AIBU to be worried - Reintroducing the Truck System for the unemployed in the UK

[nickymanchester]

It has been reported that the UK government is starting a small trial in Manchester to pay (what I presume is) Job Seekers Allowance to people in a brand new blockchain currency called "GovCoin" - similar to BitCoin.

And that what this "money" is spent on will be tracked by the government - initially, the tracking will be on a "voluntary" basis.

So instead of actually paying real money in to a person's bank account they will now provide them with a crypto-currency on their mobile phone which can only be used in certain retailers and where the government will be tracking what the money is spent on. I can well imagine where this will lead.

One of the main backers of this is Lord Hunt, who is the Minister for "Welfare Reform" - boy does that phrase ever put the fear of god into me. As an aside, Lord Hunt was the government minister who, in 2014, said that disabled people were "not worth" the minimum wage. He is also the person behind the move to Universal Credit that, while it may have very laudable aims in theory, in practice it has been a nightmare for many of the people on the receiving end of it.

This is a quote from one of the sources:-

GovCoin Systems tests blockchain-based platform for social welfare payments in UK

Speaking at the Payments Innovation Conference 2016 on 4 July, Minister for Welfare Reform at the Department for Work and Pensions Lord Freud highlighted the ongoing trial saying:

We have been working with GovCoin Systems (and their partners, Barclays, RWE npower and University College London) for this trial. Claimants are using an app on their phones through which they are receiving and spending their benefit payments. With their consent, their transactions are being recorded on a distributed ledger to support their financial management.

Jeremy Wilson, Vice Chairman, Corporate Banking at Barclays, explained that the initiative focuses on adding an additional layer of richer data and identity onto payments, so that a deeper and more effective relationship can be established between the government and claimants.

www.econotimes.com/GovCoin-Sy...s-in-UK-233316

There are many other sites reporting this as well which you can find through googling them, for example:-

www.cityam.com/245128/governm...ain-technology

www.fstech.co.uk/fst/GovCoin_...ents_Trial.php

So why the title of this post and why my concern? Well, at school, one of the A levels I studied was history and a major part of that was the Economic & Social History of Britain in the 18th and 19th Centuries (the other part was Britain and Her Relations with the World 1914-1945, not that anyone's interested). Anyway, the Truck System was an infamous form of payments that became widespread in the UK and led to a great deal of abuse.

While, currently, these are just trials that are happening at the moment, I really do see the awful potential to become a fully fledged Truck System where the state monitors exactly what unemployed people are spending their money on, where they spend it and eventually will be able to control these things. This bit is really scary:-

so that a deeper and more effective relationship can be established between the government and claimants.

AIBU to worry about where this might lead or is it just an example of how new technologies can help young unemployed people so that they don't have to worry about pesky little things like actual having some cash in their hand but have to have pay for a mobile phone in order to access their benefits?

Garnered from the pages of the Daily Fail, Tiny !

What worries me is that constraining people to the point of monitoring their every move is going to create a pressure cooker of tension potentially leading to more social unrest. Higher crime rates and greater potential for violence, creating more pressure on policing and health care resources. Not to mention the potential suicide rate increase from mental health issues.

This could have wider social implications that could create other pressure points.

But I think it will be a strong possibility based on the reasons I've previously said.

I despair, I really do. This is a fucking awful idea and tars everyone needing to claim with the same brush. There may be a very small minority of benefits claimants who have no intention of working most of whom are likely to have mental health / drug / alcohol issues and should be supported better. However the majority are people who would much rather go to work in a decent job than face the sneery, punitive system we have in place where everyone is treated as if they are this minority. I had a well paid job, was made redundant claimed JSA for 6 months as I was entitled to the contributary allowance. I felt like a criminal, and made to understand that despite my qualifications and skills I should be grateful to take a job in a care home that I had zero skills for rather than wait for a better paid job that I could do to come up. I manage my money very well thanks and no way would I agree to such a scheme. patronising in the widest sense.

don't know where on earth you get that from.

frankly? looking around me, people I actually know (yes, including some family related ones I am embarrassed to say). I hear a lot about hardships and everything, but the people I meet and situation I witness are totally different.

The benefit system in this country is highly generous! Free accommodation, free healthcare, free education, food and bills, and a lot more. How is that not generous?!

Yeah, I'm loaded with my freebies shark my free 65 quid a week.
Where is the free accommodation? I'd like to try that. Where is the free food and the free bills?
You're talking absolute nonsense now and you're just making yourself look a little silly.

Shark you clearly have no real knowledge of the benefit system. The points you make are absolute nonsense. Unless you have intimate knowledge of others financial circumstances I'd suggest you're in no position to comment.

"(ignoring the fact that the salary would cover the costs of an aupair, but fair enough)"

Does it also cover enough for the person to move house so that they could have a spare room for the au pair to live in?

And that's without even considering the fact that au pairs are not meant to be treated as cut-price nannies. Most agencies will have rules about what is or isn't allowed with regards to childcare. Few would allow an au pair to be in sole charge of young children every weekend and/or every night.

