To think some posters need a "reality check" re. views on benefit changes

I applaud your noble stance callme
Wish I knew what you are on about though.

math I don't know when you spent any real meaningful time talking to ordinary working class voters.

These are proud hard working people from communities who have been through too much to be frightened easily. No. They are pissed off. And no amount of articles in the Guardian is going to change that.

Not too long ago I had a conversation with Yvette Cooper and she had to admit that the people in her constituency were no push over. And that much of they wanted and didn;t want had very little in common with what was put forward by the party at the last election.

As for Tower Hamlets, I worked on the Roman Road for quite a few years and it is not only one stop on the tube to lots of boroughs with employment opportunities, it is walkable. It's a fucker to park there so I never did. Walking it turned out, had not been outlawed.
The problems in TH are huge and complex tho.

OhDoAdmitMrsDeVere - DPs brother is in his comfort zone on benefits & you cannot have a rational conversation with him about why he doesnt work.

its.. i will get a job, just not now. i dont feal ready. i have a cold. my leg hurts. i dont think he is stupid but he says he's 'lazy' - 'why work for a bit of extra money?' he would rather sit & drink beer with his friends.

i think the benefits system has made him like this. he is ruining his life but he doesnt see it & does not want to change. its a type of instiutionalisation.

yes it is a very different case than other posters' but i am not speculating about some woman down the road buying a pony. so i do want his money reduced or other pressure. he is way too comfortable & if things dont change he will have wasted his working life. Said to DP i would offer his DB a job, but DP said not, he doesnt want it & you cannot help him.

i dont think i am better than him. the main thing i think whenever he crosses my mind is that his life is passing, with no change, its so unnecessary: his family are powerless to help, other than reporting his dodgy activities, which is something they are trying to avoid but might yet happen.

Oh but there is massive fear, and it is expressed not as 'concern' which is rational but as anger, which is not -- you yourself characterised it as anger; Heitmeyer (link above) is absolutely right in his conclusions, imo.

On the whole, and not just here on MN, people, both working and welfare recipients, in single parent and two parent homes, have thought long and hard about what factors go into making a job worthwhile, what constitutes 'worthwhile' and what is a reasonable sacrifice in terms of children's welfare and family life in order to enable a parent, or both parents, to work.

Some musings:
Should families who are doing well on two incomes be told that one parent should stay at home because someone else who has no income should have the 'extra' job that is nice but not exactly necessary for that family's financial security?
Should families who can afford it be automatically required to pay for certain health services or pay towards their children's education? Yes, there is a lot of self selection at the moment, but basically the level to which better-off families or individuals avail of certain government services is up to the families or individuals to decide.
Should adults who have received free state-funded education or other services be required to remain employed until the state has been refunded the cost of education in taxes? How fair is it that sahms can drop out of the workforce after receiving so much from the state including perhaps the delivery of their children in NHS hospitals?

I'm going to choose to rise above the rather snidey comment by mrsdevere. Suffice to say that people of ALL incomes and backgrounds have to deal with all sorts of crapness. Bereavement, illness, difficulties with children, relationships etc etc aren't things that just happen to 'poor people'. To suggest that anyone who is working and not On benefits is swanning around avoiding doing anything they don't choose to do is frankly laughable . For a start, last time I looked, the definition of a job is doing what you are required to do, meeting targets set by someone else. Hardly the definition of 'not doing things you don't want'. Oh and by the way, working parents still have difficult/ stroppy/ ill/ children to look after. Oh and running the home with all the ups and downs that entails. Oh and getting to medical appointments for self/ children, ferrying kids/ elderly relatives around etc etc . They just have to fit all those things aroundaw job.

There was a piece on R4 this week. Some minister or other was talking about all the jobs available in local Job Centres.

When pressed he had to admit that many were short term, agency and with no gauranteeed hours.

Very difficult to take a job that is only going to last for a few weeks and then claim benefits again. The delays involved mean people get into debt or could lose their homes.

Without doubt there are some lazy fuckers out there. I do not believe that the majority of people on benefits are out of work because they are too lazy to do otherwise.

THAT is the issue. This increasing belief, encouraged by the current governement, that those out of work are doing it on purpose just to take the piss out of 'the decent hard working families'

People believe what they want to believe.

If you want to believe that 'other' people are lazier and stupider that you and that you are in work due to the sheer wondefulness of yourself.... there isnt a lot more to be said.

If you find the idea that you need only take one factor into account when judging the motives of people (cost of transport alone) to be a reasonable basis for an argument that people should all work then of course you are going to be angry but your anger will not be justified. 'But I still stand by the statement that a long commute is not by itself a reason to not work.' It is never as simple as that. There is never just one factor making people baulk. Give welfare recipients credit for a bit more intelligence than that.

