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Well, a digression in the Woolwich murder thread raised the issue of benefits and the underclass and all that jazz. I had written a reasonably long reply, and can't really be bothered to reformulate it all into a normal first post so will just copy it straight here. This might provide some continuity to the discussion from the other thread to this one too, although any new discussion on any aspect of the subject of the Welfare State is of course very welcome.

mwnciboo wrote:
Don't tell me just because I haven't signed-on I cannot have an opinion on this?

You can absolutely have an opinion, but have the self awareness to think how you've formed an opinion about a life you have never experienced. Have you formed that opinion because you have seen people you know acting that way? Or you have read academic papers on the underclass? Or does it stem from the media? If your answer is the media then again, I would hope that you have the self awareness to realise you're being played for a fool. Media coverage of benefits is disproportionally negative which has resulted in public attitudes being themselves negative.
On media coverage


On public perceptions

So what if the Job-Centre makes you jump through hoops - It's Job Seekers Allowance - It's for Job Seekers. Plenty of people take the money and don't seek a Job or Pretend to. There is a significant number of "Unemployable People", those without qualifications, skills, a proper education or even the desire to work. We should help people, but for those who just want money and don't actually really want to work - Let them rot. These are the people who pretend for a month to be interested but have no discipline, so take days off, or turn up late, or take fake sick days. Why would any employer want this crap?

Again, your view has little bearing on the reality of the situation. six out of seven of the long term unemployed are either disabled, seriously ill or the one parent of a young child. So if six out of seven of those on long term benefits should not be looking for work then the situation isn't quite what the Telegraph or the Mail have been making out.

Second point, just because Child Benefit is universal doesn't make it right e.g A Blue-collar Worker Pays their Tax gets some Child Benefit because they don't earn much for their Sweat. Man in a Council house has a child doesn't work, doesn't pay tax but still gets the money paid to him......Explain in anyway shape or form how this is fair?

So you are asking what the difference is between a child of a blue collar worker and a child of someone on benefits? Not much really, they both need food, new clothes, school equipment. And don't try and pull the argument that people are having children for profit, it's plain idiotic if you actually look at the figures. Benefit rates for single parents are pitiful and barely meet even the most basic costs of looking after a child. A single parent unable to find work is paid just £71 a week for themselves plus slightly over that for their first child - taking their total income to around £150 a week. A second child is worth even less however at £696.80 annually in Child Benefit. You could make considerably more than that as a childminder and then you'd get your evenings to yourself, and wouldn't have the worry of how you pay for whatever unexpected expensive occurrences happened to the child.

mwnciboo wrote:It doesn't go to the Child does it? It goes to the Parents, and some of them spend it on things like Drugs, alcohol, Lottery Tickets, keeping 9 Children in a four bed house, before burning it down killing all of his children because



Remember this Scumbag...

A single case proves nothing, its like me saying all people in the 45% tax bracket are fraudsters, remember this guy

I earn a very Good Wage,

And there in lies the issue, you don't know what it is like to live on pittance and have to find money for the electricity and gas and water and food and and household items and very soon council tax and god help you if the cooker or the fridge breaks down. A recent study found that when asked whether they could survive on £52 a week 34% of people who earn over £70k a year said they could, compared to 20% of people who earn under £20k.

Google and Massive Corp's pay almost nil or negligible amounts of Tax

You are right to raise this, tax avoidance is a very serious issue and government should grow a pair and deal with it. Also, benefit fraud costs around a billion a year, the tax gap (the difference between what is owed and what is collected) is 30 billion a year.

My American Friends who come to visit cannot believe how high Tax is in this Country - They said if this was America there would be riots.

This isn't the States, Britain has far more inclination toward social justice and is far closer to Europe in that regard, although benefit payments are much lower here relative to wages than they are in Europe.

We don't even know the true scale of the problem.

No, you don't know the scale of the problem. Those of us whose role it is to study the subject know very well the scale of the problem, its far less than the Telegraph would like it to be, and no worse than it was in 2007 before the media started talking about "scroungers".

For the record I have signed on - in 2000 and because I had savings (because I am prudent) I got shafted as they said I wasn't entitled to JSA? How is that fair?

