JSA people should get bus passes and winter fuel allowances

[fecklessswonder]

just had to lend bil money for heating and travel as he's on JSA after loosing his job due to mental health issues and his savings have dried up after almost a year.

He thinks that many weeks he spends more on travel than JSA pay! Thank god he has a family who can help him, I feel very sorry for people that don't have someone to help out.

?The government has allowed the few at the top to siphon off all the wealth leaving the many playing musical chairs where the chairs are jobs and houses and there just ain't enough for us all to sit comfortably

This is a highly unstable situation, soon the pissed off peasants will take to the streets with pitchforks?

3 miles not far to walk to a job centre. And the sixteen miles in my area?

You've got fallingstar and dawndonna arguing about who's got it worse
No, I'm not arguing, I'm pointing out that it's a bit much to be jealous of those on benefits.

Ultimately, it is highly unlikely that anything that encourages, explicitly or otherwise, benefit claiming will be introduced by the government. Note I said 'the' not 'this': no government will want people claiming JSA over a long period of time.

Suzannewithaplan, I think the time for pitchforks has arrived! I'm hoping the run up to the general election will ignite peoples' political interest. Would love to get my pitchfork out (that sounds wrong).

It's easy for people to be jealous of people in receipt of benefits (although as I said many many of these people are also working, or ill or disabled), as they mistakenly think it's a cushy number. How bad do peoples' situations have to be that they are jealous of benefit claimants?! But rather than address why their own situations are so bad (lack of living wages, scandal of housing needs, cost of living unsustainable etc etc etc ) they vent their ire by wanting to make the people who are worse off than themselves, even worse. Its a great success of the right wing smoke and mirror policies and detracts atttention from the very few rich getting richer and - the great majority - the poor getting poorer.

How many interminable threads do we see about benefits claimants - yet very little said about tax cuts for the richest! Everyone is too busy poking sticks at David Cameron's straw man of feckless scroungers on benefits, while he and his cronies raid the tills.

It sickens me. Well anyone who wants to swap with my "free house" and my free money for sitting around on my arse is more than welcome. I'll even throw in my wheelchair and my inability to walk or even stand without pain, but it's not such a good deal now is it? And I don't even have any fucking goats or a big TV!

Christ anyone who is jealous of people like me wants to give their head a wobble. Look at the bigger picture instead of swallowing all the Daily Mail bullshit.

Just seen stella creasy from labour retweeting about the scandal of unpaid internships .

Nothing about workfare though which is much the same thing but because its ppl lower down the socio economic scale its ok then

One rule for one......

unpaid internships mean that the wealthy who can afford to work for nothing get a leg up in the jobs market.

The problem of workfare is quite different, surely?

did anyone watch these?
www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b04xw2x8/the-superrich-and-us-episode-1

www.gov.uk/government/publications/support-to-help-with-the-cost-of-transport/support-to-help-with-the-cost-of-transport

And postal signing is possible if you live miles from the Jobcentre

I think that free off peak travel for those who are income based JSA would be a good idea. i would also allow people who have newly come off income based JSA a bus pass for 1 month that covers travelling during peak times. The first month back at work is financial hell because a newly employed person has expenses, but doesn't get paid until the end of the month.

I am not against the idea of helping people on income support with the cost of heating. I am not sure that that a winter fuel allowance like the pensioners get is the best way to do it. I would give them some extra benefit if the maximum daily temperature drops below 5 degrees at the person's nearest weather station. (I realise that 5 C is very cold, but some help would be better than nothing.)

In fact I would like a system where pensioners only get money if it is actually cold (and the pensioner is resident in the UK). We have had a mild autumn/ winter in south east England this year. (Although I know other parts of the UK have had heavy snow) People on income support in scotland/ north england have bigger heating bills than people in the south east of England.

JSA for a single person is a pittance.

I'm not comfortable with the idea of children 'deserving a higher standard of living' than adults. Why can't everyone have a decent standard of living?

Childless single people (particularly if they are young) are the bottom of the pile every time. Of course children should be protected, but the gulf between the money paid to those with children and those without is massive. Far more than the cost of actually keeping those children. It's not that CB and CTC are too much, it's that JSA is too little.

It's all well and good saying a single person is more able to work, but until they can get a job, how are they supposed to survive?

But rather than address why their own situations are so bad (lack of living wages, scandal of housing needs, cost of living unsustainable etc etc etc ) they vent their ire by wanting to make the people who are worse off than themselves, even worse. Its a great success of the right wing smoke and mirror policies and detracts atttention from the very few rich getting richer and - the great majority - the poor getting poorer

Absolutely. And the not very bright fall for it - as we've seen on this thread. A race to the bottom isn't going to help anyone on low incomes, working or not.

