Actually I'd rather be on benefits

[Spudulika]

... 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?

Lots of charities will pay your travelling expenses and give you money to buy lunch, if you volunteer for them. Some will even pay for childcare. And there are lots of volunteering roles that you may never have thought of. www.doit.org is a useful website to look for possibilities.

And you are allowed to do voluntary work and sign on. As long as you still look for jobs and you would be available to go to an interview or start work immediately.

I got into my current field through voluntary work.

To go back to the OP to answer your direct question. If i were an MP and i were trying to persuade you to clean busses. I would start by telling you that Bobby on that childrens program who cleans the busses is always happy and smiling. But seriously, i would say that life on benefits probably wouldnt fascilitate sitting in the garden reading the newspaper and whiling the time away. Also, even if it did, there is only so much garden sitting and paper reading you can do. Furthermore, study for study's sake is all well and good but when the going got tough with the study, where would the motivation be if it wasn't to gain an end, ie employment. I think that yes, maybe for some people life is better on benefits, but without being patronising, it probably helps if you are not that bright and quite content to watch daytime tv, else you would be bored. Either that or you would have to be supremely intelligent and able to entertain yourself on a minimal budget, so both not the norm really.

However said about doctors signing people off, some doctors are very ready to sign you off. I went to my GP after having am accident 2 weeks ago. I still had a lot of back pain and he said I suppose you want signed off. His face was a picture when I said that I wanted to be considered fit for work but would like a physio referral to help it improve.

Sorry, but am I the only person to be appalled by the snobbery and sense of entitlement on display here? this bit in particular:

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?

Who are you exactly that you feel you are entitled to a job which leaves you significantly better off financially while also enriching you culturally and giving you time for walks in the park/watching tv etc? You must have lived an enormously privileged and sheltered life if you think that people should be entitled to this.

The vast majority of people in this country an advanced western democracy let alone the rest of the world, don't get to to jobs which are both well-remunerated and interesting too, even those with good degrees. Would you have everyone in such a position bail out and ask the other 1% to support you all through taxes?

Thought not....

jeck most of us just want a job, any job.

jeckadeck, there is an absolute pile of shite snobbery on this thread, but i dont think your example is a very good one. I dont know who said it or what else was said so maybe i have missed the context, but i can so relate to that. I dont work, im not "unemployed" as im a SAHM but i so get that - if ive nothing to do, i do just that, nothing, its depressing and self propelling (thats not the right word i know) . If i am working or busy, i actually do more fun stuff too.

Other than that i totally agree with you, it is very easy for those in a good situation, which they no doubt will have worked for, look down their noses at those who aren't so well off, be that in terms of finance or quality of life in general. Its about opportunity and luck as much as it is making the most of the opportunities we have. Some people just seem to have it handed to them on a plate, well, good for them - im genuinely pleased for them, but they are no better than me, or the people down the end of my street in social housing, they have just had better opportunities. Be that through better schooling, better upbringing or better genes. There but for the grace of god is a very good saying.

I think where you live affects your view. If you are used to working and live in an area and mix with people who work, then you want to work too - even if there isn't much of a difference between what you earn or what you are given on benefits. It is self esteem and wanting to fit in with the society you mix in.

However, if you live in an area where few people work then it is normal.

My dh family live on a large council estate where many of the families have 2 parents on benefits. They are not depressed because they are out of work. They mix in an environment where it is normal. They all drop their children off at school and go to the local cafe to have tea and a fry up, smoke cigarettes and then go back home about 10.30ish.

They then go home to watch their SKY and all the reruns of The Bill. Then they pick up their children from school. Once their children are in bed they go to the local Mecca for their bingo session that costs them over £50 each night as they play on the 'table tops' which are £1 a go!

passive I have no problem at all with people who stay at home to bring up children. In fact I have no beef with the unemployed. What irks me is people who think they have a god-given right to do what they like for money. The OP apparently hasn't stopped to consider that the "culturally enriching" pursuits she enjoys have been created by people whose forefathers did shit work like ditch-digging to pay for them to better themselves. If they'd sat on their arses and said "I want to be culturally enriched" they and their families would have starved.

gawd...

I get paid pretty well for what I do, but at times it's pretty boring, involves missing things which I would rather be doing and is a complete hassle to arrange my life around. But that's life!

There's GOOD reasons for going out to work that have nothing to do with the money though - for one thing, it instills a work ethic into your children and gives them a structure to live by and inspires them to work hard to get real jobs and earn their own money.

I honestly believe that even if we made long term unemployed turn up and sit in a room every morning from 9am-5pm, we'd be doing their children a massive favour by showing them that you don't just get to do whatever you like all day in return for benefits. You ALWAYS have to do something in return for money.

There's a massive problem with the welfare state because we now have no shame as a society and massive entitlement. It used to be that people would be loathe to mouch around not working, they wanted to work. Now I can honestly say that the work applicants we get from the job centre have no intention of either working or even trying to pretend they want to work.

What is the minimum wage now? I'm guessing its about £8.50 - £9 an hour. Am I correct?

£5.63 before tax, last time I looked.

You are joking aren't you sue? Its £6.08 per hour, less for younger people.

Well will be when this year's increase takes effect.

I don't think the OP is being entirely UR

Its simply human nature to choose the more enjoyable things than the less enjoyable- especially if the hard way doesnt bring any massive reward.

