The disabled should be prepared to work for less than the minimum wage...

[revolutionscoop]

...according to Phillip Davies MP. It's almost as though he's implying that disabled workers should come cheap, rather like faulty goods that are sold at discount. I pity his constituents.

[Empusa]

This is how nonsensical the proposal is.

Here's a hypothetical person. They are over 25, on their own, and have a disability which requires at least 4 different drugs a month, and a car due to mobility issues. They live just outside of London.

Minimum wage = £5.93, if they did a 9-5 Mon-Fri job they'd get £830.20 a month. Minus tax that would leave them £761.40.

I've had a look online and discovered this person could get £45.28 off a monthly rent of £500. I've based the rent amount on looking on some rental sites for average rents in commuter towns in the NW and W of London (deliberately looking in not particularly desirable areas that I know about)

So their monthly income is now down to £306.68

Out of that they need to pay

• water
  
• gas
  
• electricity
  
• car insurance
  
• car tax
  
• contents insurance
  
• phone bills (possibly internet, bearing in mind how much is reliant on a net connection)
  
• food bills
  
• petrol money
  
• prescriptions
  

Which, I'm just going to hazard a guess here, wont leave too much money in their pocket.

And somewhere in that they need to factor in the fact that they are quite likely to need regular check ups with the doctor, if not hospital and/or therapy appointments.

Bearing in mind MW is hourly, and jobs that pay MW hourly tend not to give you sick pay.

So they wont actually be getting £761.40. It will be £761.40 minus however many hours/days they'll need off.

I'd imagine they'd take one day a month off to see their GP to review their meds. If it's a typical surgery, it'll have long waiting times. Hypothetical person has to take half a day off. Once every two weeks they go for therapy. Again half a day.

So how on earth they could afford to earn less than minimum wage is beyond me!

[Peachy]

The best way to get people with a disability working when they can is

A) to have a flourishing job market

B) to make sure people with a disability get appropriate training and education to meet their potential.

Hang on isn';t that key for pretty much anybody?

Except that it's far harder to get the right sort of education if you are disbaled- dds1 got a place at a speiclaist unit with one other child, 30+ were turned down. DS1 is supposed to be assessed for an SEN that needs differentiated teaching but neither school nor NHS will take up the cost and just argue about whose job it is.

But that is how you get peoplem into work. great plans later in life may be well intenioned but- nah. If person X and person Y are both well qualified and trained but person Y needs (as an example of someone on TV today) an air con and specialised chair to help with their MS then it's going to take a particularly motivated employer to hire; even more so when there are tens of people and more fighting for every job.

[berylmuspratt]

Oooo he sounds like a right twat.

[xstitch]

He hasn't thought it through at all. I felt he implied that all people with a disability of some kind were less productive. Which is utter tosh. Many people with disability are very productive (although sometimes they require minor adjustments to help them work depending on their disability). There are also many people without disabilities who are not very productive at all so any generalisation is stupid and in fact ignorant.

Even if such a ruling did come in and did make it easier for people to gain employment it would be exploitative. The minimum wage barely gives a basic standard of living and I mean basic. I calculated that minimum wage-rent-council tax - travel pass to work would leave £21 a week for food, gas and electricity. To pay any adult less would leave them in severe financial difficulty. They would then be trapped in a downward spiral of poverty, how long could they keep this job once they were homeless.

MPs time would be much better spent encouraging employers to realise just what people can offer them.

It is difficult for everyone to find a job right now, there are very few jobs in general.

[madhairday]

Twunt

[thegruffalosma]

Whoever was defending it earlier in the thread saying that they could choose to opt out. If some choose to opt out then that will make those who don't less employable.

If a persons disability leaves them able to do a job they should be helped to find one. If not they should be provided with adequate income by the state.

[Peachy]

Poppyknot that's a valid point, about hte merging of different types of need.

PD / LD ? MH all need individual assessments in order to make decisions. only the ost severe % of people with a PD can't do any work id given the right support, whereas someone with a diagnosed LD is likely to be able to only deal with very basic work or nothing (and then there are things like ASD which straddle both camps).

