To think the able bodied / mind/ non carer/ non low wage s worker on benefits, benefit population that claim benefits should contribute somehow to the community/ get the money for WORK .

[Crikeymaccrikey]

Yes this may be costly to set up such as enhanced dbs checks etc.

I feel that this would both give a purpose and a contribution. And lead to jobs possibly/ develop cv / show work ethic.

In addition , it may stop the resentment and the benefit bashing if the claimants are seen to be contributing to society.

This is not necessarily a tory notion.
Karl Marxs idea about each to ones own ability... encompasses this idea of people working together for the whole of society accordi ng to ability. A quick google implies this is actually a socilaist idea of all doing what they can . This is what i am suggesting.

And before anyone says they would be pushed into things.. maybe there could be a choice of ways to contribute ,like on a data base.

Also, I am a cleaner myself. I literally clean poo off loos. I do not feel less worthy than others . I do the job because I can no longer work in my profession , as I get older, ( burnt out nhs) and see nothing but value in my ( ? Seen as some,lowly work). It gives me structure, a decent wage, and I contribute. All good. No shame in doing a good job , whatever that job if it is in my ability.

How can this idea, properly managed be other than reasonable. ?

Dear Therese, you have now put out two threads on this in two days and you have been told why it's a stupid idea. Kindly desist and come up with some sensible proposals.

Oh wait, you're a Tory. As you were then.

"It's quite clear I meant 99 per cent of the applicants I have encountered. Otherwise I'd be stating 99 per cent of all pip applicants which is an impossibility."

Why mention 99% at all when you knew it wasn't anything like a true representation of the actual percentage of claimants - unless the intention is to mislead.

I think a simple way to implement this is to create as many useful jobs as necessary that nearly anyone can do. For example, beautifying public places. (Could be litter-picking, weeding, cleaning graffiti.) These are jobs that benefit everyone, but society currently thinks it can't afford. (The criterion should be they are jobs that would not exist if there were no unemployed to do then, they must not compete with "real" public sector employment.) If the salary is just the benefits that would have been claimed anyway, there is no cost. These special jobs might have to be exempt from minimum wage. (It's actually important that they pay less, because we don't want people to do them in preference to "real" jobs.)

You’re talking about the creation of a slave class. Forcing people to work for survival level income. People do get trapped on benefits, but how much more will they be trapped if they are picking fruit all day every day for £74 a week?

Zero hrs contracts are going now where.
They give the employer flexibility over the workforce.
They're an antidote to the min wage which is an imposed artificial price on the cost of labour. Basically, some people aren't worth the min wage.
Pareto proves this.

Society has huge problems a fragmented family unit isn't economically sound. It's not productive and is complex to manage. The monogamous family and the industrial age rose in tandem. This is now broken, asking others to share this burden is counterintuitive, rewarding anti-social behavior.

Most people have enough income to pay for their own children only.
The current model is not sustainable and people resent it.

some people aren't worth the min wage

Incredible.

Generations of families who don't want to work
This is not true. The rowntree foundation did the research and never found three generations of benefit claimants.

Precisely.

How are people supposed to look for work if they're already doing a full time job? I assume they'll be expected to pay their own fares to their 'work'place - how will they be able to afford fares to job interviews too?

If there's a job to be done, it is a 'real job' and should be remunerated as such. And these jobs do exist, anyway, and the roles have been filled - every council cleans graffiti and takes care of its green spaces.

And even if these 'jobs' did exist, of course it wouldn't be cost-free to implement the ridiculous scenario being proposed.

Most people know this, but let's not let facts get in the way of a good old benefits bashing thread eh!

betterexplained.com/articles/understanding-the-pareto-principle-the-8020-rule/

It's common knowledge. It's harsh but a truism from a quantified business perspective.
This is the issue with apprenticeships, the company has to stand the initial 12-24 months cost. Then once trained they leave.😂

Universal income is a terrible idea, look at the after-effects of the free money given away by the governments. It's seen millions disappear from the labour forces across the globe.😆

I’ve been saying this the whole way through the thread, but as always people think they’re anecdata of one proves everyone else - including the governments own figures wrong.

*their

Yes! Forced jobs for below minimum wage will do absolute wonders for social opportunities and confidence.

Quite.

