to think this is akin to slave labour.

[northernsoul78]

A friend on JSA is expected to do 30 hours mandatory (voluntary) work in a charity shop for 30 hours per week and apply for at least 10 jobs per week. It wouldn't be so bad if the voluntary work wouldbe likely to lead to a job but ofcourse it won't.
Aibu

The man has been paying NI (as has pretty much every person on JSA) and is therefore entitled to JSA by dint of being a member of the statutory insurance scheme which is legally bound to pay out in circumstances of unemployment. NI contributions were always kept in a separate pot (unless Gidiot has managed to fiddle them away like he planned to do) but the key word is Insurance, which people seem to be willfully ignoring.

If you pay any other type of insurance and the provider randomly decided you had to complete an extra activity of their choice that was not in the original contract you signed, you would be furious. Say you had to work 2 full days a week for 6 months to get your £1k insurance for a car accident? You wouldn't and you'd expect the insurance provider to be prosecuted. And yet you think someone currently out of work, who has paid their insurance to cover them for this eventuality, should grovel for every penny they get. Where is the opt out for NI? In this case, the OP's friend would have been better off keeping his for himself in a separate account rather than handing it over to this gang of fraudsters.

YY, Prettyseahorses. He's paid his N.I. so its his money. He shouldn't havd to be jumping through hoops for a sweaty, what it is it around £70 pw. It's absurd.

Well said seahorses. There will still be people coming back to argue though.

No insurance pays out indefinitely Seahorses.

Does anyone actually care that these schemes make it much less likely that people will get a job. It's a triumph of the need for punitive policy over evidence based research. Every time schemes like this have been studied, they cut the number of people moving into work dramatically (in Australia as well as Northern Ireland).

There are plenty of programmes that do help people get work - though they are - unsurprisingly - far more effective in a rising labour market. At which point, of course, governments (not just conservative ones) lose all interest in the hardcore rump of long term unemployed people who still need help.

Mind you, none of this surprises me. I used to work in the field, and gave up after a few years (and different colours of governments) when I realised that policy was decided by the fashion of the moment, and research made absolutely sod all difference. Wage subsidies / workfare / minimum wage / wage controls / training schemes - what goes around comes around, and last decade's throw out becomees the latest new thing.

Well a parent with a child under 12 gets their ni paid for them so should they work for it too?
cruik your post was excellent and their was nothing offensive to my op in it.
using my sister as an example she has worked and paid Ni for maybe 36 to 37 years overall. She has no dependents so you could arguevhas paid much more into the sydtem than she has got out. So it could be argued that she has self funded her jsa. Plus 150 ish a week is way off 26k. Ok not included free prescriptions but people on low incomes snd the retired also get those benefits so again it shouldn't be lumped in with jsa.

I don't think it's akin to slave labour, but I do think that hours worked should equate to at least minimum wage - so 10 hours worked if benefit recipient is receiving £70pw.

Any work related activity should be paid at minimum wage. Trying to apply for 10 positions a day whilst working 30 hours a week and presumably also looking after a family is a bit much.

No insurance pays out indefinitely - No commercial insurance does, because they exist to maximise profit. I was insured up to the eyeballs! They soon found reasons to stop paying.

This is why we have National Insurance and National Health Services. The alternative to a collective, universal & comprehensive, insurance strategy is a society plagued by disease, crime, begging, slums and violent desperation.

Living in Britain, did you expect to see people being prosecuted for stealing food to eat?

1.There are jobs out there for people who really want to work. The jobs may not be what the person did before, or their dream job but there are jobs. For instance, There seems to be huge demand for office cleaners in many cities.
so a highly skilled worker made redundant should become an office cleaner? meaning less jobs for those unemployed with less qualifications and skills. I have a degree and years of experience in a particular field, when I was made redundant it took me 6 months to find a similar job. Sorry but I did not train for 4 years to work in a charity shop / care home or as a cleaner.I did apply for jobs in supermarkets and other places I really did not want to work but funnily enough they tended to employ people with less qualifications and skills and I was not even offered interviews. So even if it were true that there are plenty of jobs, they are not all accessible to every unemployed person.

2. There is nothing wrong with expecting a single able bodied adult to volunteer for 30 hours a week and look for jobs in exchange for them being given money by the state. Doing voluntary work for a charity is not the same as being told to do workfare in tesco (which I agree is not on) agree with PP that ,working, for a charity is fine if it equates to NMW so the hours are according to that NOT for 30 hours, this does however take away from the ethos of voluntary work, and changes the whole dynamics. No one should be forced to work or volunteer somewhere. Other than charities, if there is work to be done then it should be paid work. any of these schemes, apprenticeships etc should all pay NMW as that is deemed to be the minimum someone needs to live off.

3. There are a significant minority of people who live on benefits who have no desire to get a job and who won't work if they can possibly avoid doing so. really? are you sure? agreed there are a small number of people who for reasons such as drug / alcohol / chaotic lifestyles / mental health issues / disabilities etc that are unlikely to be employed and society has to accept this. If anyone is taking the piss then yes there should be a way of dealing with this but tbh the vast majority of unemployed people are trying to find suitable work. suitable as in something they trained to do, are qualified to do, actually want to do rather than some shitty job for the sake of it.agree that after a period of unemployment then sights have to be lowered but as I said above, it is hard for highly skilled people to walk into jobs as office cleaners and the like.