It is a cheap (which is rare for such a thing) and effective way of means testing benefits. Last time I checked it was £6k, that should be enough to support yourself until you can find yourself another job. If you end up spending your savings then you are entitled to benefits when you go under the threshold. That is fair. Benefit aren't money for doing nothing, they are a safety net which provides people with the bare minimum needed to live on, if you have more than that bare minimum then why do you need benefits?

To me the Underclass is a different group all together as many people claim benefits and are completely law abiding and good but there are those who I see as the Underclass who are lazy scum who will commit crime when ever. So to me, the Underclass is digusting but just because you claim benefits does not make you a scumbag.

 unmercifulconker wrote:
To me the Underclass is a different group all together as many people claim benefits and are completely law abiding and good but there are those who I see as the Underclass who are lazy scum who will commit crime when ever. So to me, the Underclass is digusting but just because you claim benefits does not make you a scumbag.

You are absolutely correct to make the differentiation between benefit claimants and the underclass. The underclass do exist, however they exist in far fewer numbers than the general public think. This is in part down to the government using the underclass as a motivation for reforming the benefits system. You should not base social policy which will effect the lives of millions of the most vulnerable on a tiny percentage of their number.

Well, I am a "benefit claimant" here in the US to an extent. We do claim WIC right now, and since I tend to get about 70% more in taxes back then I pay in, you could consider that "benefits" as well.

I'm also what you'd consider "middle class" since my pay with benefits comes to about $57,000 a year.

So there is a significant distinction between the two.

The greatest smoke and mirrors trickery of the last 50 years was to recreate the underclass in America and the UK and turn the working/middleclass against it, to divert their rightful ire from the recreation of the super-rich/new aristocracy.

Those on benefits provided by the state should provide, according to their capability, work for that benefit. But the new system of working for large private retailers is utterly offensive, it's a free labor handout to big business. Those on benefits provided by the state, by the people, should do works that benefit the people, park reclamation, renovation of public schools and hospitals, aiding the elderly, beach cleaning, support works for the state provision of health, education, military and policing etc.

An amount of working, of routine and of self discipline would be excellent for those unemployed, for their sense of self worth and for their image with their peers.

But not to the benefit of private sector companies and not to the detriment of job creation.

The greatest smoke and mirrors trickery of the last 50 years was to recreate the underclass in America

When did it disappear?

 LordofHats wrote:

The greatest smoke and mirrors trickery of the last 50 years was to recreate the underclass in America

When did it disappear?

I guess it never did in the US, it was greatly reduced for a time though and it did all but vanish in the UK for the most part, until Thatcher brought it back.

And you don't think that that might just be a historical fluke (as some historians have proposed the entire 20th century middle class is)?

 LordofHats wrote:
And you don't think that that might just be a historical fluke (as some historians have proposed the entire 20th century middle class is)?

I believe a less inclined curve of wealth equality represents enlightenment and the advancement of society.

I hope those historians are wrong, I think, despite the claims of many on the right, that actually returning to the patterns of previous centuries will be something decidedly unwanted.

I also think it can be strongly argued that the creation of the mercantile classes occurred a good deal earlier and has been working towards a dominant middle ground for some centuries, sped on by the enlightenment and the industrial revolution.

 MeanGreenStompa wrote:
I believe a less inclined curve of wealth equality represents enlightenment and the advancement of society.

It is nice.

I hope those historians are wrong, I think, despite the claims of many on the right, that actually returning to the patterns of previous centuries will be something decidedly unwanted.

Not trying to get you down, more curious cause I don't know anything about that and it seemed bizarre to me (maybe cause I'm from the States). It's only a few economic historians who have proposed the idea. Don't know how much credit they get from everyone else.

I also think it can be strongly argued that the creation of the mercantile classes occurred a good deal earlier and has been working towards a dominant middle ground for some centuries, sped on by the enlightenment and the industrial revolution.

The theory is a direct contention to the idea of the modern working middle class. A middle classes where even laborers and low level works can achieve financial independence and success and engage themselves in the market. Basically the 'consumer' middle class that we all think of when thinking of the middle class in a modern sense. The age old mercantile class is pretty ancient, but historically trends to be more similar to the modern upper class in economic, political, and social power. EDIT: The 1950's pie and white picket fence middle class if you will though that might be a straight up American concept.