Disbaled people aren't a one-solution group any more than 'women' or 'black people'- all individuals with back stories and different dreams.

[Peachy]

Xenia sadly no. He genuinely did seem to mean that as getting a job is hard any disabled worker should be able to be part of this. Schemes to enable people who cannot fulfil a job criteria into the wider society ahve long existed (ex clients used to clean buses) and in no way pay minimum wage as they are usually arranged by a charity or social services type body.

This is abopiut disabled people who are perfectly able to work but who no empoyer will look at for superficial reasons.

However as there seems to be a lot of controversy about whether any charity quoted actually knew anything about it, I think trying to credit him with sense as an individual is a bad idea; as is labelling his party becuase of him, much as I might not be one of their voters. Every group has it's token prat and all that.

Massive debates to be ahd about into-work schemes and the schemes that get people into society who can't work in standard jobs of course. I hope ds3 will end up on one of those as an adult. But they should have no relationship with the FT employment I expect for ds1.

[realhousewifeofdevoncounty]

DICK. HEAD.

[Empusa]

Xenia, going by what he actually said, and his previous comments, I wouldn't credit him.

[aliceliddell]

I emailed him to suggest that enforcing anti-discrimination legislation might be a solution, but his reply gave me no encouragement.

[Xenia]

I think he was just saying that if someone's disabilities mean they will do the work much slower than someone who hasn't those then it should be possible if the employee and employer want it to offer them work at less than the minimum wage. Presumably he also intended the difference would be made up to their benefit levels as before and the state saves the element which is their wage. It sounds very sensible but I doubt the state can work out a system where that occurs.

[MarioandLuigi]

But the point is that young people have the ability to grow up and once they reach 21 they are covered by the minimum wage, and have a MW relating to the age they are at.

How would you police againts exploitation of those with disabilities? The nature of which might never change?

[c0rn55ilk]

did he indicate young people specifically when he made those comments?

[MarioandLuigi]

I would ignore somethingwitty82 - whoever he/she is they always pop up on controversial threads and spread shite. The posting style is very similar to other previous trolls knobs posters.

[Xenia]

he said if you are slower to do work and are very keen to have it and have a willing employer and willing employee then it should be lawful to work for less than the minimum wage. The real issue is one of the effect of lowish additional work/payments on benefits entitlements which accept those with disabilities and many many others. No Government seems able to deal with that.

We all know that to get any sort of job lots of young people have to work for nothing nowadays so I don't think these comments about the disabled are wrong but as a politician perhaps he should be aware some topics are not to be talked about.

[meditrina]

I doubt DC would want to dignify this twat with a response.

They've got the relevant Minister on the record speaking against it and denying and coalition support, so the Government position repudiating him is clear.

[poppyknot]

It's the lazy (and ignorant) grouping of "mental health issues" , "learning disabilities" and disability generally with what seems like the whole job market, so reducing the whole complex subject into one possible scenario.

Not big and not clever.

[jellybeans]

I think the comments were shocking and offensive. Why shouldn't people with diabilities or mental health issues get minimum wage at least? Everywhere should be encouraged to have a diverse staff team such as makes up society.

[flippinada]

I mean *post. Typing too quickly!

[flippinada]

It was one of those comments that prompted me to pos meditrina.

I'm really astonished that someone would try to defend him tbh.

Surely DC must come out and make comment about this at some point..?

[meditrina]

flippingada - SWYM! < note to self, read more carefully >

He's been publicly challenged to name individuals or groups who supported his comments. Silence (what a surprise).

BTW - what is even more reprehensible is that there is no mention of the disabled in his odious Private Members Bill. He was just using it as a debating point in the House.

[thumbwitch]

Seems that way Peachy - just gives the employers an excuse to downgrade your pay, if this idiot had his way.

[BrawToken]

DISGUSTING. What a horrible man.

[Peachy]

It's anohter good reason for me not to follow through with getting an AS diagnosis isn;t it? Presumably my MA will be worth far less with a dx than without, even though it's ultimately a piece of paper.