Leader: No incentive to get out and get a job
Monday 23rd January 2012, 12:30PM GMT.
Across Britain there are people who are working hard for modest pay and are struggling to manage on the meagre amount left over when they have paid all the bills.
Why should they have to subsidise others who do no work and yet rake in the equivalent of a pre-tax salary of £35,000?
Many Salopians will be incredulous that it is possible to receive, through benefits, more than the majority of people in this county earn through graft.
The coalition’s proposed cap of £26,000 per household on benefits has generated a controversy in which the likes of the Church of England have seen fit to wade in.
It makes you wonder what sort of world they are living in.
Here in Shropshire, a take home pay of £26,000 a year is something many people can only dream about. There are a lot of Shropshire pensioners whose reward in retirement for a lifetime of work is to live near the poverty level.
Those Salopians who are in jobs with higher pay have got into that position by self-improvement, hard work, and enterprise.
Even with this cap, benefits claimants will be able to receive a generous amount.
The background is that the country has to save money and one of the reasons we are in a mess is that a lot of people have grown up thinking that everybody else owes them a living, and the state has indulged them, leading to a huge benefits bill.
A something-for-nothing stratum of society has developed. Where is the incentive to work when you can do much better financially on benefits?
It is not right and not fair on everybody else for the state to fully-fund a work-free lifestyle choice.
There has to be a limit to the state’s generosity.
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This is all so true. The last time I tried to get anywhere near a Job Centre I couldn’t move through the car park, what with all the Range Rovers, Jags and Mercs parked outside.
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NO excuse for being out of work, we have many jobs out there waiting to be taken p/t and full time .
Working tax credits can improve a low wage , child tax credits are available to all on 42k and under who have children.
Eu migrant workers have taken the jobs the british unemployed are to lazy to do.
We bring up children with the you can earn a good salary from when you leave school, stop telling them that , we need to get the male young to realize that yep you may have to work outside in all weathers , you may get wet you may get cold, ooh you may even get dirty, we need to teach trades are not a dirty word and some low paid IT job or cushy 9-5 office job are not the only jobs out there.
We do need to cap benefits, we do need to look hard out our benefit system that includes why we dish out to Eu migrant workers and others .
We need to teach claiming benefits is a final resort not a lifestyle choice .
We need to ensure british workers first as other EU country’s put their workers first.
FOOD STAMPS FOR THOSE OUT OF WORK FOR ONE YEAR OR MORE , SINGLE PARENTS BACK TO WORK AFTER 12 MONTHS,it is not rocket science.
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So what happens after 1 year of food stamps and those nasty Single parents who can not find work after 12 months?
Return to workhouses, Kids an all?
Rather than bash the EU migrants as all insundry do what about the actual employers who do it… why because a skilled “British” engineer could command upwards of £20+ an hour where as the eu worker will be paid a lot less.
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I meant if you are still unemployed after 12 months you go on to food and clothe stamps until you find work no need for the work house.
Peoples wages are governed by market forces too, remove the EU worker and the company will still wish to pay the wage they wish to pay, not what the employee demands through union strikes etc.Perhaps as builders are finding 6 years ago some were getting £400 per day that as gone down to £80 per day tough life init.
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Food stamps is a must… amazing how all the workshy can afford 20-40 cigs a day and beer every night, yet they claim to be hard up!
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And Sky. And taxis to and from Netto.
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Wow, you really are full of the milk of human kindness, aren’t you, Andrew? And added to that, you must be a mathematical genius if you can subtract the (larger) number of people looking for work from the (smaller) number of jobs currently available and come up with a total of ‘many jobs’.
A tip- if you write a load of uninformed, kneejerk, prejudiced nonsense in capital letters it doesn’t give credibility to your arguments, it just makes them look shouty as well as ridiculous.
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No just sick of layabouts not trying hard enough to find work their is plenty.
Take two part time jobs if that is not enough take three,work night shifts work sundays work 7 days , all we hear is excuse after excuse . I wonder how many would be saying we have no jobs if they had no benefits coming in, threaten people in to work that’s the answer.
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The statistical fact remains that there are more people out of work than jobs available at the moment, and given that, whatever people do and however aerated you get about it, not all of them will be able to get a job.
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Andy-mate, there are 10 people chasing every job…….do the sums, there aren’t enough to go round. All well and good giving out food and clothing stamps til your cooker breaks and you have a couple of kids to feed.
And if there are lots of surplus jobs, perhaps you should go out and get another one instead of spending hours boring us all on the talk boards with your Eartha Kitt.
And it is “there” not “their” so there.
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Another well thought out AF plan; this will soon solve the unemployment crisis and should be adopted asap. Perhaps to speed things up he could join out local tory MP and lay across the road until the plan is fully implemented.
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And yet more excuses as Cameron said yesterday stop whingeing and get a job!
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Not another put down article for the unemployed.
The Star really loves to have a go every few months.
Yes there are extremes in the welfare system that need looking at, but nothing in comparison to the blatant tax avoidance of our good leaders which never seems to get much of a mention?? Please note tony Blair et al.
Once again we see the silly headline “no incentive to go out and get a job” as if the majority of your unemployed readers prefer life on 55 quid a week.Come on SS a bit more balance its bad enough being unemployed without the media putting the boot in.
