To worry about the Tory plans after this budget

[bobbywash]

and I accept the election may derail all of this but.....

The chancellor has said an additional 30bn worth of cuts needs to be made in the next parliament for their figures to work.

Now bearing in mind the ring fenced NHS budget and the (wavering) commitment to the education budget and pensions. Where the heck are an additional 30bn of cuts going to come from.

Is there anything left to cut

Iona, are you being funny?

"(I worked with these children, so please don't say "this is a myth, never happens"; and I lived near these areas, so please don't say that the existence of these estates is a myth - I used to go on family visits to these places.) "

Yeah, and I could claim to regularly snog Johnny Depp, doesn't make it true though. However, if you believe it to be can you provide some kind of evidence? I mean actual statistics, not some rubbish from a tabloid newspaper.

I think the Tories have done a great job. I hope they don't make anymore benefit cuts as I think we are at an acceptable level now.

I do know we have the best looking economy in the G7. Look at France and compare that to here. I know where I want to be

I live on a "worst estate ever" award winning estate in s wales. I still dont know whole families that have never worked. I cant even think of one person who has never had a job.

We had this shit thread already this week, just read through that if youre feeling nostalgic for a bit of poor-hating.

Our welfare bill will remain higher than it needs to be whilst we do not prioritise getting youngsters born and brought up in the UK into a proper work ethic. If you are fit and able you go out to work whether you like the job you're doing or not. If you want a better job, study can be supported but the cycle of generation after generation in some families not working has to be broken.

Sure, there are plenty of immigrants willing to do the work if our homegrown youth are enabled to go straight from the school gates/university to unemployed status but it makes no economic sense to allow it to happen. I did a series of menial/dirty/manual labour hard work jobs in the university holidays and after I left university until I successfully got a junior starting level position in a field I was happy to work in.

If, in the long run, there is less work available, because one way or another we have forced people out of unemployment and into the world of work, then it surely follows there are less jobs to attract immigrants and having tightened ease of access to welfare funds less easy money to claim once they are here but out of work for whatever reason.

Dons flameproof suit and awaits flaming......

Jobs/benefits/"scroungers": I think they need to widen training options for people with injuries or disabilities (like me). I am lucky I do a job despite my disability... This is because its an appropriate job I am trained to do. it's not what I used to do, but its still a job in a similar field where my experience is helpful. If someone suffers and injury or a change in mobility which means their old job is no longer suitable, why can't they be trained to do something else. E.g. builder does his back in. Can he instead learn business management or accounts and work in a site office instead of the manual job? People need to support to find the right job, not just be forced to become unemployed.

Of course is you feel there are "scroungers", this would eliminate some of them too, as they'd be very unreasonable to turn down training and a decent job they are capable of.

Would however require business leaders to offer jobs!

I think if the government were serious about reducing the amount spent on benefits they would a) introduce a mass building programme of affordable and social housing to bring people out of private rentals and into homes they could pay for without housing benefit, b) regulate or even ban zero hours contracts for all but exceptional circumstances, and c) encourage - by legislation if necessary) employers to pay their staff a living wage. Both b and c would reduce the numbers of people needing to claim tax credits simply to eat and pay for utilities.

These workless generations after generations in the same family?

Would they be the ones the DWP couldn't find when the gov asked them to?

iona

Behave

Are there actual spambots that descend on these threads with the 'three generations' trope?

silver, after the past couple of weeks I'm starting to think so.

The scary thing is that these bots have also been programmed to vote.

Three generations of spambots who've never done anything but spread neocon rubbish, perhaps?

Saskia: However, if you believe it to be can you provide some kind of evidence?.
Yep. You get a job in social work/education/welfare in the NE. One that gives you access to documents relating to family history. And then you see for yourself.

I mean actual statistics.
Statistics? When I myself visited these estates every week and had access to documents detailing family history? In areas where "4 generations sharing a house" means baby is 1, mum is 15, grandma is 32 and great-grandma is not yet 50? Statistics? I don't care about statistics, Saskia, as long as there is one able-bodied able-minded person receiving benefits with jobs available in the McDo or cleaning toilets at the railway station in the area - to answer the OP's question, yes, there is something to make further cuts from.

Beyond, if you don't know a single person who's never had a job, your estate does not even come close to the ones in the North East of England.

Jasmine they'd be very unreasonable to turn down training and a decent job they are capable of.
Oh, no, it's not unreasonable. You see, if you never even got up in the morning for school beyond the age of 13 (and were always in detention, then did not go to school but since your extended family was on benefits for 3 generations, there was no point of issuing a fine either, plus the school was also relieved they did not see you because you were disruptive and a danger to others and others' education), then you can't be in any training/job that starts before 1 pm; for which you have to turn up on 3 consecutive days (meaning you can't "go out" for at least 3 nights in a row). This is called "having no work skills" and therefore it is no longer unreasonable for you to refuse training/work.

