No benefits if unemployed for more than a year and other ways Sunak wants ti tackle the Benefits system

[cakeorwine]

This are the headlines - I can see some massive issues here for people - it's easy to say there are job vacancies - but what if they aren't in the area people are and there is no transport to get there. How does that work? I can see a lot of exploitation here.

There's also the other rules here around PIP payments, part time workers etc.

I wonder how much personal experience Sunak has of such things?

This is an outline from the Daily Mail

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13330045/Benefits-axed-year-stop-lifestyle-choice-Prime-Minister.html

12-month rule for unemployed

Tory manifesto plans will see people on the dole have their benefit claims closed after a year unless they can convince Jobcentre staff they are actively looking for work and willing to accept any reasonable job offer.

Personal Independence Payments

Hundreds of thousands of people with anxiety and depression could lose access to payments worth up to £700 a month and instead be offered therapy to help them back to work.

PART-TIME WORKERS

New rules will require part-time workers on Universal Credit to look for more work. Anyone working for less than the equivalent of 18 hours a week on minimum wage will have to show they are actively seeking more hours.

Disability rules

The work capability assessment rules, which govern who is eligible for sickness benefits, will be tightened to require 424,000 with milder mental health conditions to start looking for work.

Sick notes

GPs could be stripped of their role in signing off people as sick and replaced by 'specialist work and health professionals' who will focus on what work people could do with support, such as flexibility to work from home.

Benefit Fraud

Investigators will be handed new powers to tackle benefit fraud, which hit £6.4 billion last year. In future they will have similar powers to those investigating tax fraud, including the ability to make seizures and arrests

Then don't apply for those jobs.

Not only that but for people who did want to improve their life chances by re-training/learning new skills such as they used to be able to at night schools now find that even the concessionary rates for FE/technical courses are eye-watering!

A lot of people are permanently medicated. If the pain is well managed, why wouldn't you be able to work from home for example?

Don't apply for jobs where they will ask about gaps on your CV...

So all jobs

Seems you have got to the root of the problem for why its hard for people who have/had health problems to get back into employment

@eise where are all these WFH jobs? I'd love one.

They have literally slashed everything that made social mobility available. They want people in low paid, low skilled work to make them and their mates wealthy. They don't factor in the health service failures due to lack of funding, that libraries have closed so less literacy, the ageism that is rife in society etc etc

No the ones you cannot do because of your medical condition.
Many people have gaps on their CVs.

🤣

I actually have 6 vacancies I am recruiting for. They do exist.

Agreed

Although that posters premise of leaving disabled people aside was also laughable, given the issues around all the able bodied people moving away leaving behind the elderly and disabled...

Have you ever tried it? I spent just under 6 months on SSP once. It was the most miserable experience of my life. Benefits are not high amounts (childcare and housing subsidies aside - and claimants, astonishingly, have to pass those on to landlords and nurseries). The only survivable benefit levels go to people with serious disability in the family, which is hardly living "without a care".

Right...

So that basically takes us back to the issue that some people might need to be on jobseekers for longer because they have a condition that means they cannot apply for every job going...

I agree with every single word

What were you claiming? The typical profile of somebody I see is a person who is long term unemployed and receives UC, usually PIP because they have anxiety/ADHD/fibromyalgia, carers allowance because they usually have a child with a condition they’re also claiming for, as well as CoL, child benefit and other concessions.

You know there’s barely any manned tills anymore?

"get on your bike" approach did and does work for some people.
However I think they are going about this all wrong. They need to thrown money at nursery and primary schools in particular to get children with sen diagnosed and supported.
They need pyscologists pyscologists, pyscshatrits. Sp. all sorts of emotional support to help children over come or manage whatever barrier to learning they have been whilst young!

All employers ask about gaps on C.V's so which job shouldn't someone apply for?
Also in DP's case that would mean

Legally
No jobs involving driving
No jobs involving working at heights
No jobs working near water
Some, not all, jobs involving machinery

To avoid triggering a seizure
Customer facing role
Amazon warehouse type work
12 hour shifts
Night shifts

Take away any job involving the above and the opportunity for him to find, let alone get, a job that enables him to become a "useful, productive" member of society shrinks rapidly. His job is tedious and he admits, himself, he finds it boring but he won't leave because he knows how hard it will be to find anything better.

Let's all stop working and claim benefits then, that'll teach them!

Get on your bike didn't really work did it?

It left communities with no future , no hope

Those who could moved but many were tied by not having the money to move, by caring for elderly family , by a love of their hometown , its community and the support and love they found there , by fear of not fitting in , of sounding wrong , of not being good enough

Bright kids moved away so no good new jobs came to the area , the south became over populated with stupid housing problems

And now those bright kids need to look after older family 300 miles away .. yeah it worked so well on a human level

Literally not what (apart from the fuck work poster) most posters are saying

Just advocating for a little empathy and compassion and a more individualised approach understanding that its not as simple as saying "just get a job" if you have been out of work or "just move" if you are a single parent of two relying on gradnparents for child care and support, or "other people with (insert illness/disability) can do it so why can't you" as if all disabilities and illnesses impact everyone the same

Those who are capable should work. People shouldn't turn jobs down in favour of benefits as a lifestyle choice. I am not sure why that implies lacking empathy for those who are disabled or live with chronic illnesses making work impossible or difficult.

As far as i am aware, you already have to prove you are looking for work, if claiming out of work benefits, as i certainly had to when out of work.
So unless things have changed I suspect this applies mainly to the extra payments, re disability, and especially those kind of mental disabilities which are difficult to prove.

@eise So I'm not supposed to tell an employer I'm disabled, in case they discriminate against me, until I've got the job. Which jobs are available that they aren't going to notice my wheelchair at interview? How can I tell that the room for the job interview is going to be wheelchair accessible without asking? Are they interviewing with their eyes closed?
(as it happens, I work, but that's irrelevant)

If someone is signing up as I enjoyed surely they are actively seeking work. They could evidence this by showing their job applications and outcomes. I do think anyone who is unemployed should take any reasonable job offer. Any job is better than no job. I understand some people might think they are too good to do more menial jobs but they should accept any job offered to get back into work. This does not stop them from still applying for more suitable or desirable jobs. When my nephew lost his job as Chief Fund Manager for a private client he took a job in a bar until 2 months later when he found his next post. His salary went from over £100k a year to minimum wage. He said better than nothing and it got him out of the house as he felt depressed when stuck in at home all day. He said he was so busy in the bar he didn't have time to dwell on his MH.

They are supposed to. They should be applying for a minimum number of jobs as agreed with their work coach.