Joshua Bishop hoped higher education would help him escape his council estate but the 27-year-old hasn’t secured a role since his course ended in October.
The former business student began posting his struggles on TikTok where he controversially blasted the tasks the Government makes jobseekers do.
Joshua, who asked for his name to be changed so as not to lose his benefits, explains he gets £400 per month benefit payment and a council flat as long as he attends a weekly 30-minute meeting and provides detailed evidence he’s looking for a role.
Joshua has been slammed as a ‘lazy scrounger’ (Image: Kennedy News/qerdisvou)
His TikTok was captioned ‘It’s a full-time job trying to claim benefits with none of the positives. Most workers would have a breakdown if they had to live as a Universal Credit bandit for a week’.
He’s since been slammed as a ‘lazy scrounger’ and a ‘useless member of society’ by angry users who believe he just ‘can’t be bothered’ going to the meetings.
He’s since claimed the meetings are a ‘humiliation ritual’ where staff try to ‘shame’ and ‘psychologically manipulate’ him into getting jobs unrelated to his education.
Joshua also took aim at the two hours per day he says he spends gathering evidence for the meeting.
He says he hopes to find a job where he can apply his masters and if not he’ll either have to work an unrelated role or earn money from TikTok videos.
Joshua, from Edinburgh, Scotland, said: “It’s not just one meeting per week for 30 minutes because you can be looking for work but you need to prove it too. It’s like a humiliation ritual.
“They’re giving me constant homework and it’s misguided help because they’re adding more layers of bureaucracy.
“They operate a guilty-until-proven-innocent thing but I think it should be the opposite and [they should] lay off people if they’re visibly distressed from this stuff.
“They obviously have this method of trying to get people off [Universal Credit] with guilt or shame but for some people it just makes them more pig-headed.
“Like ‘screw you. I’m not going to have any shame about coming here and trying to get my money off you’.
“[Staff are] heavy-handed and say things like ‘make sure you do it or you won’t get your payment’. It’s psychological manipulation.
“You have so much energy in a day so you want to wake up, hop on Indeed and start applying not be thinking about tracking this info and going on the Universal Credit website.
“They want you to submit a new CV each week for a different genre of job and it’s just a total waste [of time]. I know what field I want to be in so just let me pursue that.
“I’ve been getting burned out. I can occasionally get an interview but it never seems to work out and then you get demoralised.
“Maybe this TikTok thing will work out and I won’t need a real job anyway. I can just make videos and make money. That would be cool.”
Joshua says that after completing his undergraduate in 2021 he worked in retail, factories and even as a freelance music producer and video editor.
He hoped a masters would give him the edge against less-qualified candidates but so far he’s not been able to secure a job in related fields such as sales, marketing and HR.
The former student says he spends around two hours per day on tasks to obtain his Universal Credit payments and has to exchange emails with his careers coach five times per week.
He began posting to TikTok when his friend gave him a camera and he began recording his daily life and job market frustrations.
The viral post has more than 900 comments, which he admits are mostly negative.
Joshua said: “The reaction has been overwhelmingly negative. It’s not much good for your mental health but I’ve got a pretty thick skin.
“If you haven’t had to walk through those doors and collect your cheque then I don’t care what you’re saying.
“You can see from the comments how the average person views someone on Universal Credit.”
The video shows him walking to a mental health clinic in the hope of being signed off from the job centre meetings but he’s not been successful yet.
One TikTok user commented: “Comparing a full time job to attending one singular meeting a week is insane.”
A second angrily said: “Absolute wet wipe! [There’s] plenty of jobs out there! Your attitude stinks! You shouldn’t receive any benefits!”
A third said: “Lazy scrounger.”
However, one agreed with Joshua and wrote: “The pressure is real if you’re not in that head-space.”
Another added: “I claimed benefits for a month and it was such a hassle I really questioned if it was worth it.
“I got lucky enough to find a work-from-home job but I was contemplating some bad things otherwise.”
A third said: “Hope you get better soon. To all the haters- jot down how you would live on £400 per month.”
A Department for Work and Pensions spokesperson said: “We support millions of people through Universal Credit payments and Jobcentre support every year, which is designed to incentivise moving into employment and progressing in work.
“All requirements are set in discussion with the claimant, tailored to their circumstances, and as part of our Get Britain Working plan, we are reforming Jobcentres and creating a new service across the country that will enable everyone to access support to find good, meaningful work.”