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Blah,Blah,Blah..
While not in favour of tax avoidance,I don’t quite see the correlation between people who are still paying an amount of unavoidable tax into the system from their earned(ish)income & those that choose not to work & are simply taking money from us all.
The majority who are actively seeking employment should get support,It’s the workshy that need ‘re directing’
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It’s exactly the same, one group (not all unemployed are evil leeches – but I guess some are) choose to scrounge as much off the state in benefits; the other group actively leeches off country by taking advantage of the healthy, well educated populace (provided by tax). For example, the owner of a number of chains of high street fashion outlets, famously routes his cash via his wife who is a citizen of Monaco, I don’t think he would be worth the billions he is if it wasn’t for the fact his shops operate in a country where healthcare, education, road infrastructure etc etc are all paid for by taxpayers.
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He may be a bit constructive with his personal income contribution but when market forces allow his business liabilities generate substantial £££ for the revenue & create gainful employment.
What do the workshy generate for the good of the country ?
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Absolutely spot on, I could not have put it better myself.
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As someone who has not had a payrise for five years-(we all received yet another letter from our employer apologising wiht that well worn phrase ‘due to the current markets’ no pay rise again. My job is hard physical slog I’ve worked for same firm 28yrs and my wkly take home pay is based on minimum wage. No incentive bonus or enhanced payment schemes or pension funded, if I’m sick and don’t go to work I don’t get paid. Why should I work to pay for benefit claimants who sleep and idle their days away. Equality what equality? Too late I realise how much Labour/unions have fooled all of us with their lies and greed. If you claim benefit it appears you are more likely to vote Labour -we are all pawns in the game of politics.
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If thats the case then as opposite to the headline.
“You have an insentive to go out and find another Job” that will pay more and affort pay rises. It seems according A Finch there 1000′s of jobs out there., Its not rocket science
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Agree we do have loads of pt and full time jobs out there , market yourself and cut your cloth.
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If there are thousands of jobs out there why do we have 2.68 million unemployed, of which over a million are under 25.
Only in the last few days we have heard of the likes of Peacocks, Past Times etc go into administration, plus Lloyds Bank have made another 700 people redundant on top of 15,000 annouced in late 2011. The number of unemployed are going up whilst number of vacancies according to ONS at end of the year was just over 450,000.
So if all those jobs are filled, we still have over 2 million unemployed.
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I agree with Andrew there are plenty of jobs out there for people who want them. Even for those who have just finished education. For example Mc Donalds has a recruitment drive for all types of people. In past generations people had to move to where the work is. Now they claim benefits.
I got made redundant this year and had a job to go to straight away as i went out there and got one.
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agreed, the cap should be lower to incentivise work more
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If there aren’t enough jobs to go around no amount of benefit capping is going to get people back into work. What this proposal will do is punish people for being unemployed.
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£26K is hardly a punishment!
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Wish I had a 26k income, I could afford to pay latest electric bill then
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I have been having this argument on Facebook – on the Shelter page they are up in arms that £26,000 benefit cap would mean children losing their homes. I stated that most people who work full time in my area do not earn that much. People elsewhere do not see £26,000 as a lot of money! If you were on minimum wage with possible tax credits you could get up to around £21,000 – which is still £5,000 worse off than if you were on benefits! Wheres the incentive to work?
I am all for helping those working on a low wage having some help – as they will at least be paying tax and any help they are given will cost the country less than if they were unemployed. I also think its fair to help people who are having hard times (I have been made redundant 3 times so far) but I think there has to be time limits for assistance. Enough time to realistically find a job, but also that the benefit should decrease after that meaning you would be better off working.
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Perhaps this will even out some of the South East focus of the UK. I am currently unemployed, I looked at jobs all over the UK. With the pay rates in my profession, any job in the South East of England was off limits. I could not meet even basic living costs in that part of the country, I couldn’t afford to buy a house and rents were prohibitive. As someone not in the let sector, I only qualify for mortgage interest relief, no help with the capital sum, my total weekly uneployment benefits,to pay my bills and feed myself was £80 per week.
However, the exodus of people out of the South East may put pressure on services in the rest of the country.
As for the Shropshire job market, it is a joke. I am post graduate qualified and the best post currently on offer is distributing charity bags,oh, and for that you are self employed and must provide your own van.
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I think you’ve hit on something with the charity bag job there. When is a job not a job? That’s a hard one to define, but the charity bag one definitely isn’t in my view, yet it’s added to this mythical “available jobs” statistic because it’s advertised at the Job Centre.
When I was made redundant I trawled long and hard for suitable jobs. What I noticed was a large number of non-jobs being advertised. I recall that selling wine door-to-door was one of those. Commission only plus basic expenses, nothing more. It was advertised about twenty times, each advert was for a slightly different region. It was basically a pyramid scheme and the regional “owner” was using the Job Centre as a conduit to try and entice people in to it.
There were various others, all on a similar theme with little or no promise of any actual guaranteed pay. A significant number of so-called jobs fell into this category.
In a nutshell, the number of *viable* jobs is way short of Government statistics.
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Couldn’t careless what you are qualified for unemployed is unemployed plenty of part time supermarket jobs out there stop being picky you have not got that luxury ,
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Is that really the case? It was reported in this paper that Tesco in Shrewsbury are currently cutting staff hours. The work programme isn’t helping as the supermarkets are taking people on for the training period and then letting them go at the end. I have heard tales of some people losing their jobs so their employer can take on work programme trainees at minimum wage.
