No Welfare in UK unless You are Polish

Joe said: "It strikes me as incredibly unfair that someone like me who has paid into the state for decades isn't entitled to a penny, and yet a Polish or other non-UK citizen can go to the UK and sign on straight away. I had to sell my house and move into my partner's flat."

express.co.uk/news/uk/412968/No-benefits-here-for-you-Poles-tell-jobless-Briton

They have the right idea. Should the rest of us in the EU follow suit?

Master of political science has spoken. But I get what he means and I can't blame him

few hundred zloty a month for 6 months - that's all he would have got anyway, not worth the hassle.

Did you read the article? He applied too late. If he had applied sooner, he'd have gotten his benefit.

He is a finance director 20 years of earning +100,000 GBP in Poland, why did he not invest his savings wisely, now he should be sitting on a sizeable nest-egg.

Something is amiss here.

Took the words out of my mouth!!!

He was living in up in Poland for a long time on that kind of money

And the guy has the cheek to try and claim unemployment benefits, he's a disgrace!!.

The average Polish person has more right to the benefits than he does.

.........."When Joe Tunney moved to Poland to work he thought he was on to a good thing."

And earning £120k a year is somehow bad?

Probably blew all has cash on Vodka and strippers.

EDIT: Here's his Linkedin profile: pl.linkedin.com/in/tunney

You can see from his work history he had two and a half years off before the job at British Polish Chamber of Commere.

He could have got a job at Aldi or something in that time

The problem with establishing these sort of guidelines with welfare: drug test etc. Is that people will get money through any means possible a.k.a crime. You might as well deport them at that point.

He was fobbed off. When folk inexperienced with the welfare system lose their job, theydont go straight down to sign up for the dole. They go to their bank, try and meet old contacts to see if they have any employment opportunities, drown their sorrows with close pals etc.

After a few weeks and upon realising that they might not be earning again for a bit - they then go down to welfare.


Kids from a previous marriage.


There are tens of thousands of Poles on the dole in the Celtic Isles. Are you honestly telling me that when you lived in Poland and if you fell on hard times throughout that period- that you wouldnt be ****** if they refused to pay you a single zloty?

You would be on here hopping mad!

No, if the rules say you must sign on immediately, that's what you do. My son just lost his first job and he's signing back on before starting to look for new work.

Show me an official document stating that. Surely it is in the governments interest for people to leave it a bit before signing on - they then dont have to pay for those weeks.

And what you mean by immediately? The end of the day? Within 24 hours? A week?

"Rejestracja w celu nabycia zasiłku dla bezrobotnych musi zostać dokonana w takim czasie by w ciągu 18 miesięcy przed dniem rejestracji mieć co najmniej 365 dni okresów uprawniających do nabycia zasiłku dla bezrobotnych."

If you want to receive unemployment benefits, you need to have at least 365 days of employment in the 18 months preceding your registration date. So if you leave it for too long, you lose your entitlement.

So OK, it's not "immediately". My bad. That was the impression I got from the article. On the other hand, this means the guy left it for longer than I could have imagined.

I sent him a McDonalds application form on LinkedIn

But that is what I am saying. Its the norm. People do not go straight to the welfare office upon losing unemployment. For middle aged people, with kids and a mortgage - it is a massive shock to the system. It takes a while for them to get their papers in order. Others hit the bottle. Others think that they will find work asap and only sign on when savings start evaporating.

If Poland wants to refuse EU citizens welfare, I dont particularly have a problem with that. But if this happened to a high taxpaying Pole in the Ireland and the U.K. - it would be a media sh*tstorm for days. The Graniud and the Irish Slimes would be denouncing it as racial policy and the do gooders would be out in force. The Polish community here would go mental too and the r word would be uttered. A lot.

Do you remember the Pole on the Dole that thinks Donegals a Hole story? It would be like that. On crack.

Edit: Could he have been paid into his British bank account and paying his taxes to the Betty the German instead of the Polish state?

Quite possibly. The story doesn't seem to add up at all.

He might also have been getting paid gross into a limited company and then taking out dividends - which would have attracted considerably less taxation.

Well there are many ways to shear a sheep.

He is a finance director for fecks sake, if he can't keep his own house in credit, how can he run company finances, the chap strikes me as 'never gonna end' type.

yes, because i know the benefits are only 400 zloty a month for 6 months as do most people with a connection to the country. The fact they can come here and claim a myriad of benefits is obviously unfair in terms of comparison but that's where the ball stops.

The average Polish person lives in the UK and contributes to the system there?

So do the Brits living in Poland, what is your point?

The five evil giants of society. Want. Disease. Ignorance. Squalor. Idleness.

But actually, they do - almost. Not the next day, but around the next week... My son lost his job last Friday and he's already signed on again. The longer you leave it, the greater the chance you'll be denied benefit because the contribution periods or whatever won't add up any more.


