'The purpose of Welfare is to help people into work

[AnnieMaybe]

This is what David Cameron just said at the end of the BBC benefit programme

Does he not know what welfare is? Has he forgotten the ethos of where it has evolved from

Unless the recipient is old or disabled, the purpose of welfare should definitely be to get people back into work. Hopefully at some point wages can be increased so that low earners don't need benefits any more. Anyone who is healthy and aged between 18 and 60 should be in work unless they have their own means not to.

Dawn - I hadn't realised the scale of the PIP fuck up. Friend of mine applied in September last year and has only just been awarded PIP. She was almost evicted (even though LL was very understanding) and was frequently unable to buy food.

Its not going to get air time though is it?

I don't think DC has forgotten the ethos in the slightest. I actually think he's taking us back to the correct ethos. Beveridge, recognised as the architect of the Welfare State, cited 'Idleness' as one of the Great Evils. Payments were to provide a minimum standard of living but it was assumed that, given the choice, an able-bodied person of working age would always opt to work.

Starlight, plenty of people manage to do voluntary community work at the same time as doing a job that enables them to pay their own way in life.

Taking people's rubbish to the dump, doing odd handyman jobs, helping someone with paperwork and drinking in a pub (FFS!) are all things that can be done around a job quite easily. I know loads of people that do voluntary work in a variety of ways, either regularly for registered charities or for community projects or ad hoc stuff helping individuals here or there. Every single one of them has paid work apart from those that are retired or too disabled to have a regular job.

That is the most ridiculous excuse for not bothering to look for a job that I have ever heard.

The man with 7kids. Worked. Payed taxes like the rest of you who 'bust a gut' to support these people

Actually, with only a PT wage of £150 per week (we were told, topped up with benefits of £800 per week) he came nowhere near paying income tax. He and his wife also had a stinking attitude.

I very much doubt they were representative of the average benefit claimant, however. In fact I was a bit worried by the choices of the filmmakers. Some very atypical cases seem to have been picked.

truffle Child tax credits can't be abolished until employers pay a living wage.

Even if you work over 40/50 hrs a week (at min wage) it is not enough to support an ordinary family.

That is diabolical.

The mother who attended college three days per week and volunteered in childcare the other two days was much more like the benefit claimants I have known.

The programme last night featured a supervisor or manager at Brent local authority housing department telling a staff member that a client would have to move away from where he worked and it was a simple choice of 'his job or his house'. Not exactly helping people in to work then. More helping them out if it.

Beveridge, recognised as the architect of the Welfare State, cited 'Idleness' as one of the Great Evils. Payments were to provide a minimum standard of living but it was assumed that, given the choice, an able-bodied person of working age would always opt to work.

Absolutely Cog. The difficulty is that at the time the Beveridge Report was written/published, there was an economy of full employment and a social model of SAHMs.

I've been told multiple times on MN that it is OK to have a child even if you can't afford to support it yourself. Is this now not the case?

Starlight, that's cute. But how about your friend does those things either around his own job, as WooWoo suggests, or he can get a job, save, and then quit said job to do such worthy activities funded by his own bloody income. I manage to volunteer, study and work part-time. But maybe I should jack it all in and be funded by the state. So long as I'm helping old ladies and kids it's ok, isn't it?

It's almost as pathetic as the excuse 'But I've got kids and I want to spend time with them.' Yes, everybody else who has kids would like to spend more time with them, but the reality is that you have to work to support the children YOU chose to have.

Regardless fideline the OP's assertions was that DC had 'forgotten the ethos of where it evolved from'. Simply reminding the OP that the Welfare State was motivated by a strong (probably Christian) ethos that was very much anti-idleness.

I work.full time. My TC's are an important part of my income (thanks to xh walking out on me). I hate that this is the case. Me and dd live a very modest life. They are working as a safety net for me.
I wish I could earn more but until she changes school next year and gets an earrly bus I can only go for 9-5 jobs - then I have a bit more flexibility for employers 8:30 start).
I hate being reliant on them - they won't last forever and I am looking to change, but please don't think by refunding the small amount of tax I pay. And stopping tc's it will change my life for the better/keep it the same. I'd be in shit street

The cost of providing for the unemployed is a small fraction of the total cost of the welfare system ; the cost of providing for those who actively choose not to work is much smaller, and the cost of fraudulent claims is smaller than the Treasury's own error margin.

Even if all able-bodied people of working age were in work, that would still not eliminate the welfare bill because the majority of the money pays for pensions, child benefit, top-up credits for the badly-paid working poor, and allowances for people with disabilities. And remember that the government includes zero-hours contracts as work.

