To agree with workfare in principal?

[IAmMiranda]

Donning my flame retardant underwear - though note I'm not for the current scheme, but the principal is sensible.

Working for unemployment benefits makes sense to me - provided that the "wage" is fair for the hours and skills. Eg. £90 a week job sellers could equal 15 hours of charity work?

Taking into account disabilities, childcare and other responsibilities I really don't think its unfair to provide people with jobs to earn the equivalent of benefits?

I do think its wrong to line the pockets of corporations, reduce jobs for other workers etc but surely charity work is an option?

I think I've probably missed some huge glaring point but AIBU?

(NOTE: I have previously been in reciept of JSA and would happily have done 15 hours a week and had plenty of time to job search)

So how can we stop this happening? NMW legislation? Contacting MPs? Public protests?

This fortunately won't affect me, but I do know people it will, who have been forced off disability benefit. Unlike PPs who all pretend to know someone with 45 kids, 108 bedrooms (hah, sounds like the royals) and 200 inch TVs, I see and understand the real effects of the highest unemployment since the last time the tories were in government. Treating these people like criminals is criminal. Create jobs, don't line the pockets of your business mates.

The tories have forgotten that they weren't actually elected - far from it.

So how can it be stopped?

how does government create jobs?

when has a government created jobs successfully?

The public sector job and funding cuts didn't help and Gidiot must have had some inkling that the private sector could never provide enough replacement jobs. Subsequent reduced spending also affects the private sector.

Wasteoftime, Labour created a lot of public sector jobs. Then the tories came in and axed them all, so I guess it depends on how you define 'successful'. You create jobs by investing in them. A good one for us right now would be to invest in building more public sector housing and employing all the people that it takes to do so, as that is something that is definitely needed. It makes sense financially too as it will generate more money than it costs, if you look at the long-term (perpetual revenue from rents).

all those solutions involve spending lots of money now.

any other way than govts spending money?

I found filling in forms online very time consuming. Yesterday's one jumped about and was difficult to fill in so I wasted time moving lines etc. I like to think that I am reasonably competent but my IT skills are not wonderful or my home pc.

Other job seekers must find similar problems or is it just me :)

I want to work.

Well, if you want to invest in something you have to spend money. Relying on the private sector to do so is clearly not working as there are 500,000 jobs (many of which are part time, zero or short hours or self-employed delivering catalogues and the like) and 2,500,000 unemployed. So you either spend money or you accept the fact that at least 2,000,000 of those people will not be able to find jobs however many they apply for, and you don't treat them like shit because of circumstances that they have no control over and that you as a govt in cahoots with all your mates in the private sector have created.

So you can't take on a course which could enhance your chances of getting a job if it's more than 15 hours a week? No, that doesn't make sense. But it would not be acceptable that people could study fulltime AND still receive JSA. That is blatantly unfair to those people who have to work fulltime and study at night school - both my partner and I did this and it's VERY hard.

Surely, if there is a link between a part time course and working this should be allowed. How is a course funded if you are on JSA? Surely, if the course is state funded it should be acceptable with regard to JSA and if the state say it isn't they are contradicting themselves??? And most part time course are 15-20 hours.

I will never accept that people who are mentally and physically able to work but circumstances mean they have been unable to or they have chosen not to, and hence have received thousands of pounds in benefits are working for 'free' when asked to contribute to society by working in some capacity.

If someone doesn't get paid for the work they do, then they are working for free. Hth.

Well, if you want to invest in something you have to spend money.

but the way govt spends money is not an investment, it is just spending money.

if I spend £20, at the end of have nothing
if I invest £20, at the end i have £20 and some more.

social housing is not the answer, unless we can all have it.

Even though investing in social housing would bring in a return many times more than the original investment?

can you run me though some example costs where this would work. pls.

WasteofTime - so when the government spends money on a hospital and the doctors and nurses who work in it, meaning that you and I have free healthcare, that's wasteful and not an investment?

Governments can make jobs, but only if the outcome of the activity they are paying for adds value to society. So paying a nurse to treat the sick and injured is valid, making someone on JSA do something that doesn't really create any extra benefit isn't.

Ironically, the government have been turfing many, many public sector workers out of valid jobs that add benefit to society. And they then find there are lots of unemployed people, who they are proposing should work for less than the minimum wage, and some of it will be doing the jobs that were previously done at a market rate in the public sector.

Could we sack the government and then make them work for £70 a week doing their current jobs? We could call it "helping them back into work", and suspend their income if they refuse.

The whole reason the benefits bill is so high is due to lack of affordable housing. As all the council homes have been sold now families are having to rent privately and have their wages topped up to be able to pay their rent.

If someone is unemployed in a council house the rent is about £100 per week lets say (I know some are less and some are more but as a ball park figure in London) A private rent will be £250 per week - That's where your taxes are going people - to Landlords! Private Landlords! I'm not blaming the landlords, it's the system that is wrong.

A family who pays £100 per week rent would not need to claim £150 per week to pay their rent. Building social housing would dramatically reduce the benefit spend - I wonder why they can't see that?

It costs around £60-70k to build a house. If you're doing it in bulk and being creative with materials it would obviously cost less. Even if you took what I consider to be the fairly high figure of £60k, at a rate of rent of £100 pw (cheap for a family home), that would pay for itself in 11 years. After that, every penny of rent income would be in the public coffers. And that would continue for decades. Also, there is a short-term gain in employing people - Shelter reckon that for every £1 spent in this way, £3.57 is generated in the local economy (I don't pretend to understand the economics behind this but that is what they say and they are no fools).

Does the £60k include the price of buying land? My understanding is that builders allow £60 per square foot for an average spec. £60k would build a 1000 square foot house (very small). Then there would be land purchase on top.

Also, just before I go, back in 1945 when a massive council house building programme was embarked upon, our national debt was twice as high as it is now. Fast forward twenty years, and those houses provided accommodation for 1 in 5 households, consumer spending was going through the roof (so to speak) and the standard of living had increased at an exponential rate. There are massive economic and social benefits to providing cheap housing of good quality - people will have more of a budget for discretionary spending, which drives the economy, there will be more social cohesion, less crime etc. The private sector just doesn't cut it in that regard - we have tried, and all that has happened is that we now have an annual bill of £21 BILLION going out in housing benefit every year.

fluffy glad it has worked out for her in the end.

and you don't think that WW2 has any influence on that?

(lots of workers died throughout Europe thus boosting wages. lots of bombing = lots of rebuilding.....)

we don't have a labour shortage now.

If someone is unemployed in a council house the rent is about £100 per week lets say (I know some are less and some are more but as a ball park figure in London) A private rent will be £250 per week - That's where your taxes are going people - to Landlords! Private Landlords! I'm not blaming the landlords, it's the system that is wrong.

A family who pays £100 per week rent would not need to claim £150 per week to pay their rent. Building social housing would dramatically reduce the benefit spend - I wonder why they can't see that?

But the government, in building more social housing, will face much the same market forces that landlords do in the private sector. So how will the public sector be able to undercut private landlords by this margin?

SquigletPie, I think you can do some short full time courses if it's following the direction of JCP staff member. I've heard of people being put forward for 1 week courses.

I did a 6 week part-time course. The JCP adviser gave me info about it and the provider, but that was the limit of their involvement. All I had to do was turn up with ID and proof that I was in receipt of JSA to get the course for free.

But the government, in building more social housing, will face much the same market forces that landlords do in the private sector. So how will the public sector be able to undercut private landlords by this margin?

The public sector undercuts the private sector at the moment.

so how can the state built houses for significantly less than the private sector?