Most offensive of all is the ‘but it’ll be sooo good for them!’

Not sure why MN is allowing these threads.

@Hrpuffnstuff1 the theory may be economically sound, but implementing it would be immoral and unethical. Your suggestion leads back to the workhouse. Disgusting.

It isn’t true. It’s what the unethical business barons argue to increase profit.

The whole genesis of the minimum wage was to set a basement whereby a single working person earns enough for the most basic, bare bones, frugal lifestyle. Prior to there being a minimum wage, these business barons exploited and abused workers to the point of early deaths due to over-work, starvation, and so on. The working class lived in overcrowded slums with one family to a room and often no furniture- no bed to sleep on. No more than one set of clothes to wear. Often despite working 16-20hr days they couldn’t afford enough food to survive.

The minimum wage was to reform the above and prevent such abuse of workers from continuing. So everyone is worth the minimum wage because it’s the minimum earnings it takes for one human being to live above the absolute poverty line. Now, not saying the current minimum wage achieves that, but that is its purpose. It was never meant to be a reflection of the worth of the labour, but the minimum a person should be paid to live as frugally as society considers possible to live.

Bednobsbroomsticks i have had a long career in something that meant i was in contact with many people and many institutions.
I too like you want benefits to go to people.who need them.
I totally agree with you that some people are very able fraudsters who are very skilled at.working the system.
I had a stint in the benefits fraud dept for a good while prior to nhs. I absolutely agree with you. It is so hard to witness what they do but one gets called a tory for speaking the truth. You will never convince those who just dont want to see it. They will call you.brainwashed , went they actually have no experince of what you are talking about.many many on bemefits are not like this , but to deny a group that are , based on not knowing what you know, is as blinkered as they are accusing you as being.There is a group of people who dont want to.work and use the system based on your experience and others . How do.they know that you are wrong when you see it day in day out ? They dont .

Business barons?! I have never met a business ‘baron’ but I have met lots of intelligent, ambitious people taking responsibility for themselves.
Worked to an early death? Are you referring to Victorian times? Literally centuries.
We NEED money makers, inventors and big business to pay for all of these benefits. Where exactly do you think all of the money to prop up the bloated system comes from?
Take a long hard look at Sri Lanka and tell me this how you want to end up?
And what exactly are YOU contributing?

The stupidity and absurdity of some pp is eye opening.

They will call you.brainwashed , went they actually have no experince of what you are talking about

Many people on this thread do have experience of what you're talking about. Both personal and professional experience. And they have repeatedly said that you cannot claim disability benefits without reams of evidence from consultants/other HCPs. Interesting that you choose to disregard what they say, and instead focus on the one poster whose (dubious) claims of working with benefit claimants suit your narrative.

Also interesting is that you 'did a stint in the benefits fraud dept' prior to your work in the NHS. Very odd that you haven't mentioned this already on this thread, given it's utterly relevant. Also odd is that despite this work, you have no idea how the benefit system works.

Rather like @Bednobsbroomsticks telling us that she encountered no claims for PIP before UC came in, but after it was introduced there were numerous claims (99% of which were fraudulent, let's not forget).

The reason why she didn't encounter claims for PIP prior to UC being introduced is that PIP was introduced at the same time as PIP. Doesn't matter how fraudulent a claimant is, they can't claim a benefit which doesn't exist.

You really would think that a person who worked in the benefits field would know this, wouldn't you? You really, really would.

It's almost as if neither of you have worked with benefit claimants at all, isn't it?

I'd adopt a multi-faceted approach as there is no "one size fits all" solution. People should be grouped into those who are able and willing to work, those who are able but unwilling, and those who are unable/unfit.

