So Universal Credit rates are £498.89 an adult couple over the age of 25. This is meant to last them one whole month. So £250 per adult which works out at about £60 per week or just £8.57 per day.
How is someone meant to buy food, pay their bills and maintain a jobsearch at these rates?
I understand that some may think that by setting benefits at a low rate, there will be a greater incentive for recipients to return to work. This I understand and agree with to a point.
Surely though that danger of setting benefit rates too low is that it has the opposite effect. Claimants may reun the risk of getting in to debt, depression and lose the desire to maintain an active job search, along with any ambitions and aspirations they ever had.
Is met ting benefit rates too low a precursor to the increase of long term benefit claimants, simply by affording claimants less resources and willpower to maintain their job search?
After all, say if have been unemployed fir or three months. In this time, you have been so cash strapped that you haven't even been able to go to the cinema or meet an old friend, as bills and increasing debts have taken priority.
Without just a bit of enjoyment to boost morale, how less determined would a claimant be to give their job search their all as they would be if they could take their mind off of it for a bit.
For the couples payment too, I wouldn't be surprised if such a low payment to sustain two adults for a month may cause friction in the relationship, adding further restrictions to morale and job search.
Of course taxpayers money should be treated with the utmost respect.
However, is keeping benefit rates at such a low level proving more costly in the long run?
Why not add an incentive for job search for claimants? Increase UC payments by 10% for those who continually do all they can for their job search over a sustained period (say three months).
Such an increase, just form he most committed in their job search, would act as a continued incentive for the most determined to find work quicker (thus reducing long-term burdens on the taxpayers). Restricting an enhanced payment to just the most committed would also ensure that those not committed to athe or jobsearch and envisage a long-term existence on benefits find that this, beyond subsidence level, is not sustainable.
If you are doing everything you can in your jobsearch, why should you be unable to afford very basic enjoyments (even on a very occasional basis)? Why are those who put in the effort, in testing times, not differentiated from those who show no desire to come off benefits.
Perhaps in addition to sanctioning claimants who do not fulfill their commitments, the government should do more to help and reward the positive attitude to do all they can to get back to work.