4. I think there is no reason for an able bodied adult with no dependant children to be out of work for anything other than a short time. If there are no jobs in your immediate area you need to move to where the work is - seems to work well for Eastern Europeans. ah of course, silly me, I should have left my family and DH to move somewhere for a job. that would have been easy and cheap to do! or perhaps DH should have given up his job, kids leave friends and education /jobs to come with me.

I love that qualified professionals & skilled tradespeople, having to leave their normal lives behind to bunk up in a shed with strangers and do shitwork for abysmal wages, are being held up as aspirational examples.

I believe we've already had "what about banana pickers & other bonded labourers, it works for them" as well.

Has anybody noticed we live in one of the world's wealthiest countries?

Should we be striving to improve things for all exploited people, or to exploit our own people just as badly? How does the latter make sense?

A race to the bottom is a weird choice.

Oldsu you mentioned how you know someone who did workfare at a homeless shelter.....in effect if she had had to take a day off or got ill they could have the power to get her sanctioned.....thus causing poverty and possibly homelessness .....a homeless shelter Can you not see the conflict of interest here.

Are some people really this dense!

Exactly Garlick

EcclesCakes Whilst what you say is very true, there aren't the jobs even if someone was willing to take anything - which on JSA is expected after three months. (Even the first three months requires a fairly wide job search ie. related roles not just identical to your last job).

People have no idea how bad it is - they think there's always stuff like cleaning to fall back on. Well, there isn't anymore. You might find an office cleaner job for an hour every morning and night (10-12hrs a week) but not anything remotely possible to live on/work around with a second job! People just do not realise what it's like now. Things are starkly different to pre-recession times.

You used to see signs in shop windows, or be able to ring up companies and ask about vacancies - now you just get directed to the companies website and apply for the one job within a 50mile radius along with five thousand other people.

And that's beofre we get onto zero hour contracts...

A friend, highly qualified professional, was made redundant. didn't want to sign on but had to as part of his mortgage insurance, (mortgage interest paid each month he was out of work).

Friend got several interviews for jobs. In his profession they may recall you back 3 or 4 times over a couple of months.

On signing on one day he was told as he had been out of work for 6 weeks so he would have to take a job in Mc Donald's. This would have negated his mortgage interest payments and he wouldn't have been available to go to the interviews. As it happened he was on his 3rd interview with the company where he works now but trying to explain that he wouldn't be able to start his shift at McD on a certain date as he had to go to a possible last interview for a £60k a year job was something the person behind the desk didn't seem to understand.

the only time dh signed on was way back on the late 80s, again for the very same reason friend had. To claim on the mortgage insurance.
For us it was a long drawn out process which involved my dh (who had worked for a major company thats bankruptcy was featured on the 6pm, 9pm and 10pm tv news)in being accused of bribing newsreaders to say the company had gone bankrupt so dh could claim JSA.

We got it eventually but it took 6 months.

Plus surely it's good if people on JSA don't want to work?

Seeing as we have more potential workers than jobs... isn't it better that those poor souls forced to be unemployed by the system actually don't mind too much?

Much better for them to be the sort of people who appreciate having the time (musicians, artists, carers etc) despite having to live on a pittance, than the sort of unimaginative souls who get depressed and can't cope without a job!

YY Garlick

Oliver i remember you posting about the bribing accusation before Ridiculous. That would go viral on Twitter today.

Mascara don't forget having your NIC paid for, free prescriptions, eye tests, dental work housing costs, council tax, all tax free, what's the benefit cap for a unemployed person at the mo? 26k, you could

People keep talking about housing benefit. The vast majority of single claiments without children will only be entitled to the LHA.

The are I am currently in is fairly affluent has a high proportion of high earners struggles to get funding for 'issues' as its percieved to not have much of a problem with anything really (not true it does) yet the LHA for a single person is only £65 a week.

There is also a huge shortage in every place I love and work in the UK where unemployed people just cannot get a dentist even the employed so chargeable NHS patients struggle.

Council tax remision does not cover the entire council tax unless the claiment is disabled, a normal amount for a single claiment to be getting reduced would be about £7 pw in this area.

With a total combination of everything it is possible to obtain as a healthy single claimant there is not a chance in hell it would come anywhere close to the BC

In our area those on jsa without young children under 5 were told that we have to protect those with young children so they pay no council tax but single claimants such as my sister and friend are charged £10 per week. The council had the cheek to tell them that they hsfe to pay this much to subsidise those with young children.

Plus it now costs £10 per 4 weeks to even sign on since they closed local job centre.

The area I mainly work in does not give full remision to anybody other than those with a disabled household member, parents with babies are still charged they do get some remission but no where near full

Your friend in my area would be JSA £73 HB £65 council tax remision £7

If he's healthy then no script costs,unlikely to have a dentist so no dental other than emergency clinic and opticians £65 every 2 years.

I guess they give full remission to disabled and low inome pensioners too. I saw the letter they received and it just seemed unfair.

Sorry just noticed the typo in my first message obviously I live not love.

I've been annoying my sister all day with odd text messages containing the word love clearly my phone learns

It is essentially slave labour. Slaves are typically provided with basic accommodation, food and clothes. That is what unemployment benefits are designed to cover.
If working in a charity shop is going to be mandatory, then the worker should be paid at least statutory minimum wage.

Is there any flexibility with the voluntary work - can she change to a voluntary job she is passionate about and more likely to lead to a job? If it was me I'd want to do a variety of voluntary work for different charities to try and find somewhere I really loved that also might lead to a job. I think it makes sense to be doing voluntary work but ideally should be a vol job\charity chosen by the individual so both the claimant and the charity are more likely to get a lot out of it.