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. ?

Like you I clean loos for a living currently. I don’t mind it’s an easy enough job.

There are loads of jobs near me c. Min/ living wage. Not a lot of applicants these are jobs that’s be filled by Eastern Europeans before brexit. Hospitality, fruit picking, council gardening jobs.

Long days and a bit boring mostly. Probably quite hard physically. I don’t know how much better off you are working sometimes. I do claim UC and work myself though.

Childcare costs, commuting costs, the taper rate, increased council tax. The fear that if you lose a job then you’ll be sanctioned is pretty off putting.

I used to do housekeeping in a hotel and had thought about keeping it going 1-2 days a week when the kids are in school. Reality is by the time I’d paid tax, petrol, had award reduced by taper rate I’d be about 1.50 an hour better off and knackered. Better to do money saving stuff at home. Mainly I collect free wood and chainsaw into rounds for winter which should hopefully help in the colder months. Other little jobs like wash car, windows, clean gutters that I might pay to get done if I had less time.

I think what would help people ease back into work would be to give everyone a work allowance and encouraging low hours contracts. 10- 16 hours a week so that they can earn up around the work allowance before taper rate kicks in. That way you feel the benefit of working and your hourly net gain is decent.

YABVVU

Don't have someone do a job for free to get benefit... give them a proper job and a living wage.
You said yourself that you are a cleaner. How would you feel if you were made redundant and people on benefits were doing your job for free instead?

Can we also do away with this notion that you are only contributing to society if you are in paid employment. People are so much more than their job title.

I'm not sure you understand how knackering being disabled can be.

Stephen Hawking is often used as an example by people like you. 'If Stephen Hawking can do what he did, there's no excuse', that kind of bollocks.

SH had the best support money can buy. Everyone's disabilities affect them differently. Not everyone is Stephen Hawking.

Once you set the precedent that the bedbound should earn a living, it soon becomes a given that everyone who is bedbound must, otherwise they're scrounging workshy layabouts. I'm not happy with that prospect. Are you?

I didn’t really understand your question so I’ve interpreted what I think you meant based on the answers given. I don’t think it’s a great idea and, if I were a benefit claimant who wanted to work, what’s the incentive to do the same job as someone else but only receive my benefits payments when I could receive a salary? I don’t get it.

"People like me"?

There is a huge difference between could/ should/ must. My point was that we currently don't have the infrastructure to cater for many otherwise fine disabled people.

I'd leave the decision as to realistic (not ambitious, no - realistic)working hours to doctors, not random people infantilising a lot of disabled people.

I don’t think there are that many of the people you are describing claiming benefits to be honest

I vote we bring back the workhouse. Throw the poor in there as well.

I agree

NO.

Now that I've got over my initial annoyance and had time to think......

No!

My friend lost his job because of this kind of scheme. He worked full time stacking shelves and earned minimum wage. Then the company took part in this scheme and had lots of people on benefits in working, who they did not have to pay a wage to. After a couple of months he was down to 4 hours a week, and then not on the rota at all due to lack of hours available. He had to claim benefits, where he was then given the opportunity to work in the same shop for his benefit money....which was 40 pound per week. It happened to all the full time employees in that particular branch who were not supervisor or managers.

Great idea.

Force unemployed people to work for their benefits which mean they are on way less than minimum wage. This will then make employers not want to actually pay a living wage.

Also, what about all the people who can't work through ill health and disability who spend months and even years fighting through unfair and rigged 'assessments' whilst still classed as 'fit to work' ??

I don't think you've really thought this through. Or maybe you have thought it through and that's disturbing!!

Also, to the person who said why don't we treat all these health problems so people can get into work - well that's what we want but the NHS is crumbling and no one seems to be doing anything to save it!! When I can get surgery then I can go back to work - so far I've been waiting 3 years from when the problem first started!! Also mental health care - 2 year waiting list!!

And now having had a very quick read of everybody's comments instead of just yours I'm about to expand on my previous answer....

No!absolutely fucking not! God I despair of the absolute lack of humanity off some people these days I really bloody do!

And how long before employers stop paying employees and just sign up to workfare or whatever fancy name they try to give it next, to get cheap staff working for government money of what £80 a week (?) Instead of paying minimum wage or preferably more?

people must be paid a fair amount for doing work not forced into some kind of servitude when they are hard on their luck.

