Google recent news of “benefit fraud” and you can easily wonder if the system is out of control. Scarcely a day goes past without another lurid tale. The miscreants are shamed, our outrage finds a target. And while these stories are exceptional, they are readily mistaken for the norm; mistrust for the system grows and those supported by it fall under suspicion. In this way, we foster the sort of blame culture that leads to prejudice and abuse.

As recent research by the Who Benefits? campaign has revealed, 15% of those receiving benefits say they have experienced verbal abuse as a result, while 4% report having been physically abused – this amounts to almost 800,000 and 200,000 people respectively. A further 16% say they’ve had difficulty renting a home, while 18% say they’ve been treated less favourably by a potential employer.

What all this amounts to is that people are being treated as second-class citizens simply for needing a little support to make ends meet.

Take the example of Lynsay, who took part in our research. She said: “When everyone looks down on you as the dregs of society, you begin to internalise it and in turn this affects how you view yourself. Knowing you’re too ill to work is a detriment to your confidence and faith in yourself anyway, but when people give you a look of pity or disgust when you say this, you feel even more worthless.”

Clearly fraud needs to be dealt with, but our fixation on it distracts from a much bigger picture: that the vast majority of benefits go to ordinary people who genuinely need the support. These are people who may be seriously ill or disabled, caring for a loved one, unable to find work or struggling to get by on low pay. For many of them benefits are a lifeline.

Of course you wouldn’t think so to listen to the public debate; and this is both a cause and consequence of our collective outrage at fraud. Yet what the coverage rarely ever tells you is that benefit fraud represents just a tiny fraction of the total benefits bill and has done for years. According to figures out this week, fraud accounted for just 70p out of every £100 spent on benefits last year.

Nevertheless, previous research shows that the public perception of fraud is 34 times higher than the reality. It’s an emotive subject. Nobody likes to think of their taxes going to fraudsters. It outrages our sense of fair play and our deep sense of who deserves what and why.

However, outrage can take on a life of its own. It can cloud our perceptions and obscure the very sense of fairness that triggered it in the first place.

Fraud aside, is it fair that people who are genuinely struggling to get by should receive a helping hand? Many of us will have been in this position ourselves, or at least known someone who has. And is it fair they should be subjected to abuse and discrimination as a result? Clearly, it isn’t. The bottom line is that we need to change the way we talk about benefits. We hear far too much about the tiny minority of fraudsters and very little about the millions of ordinary people who want to get by. Instead of shaming or finger pointing, we should be focusing on the reasons people need help, whether that’s low wages, unemployment or the housing shortage.

It all comes down to the kind of society we want to live in. Whatever our political sympathies, most of us believe in fairness, and that’s precisely why benefit fraud triggers such emotion. Few want a society where people benefit from deceit. At the same time, it’s only right we have a safety net in place for those who are genuinely struggling to make ends meet. And that, after all, is why benefits exist in the first place.