Iona, i've done hiring and firing at 'mcdo'. To think anyone can just show up and be handed a job is idiotic - most people working there are students mid-degree, or working up through the graduate program.

There are 2m unemployed, without counting disabld and carers. There are not enough toilets and mcdonalds' in the country. So then what?

IonaNE I am aware of accessing all the help available to me. I am a full time carer. Carers allowance is £61.35 per week if you are looking after someone for 35 hours a week or more. There is no overtime, there are, as stated no holidays, my respite care was cut. I look after three people with disabilities. Why am I paid less because they are related to me? I have had to retire early from a job I loved, with a good salary to be treated like a leper by a government that despises me and a public that thinks I am no more than a scrounger, thanks to the government spin on those on benefits. I don't despise anyone who votes Tory. I do despair.

I don't care about statistics, Saskia, as long as there is one able-bodied able-minded person receiving benefits with jobs available in the McDo or cleaning toilets at the railway station in the area - to answer the OP's question, yes, there is something to make further cuts from.

I guess that's the fundamental difference between what seem to be the two prevailing points of view on this thread.

One lot think that, yes, a very very very few will take advantage of any system but, seeing as them doing so impacts hardly at all on the massive majority of people, and the system benefits far more people than the number who take unfairly from it, a system is better than none.

The other lot want to point the finger at every single individual they can find who they think is fiddling or taking advantage or should work, without stopping to think about whether there might be individual and/or larger reasons as to why they're not working, and sanction not just them but everyone, to the disadvantage of a great many people.

So that's a 'no' to evidence, stats or anything other than anecdote then, is it iona?

Thought it might be.

Ha ha Iona! Yes indeed! Those that you describe are the ones that should be penalised. However many of them there are.

Re Welfare Cuts. Excuse the anecdotal nature of my post! I have worked in the support/ advice sector for 20 plus years. I often have to encourage people to claim benefits they are FULLY entitled to as they are so fearful of being labelled scroungers.
In my last job I worked with 7 "troubled" families. All relied on some kind of benefit. Only one family had 2 parents in the home. The father was studying and actively seeking work. The mum was disabled.
Of the other 6 (all single mums) - 2 mums were on back to work schemes, one did alot of voluntary work to gain experience. 1 was in so much pain through her disability she cried when she talked about how much she missed working, and 1 had preschool children, no support and mental health issues. In the final family the mum worked night shifts on minimum wage so the older children could care for the youngest and she could get home to take them to school. She still needed tax credits to make ends meet and was in debt. Her income was too high for help with rent, free school meals, free prescriptions etc.
I am seriously concerned that vulnerable people will be at risk if the welfare system continues to be cut. And as the popular press peddles stories of scroungers and cheats those who don't know any better cheer the government on.
Yes, improve training schemes and also make those schemes relevant to those who have had illness, disabilty, experienced abuse, or just no experience of work. "Help" to do a CV, being given a pep talk and a list of employment agencies doesn't really cut it. Oh, but that would actually cost money sorry.

Iona doesn't care about statistics, she's seen some people and therefore knows it to be true for millions. Mmm. Hmm.

"as long as there is one able-bodied able-minded person receiving benefits with jobs available in the McDo or cleaning toilets at the railway station in the area" - a national cuts programme is going to cost a fortune and be fuck all use. HTH.

There is. In certain areas of the country there are large estates of council houses with people who not only never had a job but their parents and grandparents never (!) had them either. Able-bodied and able-minded people who won't apply for a job in McDo because you'd have to get up every morning for that; and who have no education, not because it was not provided to them but because by age 13 they decided they would live on benefits all their life. (I worked with these children, so please don't say "this is a myth, never happens";

The Joseph Rowntree Foundation found that out of all jobless families, fewer than 1% had 2 generations that had never worked. The researchers were unable to find any 3 generation workless households. Perhaps you should contact the JRF and tell them they were wrong and direct them to these 3 generation workless households that you personally know.

I live in a village.
No macdonalds or a railway station! :)

irretating Perhaps you should contact the JRF and tell them they were wrong and direct them to these 3 generation workless households that you personally know.
And.... why exactly would I do this? Why is it important for me that the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, a leftist .... [insert your own] should know anything?

Ah baddz, youre supposed to move, remember.

The job centre will front you the removal fees and help with changing rentals, dontchaknow...