not lack of jobs - lack of ambition!

[eggs11]

I know very, very little about politics, and if you can help me see this from a different perspective, please do!

A friend is a labour party member, and we recently had a row.I have a good friend (I like her for her personality, not for her life choices) who had a baby at 16 and is on benefits. She has a now 4 year old, starting school in September. She has a huge two bed flat in london (we would love to live where she does! but couldn't afford it), sky tv, the child has a nintendo ds, new clothes all the time, constant days out. I said it makes me angry that me and DP work (we also had a baby young) really really hard. Firstly, I had to go back after 9months, while she gets to sit on her bum until her kid is 5. Secondly, she gets free childcare! She had 2year old funding and 3 year old funding, while the £50 a day to put my 1year old in nursery makes it barely worth me working.

This is the point where we had a row. My labour friend said that it's not her fault that she's on benefits, there's no jobs to make it worth her working. However, if you spoke to my other friend, she has never even considered working. She said to me last week, when her daughter goes to full time school in sept, she has two options: 1) have another baby and get another 5years 6months, which she's planning on doing. 2)Wait until sept, then she has another 6months on job seekers to get pregnant. HOW IS THAT FAIR????? she isn't even looking after her daughter for the past two years, because she's in nursery. Why does this woman get to sit on her bum with free childcare? Why isn't she made to do voluntary work as a fully abled 22 year old with 10 gcse's, or at least made to go with her daughter to nursery and learn parenting skills, which is what I assume they think she lacks if her daughter gets so much funding!

I'm not saying that everyone on benefits/job seekers allowance isn't looking for work. I know how hard it was for DP to find work, it took months of hundreds of applications. I'm saying that while a life on benefits is so cushty and just relies on a baby every five years, no one has the incentive to work! labours answer was increase the working wage. I disagree, she's comfortable, why would she go out to work just for a few extra quid a week?

Op. So does she have a regular boyfriend?

How did she get free nursery for her two year old? I've never heard of that before.

My response to the OP is somewhat in the 'middle ground' - which I know is disappointing to posters who can only think in terms of simple black and white labels- either tory bastard or lazy scrounger.

I dont think life on benefits can be particularly rewarding. You must be constantly juggling (unless you are in a position where maintenance or some other means are upping your income) and more importantly it must slowly suck your self esteem dry and offers no long term security. You are at the whim of changing govt policies rather than having control over your life.

On the other hand it is of course totally ludicrous that it's possible to be almost as well off not working, or working very part time, as it is to work full time. That's a result of stupid policy with tax credits. Everyone should be tangibly better off I they work. And the more hours they work, the better off they should be. Most people don't play the system, but some do, and the system has enabled that to happen.

Anyway, getting rid of tax credits is hopefully the step in implementing fairer policies. In the long term, op, this woman won't be laughing. It's also worth remembering that in terms of outcomes for her child, she would be far better off working rather than taking the short term easy option

It's very strange, all these benefit cheats, yet the governments own figures put benefits cheating overall at 0.7%. There are more people on here aware of benefit cheats than there are in government offices!

I find it harder to work up indignation about the minimal percentage of benefit fraudsters than about the fact that the government's austerity measures are driving us further and further into recession at a time when pretty well all the other northern European countries have left it behind.

I've been speaking to Swedes and Germans over the holidays: to them, the recession is already a distant memory. Does anyone really believe we have a bigger problem because our welfare cover is more generous?

Exactly, cory.

Can I just ask.....

where are the jobs that you would have people doing?

I dont know if you have noticed, but thousands of people have been made redundant in the last year alone, my husband was one of them, and they are all now on the job market, fighting for what is out there.

Its all very well saying "they should be working" but without the jobs to work, nothing will change!

Now, Bogey, you know better than to ask such a silly question! I'm sure they can find someone to pay them for cleaning grafitti, picking up litter or dog poop, what have you. It's that they are not striving hard enough. They can more to Singapore or Hong Kong, too, there's plenty of work there.

As I say I don't think cheating is the real problem. The number of actual fraudsters is comparatively small and techniques for nailing them are becoming more sophisticated.

The deeper problem is that people can quite legitimately be on benefits with HB ,council tax subsidies and with all the fringe things such as free school meals, free scripts, dental care etc they could find themselves no better off, or virtually no better off than if they get a job. Or they could work a couple of days a week and find that with top ups they wouldn't be any better off with a full time job.