Free education? Free healthcare? Okay, I want to make sure my taxes don't pay for you and your kids to access these. Who the fuck do people think they are to expect to be able to control what people do with money they receive from a National Insurance scheme designed to provide money when they are unemployed or ill, into which claimants have almost invariably paid.

As for all the plaudits to Dawndonna (Dawndonna, no offence :) you deserve them all), what if she was a horrible person? Rude, unpleasant, maybe not pretty? There seems to be some kind of moral condition applied to social security entitlement by very unpleasant and ignorant people. If she wasn't the paragon of virtue that I am convinced she is :) would that mean she should just be left to starve in the gutter? The beauty of the welfare system is that no matter who you are or what you are like, we will look after you because you are a human being. It is not chaity to be doled out if the giver sees fit - it is pooled money that is, thankfully, controlled fairly not by vile prejudices. Let's face it, if being a 'good' and virtuous person was necessary to receive money, some people on this thread would be in the old deepshit.

AllThePretty

It's fucking disgusting.

My dh is on DLA (still waiting for PIP) and he would love to work, he feels like shit because he can't work. You should hear how he talks about himself, he is such a wonderful kindhearted man but his self-esteem is zero, all because he feels like a failure for not being able to help support us.

Sadly he doesn't have support to get a job, he no longer has a psych for his very serious mental illness because services have been cut. There is no one professional to help him get back into work. Oh and his 4 sessions for CBT for severe social anxiety don't really cut it.

And now some people want people like him to suffer more than they already does? What, he has no right to a bottle of wine? He doesn't deserve to spend his money on what he likes because he was unfortunate enough to develop a severe mental health illness and then lose his psych, his CPN and every other support that he once had?

Because that is what will happen. JSA one day, tax credits, PIP/DLA, carers the next.

I really hate this country lately. Dehumanise the poor, dehumanise the disabled and those that care for them. I was once proud to live in the UK, now I'm pretty bloody ashamed of our country.

People voted for this scum?

"(ignoring the fact that the salary would cover the costs of an aupair, but fair enough)"

An au pair is meant to work no more than 25-30 hours per 5 day week, normally Monday-Friday, but can be at weekends. So, not enough to cover a full time job. An au pair is also not meant to normally have sole care of under twos. An au pair is also meant to mostly work during the day and have evenings off – they are permitted to babysit for up to two evenings per week, one of which can be at the weekend, but not every Saturday.

So. Um. Not actually much good at all for covering weekend shifts and night work. Because that’s not what they are meant to be doing.

Ahh shit, post has arrived, in with it a large form from Belfast!

so the reasons why all night shifts jobs or jobs including weekends are only accepted by foreigners is because job seekers are exclusively single parent?

Good grief, if you are looking for excuses you will always find one, and here you are. I didn't say the job was perfect for a single parent with a newborn, but other people manage to earn a living without any financial help. My point was that there are a lot of jobs for which we can't find candidates in this country, stop saying there are no jobs because it's simply not true.

Where are the free accommodation, bills, food, education etc? Well, if you take money from the state as opposed to being paid for a job, then it is free money? What exactly are you contributing? (you do get free fruits when you are pregnant, didn't you know?). If you can buy luxury and holidays from benefits , when full time working tax payer cannot afford the same, then you are being given far too much. More disposable income whilst on benefit than others who are not? Are you for real?

Before you twist my words even more, I repeat: the system needs a complete overhaul, some benefits claimants received far too much, whilst others nowhere near enough.

What exactly are you contributing?
You tell me.

shark

dawn has said about a bazillion times that she is a full time carer

She saves the state shedloads....thats her contribution

shark you're entitled to hold a differing opinion, but when you clearly demonstrate you haven't got the faintest clue about the benefit system don't be suprised when everyone dismisses your opinion as the bull it is.

shark The benefit system in this country is highly generous!

Haha. Living on £73.10 a week is generous? £57.90 for under 25's?

Free accommodation,

Nope. Housing benefit at the rate to pay for the cheapest 30% of the property type deemed suitable for your family size. For under 35's this is a room in a shared house. The cheapest 30% of rooms.

In some areas the percentage of HB claimants is greater than 30%. So even if all the claimants actually lived in the cheapest housing, some would still have a shortfall to be met out of their JSA.

free healthcare, free education,

I was unaware the NHS existed solely for the unemployed. Ditto education.

And it is not free, as you know really.

food and bills, and a lot more.

I refer you back to the £73.10.

Not sure what you mean by "a lot more"?

How is that not generous?!