1. People who are able and willing to work should be given jobs that need doing - be it picking litter or fruit picking, any honest task available. They should have course get their skills matched to jobs that require them wherever possible, but this group would be obliged to take the work offered to them. If it meant travel or staying away from home, their expenses would be paid. Crucially this group would be paid an acceptable minimum wage, say £20,000 per year. They would still be paid if no work could be found for them but would have to take it when offered.
2. Those who are unwilling to work would no longer receive financial assistance but be offered free lodging in a controlled environment, a kind of secure hospital type of place. They'd get basic accommodation and food, they'd have access to a communal TV with Freeview, that type of thing. Family units wouldn't have to be split up like in the old workhouse days but they would be prevented from having more children as far as is possible. They'd be free to leave once they could satisfy the authorities that they had somewhere to live and were able to support themselves, e.g. have a job offer. They could have the opportunity to earn "pocket money" by doing menial tasks in order to earn privileges like tobacco, strong lager or Sky Sports.
3. Those who were unable to work but had someone willing to support them would be allowed to stay in the community. A degree of benefits would still be available to this group to enable them to live with friends or relatives.
4. Those who were unable to work but not able to live in the community would be housed in a similar environment to those in (2) above, but with greater freedom and privileges such as days out or being able to receive visitors.

This system would be beneficial to the whole of society and have lots of positive knock on effects. There would be a lot more social housing available as people got cleared into the housing institutions, this could be given to those who are working or be sold off privately. There would of course need to be a big building programme to construct the housing centres so would help that industry. A side benefit would be that these structures could easily be converted to prisons (and vice versa) as demand for one service grows. It would cut down on a lot of "petty" crime because people would no longer steal to feed their families now they have a legal option. Crucially those who wanted to work would be able to have an acceptable standard of living.

I did work in the fraud office.
It is true that I dont know how benefits work NOW. But what i can say is that I know fraud and work avoidance as a lifestlye exists.
I am not commenting spefically about disability benefits.
What I find difficult is denial of a person who works day to day in the benefit systems experince being denied catagorically by people who do not do her job .
And yes , she could have a bias , but its like no one will listen to her experince at all and it feels like denial of that expereince.
It sounds like she fights for people who get rejected wrongly.
How much do people who dont do her job actually know about her reality... how do you actually know . There seems to be some sweeping statemements of denial by those who I assume do not have experince of the reality of her job and seek to deny it by shouting loudly. I.would say that the truth lies in the middle.
That she sees it day in day.out and feels it is there all the time as her expeeirence suggests so, but others dont see what she sees at all and make a.mockery of her reality based on your view.

Why would anyone listen to someone who is either so jaded by job or so anti-benefits that she claimed 99% of people use fraud in their claim?

Even of you accept her back peddling to it being 99% of the claimants she’s met that use fraud, why would you take anything else someone telling such an obvious lie says at face value?

Those who are unwilling to work would no longer receive financial assistance but be offered free lodging in a controlled environment, a kind of secure hospital type of place. They'd get basic accommodation and food, they'd have access to a communal TV with Freeview, that type of thing. Family units wouldn't have to be split up like in the old workhouse days but they would be prevented from having more children as far as is possible. They'd be free to leave once they could satisfy the authorities that they had somewhere to live and were able to support themselves, e.g. have a job offer. They could have the opportunity to earn "pocket money" by doing menial tasks in order to earn privileges like tobacco, strong lager or Sky Sports.

So basically a prison then, given they’d be unable to leave.

With compulsory control of women’s contraception.

nice. Very 1800s

@Dotjones congratulations, you have just reinvented the workhouse. Be ashamed of yourself.

Nobody is denying that there is a small group of people who are dodging work. However, changing the entire system to deal with them is a sledgehammer/nut approach. It will cost more than it will save to run. It will therefore be purely punitive.

God, some people on this thread make me sick.

Yes it happened in Victorian times, but also well into the 20th century as laws regarding minimum wages did not start to be passed until the post WWII period with the Wages Councils Act of 1945. It established councils to determine minimum wages by industry- ie mining, factories, public houses.

It wasn’t until the 1990s that all these councils coming up with different minimum wages were scrapped for a national minimum wage.

We NEED money makers, inventors and big business to pay for all of these benefits. Where exactly do you think all of the money to prop up the bloated system comes from?

Huh. Out of £820bn in tax revenues, only £40bn comes from corporation taxes.
Which is the same amount they get from council tax alone….
In fact when you look at what working people pay it’s almost 10x what these money making big businesses contribute:
Income tax £198bn
VAT £151bn
Council Tax £40bn
Total: £389bn

So yeah, these big businesses CEOs and owners are barons because they’re making a ton of money for themselves. Hardly any goes back to the government.

And it’s to their financial advantage to keep wages so low they need to be topped up with benefits. The £ paid out for in work benefits far exceeds the £40bn in corporation tax they receive