JSA is supposed to be a temporary stop gap. The problem is that if it's too generous then there will be no moviation to find work. The problem is that many unemployed people through no fault of their own cannot find work however hard they try.

The minimum wage is not enough to live on. It is grim working and being poor.

But couldn't you make the argument, then, that if child-related benefits are too generous, then there is no incentive for family planning?

If I was a young woman with no qualifications or family support I'd be tempted to have a baby. Not because benefits give you a life of luxury but because they give you at least a bearable standard of living compared to JSA.

This sounds absolutely terrible but when I was younger and stuck in a less than minimum wage job and couldn't get a home despite being classed as homeless (was sleeping on mates sofas) I debated having a baby. I don't know what I was thinking but I thought it might have brought me some security.

Luckily I didn't, got my arse into gear and retrained and here I am now. But I just don't know what was going through my mind then. I did see girls who I went to school with doing it though so that might have been why.

there's no way to have a welfare state/benefits system/safety net/ without the risk that some will take advantage...there will always be freeriders.

It's a matter of weighing up the pro's and cons, without a safety net some people will fall into absolute poverty and destitution...once you get too far down it can be impossible to get back up again.
It is harmful to society at large to have people destitute, not to mention unacceptable in a wealthy society where there is enough to go round if only we could stop the rich from hoarding

I was thinking about this last night.

Like minimum wage. We could increase it, and I do agree it should be, but if it was the whole cost of living would surely raise anyway? The more money the people have the more businesses feel they can charge.

And then there'd be people who have been on higher than MW, who are then on the same as minimum wage - this was a bone of contention with me in an old job, I'd earned a small pay rise after an appraisal but following the minimum wage rise a few months later I was the same as everyone else. I don't begrudge other people having more money, but it hardly seemed fair.

And with JSA, yes it isn't a lot but along with that you get more help with housing benefit and other costs.

Where I am, the nearest job centre is 14 miles away or 17 miles away, in the only two towns where you have half a chance of finding a job without travelling for hours. Our library is only open 6 hours a week and has limited computer access.

Without a free bus pass, anyone from our village who is unfortunate enough to be out of work, would find it bloody impossible to sign on, look for jobs and apply for them, it would not be anywhere near affordable. There are also other services in one of the towns to help with developing new skills and finding work, none of which would be accessible to people where I live if they didn't receive help with travel. I say this as someone who has worked steadily since the age of 13, and at 25 has never had to sign on. I don't see why benefits claimants are demonised so much- surely a free bus pass for a few months that results in someone being employed, is a thousand times better than them only travelling once a week to sign on, then sitting twiddling their thumbs for the rest of the week because they can't actually afford to travel the rest of the week to go and type up a CV to hand out etc.

I think people on JSA can have warm home discount, though I'm not sure how much help this is since they don't seem to release the payment till March, when you stop needing extra heating [hmmm] so it doesn't help when you're skint but can't turn the heating up incase it eats the last of your leckie.

'I don't begrudge other people having more money, but it hardly seemed fair.

And with JSA, yes it isn't a lot but along with that you get more help with housing benefit and other costs.'

You were free to approach your employers and ask for a raise.

No, you don't get help with HB and 'other costs'. You just get the HB and discount on Council Tax and free prescriptions (they are all free in Scotland). All 'other costs' you pay out of your £72/week. Water, leccy, food, gas, transport to wherever if you cannot walk or cycle, clothes, etc.

LHA's are set low and if your abode costs more, you pay the rest out of that £72.

And I did, but didn't get one. 'you've only just had one' . I don't think I could expect businesses to raise people's wages when NMW ups - but doesn't make it fair either way. And like I said, cost of living would just rise anyway so then everyone is in the same situation as when it started.

yes I'm well aware of that expact as I lived on it myself. I was probably lazy saying costs and it made it sound that there was more. Although only thing I would add to that is dental and I got a bus pass. My main point was the main cost that anyone has in their life is rent or mortgage, that is sorted with JSA.

redbutton I honestly think they should do the job centre things via Skype. It would save everyone time and money.

I know people will then say about having internet and a computer, but on the Universal Credit you basically have to log onto the website and document everything you do. They very very begrudging accepted a paper account and then tell you you must go to the library or other free service.

'My main point was the main cost that anyone has in their life is rent or mortgage, that is sorted with JSA.'

Mortgage isn't. Not for weeks and then interest-only. And again, anything above LHA, which is low and you pay that out of the JSA. No bus pass, either.

Sorry I didn't mean mortgage is sorted I wrote that wrong. Oh ignore me please expat I really can't form a coherent post at the moment. I'll come back to it