If I took a job at minimum wage, I would be homeless within weeks as I would not be able to meet my mortgage payment or other bills. I would be in the rented sector and probably on Housing benefit. I would be more of a drain on the economy than I am currently. I would have no job satisfaction, would not be a long term employee as I would jump ship at the first decent opportunity.
We have only seen the first slice of public service cuts and may posts are over subscribed. Jaguar in Solihull got 20,000 applications for 1000jobs on their new production line. There simply are not enough good quality vacancies and the efforts of the current government to offer retraining are pathetic.
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“It was reported in this paper that Tesco in Shrewsbury are currently cutting staff hours.”
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May i suggest travelling? and tesco is not the only employer within a 45 mile radius of shrewsbury.
“If I took a job at minimum wage, I would be homeless within weeks as I would not be able to meet my mortgage payment or other bills”.
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You cant pay your mortgage sell the house, why should the tax payer pay your bills?? making any form of mortgage payments from benefits should be stopped as you will inevitably profit from the property if later in life you should sell you should be in rented.
“Job satisfaction, would not be a long term employee as I would jump ship at the first decent opportunity”.
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Job satisfaction should not be an issue, or not planning to stay long term , i would imagine if both these were used when signing on no benefits would be permitted as you are making yourself unavailable for work.
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And Tesco homeplus in Telford are looking to close completely
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“Sell your house?”
Perhaps someone could explain to me why, here in Newport where the County Plan calls for 60 new homes a year, there are current plans are for 1,000 new homes this year, and a £21 Million Sainsburys?
Jet
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Excuse me, but have you actually ever tried getting that sort of job with a post-graduate qualification? I have many, many times and have been turned away from being over-qualified.
Many young qualified people are stuck in a no man’s land between being over-qualified and under experienced.
I have been applying for things for weeks, months years. Sometimes I have some success but it doesn’t usually last as temporary contracts are being used very widely at the moment.
I got a job as soon as I was old enough to work and continued through all my studying. I love working and not being able to work is awful. You are giving absolutely no credit to people who want to work, contribute to society and pay back into it.
Maybe you should look at this http://blogs.channel4.com/factcheck/factcheck-where-are-the-real-job-opportunities/8474 to get the facts about how many people there are out of work in comparison to how many jobs are available, before you start casting aspersions on honest, hard working people who’ve worked hard all their lives to get a job and now are, for the moment, unable to.
Not to mention the fact that, like I said, I have worked in a variety of different jobs in the past and paid N.I and tax, so I am perfectly entitled to rely on the support of the state at times when I need to.
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Dear prm,
There are many affordable town in SE Kent (not as nice as S’bury)and the rail link to London is much faster now.
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And what price is a rail season ticket? I moved to Shropshire because I was fed up spending 3 hours a day travelling to and from work.
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RUBBISH !!!
We do not need to have the S.E’s praises sung by someone who obviously Commutes to take advantage of S.E pay rates without having to meet S.E living costs.
The high pay rates in the S.E are wholly responsible pushing up the ‘National Average Wage’from accurate to ludicrous.
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I can assure that hardly anybody receives that ridiculous amount of benefits.
If all rich people/corporations actually paid taxes, rather than using dodgy off-shore accounts, our country would not be so poverty ridden.
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Is it any wonder why people try to avoid paying tax when the money would only go into the pockets of a bunch of work shy sofa hoggers
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Bob,
I agree entirely.
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I’m getting more and more incensed hearing people moan and groan about how awful it would be to cap benefits at £26,000.
I appreciate there are many thousands of people out of work through no fault of their own, but you can guarantee those who are currently getting more than £26,000 are the “serial scroungers” who think they should be given limitless funds to keep them and their umpteen kids in comfort.
What an insult to those who want to work, and those who do work – many for far less than £26,000 a year too.
It’s time the idle scroungers stopped churning out kids, got off their backsides, and stopped expecting others to pay for their home, food, clothes etc and began living in the real world.
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my husband has registered with all the agencys not one has rang,it would help if the jobcentres wernt to lazy and took all jobs again instead of agencys as there a waste of space and maybe give people better payed jobs so u could live without a struggle
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Don’t just register & wait for the phone to ring. He needs to get back in there until they are sick of the sight of him. What has he got to lose by being pro-active ?
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Most agencies currently have between 200 and 400 applicants for every post. If you aren’t proactive, your details just sit in a pile. It shows you what a joke most employment agencies are. Long gone are the days when they actually match applicants to posts. They still take their fees though.
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I was made redundant 2 1/2 years ago and signed up with several agencies. In the next six months i Delivered Art, emptied bins, made and delivered restaurant furniture and worked in a pub ( latter not agency ).
Tell him to get on the phone and accept anything they offer and they will start to contact him before anyone else.
Best of luck..
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Agencies are for employers who want staff on a hire and fire basis whenever they need them.
Agencies charge the employers top whack and pay their workers minimum rates.That’s how they make millions a year profits!!!
They are merely parasites.
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What are profits to do with the employee??, whats wrong with hire and fire?? they have got you work and that gets you money.
