... than have to work 40 hours a week in a boring minimum wage job.
Not doing either myself thankfully (working DH, I have well-paid p/t job), but thoroughly resenting the line that the conservatives are taking that the reason many people have a terrible quality of life is because they're not working, and that they'll invariably have a better quality of life if they're not on benefits, because going to work somehow always makes your life better.
I suspect that the majority of mp's have never done these sorts of jobs, and have never had to live on the minimum wage, otherwise they wouldn't be saying this.
IMO what makes people's live shit is being educationally and culturally impoverished, poor housing and poor mental and physical health, none of which are likely to be alleviated by spending 40 hours doing repetitive manual labour.
If work doesn't leave you significantly better off financially, is in itself not interesting, and results in you becoming time poor, so you have fewer hours to read, stroll in the park, meet with friends or watch interesting films on TV (all of which activities are free and accessible to the unemployed), how on earth can you be said to be better off doing it?
And then there's the option of enriching your life by doing voluntary work while unemployed, or studying.
So - if you were an MP and I was an unemployed person, how would you persuade me that I would be much happier cleaning out buses for 40 hours a week, than sitting at home reading the newspaper and listening to the radio?