tax every year.

The Socialist campaigns for liveable benefits and well-paid, guaranteed employment for all, without compulsion. Take the wealth off the 1%, not struggling benefit claimants.