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agreed, the cap should be lower to incentivise work more
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26k in benefits?! I’m obviously doing it wrong, lone parent on 6k.
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It is unlikely that families Shrewsbury are receiving benefits of that kind. Our rental incomes are modest. However, £26k net max per household is not much if you have to pay London prices for accommodation and have a large family
This old leftie will now wind you up:) A friend and I have set up ‘the single parents’ public sector sofa collective’. Before you accuse of scrounging we are both lawyers.
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Well a non working family with three children claiming
housing benefit,
child benfit,
child tax credit,
jsa
Average weekly total £645
Problem here would you not think? we do not need to make work pay in a mamby pamby way it is simple go get a job, we will help you out if you are on 13k and working a 50 hour week suggestion take two jobs and work Severn days a week if you need extra money, it is a weird one i and my parents always did and do this when we want more money .
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You really are a bitter person, Andrew. My daughter has £67.50 a week to live on. Out of that she has to pay water, electricity, telephone (a necessity as she is epileptic), buy writing paper and stamps, and feed and cloth herself. Alright she gets her rent and council tax paid but she would prefer to have a job. She has applied for dozens of jobs but doesn’t even get a reply from the majority of them. The wage for one of the jobs was £121, and she wouldn’t qualify for working tax credit being single, out of which the council wanted £60 for rent and council tax. How does a person live on £60 per week!
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The last sentence should read “How can anyone live on £50 per week”!
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Val’s example is far more representative of how unemployed people are really doing.
The Tories are determined to present this £26,000 figure as some sort of norm, rather than the exception that it is. Their aim in so doing is to force as many people into very low-paid work as possible.
Don’t forget – the vast majority of housing benefit goes not to the unemployed, but to the working poor. The effect of this cap will be to force both low-paid employed and unemployed people out of the relatively affluent South East, and most likely Northwards, thus increasing the already wide North South divide. Tory social engineering at its finest!
We should offer a decent differential between work and benefits, but the answer is not to cut benefits – it is instead to offer a decent minimum wage, which doesn’t require the constant subsidy to employers’ profits of top-up benefits.
Given that senior execs in UK companies have seen on average 50% pay increases in the past year, they can well afford to pay their lowest paid workers better.
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Clearly Val we have a country full of bitter politicians and joe public who are in disagreement with you and your view, possibly we out number you also.
Agree your daughter is single a little more difficult to get by on low pay or benefits.
However you have said the wage for one job was £121, i assume she got by on £67.50 so why cant she get by on £60 and go to work for it? take two jobs? it seems many unemployed think they need to stick to a 39 hour week if you have low pay work 60 hours i worked 84 hours six days a week for £175 quid a week 23 years ago when i had know choice never claimed benefits never got any hand outs the wife worked a 40 hour week too well over half our wage went on rent and poll tax as it was then.
The one thing i kept thinking it will not be for ever and it was not it was for 12 months didn’t kill me .
We need to get away from this i get more on benefits , get £121 from working for it or in benefits a bit of pride and you would work for it .
People need to look at all avenues to legally earn a crust as my dad said to me in 1981 when i left school do not go to a job center looking for work get out there off your arss and look for work by knocking on doors , looking in papers, etc etc .
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My feeling, Val, is that nobody should be expected to live on that. There are so many myths about easy life is on benefit. My take is that we all should help each other. Best wishes for your daughter.
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“The wage for one of the jobs was £121, and she wouldn’t qualify for working tax credit being single, ….”
I should get her to recheck that. I’m sure single people qualify.
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Single people do not qualify for any tax credits, trust me, I’ve tried
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Val,
Absolutely. Re clothing etc – you have to look smart for work or an interview. How can you do that on £60 a week? Has your daughter checked that she is not missing out on any entitlements (given that she has an illness)? S’bury Citizens’ Advice Bureau is good and, of course, free. There are a few other branches throughout the county. Best, K x
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Yes, Andrew, my mum always assumed I would turn my hand to anything. I quite understand what you mean and, even though we come from different political positions, I would hate to be rude or disrespectful. My well paid public sector job dried up because of a minor disability so I took myself off to another country and retrained in something very different. I don’t resent supporting people who are going through a tough time. What I do resent is the buy to let market which pushed up rental prices. We all pay for that through taxes which fund benefits. I suspect this debate would not be happening if we brought back rent tribunals.
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£645 per week?
Can you cite your sources for these figures? They look unrealistic.
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It was quoted by a number of newspapers and a guy on the news and a late night political program.
Family mum dad and three children
This is not CASH in the hand i agree, the claimant is not getting rent and council tax benefit paid direct to them but it needs to be taken in to account, rents are based on southern rents however makes little difference where you live it is only the rent council tax benefit paid to landlord and council which differs so just reduce that .
Parents are non working and have three children
child benefit £45pw
child tax credit£135 pw
jsa etc £120pw
ADD IN rent/council tax benefit and free school meals puts them on around take home of £500 a week not living in the south.
If working they would need to earn £28k to get that .
Many earn that and get by many a lot less,
yes they can get child tax credits, working tax credits,child benefit, rent benefit very few get a council tax benefit . But the issue is these people are working not sat at home going “it dont pay got no spendies after i paid me bills”
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‘It was quoted by a number of newspapers and a guy on the news and a late night political program.’