OP actually I agree with you. If it were financially equal to me to work or not to work, I suspect I wouldn't bother working, especially if only tedious jobs were available - I'd go to the park, library, museums, volunteer... etc.

This is why it's important that it should not be financially equal to work or not to work. (Except for those who are not able to work).

I think YABU. I just wasn't raised like that. My parents were teen parents and my dad worked two or three jobs to support us while my mother stayed home with us and watched other people's children. They drilled into me that benefits are for those who absolutely need them.

But I agree with fagahh that there are some interesting questions here. I think it should always be better to work, but at the same time I think that staying home with young children should be rewarded in some way. It's work and it's important. I'm lucky that I get to work part-time because my DH makes enough money for me to do so. A lot of people don't have that option.

My feeling is that we live in an advanced, industrial society and there is absolutely no reason for work to be utterly degrading. by degrading, I mean that it should offer the worker something: long-term benefits or immediate ones (such as financial gain. It should not actually be just labour that leaves the worker financially badly off, exhausted and diminished.

And, no, I don't think the answer is to remove the net of benefits that keep people (and children) from starving as an "incentive" to get people to take utterly crap, poorly paid, no-prospects jobs.

Capitalism, by the way, requires for there to be a pool of the unemployed, in order to keep the workers anxious, and as a flexible pool. It seems a fair deal to at least keep these people alive.

And, actually, people should be able to reasonably expect to get something out of working - whatever that might be. I don't think that is too much to demand at all. We're not serfs in the Middle Ages or Tsarist Russia, thank goodness.

"Its simply human nature to choose the more enjoyable things than the less enjoyable- especially if the hard way doesnt bring any massive reward"

True.

Another question. People who are HUGELY wealthy, who pay very little tax in this country. What motivates them to avoid tax, knowing as they do that a) they can't get that much more pleasure from additional spending if they're already living a very lavish lifestyle b) that if they paid their taxes in the UK it would be used make life more bearable for people here who are much less advantaged than they are?

It must be sheer selfishness and a feeling of 'fuck it, it's legal and I don't have a responsibility to the country I call home'.

In which case are they any morally better than people who choose to live on benefits in preference to doing low paid work? Actually I'd say they're far, far worse.

How can it be considered morally acceptable for extremely rich people to avoid paying tax in the UK? Why are these people also not considered social pariahs?

"Going to work means you are independant and should give you a sense of satisfaction and achievement that you can live your life without having to rely on others"

I'm not financially independent. My DH supports me. Should I feel bad about that?

My sense of achievement comes from watching my children learn and grow and become nice people.

And I think most people currently on benefits would jump at the chance of work if it was fulfilling and well-paid. But most of them will never get a chance to do that type of work.

Benefits for claimants capable of working should be capped at 90% of the product of the minimum wage and the maximum allowed under the Working Time Directive, plus anything you would get (such as child benefit or housing benefit) if you were working.

I think a lot of people who now cannot find work would find that they could.

Spudulika - I know a few rich buggers like you describe who avoid paying tax as far as is legally possible, and I think what motivates them more than anything is the fact that they WORKED for their money and people on benefits just get handed it to them. So they'd rather give their money away than give it to the government who aren't spending it in an economic manner. They're business people, so they cannot fathom why we continue to support people who won't help themselves (note I said won't, not can't - that's an entirely different kettle of fish!). They've also usually given up some of life's pleasant pastures whilst getting to that level of tax - be that not having kids, working really long hours, never just having time out to themselves, maybe never taking a holiday for 10-15 years.

I don't necessarily agree with that sentiment, I think if you earn enough to be a higher rate taxpayer then it doesn't actually make that much of a difference if the government takes 40 or 50% of your income and you owe it to give something back in whatever way you can to people less fortunate than yourself, especially if you've had really amazing opportunities, or brilliantly inspiring teachers or fantastic parents. There but for that luck, goes you.

animula - "to get people to take utterly crap, poorly paid, no-prospects jobs." Um, how insulting is that to the people who gladly do those jobs because they take some pride in them? You have to work - it's a fact of life, but unfortunately our benefits/education system has created people who think they are too good to work or who just don't have the skills to actually progress.

I'd also like to add that it is so strange that "pleasure" and "joy" in this world are always strangely absent in all discussions about work/not work. The whole concept of leisure/work has become a site for subterranean morality that still clings to a buried idea of pleasure-in-life as being a little bit immoral or as something that only certain people, in certain situations, have a right to - rather than being something we should strive to enfold in the way we form our societies.

If i get a job for 16 hours i loose £62 per week income support but gain £150 tax credits free nursery and still receive HB and CT benefit. Obviously i am looking for work. No one has to convince me to work. Find me a job anywhere. Previous jobs include

Admin assistant
Office manager
Sales assistant
Cleaner
Fish fryer

It just means the benefits i get increase. People say get them off IS and save the country money the lazy fuckwits. How is this saving money. I am just swapping one benefit for another IYSWIM

Work full time i would still have more money and not be sick of sitting the house everyday by myself as all my friends work and dont swan about fucking parks

some people might actually take pride in and enjoy cleaning buses out. being active and having a laugh with work mates is better than sitting on your arse watching tv all day. bad example for kids too.