Ugh....have to pay particular attention to this thread and make sure the remarks that are made I need to see what country their from

The most important thing for Americans reading about classification of wealth/strata in the UK and vice versa is this (as I currently understand it):


USA:

Underclass - Middle Class - Upper Class


UK:

Underclass - Working Class - Middle Class - Upper Class

The principle difference is the US definition of Middle Class is divided by the UK, I would think because the UK had an effective Aristocracy until relatively recently, the Middle class existed under them, top end mercantile/professional types. The Upper Class in the UK still includes elements of that old rich by title type but now also follows the US in being mostly made of the super rich 'made money' and their families/inheritors.

They have anything similar to our Social Security benefits? Much as I hate to say it but that's how the Boston Marathon Bomber (older brother) was being paid. Well Majority of refugee's are being aid from desist (dead individuals) SS accounts. Gov't doesn't close them out but collect the interest on their accounts.

We have working class in the USA. also sometimes referred to as the lower middle class.

We just love our huge middle class term for some reason.

 Shadowseer_Kim wrote:


We just love our huge middle class term for some reason.

1950's/"I Love Lucy" culture. It's still pretty big in our minds whether we realize it or not.

1950's/"I Love Lucy" culture. It's still pretty big in our minds whether we realize it or not.

I am not asking my grandparents if they're Lower Middle Class base off this....Hell my Grandfather a better shooter then I am...and 6'7"....my father I ask....he's 5'2" to my 6'1"

There's a claim by some that working in the UK makes you worse off than being on benefits. That isn't true, but in some cases it isn't far off if you compare the minimum wage jobs to what you could get on benefits if you have a family of a certain size and claim the right things. Also what deters people working is that many short term jobs are very temporary and there's no security as to getting money. When the job ends there's quite a hassle and delay to claiming benefits again, meaning that by the time you're getting regular money again, you've potentially had problems covering bills and the rest and been put in a very difficult position. I think you can be back paid to the time when you made a claim, but that's no good if you've got nothing and are waiting the payments process to be set up. That I think is a big problem with benefits, trying to take on short term sporadic work, which the job centre push you towards in many cases, simply creates uncertainty and worry, when you're receiving regular benefits at least you know where you stand. I don't think there are that many people who desire an 'easy life on benefits', but there are many places in the UK where getting work is quite bad and there's little motivation because of a culture of years of unemployment and poor opportunities. You think these people are happy, a lot of them are actually quite depressed, benefits just tide them over one week to the next. It's not as easy as it sounds to just move elsewhere to find work either, because you'll always need cash up front to rent places, and it's hard to do that when you're living to the end of each payment, you can't just ask to live somewhere nicer. It's quite easy to get trapped somewhere when you're broke.


My experience with Job Seekers was fairly negative. They said I hadn't worked so wasn't entitled to anything. This was after I'd just finished my postgrad work, which I worked full time for three years, the hours were like a regular job and the expectations were similar, but because I was a student I might as well have been unemployed for the whole time as far as they were concerned. I'd never actually been 'unemployed' before though. They wouldn't give me anything because my wife was working and 'earned too much'. But she was basically minimum wage, we couldn't afford to even rent a place on her wages so she had to live with a friend far away in London (she had to go there because there was nothing nearer my parents but needed somewhere that had a friend with which she could stay) while I lived with my parents. It was such a struggle because I couldn't find work anywhere despite being well qualified, I just felt like a huge millstone around my wife's neck, a leech upon my parents. In the end I sold the car that wasn't now being used and we got a flat together in London and we just had to desperately hope that I could find something within a month or so which was when we'd hit a crunch and literally not be able to cover the rent. I got lucky and it all worked out, I found a nice job which isn't that well paid but which gives me a lot of satisfaction. All the Job Centre did was pester me to sign on each week and tell me that they couldn't help that much. They didn't seem to care that much because I wasn't in receipt of any payments and a couple of them were dumb as a bag of hammers. It was pretty demoralising. If I hadn't had the old car to sell to free up some cash I feel like I'd never have got out.

 Howard A Treesong wrote:
There's a claim by some that working in the UK makes you worse off than being on benefits.

I just have to add in here, that you have not taken in to account the additional costs of working. Travel and child care costs very quickly eat away at any advantage of working on a low wage. This dose not mean that I think most of the people are happy to not work. Most of them are not. The fact is though for allot of them there family would suffer and going to work is an extravigence they cannot afford.