Andrew, surely you’re not so naive as to imagine that newspapers like the Daily Mail and the Sun don’t have political agendaa, and aren’t acting as organs of the Tory party?
Why not look at verifiable fact for your sources, rather than what you read in the newspapers?
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Andrew, do not preach to me. I left school in 1961 and I have never claimed benefits. I am now retired and live on my pensions and do not claim Pension Credit. I would like to see you trying to live on £50 per week paying for water, electricity, food, clothing, telephone, replacing equipment such as a refridgerator, transport costs, ie. bus fares. How can you take on more than one job when the one on offer was for five days including Saturday, and cover when another member of staff is sick or on holiday. Wake up to reality.
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Well bully for you val, however you are not the issue .
“How can you take on more than one job when the one on offer was for five days including Saturday, and cover when another member of staff is sick or on holiday. Wake up to reality.”
Easy take an evening/ mprning /afternoon job , clearly not a twelve hour day five days a week is it re pay . i would imagine if she is down for cover as well then that would be extra hours ?.
You i am afraid need to wake up, we are not going to put up the minimum wage , we are not going to increase benefits,and if people need money they will have to work longer hours and up to 7 days a week to get by .
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I rarely agree with You Andrew but this time I do.
Breeding to Profit springs to mind.
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@ Andrew, Tattoo stamps are an absolute must, i mean how will your umpteen kids know you love them if you haven’t got their names tattooed down your arm..
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I think the last government count we had 1,900 families with ten children in each family claiming benefits and nobody in that house working , we need to start with these and work our way up.
Sad fact is these people abusing the system from all walks of life need to be dealt with they do not see that they are doing anything wrong, which is a worry because many are from the middle classes who have given up work at 50 gone in incapacity benefit reason WORK RELATED STRESS….. unproven bad back etc etc madness
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AF “Sad fact is these people abusing the system from all walks of life need to be dealt with they do not see that they are doing anything wrong”.
Are you still talking about claiming benefits or fox hunting?
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To be honest legally they are not really doing any thing wrong, they are exploiting loopholes in the same way that tax avoidance can be done through legitimate routes. Those in both camps that break the tax & benefit systems laws should & are being prosecuted.
Both systems need to be changed to close these loopholes to ensure that the everyone pays/receives what is legally due.
How it is done….no idea, let the people our taxes pay for sort it out
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Incapacity benefit is being phased out. Also, mental health problems are to be sneered at. Think of returning service people with PSSD.
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Andrew,
The Amount of time you spend on these forums, it is clear that you don’t work. If you do, and I was you boss, I would be looking closely at your productivity.
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Own boss will have tough word with ones self.
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I don’t think I have filled the forms in right, how can I get a scarlet hair-do, tattoos all over my body, nose rings and ear studs?
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The plain facts are, that until the maximum amount of benefit is capped below what would be earned full time on minimum wage there will those that see no point in working for a living. Sadly around here in Telford there are few jobs paying much more than the minimum wage, therefore most families would be out of pocket straight away. I understand the point that out of pride you should go to work, but on the other hand if your family is already struggling for money you wouldnt make a decision that would make you worse off.
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Well. Well. £26,000 per year, or about £500 per week,It puts my £140 per week old age pension to shame, and I have worked and payed my taxes for the last 50 years, and are still taxed on my private pension.So I’m now looking for a couple of girls to have a few children with, so I can also get £500 per week.
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Sigh…
In some parts of the country there are 20 jobseekers for every vacancy.
The more fortunate ones may find themselves in an area where a mere 5 jobseekers for each vacancy.
Also the £26,000 figure will only usually apply to people in certain parts of London where rents are extraordinarily high.
Perhaps rent caps could solve the problem?
You don’t even have to be unemployed to claim housing benefit – you are entitled to claim if your income/savings fall below a certain level.
Strange that these salient facts are missing from this opinion piece.
Has it crossed anyone’s mind that this could be a deliberate act of deflection from a government deliberately trying to distract attention from their disastrous policies?
Cameron’s comments on this were a disgrace.
He is meant to represent the best interests of everyone in this country, yet singles out particular groups – the unemployed and the sick – and points the finger of blame.
Disgusting.
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If the policies are that disasterous then why has Ed Milliband suddenly gone from saying, its wrong, its wrong, its wrong, to they copied my idea.
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Because he is useless? Guaranteed he wiull not be leading the Labour Party in 2 years time.
As usual we have politicians using a sledgehamer to crack a nut. Private landlords have been abusing the system for years by pushing up rents. I used to work for a property factor. This was before the rent act was changed. It was difficult for landlords to put up rents and many properties had protected rents. This issue is a South East issue, it shouldn’t actually affect many people living outside London.
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Yep, I’ve done buy to let and know that any investment can go up or down. I’m not complaining. Bring back the Rent Act.
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He hasn’t.
Labour are saying they can’t commit to what they’d do in 2015 as no one knows what state the finances will be in then.
Which is fairly plausible (although if you identify policies as being immoral and counterproductive, I don’t see why you can’t commit to changing them now).
However Balls has also said ‘we’re going to have to keep all these cuts’.
So he is commiting to something – Tory cuts!
Yes, Labour are a useless opposition and might as well join the other two in a 3 party coalition.
Take a look at today’s growth figures and the recent unemployment statistics.
