I love the idea that Americans see life here as a cross between Andy Capp and Hyacinth Bucket! I suppose though you can compare it to what we get Maimi Vice and Dallas. I doubt any of it is true to life, they are all cliches. the Andy Capp type as well as Onslow in Keeping Up Appearances probably aren't on the dole so much as they sponge off their wives and family. They nearly always have schemes to make money which never involve any effort on their part, this type had been around since humans began I imagine, the loafer is common everywhere.
Being on the 'dole' isn't actually an easy option, as you see here you don't actually get much money.
https://www.gov.uk/jobseekers-allowance/what-youll-get there is help with rent/mortgage and council tax but the actual amount you get is not enough to actually live decently ie have enough food and pay the utility bills. It's a myth that those on the dole like it and manage well. It's also a lot harder to get benefits than people think.
The problem is those who work in the black economy, they may be on the dole but they do work as well, many have jobs that are legal but still have jobs on the side that they don't declare and don't pay tax on.
In many places such as near me in Middlesborough there simply aren't jobs, the steel industry, coal industry and ICI have gone leaving vast areas without work so you will get the generations who have never worked. Companies are closing all the time here something those in the south of the UK don't understand, it really is a wilderness up here for many. Around where I live the Amry is the biggest employer of civilians however there are now many redundancies coming including mine, we live in the Dales, there's no other work here. Even the sheep farmers are having problems.
The Tories make a great deal of the 'welfare culture' yet offer no solutions, they are cutting benefits but how can people work if there are no genuine jobs? The amount of people on the dole who don't want to get off it is small compared to those who do want to get off it and can't.
It makes good Conservative propaganda against the Labour party if they perpetuate this myth that most on the dole are happy to be there and are sponging of us but the truth is the Tories did much to ruin the companies here, (Maggie shut down the coal mining industry here) and has never looked beyond Watford preferring to label those on the dole as layabouts etc. Of course there's spongers, there always will be whatever system is in place but the reality is that people on 'welfare' are suffering and could really do with a proper hand up not a hand out.
http://www.urban75.net/forums/threa...reform-and-cuts-were-too-much-to-bear.295951/
http://www.cas.org.uk/news/rural-scots-%E2%80%98suffer-more-most%E2%80%99-welfare-cuts