It took my cousin two years to land a job because quite frankly he was unqualified for most of the ones he applied for but got fixated on doing office work. To be fair he was completely unsuited for anything that involved caregiving or any heavy lifting either. I strongly suspect undiagnosed ASD but at over 50 he wouldn’t entertain the idea let alone get tested for it.

He dutifully applied for jobs every single day and attended hundreds of interviews. He wasn’t lazy in applying for jobs (although could have done with some gentle prodding in a different direction by the job centre) but didn’t land a single one. He was on benefits the whole time. What can you do if no one will actually take you on?

Thankfully he now has a temp contract which we hope will be made permanent but this could all happen again very soon…

I know of 2 people who 'don't want to work', one of them has said this, but claim every benefit they can. That's not what our system was ever set up for, it shouldn't be a crutch to use because you don't want too while the rest of us do, it should be used to help those that need it. But wages should also be raised so businesses pay properly and fairly and people feel valued. Companies like amazon should pay proper tax. There's so much more that could happen to empower people into work

This idea has been trialled but ended up being used by big companies as as way to reduce their wage bill. People were asked to leave at the end of the trial then replaced with the next batch of subsidised labour.

If you mean that these people should be employed by the public sector, then whose budget do the wages come out of ?

Whether it's a council or business, the number of people hired depends on budgets and any employment should be for at least NMW.

We have a system of UC/TC which basically has taxpayers subsidising big business wage bills. A move away from that would be difficult but would surely save the taxpayers more money in the short run ? It is a difficult problem to solve without causing inflation and instability as everybody demands higher wages but wage stagnation for so long was always going to cause problems later.

Marx indeed thought work was good, he actually thought without it we end up with psychological (not how he termed it obvs) problems. You and him are in total agreement on that point. The bit you are missing is that most of the work we do isn't for the good of society. It's for profit for a few. Marx argued that this,selling your labour and not benefit from the fruits of your work, was just as damaging.

I don’t agree that litter picking is the answer but to help more people into work I would suggest:

Jobs working from home.
More investment in childcare provision. (Weekends/evenings)
Employers giving people a probation period to try a job that they may not have the desired qualifications/experience in. (Obviously within reason)
Employers contracting set hours/days without the additional expectation to work different days/times from their contracted hours.

Unemployment is practically zero currently, Where will you find these people?

This thread again?

It didn't go so well for the op.last time..

www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/4602049-why-arent-people-on-benefits-be-asked-to-pick-fruit-why-bring-in-immigrants?latest=1

YABVVVVVVU. Very. If work needs to be done then someone should be paid a fair wage to do it. Not forced to work for unemployment benefits because if you are working you are not unemployed. Not humiliated by the kind of community service usually reserved for criminals. That is gross exploitation of the poorest and most vulnerable and should be banned. I am not talking about genuine volunteering opportunities here which are great for building skills, experience etc. I mean companies taking on people forced into workfare on the cheap then getting rid of them for the next batch of victims rather than giving them a permanent job. Or government/council jobs being axed then filled by workfare. Anyone who is OK with this needs to have a think because with the level of instability in the country at the moment it could be them or their DC picking up dog turds in the park for £80 a week.

Surely that's just "a job"?

Which - contrary to what many people may tell you - can be quite hard to get. You'd be better off persuading employers to employ people who've been out of the workplace for a while, or who have the wrong sort of accent, or who can't answer the competency and skills questions, or who appear over-qualified and under-trained, or who panic at the mere idea of phoning someone or trying to Make A Sale...

I Imagine this happened a lot

I'm disabled. I have experience of how difficult it is to find work when you're disabled - particularly when you need several days off a month for hospital appointments, when your medication makes you vomit for 48 hours after you inject it, when your pain and fatigue means you can't get out of bed (and certainly couldn't do a day's work while you're there). Unsurprisingly, employers don't want employees like me, who never know from one day - even one hour - to the next whether they'll be well enough to work. And that's even before we get to the costs of adaptations that may need to be made to workplaces to accommodate us.

I'm not infantilising disabled people. Just pointing out how absolutely ridiculous it is to expect bedbound people to work.