Then tell me these policies aren’t disastrous.
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Miliband and Balls have only said that they will be stuck with the consequences of decisions made by this administration.That said, Miliband senior, their father, must be turning in his grave.
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Arthur-
I agree- this government is superb at dividing people up, appealing to the lowest common denominators of snobbery and prejudice while ducking responsibility for its own failings.
Our economy is stagnating because the government is choosing to use the economic crisis as an opportunity to restructure society to benefit the very few at the top rather than stimulating the economy which would help everyone. And the highest benefits payouts generally go straight into the pockets of landlords. But, judging by many of the comments here, why criticise powerful politicians and wealthy landlords when you can slag off single mums and the unemployed? The real losers to the proposed benefits cap will be the children of the families affected- those who happen to be born into larger families living in parts of London. That doesn’t seem fair to me.
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Yes, and those poor kids will experience a lifetime of deprivation and dependency. Further, we are an ageing population which will all the wealth creating talent below us to look after us in out later years.
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the dole should be lower than the minimum wage, this is essential
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It is.
Many people working on minimum wage receive benfits such as Child Benefit, Housing Benefit and income support.
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Even so that only takes it up to around £21,000 so they are still far worse off than on benefits.
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“1,900 families with ten children in each family claiming benefits and nobody in that house working , we need to start with these and work our way up.”
So what are you suggesting? Lethal injection?
Incidentally, Andrew, are you familiar with the zero-hours contract? These are increasingly being used for low-paid jobs like shelf stackers. You have a job, but may be offered four shifts a week – or one – or even none in any given week. You cannot take a 2nd part-time job – you will be sacked, because a condition of your ‘job’ is that you be available for work at short notice.
Also, even clerical jobs are being offered on a self employed basis, it’s also common in hairdressing. So, no more money but also no sick pay, no holiday pay, no redundancy, pay your own national insurance and tax.
Before you demand that every single unemployed person get a job – any job – do famliarise yourself with the increasingly exploitative working practices. And if your ‘employer’ doesn’t need you any more, as self-employed, good luck claiming out of work benefits.
I’m afraid your views, some of which might have made sense 30 years ago, are out of touch with the real world.
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I am afraid we all who are self employed do not get holiday pay , sick pay, etc etc its a choice we make as being self employed.
You can and i do know a guy who does three jobs yes he is working a 60 hour week but he is paying his way and yes has walked away at the drop of a hat works both ways.
Regards the 1,900 food stamps after one year of benefits , clothing stamps, electric tokens etc etc , no money this group would try harder.
As for work place exploitation is it?? boycot that employer and go and work for another.
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I believe your an employer,why don’t you provide more jobs?
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“boycot that employer and go and work for another.”
2.5 million unemployed. 0.5 million vacancies. Is your maths better than your spelling?
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2,5 million on benefits, if they are all genuinely unemployed and seeking work is a different question.
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Andrew- Before you go any further, I suggest you read Polly Toynbee’s “Hard Work: Life in Low-pay Britain” for an insight into the realities of life at the bottom of the jobs market rather than your own rather fictitious take on it. It paints a pretty grim picture and was written before the recession. With more people chasing work than jobs available, things are even worse now.
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And many of those chasing jobs are high end school leavers and graduates. On the radio today, discussing the work programme, a qualified sub editor, two lawyers and two IT specialists. Best work the work programme could offer, shovelling coal into sacks over Christmas. There is a distinct mismatch between the jobs on offer and the quality of the candidates
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PRM so qualifications give you the right to stay on benefits , unemployed you do not have choices unless you fund it yourself.
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“If the policies are that disasterous then why has Ed Milliband suddenly gone from saying, its wrong, its wrong, its wrong, to they copied my idea.”
Ummm – because he’s not much better?
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Don’t have kids if you can’t afford to support them, contraception is readily available, this isn’t the 1900s. And I don’t mean families of 2-3 children, the families of 4-8 children are my issue
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One of the biggest problems is that there are not enough full-time jobs. Our country doesn’t build anything anymore, most of our industrial sector has been outsourced to Asia. If you’re lucky you may get a McJob or some banal admin position where you staple and shuffle pieces of paper all day.
Most of the jobs I see on the Job Centre website are part-time, there is little incentive in applying for a job where your salary is less than when your on JSA, especially if your single with no children as the working tax credits are pitiful.
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Assuming a pair of claimants each on minimum wage and both working a 40 hours week, that’s not a lot more than the £26k limit for their household. You can see why some wastrels would rather sit on their bums instead of finding a job.
No way should a single claimant receive anything like £26k, which has been said is a salary some readers can only dream about.
I’d say, cap the benefit at 25% less than what the claimant would earn for a 40 hour week at minimum wage; deduct cigarette, booze and Sky money and then see how attractive it is for them to stay at home. And, stop the benefit if the claimant cannot prove that bona fide job hunting is in constant progress.
However it’s fair comment to say that not enough is being done to provide jobs. But there must be many tasks within the community which need addressing. Why can’t the unemployed be assigned to such needy jobs whilst receiving benefits, so there is some return on what they are being given for otherwise doing nothing?
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To Andrew Finch re your employment status 23 years ago… I worked the same hours and earned the same money then. I lived in comfort. We wouldn’t have had a hope in hell of benefit. You are writing nonsense.