Of course DC is deliberately adopting this stance. He is relying on the electorate to buy into the Daily- Mail - fuelled outrage that someone might be getting something that they need but didn't hand over money for at that precise time, regardless of whether they ever have paid, or will pay, into the system. He knows full well that his target electorate won't look at the facts, and don't give any credence to the notion that a civilised society provides for those who are unable to do so themselves, for the greater good of society as a whole.

Yes, Starlight, volunteer work is nice and all but you have to fit it in around the business of making some money.

Feminine I agree that a living wage has to be in place in order to abolish the tax credits. I don't know how this perverse arrangement came to be, but the time for transparency in wages and taxes is now.

The child benefit is just ridiculous. Tax people, then give them back their money when they inevitably have children. No thanks. I'll keep my money in the first place.

'The purpose of Welfare is to help people into work

Favourite choice of words for DC, evil IDS and their cohorts!!!!

OK where are these jobs to get them into work? Many are taken up by the companies that think it is socially acceptable to use slave labour forced upon not only JSA claimants but ESA WRAG claimants as well. Once a Workfare placement ends they do not offer permanent posts, they just recruit another claimant........ how is this helping people into livable employment. If they refuse to do Workfare they are sanctioned.

The only way to get people into work is to stop zero hours contracts, pay a living age and stop Workfare!!!!!!

People need to stop the stereotyping of people on benefits it just shows their lack of empathy and in some cases their ability to actually look at situations with open minds.

I watched the program yesterday on benefits (thinking it would show the govt.'s reforms in a harsh light) and I have to say (as a taxpayer) I was in broad support of what's going on it possibly didn't go far enough

I have to confess to missing the first 15 minutes.

foslady I have no problem at all with people who work also getting benefits (though I'm uncomfortable with the State subsidising poor wages) People like you really aren't the problem.

Well Incapacity Benefit's been renamed Employment and Support Allowance.

So infer from that whether Cameron was including the disabled.

It also allows a nice confusion of ESA / JSA for people who don't know what they're talking about - ie the vast majority. I've seen it already in the press: "people on disability benefits are exempt from the welfare cap but ESA is included." Er...

I agree that the purpose of welfare is to get people into work. That doesn't mean we shouldn't support people who can't work or who can't find work. Of course we should. But we should be getting as many people as possible into work. It is by far the best way of reducing poverty.

To diaimchlo who talks about stereotyping people on benefits, I agree that happens sometimes. But there are some for whom welfare is a lifestyle choice. There are people like that in my own family. They are a minority but they give welfare claimants a bad name.

If IDS is so evil do please explain why the Labour party support his reforms. They criticise the implementation and some details but they are very much behind the general direction.

Zero hours contracts should be banned.

From Dawndonnaagain's link

Emma Cross is a senior Macmillan Cancer Support benefits adviser, and she says delays in Iain Duncan Smith's new personal independence payments (PIP) leave the sick utterly destitute. "Does anyone know how many people are struggling?"

They claimed PIP last September – and they have heard nothing since. No-one answers queries, lost in the gigantic backlog.

Until registered for PIP, which pays from £21-£134 a week, they can't claim other crucial benefits: carers allowance, severe disability premium, escape from the bedroom tax, a bus pass, taxi cards to get to hospital, or a heating grant (she feels intensely cold). With credit cards maxed out, they have no idea what they're due as PIP has tougher criteria: if this woman can just about walk more than 20 metres, she may get nothing now for mobility. Macmillan says people in this backlog are missing chemo appointments for lack of a bus fare.

I challenged Duncan Smith over the PIP backlog. He waved it away airily. Oh, it'll all be sorted by the autumn, he claimed. Nothing to worry about. That's highly unlikely – but if so, why not pay claimants the old DLA until it's fixed? Why should sick people pay the price for his maladministration? He batted away the idea with a shrug.

What I really hate that those of us receiving tax credits are now supposed to feel like we are 'on benefits'

How? My husband couldn't work any more hours ...it is manual work. Sometimes involving shifts.

At the age of 55 he has even had a promotion-with slightly better pay...still we will have to have tax credits.

The company he works for is well known, turning over millions...and they think he is 'worth' about £8 something an hour?

I do wonder if the min wage were abolished what might happen?

Feminine I think probably the prevailing view is increasingly that your husband's employer is on benefits. Everyone is fed up with that.

prh47bridge

To diaimchlo who talks about stereotyping people on benefits, I agree that happens sometimes.

I have read so many different threads on MN where the posts are nothing else but demonizing those who claim benefits, quoting such things as 'big screen TVs', 'smoking', 'drinking', 'lazy' etc IMHO they are very much in the minority, but somehow for those who choose not to look at the whole picture think it is right to stereotype all benefit claimants and on MN they are definitely not in the minority.