Fear comes into it when the average working person sees that when all the costs of living are added up they are no better off than those undervalued members of society who receive welfare -- when the working individual sees that the welfare recipient's maths may have been right after all. The fear comes from the realisation that their efforts to achieve a higher status may have been in vain, as the status accorded by working effectively means very little. Anger and fear are very closely linked, especially at a time of economic turmoil. There is the fear of losing everything when one lives from hand to mouth despite a paycheque, the fear that springs from the spectacle of banks around the world surviving while businesses close, the fear that children will never have the same chance that their parents did and above all the fear of loss of status in a society where status is king are all factors that generate anger. Anger springs from fear. Anger is encouraged by irresponsible political parties who would prefer that the voters look at a handy scapegoat than at the health of the stock market or ask questions about where all that money is coming from and where it all goes.

& posters will agree/disagree with their choice & pass judgement.

MN is full of people who dont think they should have to do something 'just because they dont want to'

Most of them are not on benefits.

So thats ok then.

People on low incomes/carers/LP etc get very used to doing things they dont want to do.

Like paying more for their gas and electricity for example.

children whose parents dont work also perform less well in school. they consistently underattend children in working households.

so this directly contradicts posters who think it is best for their DCs, in average circumstances.

Of course a welfare state is supremely important to protect the genuinely needy who have no other options available to them.
But we all know that people have different ideas of what is acceptable to them. I know several people who refuse to entertain the idea of a full time job. I know people with school age children who refuse to consider anything other than term time school hours jobs. I know people who won't consider a job unless they make a significant profit after childcare. You can see how that attitude sits very uneasily with those who do work, even though the hours may not be ideal, or the childcare takes up most of the earnings or there is a lengthy commute etc

If you combine the cost of transport for a long commute with the attendant childcare costs (because children are not going to get themselves out of bed at 5.30 am so that you can be on your buses at 6 for your job that starts at 8.30) both before and after work then what you get is someone who really needs to be on welfare, or someone who basically works to be able to afford to work.

Or maybe businesses need to provide on site nursery care -- maybe there should be mobile schools so that parent are not tied to the school run? The employment and education systems are geared towards the model of two-parent families, with one parent primarily responsible for child care. It does not take into account the reality of single mothers' lives.

Agree Lesley . It's about equity. Anyone who believes that society should be based on equitable principles finds it sits very uneasily that some people feel they shouldn't have to do things just because they don't want to .

Volunteering, being a SAHM while your children are babies, working school hours only later on.... They are all admirable things to do if you want to IF they are affordable. And that's the crux. No one has a god given right to do any of the above . Ditto for living your whole life in the area you were born.

The fact is, many of the above have become the preserve of the very rich, or those who are government- funded. They are not choices available to the millions of people in the middle.

Maybe it would be better for me as an individual cut my working hours, or work term time only, or live in the south east. But I can't afford it. It doesn't occur to me for one moment that other people should be funding me to do it!

'But in my city the bus travelcard means that it isn't too expensive to travel to work for many people e.g. on 2 buses - it just takes a long time.'

But assuming that they have children under 12, that's an extra 3 hrs of childcare to pay for as well

Incidentally a season ticket to London from here is £4140 a year, parking is an additional £5 per day.

The welfare state was designed with the basic underlying principle that all people are equal, that equality itself is really good for the body politic

If everyone is equal then why is it wrong that those who do not work get an equal wage to the average worker. That seems to be rather more equality than saying that they should get more than the average worker.

People really should be more worried that Britain is soon to become Little America.

There should also be concern that 'Other Ireland' lies ahead. Ireland hasn't got the sort of cradle to grave welfare that Britain has and has instead been willing to countenance massive emigration of large numbers of people aged 18 and up, often well educated at the taxpayer's expense.

Yes 'the world and his wife' would love to take a shot at the welfare state. The dynamics of what is happening were well described in the German context in the Heitmeyer article I linked above. He calls it the 'crude middle-class outlook' and he is right.

And yes, Labour needs to wake up and ask how it contributed to the fracturing that has occurred, but the driving force is fear of those who have however little that they will end up like the have nots, and that fear is exploited by the sort of right wing populism that dominates the present debate.

Tower Hamlets is one stop on the underground or overground from the City of London. A few more stops to the West End. A few stops East to Stratford & the Olympic site. Why the unemployment there is so high defeats me.

I live in Essex, it's complete commuter land - the trains are standing room only by 6.30 am, most people round here would kill for a 15 minute door to door journey but most of us couldn't afford a shoe box in London.

So is there something fundamentally wrong with the unemployed of Tower Hamlets?

Tilly, I just did another google. 25% with no qualifications, that's double the London average. Lacking skills/qualifications for the local jobs.

I just think that lots of people do and that a long commute by itself is not a good enough reason not to work.

A long commute is generally more expensive. People who are going to be 'made' to look for work aren't going to be the higher earners.

What's become apparent on these threads is there is a lack of affordable/reliable childcare & travel in some areas.