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I do not understand you, you are saying you worked the same hours as me and earned the same as me 23 years ago? I was a milkman i thought you were a lawyer??, we took home a joint income i would hardly say we lived in comfort most went on rent and poll tax .
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Andrew,
I was an academic lawyer then, not a practitioner (Keele University). I was often at my desk from 6am to midnight and at weekends too. l had a mortgage from hell but, no, I didn’t have a partner or family to support so had a good disposable income. I hope this clarifies.
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Being on benefits should be made into a hard way to live not easy.
Benefits should be paid electronically to a top up card. This card would only be allowed to purchase food and energy.
No cigs, alcohol, leisure activities ie TV, sports facilities should be allowed if you exist solely on benefits.
However if in exchange for your benefits you do 30 hrs voluntary work per week ie improving community etc you will get all luxuries reinstated on your electronic card.
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Are you a prison warder by any chance?
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Andrew Finch writes:
“You cant pay your mortgage sell the house, why should the tax payer pay your bills?? ”
Perhaps you should speak to somebody who’s tried to sell their house over the last 4 years – the market isn’t moving and house prices have fallen.
Unless the mortgage was taken out some time ago, many homeowners will find themselves in negative equity, or making only a very small profit, if they sell now.
This means they will either not be able to put down a large enough deposit on a new house or will make just enough for a few months rent.
But perhaps they should just go and live in a cardboard box rather than having the temerity to claim benefits from the sacred taxpayer?
Doubtless many of these people have paid their fair share of taxes and I don’t begrudge them a penny of mine.
Whatever happened to the values of compassion for ones fellow citizen?
With the Tories whipping up resentment, we’re becoming a less caring society and a more judgemental and selfish one.
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Correction re unemployed people making money from the internet in the 80s… It only existed in academia and the military then (and very high tech firms). Yet more nonsense.
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KATHEERINE I said in the 80.s the dishonest benefit claimants were making money from physical work “NOW” they use car boots and the internet, reason they can and do get away with it.
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OK, pls make your points more clearly. Btw markets and the internet are (perhaps were) crawling with tax and benefit staff.
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OK guys lets try something a bit different ,
out of work benefits paid for 12 months,benefits for your children continue unaffected but are restricted to 4 children max from 2012.Introduce food stamps etc after 12 months NO cash
Get local councils to Cap private rents nationwide which will keep rents down and stop greedy landlords profiting from the tax payer ,encourage people to move for work through real generous relocation grants but ensure they have a job to go to.
Make all who are unemployed for 3 months or more work three days a week for the benefits but permit them to attend interviews etc etc and pay travelling costs to the unpaid work.
The biggest idea of all is how about encouraging British families to look after their own from the elderly to the unemployed instead of being heavily reliant on the state?.
What we must not forget years ago ie 80,s the unemployed were working on the side in physical jobs , many dishonest unemployed are making money at car boot fairs and on the internet, the idea they are making a few quid is laughable .Combine these incomes with benefits may also be a reason for high benefit claiments.
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So what if you have a pregnancy accident? Is forced abortion/adoption next in your dystopia?’
Re families.. I won’t work. There are people like me – only child, no kids, no parents, older husband. Please think things through.
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Unfortunately in times like these Katherine minority groups must be put to one side , but self responsibility must stop being a dirty word , may i say accident pregnancy comment is a classic example Two people did let them fund it and worry about it, or keep their kit on .
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So, if you don’t have a good job and savings you can’t have sex!!!!!
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correction – it won’t work
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I read a newspaper article recently – a woman had 3 kids of her own. Her sister died and so she gave up work so that she could bring up her sister’s children alongside her own. She ended up with more than 4 children. Andrew, what would you do in that case?
It’s too easy to generalise – there are all kinds of personal circumstances and one size never fits all.
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Legalise fox hunting again…just think of all those extra jobs.
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2.5 MILLION ON UNEMPLOYMENT BENEFITS, 3 MILLION ON INCAPACITY BENEFITS The labour party are to blame for that , to fat to work, to drunk to work , to many kids to work, to far to go to work , haven’t got a car to go to work , to old to work , to tired to work , don’t like work.
Address all these issues and we may save a bob or two.
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As someone with a first (best hons degree) in sociology (as well as law)I fail to understand the working class Tory.
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I am not a Tory.Regards tax and benefits people trawling the internet and car boots , correct they are but it is very difficult especially cash transactions, and most are caught after being brought to the attention of such organizations .
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Hi Andrew, I only deal with Amazon and Ebay on the net and they only accept payments in electronic form, which are traceable.
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Try visiting one of the estates in Shewsbury or Telford just after 9 am, so you can witness parents having just taken their kids to school, walking home with cans of Stella, covered in Tattoos and Smoking fags. Would you say these people are worthy of ‘ job seekers allowance ‘
( BA Hons in Real World Studies ) at the university of life..
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twisting my melon, You can see this every day on Harlescott Grange, the single parent and dole scroungers paradise.
Also B.A.Hons( advanced, owing to age.) at the university of life)also
RLSS. Bronze medal, and Cross.
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Ah yes, sociology. “The study of those who don’t need it, by those who do.”