However you read the article, it makes it abundantly clear that anyone, Polish or EU citizen, in that position would have been denied benefits. He must have waited until the eligibility period (around 6 months if I did my homework) was over.


You think so? I have heard numerous stories of temporarily unemployed Poles NOT getting JSA, even with all the correct paperwork presented and all that. No sh*tstorm ever ensued, somehow.

To sum up, I think that if you live in a country for 20 years and are obviously doing a white-collar job, you should be able to master the subtleties of the ancient art of applying for benefits, if even the humblest labourer is able to do that. And if you don't, it's nobody's fault but yours.

Your question makes no sense as a response but to clarify for you, I'll ask a different way.
Here's what I read:


So now I have the following questions:
Does the average Pole live in the UK and contribute to the system there?
Is the average Pole really more entitled to benefits in the UK than a UK resident? Why? How?

If you remain puzzled then please don't waste your time with a response.

I haven't analysed the wording but i thought sashman was referring to Poles in Poland being more entitled.

As far as I understand,


sashman, seems to be alluding to the position of privilege Joe lived in Poland, life was very good according to Joe, although by EU law Joe should have the same rights as any other Polish citizen,morally someone who is earning 40 x minimum wage should not be looking to compete with those at the bottom of the food chain.


Poles go to the UK to earn money and send it home to build homes and secure their future.

Expats in Poland know the rules, make big, save hard, then live well.


That was also my interpretation, maybe sashman could let us have some clarity here.

I'll ask you one more time, does the average Pole live in the UK and contribute to the system there?
I say the average Pole doesn't live in the UK and therefore isn't more entitled to benefits in the UK than the fellow in question. If you want to disagree then go right ahead but barring any groundbreaking explanation on the point of benefits and the intended purpose of them, I think that's just plain stupid.

I don't see the relevance of your last question.


Hence my question and thus warszawski's attempts to be the swinging dick in an argument he's trying desperately to construct.

Your son is not the only unemployed person on the planet. A lot of highly skilled people have lost their jobs since the economic crisis. In a lot of their cases, the welfare shop is the last port of call. Pride and ego.


Lol. The U.K. and Ireland are global soup kitchens. They very rarely refuse a welfare payment to a foreigner with a sob story.

Unless you have evidence to show the contrary?

F4, Posting Guidelines:

- Do not personally attack others to avoid temporary or permanent suspension.

At least two people have suggested your comment is out of context, that should be enough for you to sit up and listen. You can not compare the average Pole in the UK to a top 2% earner in Poland ( GBP120,000 +). Just to put this debate in context the salary of the British prime minister 2013/2014 is GBP 142,000 before tax. As much as I feel for Joe at the age of 59, who is most likely unemployable on the same package as he previously earned, life moves on and you make the most of it. Losing a job is not like losing a limb, he must be a resourceful character with his experience so its time to adapt and reign in the outgoings.

Not if you are not highly skilled and live in a small town with rather bleak job prospects. Apart from the welfare bit, signing on means you are assisted in finding a job (much like at the Jobcentre). So people in Poland do tend to sign on as early as possible.


As long as the foreigner comes from a country far, far away. If you get my drift.


I have seen rejection letters, yes. Quite a lot of them. But in my line of work I can't really provide any details on a public forum. The only thing I can say is that the rejections were not really justified from a strictly formal point of view.

You do make me laugh, I'll give you that: )

I was not comparing the average Pole in the UK to a this guy working in Poland.
The comment I had replied to made no mention to the average Pole in the UK, only the average Pole. Hence my question.
You've evaded my other question consistently enough to suggest you know the answer.

I'm not defending Joe, so you can stop wasting your energy trying to construct an argument only you want a part of.

We are both relying on anecdotal evidence here. Neither of us can be proved right or wrong.


Which can be appealed and an interview with a community welfare officer set up. No EU citizen will ever be blankly refused welfarein Ireland or the the U.K. None. They may have to wait a while to receive the free loot ormto be put on the housing lisr, but as the old adage goes - good things come to those that wait.

Admit it. This lad was fobbed off. If the roles were reversed the liberal media here would be going apesh*t and decrying it as a 'racial' act. Ffs - a Nigerian asylum seeking family are currently in the high court trying to sue my lily livered state for denying them welfare benefits. And I bet they will f*cking well win too.

Poland has the right idea - work or f*ck the f*ck off.

They say the entertainment industry pays well.if I keep at it I may have something to fall back on.


The moral of this story, is when the going is good save as much as you can. All good things come to an end sooner or later.

Read what I said, I said more right than this particular person does. If you can't read very well then don't waste your time responding.

This guy has been in well paid jobs for some time, living in a country where the cost of living is 1/4 of the UK.

Benefits are means tested, I would not believe that he doesn't have money or some assets somewhere