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?

Always humiilation and punishment with goady fuckers like ButtercupMeg. The type that's happy to dole it out but not take it. Besides, there's plenty of people out there who'd pay handsomely for such humiliation and here you are giving it away for free. Your talents are wasted, Butters.

You can go to the supermarket to do your laundry!

Seriously? Ive never seen that

Had a big debate recently about Internet as a luxury. Yes it IS a luxury but it's an increasingly essential one for many families...especially if you have children who need to do homework. For many schools this is now all done online and uploaded to a diary.
I am fortunate as we have a library in our town which is a 10 minute drive...thankfully I think the powers that be have forgotten it is there.
So if I did ge up the Internet we could access it at a library however it still costs petrol to get there or bus fares. Or yes we could walk at a push although that would be pretty difficult with DS who even as a 13 yr old is apt to lie on the pavement if an emergency vehicle with sirens goes by. (DS is autistic).

Food vouchers? Yep...anyone who thinks they are a great idea should have to live on them for a minimum of six months. Get used to giving them over at a supermarket where it marks you out as different...one of those on benefits" ...or as many would have you believe "a scrounger".

See if you still think it's a good idea then.

But that's just it buttercup, if you're on benefits you can't afford to buy them all at the supermarket. You shop around, not to also buy luxuries/ non essentials, but just to buy the basic necessities for survival.

Thing is Buttercup, having worked for 30 years I have got pretty used to paying my own gas and electric bills. Why on earth as a Carer would I now want the Govt to take that responsibility over? Talk about "Nanny state".

Helena made a good point there, Buttercup. Why in hell should taxpayers money be used to pay for your spawns' education, nursery, etc? All those play parks taking up land that could be built on, eh? Waste of my money! These scroungers going round having kids and getting child benefit. Breeding is a lifestyle choice, why should I have to fund them? I didn't have kids, do I get a refund?

^^ Same line of argument. How do you like it?

Internet can no longer be regarded as a luxury. JSA claimants are required to apply for a certain no. of jobs / week online through the DWP website and UC claimants are expected to manage their whole claim online. Libraries do not have the capacity to cope and more are closing all the time.

I can easily imagine claimants having no electricity to charge their phone and therefore no internet access to pay for their electricity. They will be fucked. Not only will they have no fuel or ability to buy groceries, they'll be sanctioned for failing to apply for jobs.

I can also imagine claimants being sent on workfare to the supermarket and then having to spend their sub-human toy-money in the same shop.

The whole thing stinks. Clearly the main aim is lucrative contracts for chums but there will be the added incentive of appearing 'tough' on 'scroungers', shaming and ultimately sanctioning people for their choices.

Nectar know exactly what I buy every week from the supermarket but it's voluntary. This pilot is voluntary at the moment but it won't be for long if it's shown to be 'effective'.

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

Buttercup, my nearest library is 15 miles away (rural) because the local one has closed. It's 6.45 for a return ticket and 50 pence for 30 minutes of internet access.

There would definitely be a black market in operation so people could get their hands on regular £. Some might want it for drugs or fags, yes, (& tbh I'd argue that's their business anyway), others might want it so they can go to the charity shop. The benefit "money" wouldn't be worth much though so people on bemefits would in real terms be much poorer. That would lead to more crime, more begging, more people doing cash in hand work or illegal "work" like drug dealing... and even if people don't give a shit about people on benefits surely they can see these issues would affect all of us?

And all the people saying there is work if you want it... really? I saw an article in my local press saying a shop had over 500 applications for one part time customer service assistant job.

I have worked in a job where I supported people with a particular issue (won't say what cos it's identifying). Most of them were on benefits and a lot, especially those in their 20s and 30s, had never worked. Almost all of them, imho, had unrecognised learning disabilities and/or had experienced continual trauma when growing up. They need support and compassion, not being kicked when they're already down and having the small amount of respect and autonomy you get as a benefit claimant removed.

Would all those saying they agree with this idea still agree with it if tomorrow thy had to switch places with someone on JSA?

Imassume that after Brexit, when all Eastern Europeans stealing British jobs there will be no unemployment in Britain anymore so why worry? And Theresa is very sympathetic to the needs of the poor British anyway.

Yes the internet is free in libraries, but only for 30 mins. 30 mins a day does not equal 35 hours a week I am expected to look for work.

This whole thing scares me.

A couple of people have said on this thread that it wont come in because UC has taken so long and PIP was introduced years ago, but not rolled out. I know someone who is in the process of moving over to PIP and if I had been made redundant a week earlier we could have claimed IS instead of UC that we now have to claim so they are still being rolled out as (I assume) this will be too.

And for any "well get a job then" and "Why should I pay for you to not work" attitudes have a go at me. I have worked and paid in, right now I am (trying - it takes weeks for UC to come through) getting some back. But the real incentive for me is not the having to go to the job centre once a week or use the incredibly awful jobcentre website to look for jobs, but the fact that I hate not working. I hate not having a reason to get up, to get showered, to get dressed. From what I am aware I believe this is to be the attitude of most people on JSA and we are not at all like channel 5 and the Daily Mirror have you believe.

This is a terrifying thing to think of coming in and even though I hope it doesnt come in. I genuinely think it will. Its all in the governments plan to push the rich and poor farther apart. Make the rich richer and the poor poorer.

You might want to put an irony alert on that comment, Clandestino...