That is quite plainly ridiculous and unsustainable.

"where are the jobs that you would have people doing?"

I'll ask the next Polish person I see. They dont seem to have a problem finding work.

Actually what Singapore and Hong Kong have going for themselves is an ingrained entrepreneurial spirt and low taxes.

'I'll ask the next Polish person I see. They dont seem to have a problem finding work.'

Really? Plenty of them hanging round outside JobCentres smoking in two cities I can think of.

Expat. Are you suggesting that single mums like the op is talking about should move to Singapore?!

EastHollyDaleStreet

"Maintenance isn't counted anymore? It was when i was on IS in the 90's"

It changed from April 2010.

Single mums like the op's example will not survive in Singapore. It is not a welfare state.

ConstantCraving

"Why is it better to be scrounging off the state than scrounging off a man? Having a partner isn't 'paying for it'."

In theory in a partnership you have pooled assets and income, his money is hers, so she is paying her own way if she spends his money.

It's better because the man would be voluntarily paying, some taxpayers would rather not, so there is an element of coercion in redistribution via the state.

I meant to explain why "scrounging off a man" is better, on re-reading the bit I quoted doesn't quite say what I thought it did.

So, let me get this right..you're a single parent receiving income support and your ex pays you £250 a week maintenance say, and you still get your IS and HB and whatever?? I'm not trying to be controversial or anything, I genuinely had no idea this had changed - is this how it works?

Yes, it is how it works. Equally, you can be a single parent who's ex is supposed to pay £250pw and doesn't pay tuppence a month. That's why it was changed.

whose.
Sorry.

Right. Thanks for clarifying that.

fuckadoodle, I was being sarcastic, as I'm sure Bogey knows :o. There's a particular poster who continually suggests moving to far-flung climes for work as if it's the easiest thing in the world.

I did get that Expat :)

As for the Polish people finding work, most of the Poles locally (we have a large population) are doing temporary warehouse jobs, which yes, we are applying for.

Are you suggesting that they are working harder at find jobs than my husband and I who have a mortgage to pay and kids to support?

YADNBU!

I looked on the Turn2us calculator and we would actually be much better off on benefits and I would have my dh around full time.

I recently asked about getting my youngest dc a childcare place for 15 hours a week from 2 and was told it was only for people on benefits. Those not on benefits have to pay, so the equivalent of getting almost £500 a month more tax free as that is how much the nursery costs if you are not on benefits. When you factor in all the other freebies like free school lunches, uniform grants, free prescriptions on top of the myriad benefits, then even with a good salary, once tax and national insurance have been removed many are worse off than those on benefits. It's a no brainer.

'Are you suggesting that they are working harder at find jobs than my husband and I who have a mortgage to pay and kids to support? '

It's much, much easier to take on temp or seasonal work, cash-in-hand, zero hour contracts and below min wage work when you can leave your kids somewhere else, sleep 10 to a room and the money you earn is worth double in your home currency.

But of course, it's easier to just say people are lazy, feckless, workshy losers rather than address the real problems.

I have another question.

Given that alot of jobs are not paying enough to live on (there have been lots of arguments about NMW not being high enough which is why tax credits where needed in the first place), and because of that some people genuinely are better off on benefits through no fault of their own, what would you do?

Lower benefits to below what is acceptable to live on? Consign families to not being able to eat, or pay their heating bills? Do you benefit bashers know that the average family on benefits is not fiddling? Is not paying for Sky, ipads or holidays? Is barely making ends meet? Do you actually understand that CHILDREN WOULD SUFFER without free school meals et al? Not because their parents are feckless but because the state pays the minimum amount needed to live on, and not a penny more. They take into account free school meals when working out the amount a family needs, they take into account council tax benefit (which will no longer be paid in full, but benefits will not go up to fund it, so thats another little push into poverty). "Freebies" are essentials, not fucking luxuries! They ensure that a child of non working parents gets a decent meal, that the poor get medical care, that they dont go to prison for a lack of money (as happens if you dont pay council tax).

Amongst all the Daily Fail style disgust and frothing, no one has actually come up with a solution that doesnt mean millions of people trying to survive on LESS than the NMW with no help whatsoever.

How on earth is that a good thing? Or doesnt it matter as long as you feel that you tax isnt being "squandered"?