The Tories and their new hoops for the working poor to jump through.

[HelenaDove]

If you are not working enough hours or cant get enough hours you will apparently be sanctioned. Unbelievable I cant see some employers being happy with this either although they should be paying a living wage in the first place. Because ppl who have been sanctioned are hardly going to be able to get to work are they?

Ridiculous and vindictive.

www.newstatesman.com/politics/2015/02/ministers-are-reaching-beyond-scroungers-and-aiming-britain-s-working-poor

I receive dla for ds and carers but he's 15 now and will be receiving pip I think in october

They certainly get off on picking on the poor dont they!. I bet when they orgasm. They don't scream their partners name. They scream. "SANCTION"!!!
If people are penalized even after they've got a job and still put under pressure. They might as well stay on the dole.

carol certainly in my area there aren't many full time positions going even in caring or retail. So many employers only offer 15 hour or zero hour contracts even though you can ask and ask for your hours to increase. People here take the part time jobs because thats often all there is. Dp was lucky, there was only one full time vacancy going in his place, the rest were all part time

both myself and dp have been there with the part time jobs, he certainly doesn't see himself as subsidising part time workers because we have both been there and can sympathise

@FurcoatNaeNicks (a twitter account ive seen) has apparently just worked out they will be three thousand a year worse off under UC doing the SAME hours.

carol

Because some people can only get 16 hours and employers don't pay a living wage. The nmw isn't enough to live on unless you haven't noticed.
Many aren't choosing only to work 16 hours, its all they can get.

I think it will hit the self employed even more and many will be forced out of work.

If people are penalized even after they've got a job and still put under pressure. They might as well stay on the dole.

Quite. Why bother working and still having to traipse to the JC and worry that your benefits will be fucked up every night before they are due to go in.

And if someone is working 30 hours a week, during business hours, how are they going to get to these work focused interviews? I am sure that employers are going to find it difficult to facilitate time off for them. Especially if they work in city A and have to travel to town B to the JC they are assigned to.

It really is demonising of the poor. It is ridiculous. Its not like an employee has a say in how many hours they can get or what their pay is.

So we are continuing to prop up businesses while penalising the poor.

Slice those employers are then going to get pissed off and start sacking people.
I wonder if thats the real motive behind this......so people will start to think of workfare as the better option.

YY. Slice.

People are desperate fir more hours. You see it with the scramble got overtime when it is offered (practically never)

If there are no jobs with more hours, then there are no interviews to go to, so no sanctions.
The key part of my post was choose
So do you all think that all benefits claimants should claim once and get paid for the rest of thier lives with never a review?

The Tories hate the poor. They have filled this entire country with hatred for the most vulnerable people in society by making everyone think all those on benefits are scroungers while turning a blind eye to tax evasion and the richest criminals. It's absolutely disgusting.

My dh is an agency worker on a zero hour contact. I'm a carer for our son. DH is always looking for other jobs but all the ones advertised are...guess what? Agency jobs. What do you suggest he does Carol? Where are all his choices? We can't afford for him to retrain so we're truly stuck.

It's also going to be very bad if you're self employed. I've been worried about this for years. You will be expected to earn at least the minimum wage- profit- for every hour you work, and that amount will be removed from your UC- so, including rent. However, if you earn more than a certain amount per month, they will dock your UC more.

Additionally, you will be required to input your earnings online monthly, rather than annually, so will have no opportunity to even it out over the course of the year, as now.

This will devastate anybody trying to start their own small business, where typically you don't make much profit in the first 2-3 years.

I'm really worrying because my profits have been inching up towards the threshold for the last couple of years, but now I'm having another baby, which is really going to set me back, business-wise. My huge fear is that I'm going to be forced to give up my business, and end up unemployed and frustrated, because I won't be able to reach the "minimum income floor" in time .

There's a petition to sign here:www.change.org/p/the-uk-government-please-abandon-your-plans-for-a-minimum-income-floor-for-self-employed-single-parents?

Obviously, it isn't only going to affect single parents; it will affect anybody trying to start a small business on a shoestring. The Tory pretence of being "pro-business" makes me sick; what they mean is that they are pro- enormous corporations, who don't want the competition from the small fry .