Well, sarcasm aside I don't get why so many people were so eager to get out of an organisation that actually worked to defend ordinary people.
If you want to see what's in plan for Britain, just take let's say the last two years' editions of Daily Mail and make a statistics of the most mentioned topics.

• gentrification of Britain
• return to the strong class divide
• all Hail the Queen and don't forget to curtsey when you see a member of the Royal family, they are your supreme rulers, remember
• get rid of the NHS, it kills people
• privatisation of the healthcare
• reduction of social welfare and return to the system of the deserving poor
• only foreigners really welcome are the Russian and oil-countries billionaires and they can do whatever they want because they bring money
• no dignity for those who in the eyes of the ruling class avoid work

Buttercup a single person on £73 per week is even priced out of supermarkets for clothing. The only clothes my sister buys are from the charity shop where she volunteers. Anyone thinking this is a good idea should trial it living off £73 or whatever jsa is and see what it is really like.

The only possible benefit I can see in food vouchers or similar is if they are given as an "extra" in certain circumstances. For example if there is a delay in benefit payments for some reason. Someone I know recieved a voucher through the local work programme* (these vary wildly according to provider) when his job start was delayed, just to help tide him over.

I'm also vaguely aware, but don't know the details, of the vouchers given to asylum seekers. Heard about it a few years ago so not sure of the present situation. Apparently, round here at least, they were being given M&S vouchers! (at a significantly lower rate than JSA). I am aware than people were buying the vouchers, so that the person/family could shop around in cheaper places and get more for the money. It just seems so ill-thought out to give vouchers which don't go far in the expensive shop they are for! I suspect it is actually very well thought out though...

I normally woudn't wish experience of the benefit system on anybody, but a few posters here are making me appeal to karma...!

*Doesn't "The Work Programme" sound sinister?

Clandestino all Hail the Queen and don't forget to curtsey when you see a member of the Royal family, they are your supreme rulers, remember

What baffles and frightens me about this is that people are lapping it up. And getting all nostalgic for times past when people "knew their place".

YY Turning. Downton Abbey syndrome.

Sorry, haven't read the entire thread yet, just wanted to mention that this will have a serious impact on independent businesses.

Here in Mexico, they introduced a card for old people that they could only used in supermarkets and it has had a major effect on the use of local markets.

It's a dreadful, demeaning idea. I expect this would only be a starting point, and they've chosen the unemployed to test it out on because they're an easily controlled target They can then roll it out for "convenience" and "a deeper and more effective relationship between the government and claimants" (i.e. state monitoring). Gradually of course, so we don't notice what's happening. It could replace our currency and others, and be used to dictate people's spending as if it was government controlled, someone's money could be "switched off" at any time. If someone wants to "support their financial management" they can read a book or buy an independent app. Why would you opt to let the government do it?

*this will have a serious impact on independent businesses.

Here in Mexico, they introduced a card for old people that they could only used in supermarkets and it has had a major effect on the use of local markets.*

They do allow people in some US states to use WIC in farmers' markets but the vendors have to be set up to take them. It took them quite some time to get this sorted out too. And farmers' markets are fairly middle class with often more organic/artisan produce (though some do have cheap seasonal glut products like tomatoes or apples).

I just really dislike the idea of dictating what people but. It feels like saying 'You can't have that because you are poor and it is too nice for you.'

In the US in some parts they have a kind of food stamps debit card that only certain stores take. They get a list of what they can buy I.e. It's not 'cheese' but a specific branded cheese in a specific size. They aren't allowed junk food/alcohol/cigarettes. But that is their income.

The system itself can be onerous with the shop assistant having to check each item is covered, and apparently lots of people shout abuse when the card is shown.

I can't think of anything more dehumanising.

This seems like an uncomfortable shift to an Orwell-Esque way of governing.
I am incredibly lucky to have never been in a position where I have needed to receive benefits. However, people claim them for a wide variety of reasons; and ultimately it is not for the government, or anybody else, to dictate to people what they may or may not spend their money on regardless of whether or not they agree with their choices.

I was an earner, worked all my life. Shit ex husband left and i found myself in the benefits system. Some of you im sure judged me. I worked 16 hours and had tax credits and housing benefit. We went on holidays, nice tidy clothes, hair cuts nails done ect. I even managed to keep my 4x4.
What you dont see is that i shopped in charity shops and ebay, copied you tube videos to learn to do my nails and hair and would live off beans on toast so my boys continued to do clubs, trips ect. In this system you would of snatched my chance to shop wisely and make decisions that improved my boys lives and helped them keep a norm through a difficult time. My only "crime" was marrying a man who was shit. I hope it never happens to you. It easily can.

I am now married to a wonderful man who is a very high earner paying top threshold tax. He wouldnt begrudge anyone who needs it a penny. We have enough. He saw how i struggled and my children never realised. We are nothing if we dont help each other. When did we become so selfish as a society

It makes me so sad people say it's okay for certain groups to have this system i.e. unemployed, without realising every group will be impacted. If they bring something like this in, everyone will be included pretty soon.

As someone who is likely to never be able to work again (I'd hope for a cure for my degenerative condition, but with absolutely no research going on, I doubt that will happen) it will impact disabled people and carers too.

I do the vast majority of my shopping online - as I can't get out the house easily. So obviously I have the internet - a way of keeping in touch with everyone I know, and so much more. I also have the audacity to have a hobby in a niche area. It helps keep me going, gives me an outlet of creativity.

Yet there are so many who think people like me should have the absolute minimum provided, and no more.