to ask Tory voters if they are OK with paying the wages of part time workers and UC claimants?

[ElizabetaLuknichnaTomanovskaya]

It is now very clear why UC has been brought in. DWP will be shovelling your taxes straight into the hands of big business. Their bottom line is being underwritten with your money.

"Universal Credit will also make it easier for employers to casualise their existing workforce and make it easier to cut worker’s hours in times of ‘business troughs’. DWP guidance for employers explaining Universal Credit suggests that this – along with increasing competition for jobs – is the real thinking behind the new benefit regime"

Included in this DWP guide to businesses is the following:

How does it affect my business?

Universal Credit will have a positive effect on your business as you will:
• find it easier to fill any job as more jobseekers will be willing to consider short term or
irregular work
• be able to identify opportunities for flexible working using your existing part time
employees to meet business peaks and troughs, without the overheads associated with
recruiting and training new staff
• have access to a wider pool of applicants for your jobs, many of whom are registered on
our Universal Jobmatch service, to help you fill your job vacancies quicker

Don't take my word for it, here is the guidance www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/239992/universal-credit-toolkit-quick-guide-employers.pdf

Tax credit is and always has been a huge subsidy to businesses allowing them to pay less than a living wage whilst maintaining overall effecting demand for their goods and services. This means they are subsidised twice.

But this latest scheme and the guidance to businesses sets out the agenda to appropriate both state and tax payers money directly to benefit business. Encouraging them to hire flexi hrs and zero hrs staff.

What say the swing voters, the Tory supporters and Neo-liberal apologisers?

*effective demand (must proof read )

They'll be on to say unemployed people are all lazy, unskilled, feckless and workshy and deserve whatever lot they get.

expatinscotland, is that because they won't understand that shovelling tax payers money into the pockets of businesses is actually going to result in continued gov borrowing or even higher taxes?

Im probably classed as a swing voter, but I haven't studied UC in much detail, have read the link you provided though.

I'm sure there will be problems that I haven't considered, but based on the points you posted, I think it's great.

There is a problem with people choosing not to take temporary work because they know how badly it will probably affect their tax credit claim, and because of the way people are supposed to sign on and off of JSA. If this makes it easier for people to take on temp work, then that's all good.

I have mentioned on this site before about a situation I know of where someone regularly works overtime in their job, but doesn't claim for the extra hours on a time sheet because it would mess up her WTC claim, but presumably if this works, she will be able to claim for her extra hours and the adjustment will be made without her having to worry about it. Assuming its all done correctly of course, which is where the problem is!

I also think it will be good if it makes it easier for small businesses to hire help when they need it without it being detrimental to their business. My mum had a small business that would have appreciated help at certain times, but they weren't successful enough to be able to put someone on a permanent contract.

I think people need to remember that not all business are huge multi nationals like Tesco. Small businesses need to be considered too, and helped as much as possible.

Good points, Broken.

Tory voter, business owner, still think its a good thing and not entirely sure why you would think otherwise? putting aside from all the rhetoric, handwringing and grief stricken chest banging both parties are trying to achieve the same goal "economic growth for the good of the people" but from two fundamentally different approaches:

Conservatives = support business = business growth = economic growth = larger work force = more money to spend = happy days

Labour = Public spending = more public sector jobs = more spending power = economic growth = happy days

I subscribe to believing in approach No1 that economic growth will be delivered by supporting business, in particular small and medium enterprise, UC clearly does that so bravo.

As someone who until quite recently ran a business I would have to agree with you, I can see that this is quite positive for small businesses. The problem is that this is open to exploitation from larger businesses such as tesco or sports direct.

Over the last 30 years we have had neo-liberal regulation and de-regulation, the gradual dismantling of workers rights, stagnating wages and lower growth. But we have also seen spiralling profits, financification, the emergence of the capital surplus absorption problem created by too much capital being accumulated to the top which in turn also causes huge inequality, lack of demand in the economy and rising poverty for ordinary people. We have also more crisis which are deeper and as of 2008 much longer. Appropriating, commodifying and privatising every area of life whilst stripping workers of any security and instead paying workers with government money to take any old job is a subsidy to business at the expense of workers and the state.

I agree with the idea that we should do away with any perceived or real barriers to workers taking on more hours but I don't think we should be encouraging a culture of zero hrs and casual labour.

Combine this (you call it help) I call it subsidy with massive levels of tax evasion and we have a situation where the state is literally lining the pockets of the rich with what ever money it can tax from us and borrow.