Public transport and child care costs are just too high in the UK. To give you two examples of this, the cheapest way for myself and my wife to get to workis to use our car. It is cheaper than the bus or the train. And we don't own some hyper efficienct 900cc box. We run a 2.0 sports car for less than public transport. Childcare costs. I have a friend who is paid about £22k. I have a member of my staff who is paid about the same. Not exactly minimum wage. Both of them work part time because it works out better for them than paying for child care.

I have worked closely with housing benefit claimants in my past life and most of them do not want to be there. They do not live up to this myth of owning a new car and a big TV that people have. Most are struggling to put food on the table day by day.

Now, I don't think the avrage out of work, with no exceptional circumstances, claimant should be living the high life, but at the moment people are trapped.

IMO one of the big things that makes people think benefit claimants are living this life is right to buy. People drive past/through a "council estate" and see sky dishes and new cars thinking people living there must be poor...


Automatically Appended Next Post:

My American Friends who come to visit cannot believe how high Tax is in this Country - They said if this was America there would be riots.

Just as an aside, the US has a very different tax system. For a start they have allot less paid for by taxes. You have to add in you health care costs. PAYE. We don't have to do our own tax returns saving us another cost/time (as employees). Also US corporation tax is 35%. It's 20%. More tax paid by company's less by workers. But that flows through to wages in theory.

Different systems. The US might riot paying he tax we do, but we would riot if you tryed to implement a US healthcare system.

Yes, the costs of working do eat away at the additional money you get from a job as compared to benefits. I forgot to mention this but I'm in full agreement. The government and right wing press attack the benefits system for being at fault for paying too much compared to low wage jobs, and their solution is to reduce benefits further. The real problem is that wages are too low, we've had widespread pay increases barely keeping up with inflation, and often less, for a number of years. The minimum wage just isn't a living wage, and people are unable to get on the housing ladder and are left trapped by high rental prices taking most of their wages.

The minimum wage just isn't a living wage

The minimum wage is nowhere near what could be considered a living wage, and tax credits are essentially benefits for business rather than individuals, allowing them to get away with not paying their staff a reasonable wage. Well over twice as much is spent on tax credits than is spent on jobseekers allowance.

My experience with Job Seekers was fairly negative. They said I hadn't worked so wasn't entitled to anything.

I would recommend that anyone in this situation seek advice from the Citizens Advice Bureau, you absolutely are entitled to JSA if you haven't worked, you would be on income based rather than contribution based. The DWP are notorious for lying to people, even this week the head of the DWP has been subject to an inquiry for lying about statistics, and there have been a number of court cases around the Work Programme where DWP staff have lied about their powers to sanction people.

When the job ends there's quite a hassle and delay to claiming benefits again, meaning that by the time you're getting regular money again, you've potentially had problems covering bills and the rest and been put in a very difficult position.

This is a very serious issue as well, as crisis loans have now been abolished there exists no way of accessing any money for the time taken for a claim to be processed, which generally takes a number of weeks, but sometimes can take up to 4 months.

I think that there is unfortunately a tendency to exaggerate just how common these people who milk the system actually are. I am firmly of the opinion that those who exploit the benefit system are a very small minority. People who dismiss all on JSA, for instance, as "dole scum" often seem to me to be adopting an "I'm all right, Jack" attitude that I find very disappointing, without actually stopping to think what life on £71 a week would actually be like.

In reference to the third post, I certainly think the government has done its part to reinforce this negative attitude and use those who exploit the system as a bogeyman.

The truth is somewhere in the middle of all this.

I'm Scottish and I have been on jsa before.

The benefits culture DOES exist and it is in some significant proportion. I'm not going to argue it's a statistically significant proportion but anecdotally, it is there and people can/do see it and it really does feel quite prevalent to me.

I can't help but overhear people chatting away about 'dodges' to avoid paying tax on something, or tricks and phrases to 'get away with' benefits of some kind, as if they're walked out of the set of 'Only fools and Horses'. The unemployed-with-plasma-screen-tellys do exist, there's whole families of them and families of families with them. In towns, it actually is possible to put names and faces to them. The guy with the 'gammy leg' that runs around, playing football one day, is in a wheelchair the next cause it's time for his checkup, does exist.

It no doubt is only be a tiny 10th of a percentage point doing all this. However, they do exist. Someone can watch the TV, with a programme about 'benefits cheats,' point at it and say 'I know a family just like that.'