I'll try again- what a ridiculously long link!

www.change.org/p/the-uk-government-please-abandon-your-plans-for-a-minimum-income-floor-for-self-employed-single-parents?recruiter=46991933&utm_source=share_petition&utm_medium=facebook&utm_campaign=autopublish&utm_term=des-lg-share_petition-no_msg

Carol

They aren't reviews, you are expected to be in two places at once in some circumstances.
Please read up on it and understand why people are complaining.

In addition its isn't just a trial. The amount of money that has been spent on the system is for keeps.
It has being trialled in certain areas just for the unemployed receiving tax credits as a start. It has always been the intention to roll out across the country to include all those receiving tax credits.
I know this as my area was the first to trial with 3/4 other areas and my friend worked on the system.

clearly if someone is unable to work many hours because of a disability or because there aren't jobs then its not right to penalise them.

the problem is that there are a lot of people out there milking the system. parents who refused to work more than 16 hours despite the companies offering them more (benefits may well have changed as i no longer wait at the school gate listening to others conversations).

its these people you should be most cross with. yet no-one ever seems to criticise them

I think I'm totally screwed. I suspect I am already one of the people worse off under UC because I will lose the disability element. I can't manage that many more hours, I've already had to cut them down. Given I have to ask permission from my employer to take a second job and they are quite likely to say no, that's not really an option, and they aren't likely to give me more hours either. I could ask the NHS for a payrise but the government don't seem all that obliging.

Starting to think it might be better if I quit and went on ESA. I'm likely to be better off.

UC is being rolled out. The in-work scheme as referenced in the OP is a 3 year trial for limited people legislation that link is in the New Statesman article linked in the OP

The self-employed minimum income floor does not apply in the first year or to other groups, such as the disabled here

morethan Please link to a requirement to be in 2 places at once.

Again, I ask why full time workers should subsidse people who choose to work less hours or choose a job which pays less then the minimum wage?

What controls should be in place to prevent people making benefits a lifestyle choice?

If there are no jobs with more hours, then there are no interviews to go to, so no sanctions.

Don't be so bloody naive.

They don't care that there are no jobs. The work focused interviews are nothing more than a box ticking exercise. If the box can't be ticked the money doesn't get paid. Computer doesn't recognise "there are no jobs."

Carol, who would actually choose a job with less than minimum wage?! Really, who?

The problem with these policies is that they tar everyone with the same brush.

There are plenty of people who work as little as possible or not at all because they're lazy feckers.

But all the working parents, young people, disabled people etc. fall into the same category on paper and so by trying to target one, you target them all.

The requirement to be in two places at once is because of the job focused interviews. These tend to be nonnegotiable and at a time arranged by the job centre, often at short notice. Possibly OK if you are unemployed, aren't doing much else and don't need to find free childcare. Going to be a total pain in the arse if you have to be in work at the same time. Not going is unlikely to be an option. They will just sanction you.

You have to admit it, losing money for going to work has to be the bizarrest policy they've come up with. It's even better than sanctioning you for attending a job interview.

Again, I ask why full time workers should subsidse people who choose to work less hours or choose a job which pays less then the minimum wage?

Are you fir real?
'Choose a job that pays less than the minimum wage? Choose it? Ha ha

Working fewer hours than full time often has good reasons behind it - caring responsibilities is a major one . I knew people who would finish a nightshift and spend the morning caring fir a relative and then snatch some sleep before back to work.

I knew others (including me) who worked 18 hours - nights, weekends, evenings - because I couldn't afford childcare. There were also many people like me.

The conservative government has no idea how people live day to day. Absolutely clueless.

What controls should be in place to prevent people making benefits a lifestyle choice?

Low paid workers don't have a choice. Choices come with money. If the government don't want people claiming benefits then what they actually need to do is

1. sort out the cost of renting
2. increase wages to a living wage
3. create more jobs
4. reduce the cost of childcare

Currently the government pay lip service to all these issues without making any real policy to change them.

Because it is easier to blame the poor person, who doesn't have a choice, instead of the huge corps who are making profits from the governments policies.