Because we have a system that includes structural unemployment. There are less jobs than people needing jobs. Someone has to be unemployed. Everyone in the country could be eager, healthy, qualified up to the hilt, but there would still be unemployed people. It's inhumane to punish them for this.

people do what they have to do....when my children were young i worked nights and my husband worked days....then my husband was made redundant and couldnt claim any support because i was working (work that out paid NI but wasnt entitled apparently) anyway within 2 weeks he had another job...all good...only it was 200 miles away..he was leaving at 4 am on a monday and returning late on friday or saturday if he did overtime...i was still working nights....i had my sister/mother/whatever family relative or friend mind my children overnight.....i survived on minimal sleep...i was doing 12 hour night shift, picking children up taking them to school and looking after the baby during the day(slept when she slept) the going back to work that night, i was practically a single parent.....there was no tax credits then, no child care vouchers, but WE had to support our family, WE chose to have them, WE are responsible for them.....we didnt have a council property, we paid a mortgage....its been made too easy nowadays to get benefits....it definately needs toughening up.....im not talking about the disabled, the sick, they deserve every penny they get......the bone idle 'i cant work' with a myriad of excuses , the single mums (who often are not single cos they have many many kids) who abuse the system, etc etc.....it is hard....having a family is hard....no one ever said life was easy but its also not an excuse/get out clause for being able to claim benefits for life .....which seems to be the norm nowadays....people who deliberately abuse the system need to be put on this scheme.....the long term unemployed/unemployable.....and dont think i have it in for single parents cos ive been there myself and i still worked....it can be done!

Free prescriptions and opticians, discounts to things for kids at school like instrument hire if doing music lessons, free school meals.

Sure it must be better to be in paid work in the long run though

What about the kind of person who really wants a job but cannot get one because he or she quite frankly looks a bit odd, comes across as a bit quirky and would be every employer's last choice? I knew someone like that once. It wasn't that he didn't try to get work, it wasn't that he didn't try to retrain (he did, repeatedly); it was simply that every time it was a choice between him and somebody else, the employer went for the other person. Nobody in their senses would choose him in a customer-facing role and (given his lack of physical strength) nobody in their senses would choose him to do manual labour. To sum up- he kept trying and nobody chose him. How much punishing does such a person deserve?

The argument "but foreigners manage" rather ignores the fact that the foreigners who come over here and find work are the ones who are fit and healthy, often highly skilled, and not required to be single carers for young children. They are the ones who can get away and start a new life. The others stay in their own country- and struggle there.

There are Brits working in Germany and Poland and Sweden. But they are not the ones who persistently fail to find work here.

Ooh shark, where's my free house, food and bills....do tell?

Maybe I've misunderstood but to me it sounds like the government is doing proper research into what the money is spent on. Using these stats they can surely make informed decisions rather than relying on the daily mail for facts.
A good friend of mine is a head teacher for a primary in a deprived area. She has referred various parents to food banks but she said that only in a handful of occasions was it not self inflicted poverty. Her most recent family couldn't feed their dc but had a very expensive new tattoo. I know that sounds like a dm story but the mother admitted it. She said she was entitled to pamper herself. Couldn't see what she'd done wrong at all. Do I think she is evil? No I just think she's been influenced by those around her and made bad choices. Maybe, just maybe, positive things will come from trials. Better education available re budgeting for a start.

corythatwas - I know a girl like that. Lovely, but she had various MH issues when she was younger and has awful self harm scars. She’s cripplingly shy as well, and while she’s great when you get to know her, she has said she can’t get through an interview without stuttering or freezing up. She’s no good in call centres – she’s been fired from several for not being clear on the phones. She’s not exactly strong or resilient and who wants a 5’2” tall lass shifting crates in a warehouse. She has tried various retail jobs, but with scar tissue all over her arms and neck, that often doesn’t go well. She would be fine in an office job, but no one lets her get past interview.

She now makes a living working from home, which is great, but she’s really struggled for long periods of time and only really survived because she was able to bounce from family to boyfriend, back to family. Now she works from home, and also claims housing benefit, because she doesn’t earn quite enough. I’m sure she’ll get caught up by the new cuts soon and harassed into applying for jobs she’s just never going to get. God knows what the point is of bullying her, because it isn’t lack of willing that means she can’t get a job. She just isn’t someone who fits well into most workplaces.

One of my friends is currently doing research papers on cryptocurrencies. One of the biggest potential innovations would be having several tiers of currency that can be used for different forms of purchases, e.g. class 1 would be for basics such as food and bills, class 2 for investment grade assets, class 3 for depreciating assets, class 4 commodities etc.

The idea is you could limit inflation in different classes of asset and increase or decrease the money supply as required to maintain work incentive without starving half the population, and then you have exchange rates between the different classes to allow money to move between them. If you wanted to increase industrial production if you increased the value of class 3 while changing the exchange rate between the classes then everyone would go out and buy a new car/TV without actually creating inflation on things like food or houses etc.

The other application would actually be class 1 could be paid out as a basic income and by adjusting the exchange rate you could stop it causing inflation in things like houses/cars etc.

At the end of the day money is a tool that we use to give people incentive to work and exchange between one another. If that tool can he harnessed to distribute the gains more evenly then more the better! The current system of money will always cause inequality due to the inherent link between production/assets and income with no ability to control the links between them.