 Steve steveson wrote:

Different systems. The US might riot paying he tax we do, but we would riot if you tryed to implement a US healthcare system.

Having lived in both countries, having worked for private health insurance and the NHS, have had elderly relatives with very serious conditions go through both systems of care...

If anyone in the UK suggests to you that the US model is better, you take them down a dark alley and physically reeducate them... and if the politicians start saying it, burn the commons to the ground, with them in it.

 MeanGreenStompa wrote:

 Steve steveson wrote:

Different systems. The US might riot paying he tax we do, but we would riot if you tryed to implement a US healthcare system.

Having lived in both countries, having worked for private health insurance and the NHS, have had elderly relatives with very serious conditions go through both systems of care...

If anyone in the UK suggests to you that the US model is better, you take them down a dark alley and physically reeducate them... and if the politicians start saying it, burn the commons to the ground, with them in it.

Time to go all Guy Faulks on them then.
The Tories say they love the NHS while privatising it covertly with things like the Health and Social Care Act, and refusing to exempt the NHS from the free trade agreement with the US. Here is a very interesting interview on the future of the NHS. Labour are no different and are already laying the groundwork for a move toward even greater privatisation.

I would say that the benefits culture in the UK isn't just about monetary benefits, but also about an expectation that "the Council should sort that out!"

Example off the top of my head:
-In my school, we paid a lot of money to buy textbooks, exercise books, meals, stationary and all that for the kids. In my view, this stuff, especially exercise books and stationary but to a lesser extent textbooks, should be paid for by parents. We had kids walking in with no schoolbags, not even a pen or pencil in their pocket. When they arrive in you start a lesson and the first thing out of their mouth is "I 'aven't gotta PEN." so then you have to give them one, and usually I ended up paying for these pens out of my own pocket because the school was always short. They broke the pens (intentionally or through carelessness) regularly, same with rulers and so on. Exercise books were vandalised or not taken care of. Textbooks, okay, I know they are expensive, but I would have liked to have seen a "rental" system where you pay at the end of the year of your textbook is so damaged it can't be used next year to encourage careful use. The whole culture was that the school "should" provide all this stuff, and when asked why, you got blank, bovine stares. I used to encourage debate about it and ask if the money was better spent on this than on hospitals for example, or why people without kids should subsidise things for people with kids. I mean, I'm left wing, but it seems that this system really teaches kids to take stuff for granted and not take care of stuff. (Btw, if you want to say we should have issued sanctions, we did, but really, we've got to cover the curriculum too, and you only have so much time you can spend on that sort of housekeeping crap.)

I found this to be really common among most people I talked to, whining about the NHS or whining about the bins or whatever. I reckon that's the real "benefits culture", and not really stuff like JSA which is more about maintaining a basic level of living for people.

 Howard A Treesong wrote:

Spoiler:

There's a claim by some that working in the UK makes you worse off than being on benefits. That isn't true, but in some cases it isn't far off if you compare the minimum wage jobs to what you could get on benefits if you have a family of a certain size and claim the right things. Also what deters people working is that many short term jobs are very temporary and there's no security as to getting money. When the job ends there's quite a hassle and delay to claiming benefits again, meaning that by the time you're getting regular money again, you've potentially had problems covering bills and the rest and been put in a very difficult position. I think you can be back paid to the time when you made a claim, but that's no good if you've got nothing and are waiting the payments process to be set up. That I think is a big problem with benefits, trying to take on short term sporadic work, which the job centre push you towards in many cases, simply creates uncertainty and worry, when you're receiving regular benefits at least you know where you stand. I don't think there are that many people who desire an 'easy life on benefits', but there are many places in the UK where getting work is quite bad and there's little motivation because of a culture of years of unemployment and poor opportunities. You think these people are happy, a lot of them are actually quite depressed, benefits just tide them over one week to the next. It's not as easy as it sounds to just move elsewhere to find work either, because you'll always need cash up front to rent places, and it's hard to do that when you're living to the end of each payment, you can't just ask to live somewhere nicer. It's quite easy to get trapped somewhere when you're broke.