But we already have the government subsidising business in the form of tax credits. That wasn't started by the Tories, but so many people see it as a normal part of life nowadays that it will take a huge amount for it to end completely. The government has to start from the position the country was in when they came to power, they can't just scrap tax credits with nothing to replace it, it's too late for that unfortunately.

Tax evasion is a criminal offence, so a completely separate issue. Tax avoidance is another separate issue, and loopholes do need tightening, but it is perfectly legal, and not at all wrong in my mind.

Good point, no one should just take the carpet out from under the feet of workers but it seems to me the deep pile is really reserved for the wealthy share holders. Many of whom have no interest in their workers or the business apart from dividends. The fact that we have such huge wealth inequality is now effecting the demand, which in turn means slow growth or no growth.

Subsidising all businesses large and small, UK based and global will not actually benefit small businesses. Only specifically targeted help with benefit small business.

I always thought one of the GOOD things about Universal Credit was that it was meant to enable people to take part time and seasonal work without unfairly penalising them. Got the chance to earn some money, great! Benefits amended accordingly, without the whole claim being wiped.

Trying to get any work whilst on JSA was a nightmare if it wasn't permanent or full time.

YANBU to ask

And yes I am OK with it :)

Yes I am fine with it.

IMO the biggest problem with the benefit system is the signing on and off, advising of changes of circumstance.

Its rather short sighted to compare UC just with JSA the vast majority of claimants affected most by UC will be those already in work already working 16 hours or more.

Big business needs shareholders just as much as it needs it's lowest paid workers. They both have value to the company.

Saying that shareholders only care about dividends is no different to saying that the workers only care about their wages.

And so what if each of them do only care about the money that the company generates for them, people don't invest or work for nothing. Business is not there to provide for the poor, I don't understand why people think that big companies and shareholders seem to owe the world a favour. They don't.

I agree there is a big problem with wealth distribution and I don't like it, but I think it's almost inevitable in a capitalist society.

Broken.

Your friend who often works different hours is under no obligation to continuous report ( unless HB) she only has to do so at renewal time once a year.

BrokenSunglasses, There is a big problem with wealth inequality. It is the wealth inequality that creates the poverty. AS more money accumulates in fewer hands, there is less spent and less invested into productive forces. With less investment into the productive areas of the economy we find that we don't produce goods and services to meet human need and with rising poverty, even if we employed pixies on zero pay, no one can afford to pay for those goods. So no compulsion to produce, no possibly of buying products.

I do think that business owe us a living and the goods/services to meet human need. We only produce to meet the need to live, without living breathing hungry people there would be no business. Business can not survive without us.

I should add, I don't think business can survive without some sort of government investment. But the subsidies to business have gone too far. In the past governments have spent on public sector jobs, investment into R&D that would benefit private companies and of course many industries were nationalised. What is needed is a balance. Continuing to screw workers and tax payers is actually causing the huge wealth inequality.

not to mention rising national debt.

I think this is basically a very good idea, but it comes with a lot of ifs:
It will work well if:

• it is not exploited by giant corporations as mentioned above
• the taper once someone gets into a job is adjusted to take into account the very high costs of childcare and travel to work, so that people are genuinely better off working and not just on paper.
• the underlying information systems work efficiently and well to deal with the changing financial needs of a flexible workforce - under the current system, people can be left without money for far too long, and low paid workers especially struggle with this. Life is so expensive that saving becomes very very hard. The systems supporting UC need to come into play immediately when a job ends, so that the claimant is not left without income.

Given the track record of government IT projects on both sides of the political divide, the last if really is the elephant in the room.

Broken you said

There is a problem with people choosing not to take temporary work because they know how badly it will probably affect their tax credit claim

The problem with this is its similar to JSA in that if the extra hours are not permanent or guaranteed then the worker then has to ring tax credits up after the extra hours have been completed or if the employer has changed his mind about the extra hours.
Happened to a friend of mine Took 2 months for tax credits to get it straight again Meanwhile she was working and living on £70 a week.

With UC, the claimant won't have to ring DWP unless something has gone wrong, because the employer will submit the information needed through PAYE.

I appreciate that things are likely to go wrong sometimes, but as you pointed out, that happens a lot with tax credits too. I think it will be good for some of the responsibility to go to employers.

The claiment will still have to call as its still listed as a client compliance requirement the only difference is that they shouldn't have to because of hmrc real time but they still will have to.