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Perhaps that is Labours fault, but the selling of council houses and then pocketing the money without building replacements is clearly the fault of Thatcher
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We had to pay for the Falklands somehow, the Labour way of paying for the Gulf war was to borrow money and pass the problem on to the next government.
Theres been a pattern since before the war, Tories make the money, Labour give it away, Tories make the money, Labour give it away….etc…etc.
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So what do the Liberals do with the money?
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Another problem is that in the past the social housing was sold and not replaced. If there was enough social housing, the rents could be regulated and there would be none of this public money lining the pockets of greedy landlords.
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That’s where market forces come into play. I actually rent an upmarket property to DSSers. I’m not a greedy Landlord.
Infact the neighbour has got so fed up living next door to my tennants, I’m buying his house at a good discount, and likewise will rent it to the deserving poor.
Hope to own the whole cul-de-sac before I retire. A little ‘Bourville’ for those less fortunate than myself.
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Must admit this perplexes me Lucy .
How can living next door to a person on benefits be such a problem you sell your house at a loss? many private tenants are in receipt of housing benefit , some could be getting pension credit , clearly many are getting child tax credit, working tax credit etc but how do we as neighbors know what people next door etc are in receipt of?? unless we make an assumption.
In 2012 we cant make a decision on peoples financial/work standing in the community from possessions , or going to a 9-5 job etc, because we do not live in that type of world anymore.
I was speaking to a guy from a private birmingham based bailiff firm just before xmas who said that’s where money is to be made these days as we have lists upon lists of the so called middle classes and so called wealthy who are on their uppers , he was taking away some poor persons new honda car from a car park at the time.
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I think your right, the neighbours do make assumptions. I mean just because my tennants have a rusty car parked on the front lawn and don’t know how a wheelie bin works, then that doen’t mean that they are socio-economic class E does it?
Such biggotry! *tut*
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There appears to be a strange system in operation at the job centre these days.
I know someone who has had several jobs since school but now finds themselves out of work. The JC ordered them to attend a training course several miles away but they had no transport.
The JC said while on the course they wouldn’t pay job seekers allowance because the person wasn’t available for work, they also said they wouldn’t pay transport costs. So not only would they have a lot less ‘dole’ money but would have to pay £10 per week for bus fares. They couldn’t afford to get to the course without giving up their house or by not eating. The JC suggested they find something they could take to ‘cash convertors’ to pay the bus fare!!
The JC then made them do “voluntary” work in a factory! with no prospect of a job at the end. The idea being it would get them ‘used’ to be at work!
My friend know lots of people who go to the JC but have never had this happen even though some of them have never had a job.
The factory has a number of “volunteers” working for them, if these “voluntary” jobs exist why aren’t they turned into paid one’s? Its obvious if employers can get away with providing “voluntary” jobs for training people they will save a lot of money by not having to have real employees, how can this be right??
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I imagine that the writer of this article thinks that life on benefits is so good that they can’t wait to find themself depending on benefits.
Either that or commit a crime so they can enjoy the 5-star life in prison. No doubt the writer will be telling us next, that those 40′ razor wire topped, electrified fences are to keep the unemployed out.
Pity the writer didn’t draw on personal experience or perhaps they lack any real-life experience?
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If you come from a background of non-working, existing on benefits and living in social housing, then being on the dole yourself is normal and does not compel you to give up or go without what you already don’t have. If you come from a £30k job with a car, mortgage and foreign holidays to being unemployed then that is plain b****y awful. I know, I’ve been there and I moved heaven and earth to find new suitable employment, fortunately with success.
I’d like to see the dole and benefits scroungers prove beyond doubt that they are looking for work. If they’re content to sit at home smoking, drinking and watching TV at my expense, let’s take the fags, booze and telly away and see how they like a reduction in their living standards. I imagine that a few months of beans on toast in a cold draughty flat, bored beyond measure, might make them think again.
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Agree with you mr hubbard however at a loss how living in affordable housing has to do with anything?, Affordable housing which in areas down south is prioritized for essential workers.
Many in affordable housing are in full time work granted a big section are not however many private tenants are in receipt of housing benefit which is the main point of the letter that is where the big benefit payments are going to LANDLORDS with snouts in the trough.
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So its a case of the taller you are, the farther you fall?
I don’t have TV, smoke, drink – I often feel guity as I sometimes think I’m not making my fair share to the treasury.
BUT HERE’S AN IDEA!! Previous posts have mentioned food and clothing vouchers. Why not make tabbacco and alchohol prohibited with the exception of those who are not in receipt of any benefits? Could be easily done by issuing a ‘credit card licence’ (like drivers license)that has to be swipped at tills. And make draconian penalties for those misusing their card for contra band purchases?
I sometimes wonder why I’m not running the country when I have such good ideas!
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What this article is missing and most of the comments on this message board are missing spectacularly is that the majority of benefits do not go into the pockets of “benefits scroungers”, they go to pay the rent.
The winners in our benefits system are not the “scroungers” they are the landlords, particularly in places like London where you can expect to pay upwards of £20,000 a year for a small house.
If my partner lost his job, we would get the princely sum of £51.37 each of Jobseekers Allowance per week – out of that we would have to pay for fuel bills, water rates, food, transport, clothes etc. We wouldn’t be able to make ends meet. And if the Government brings in the cap on rent for benefit claimants, we could well end up without anywhere to live too.
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