My experience with Job Seekers was fairly negative. They said I hadn't worked so wasn't entitled to anything. This was after I'd just finished my postgrad work, which I worked full time for three years, the hours were like a regular job and the expectations were similar, but because I was a student I might as well have been unemployed for the whole time as far as they were concerned. I'd never actually been 'unemployed' before though. They wouldn't give me anything because my wife was working and 'earned too much'. But she was basically minimum wage, we couldn't afford to even rent a place on her wages so she had to live with a friend far away in London (she had to go there because there was nothing nearer my parents but needed somewhere that had a friend with which she could stay) while I lived with my parents. It was such a struggle because I couldn't find work anywhere despite being well qualified, I just felt like a huge millstone around my wife's neck, a leech upon my parents. In the end I sold the car that wasn't now being used and we got a flat together in London and we just had to desperately hope that I could find something within a month or so which was when we'd hit a crunch and literally not be able to cover the rent. I got lucky and it all worked out, I found a nice job which isn't that well paid but which gives me a lot of satisfaction. All the Job Centre did was pester me to sign on each week and tell me that they couldn't help that much. They didn't seem to care that much because I wasn't in receipt of any payments and a couple of them were dumb as a bag of hammers. It was pretty demoralising. If I hadn't had the old car to sell to free up some cash I feel like I'd never have got out.

Yeah. There's a lot of people in your position here in the states as well, and it's really sad how many people on this very forum look down on people in your position, calling you lazy and the like.

If you can't find a job you're "lazy", because they're too intellectually dishonest with themselves to realize that there simply isn't enough for everyone.

 Da Boss wrote:
I would say that the benefits culture in the UK isn't just about monetary benefits, but also about an expectation that "the Council should sort that out!"

Example off the top of my head:
-In my school, we paid a lot of money to buy textbooks, exercise books, meals, stationary and all that for the kids. In my view, this stuff, especially exercise books and stationary but to a lesser extent textbooks, should be paid for by parents. We had kids walking in with no schoolbags, not even a pen or pencil in their pocket. When they arrive in you start a lesson and the first thing out of their mouth is "I 'aven't gotta PEN." so then you have to give them one, and usually I ended up paying for these pens out of my own pocket because the school was always short. They broke the pens (intentionally or through carelessness) regularly, same with rulers and so on. Exercise books were vandalised or not taken care of. Textbooks, okay, I know they are expensive, but I would have liked to have seen a "rental" system where you pay at the end of the year of your textbook is so damaged it can't be used next year to encourage careful use. The whole culture was that the school "should" provide all this stuff, and when asked why, you got blank, bovine stares. I used to encourage debate about it and ask if the money was better spent on this than on hospitals for example, or why people without kids should subsidise things for people with kids. I mean, I'm left wing, but it seems that this system really teaches kids to take stuff for granted and not take care of stuff. (Btw, if you want to say we should have issued sanctions, we did, but really, we've got to cover the curriculum too, and you only have so much time you can spend on that sort of housekeeping crap.)

I found this to be really common among most people I talked to, whining about the NHS or whining about the bins or whatever. I reckon that's the real "benefits culture", and not really stuff like JSA which is more about maintaining a basic level of living for people.

Iactually agree with you. There does seem to be a vast swathe of people who talk of what they should be getting for nothing and then not caring about what they get, becuase it is 'free'.

In Britain there is IMHO

underclass-poor-working class-middle class-upper class.

And the main problem (agian IMHO) is that the system is run by the Upper class, who say that they are working for the working class, the problem is that the "working class" is actually small when compared to the under-class and the actual poor, these are the people that need help the most, however due to unwillingness to accept that some people are poor because they are poor and that it is not their fault, the divide between the lower classes and the upper classes is growing, something needs to be to help combat this fact, better benefits, not less benefits are needed, "living wages" as well.

It's not enough to say that there is an "underclass" because when you look deeper the underclass are the working class, but they just receive no help.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
BTW tax dodging costs more money that the benefit system put together.

Tax evasion/dodging, in the USA, costs the government close to three times as much as we spend on the military-- every year.

So yeah, it's a HUGE problem, but it gets ignored by most politicians because the ones doing it are campaign contributors.

Of course, the companies doing it are trying to claim it's not unethical, but their customers strongly disagree, resulting in incidents like Starbucks paying more in taxes than it strictly owed the UK government because otherwise it was facing a boycott from its customers.

My understanding was the Starbucks paid something but didn't fulfil the entire amount. Perhaps they are selling it as otherwise in the US.