To think the benefits system is humiliating, yet we blame people for not taking low-paid jobs?

What happens if they can't find a job after that?
My role involves helping people find work (not DWP) and there are some very familiar faces coming in regularly. For a variety of reasons they can't get or maintain a job. I don't think they should be made destitute.

@UncharteredWaters Well a late life divorce left me with a hefty mortgage in my late fifties, my bills have doubled easily since buying my flat, food is much more expensive and I need to run a car. A wage of £25k would leave me very little if anything once I’d paid bills and bought basic food.

This is something I'm puzzled about as well

There's a couple of people I know who were looking at buying a home and suddenly decided not to. I think it's because universal credit gives them something towards their rent, but they would lose their element if they got a mortgage? I don't like to ask such a personal question.

It can be a different situation being made redundant and then having to take a significant wage cut than arranging your life around always being on minimum wage.

I also couldn’t maintain my modest lifestyle on minimum wage. Mainly because I have a mortgage. As a single person paying the same rent as mortgage, I would get (some) benefits. As a single person with a mortgage I wouldn’t. (And I get the argument that the State shouldn’t be there to pay people’s mortgages, but they seem happy to pay mortgages for private landlords…)

And one way of dealing with that would be...

@Huckleberriesno, I’ve made an argument that the differential between working in minimum wage job and benefits isn’t great enough.

The inflated cost of housing is one of the big problems here. If the cost of renting or buying was in proper proportion to wages then far fewer working people would need to claim benefits

The thing that annoys me is that companies avoid paying the NMW by hiring people on a self employed basis.

And I think the threshold for free prescriptions, free school meals etc should be higher.

Skilled people like carers and nursery workers should be paid a lot more than they are.

All you've done there is made an argument that benefits are too generous

I don't know what benefits are like, so I can't comment.

Yes

@ThatSassyWriter work is crap, yeah

We've all done some crappy jobs in our time. But that isn't a reason to not work.

I remember talking to someone in my flat share in my 20s. It was a rotten place. Almost literally because we couldn't get the landlord to pay attention to a leak in the bathroom.

She was saying to me, let's face it we all work to avoid living on the street.

I'm 49 and I thought all the rhetoric at school about dreams and aspirations, etc was quite odd. But it's probably got worse.

I don't really know what you're saying here to be honest. If it's that work is crap, yes. If everyone refused to work for that reason, we'd be in trouble.

i've noticed recently that some of my more socialist friends have gone very quiet about minimum wage. Because it's an okay wage now.

Why are taxpayers forced to pay for people who won’t work? (Not can’t, won’t)

Work should always be the better option.

I agree that zero hours contracts should be banned, even though they do work for a few people.

But I also think benefits should be time-limited, as they are in most of the world. By all means give a person who has been made redundant 75% of their regular earnings to get them through, but for 12-18 months only.

Yes there’s a lot of truth in that. With prescriptions costing around £10 a pop, it’s easy to see how the add-ons can make a big difference. There are also social tariffs for things like internet so people on benefits can be paying much lower for the same service.

imo it’s not a simple question of whether a person is better off working in a minimum wage job than on benefits. It’s how much better off they are, once the add-ons are factored in too. For someone to give over 9-5 every weekday, possibly working in a menial, boring or difficult job, plus adding on commute time (and the factors like less time with family, less time to spend looking after your home) - they need to be significantly better off for them to feel it’s worth their while. When the difference is only marginal, people may feel they’d prefer a little less money but 9-5 every weekday to spend as they choose.

I don’t know. When I was made redundant I deliberately stayed unemployed for 6 months so I could access a training programme for long term unemployed. I was given priority and didn’t have to pay. I completed an online form and popped into the job centre every 2 weeks for 15 mins to chat about my successes and my recent job searches. It was easy to avoid work as no one pushed me to work and I was mostly over qualified for the jobs on their database. I had an interview and was able to claim for an outfit and expenses. I was able to join a gym for the reduced rate of £24 a month, as I was on benefits, and swam or went to the gym most days. I didn’t earn as much as I did working but I had more disposable income as things like childcare, rent and discounts kicked in.

Minimum wage 40 hours = 25k
and you think you can’t survive modestly?

what do you think minimum wage should be?!

Every job pays minimum wage at least which is much higher than it used to be and entry level jobs are just that, those with few skills need to improve their skill set before they are worth more to their employer. It is simply not acceptable to chose to live off benefits because you see entry level jobs as not worth it, many people work darn hard and pay their taxes and they don’t do it so you or anyone else can choose to live the easy life at their expense.

Yes I agree but in most cases that is what happens. If someone is capable of work then they aren't able to live off benefits indefinitely .unless they are going to play the system like claiming they live alone when they don't or claim they are unemployed but are secretly working cash in hand.

I agree that anyone who can work should work. I also think that anyone who is an employer should pay their employees enough money to live on.

It's not "leeching". The benefits system is supposed to support us when we find we need it.

Our former government were fond of saying that you’d always be better off (financially) working than claiming benefits because of top-up benefits, etc.

Except it was a big fat lie.

Yes, on paper your income will be higher, but factor in the costs of working (transport, childcare, suitable clothes) and for many it results in a loss. Even with childcare subsidy, etc.

And that’s before you get onto the additional stresses that come with working, such as whether trains/buses are in time (or if they even turn up at all), whether you can afford to keep your car on the road, your childminder calling in sick or nursery/wraparound care shutting for a day. These may be normal stressors for many people but if you’ve been previously on benefits and part of the reason was mental ill health, this can feel completely overwhelming and a huge barrier. Add in the drop of income and it’s unsurprising to me that some of our probably capable but more vulnerable members of society just give up.

Public transport and child care provision in this country are seriously lacking in terms of availability, reliability and affordability. Addressing this would go some way towards helping people back into work, as would better mental health support.

Better wages all round are needed for many lower paid jobs. Don't get me started on zero hours contracts!

If people can work then they should have to and not get free money from taxpayers

I was idly looking through the advertised jobs in my local area yesterday and was horrified at the low wages. I’m pretty well paid for my current role but if the worst happened and I was made redundant, there is no way I could make ends meet on the wages offered. A 40 hour week on NMW would barely cover my modest way of life and as a single person with no dependents I’d not be entitled to any benefits.