To think this won’t work and will force more into poverty?

[KimberleyClark]

Kwasi Korteng wants to cut benefits to part time workers to force them to work more hours.

www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/sep/21/kwasi-kwarteng-to-shrink-part-time-work-benefits-to-grow-labour-supply

you gotta love the Tories

I think most of what our government govt are planning is bonkers (hello liz, remember trickle down doesn't work).

But this one i'm slightly neutral on, if only because i know a few people who consciously choose to work the minimum house possible to retain access to benefits.

However i would rather see work incentivised by actually seeing minimum wage rise to a decent level.

Well there’s a massive shortage of employees so it’s a good idea to encourage people to work more hours. A probleM for parents with limited childcare options though

Nine hours a week isn’t very much to work to be fair. Obviously exceptions should be made for people who struggle due to health or caring duties. I thought it was much higher already tbh I claim UC and my work commitments involved looking for a job of 25 hours a week. I work 35 hours a week but still get payments.

Yes it's a good idea. In work benefits are ridiculous, it means employers don't have to pay a decent living wage because the government makes up the shortfall.

When the benefits came in years ago quite a few of the mums at school dropped their hours and went part time because they actually earnt more being part time and claiming benefits. How is that economically sustainable?

I completely agree. Its the people on benefits that have caused every single problem in this country and they are the reason we are in the mess in the first place. You can clearly see that the more benefits we take away the better our economy gets

It won't work for people with limited access to childcare especially at a time when more and more providers are closing down so there is a real childcare shortage. It won't work for people with health issues that mean their ability to work is limited. It won't work for people with caring responsibilities. It won't work for people with limited transport options who can't go further afield for more hours/a second or third job. It won't work for some people on zero hour contracts who may find themselves losing their first job for being "unavailable" due to them working at their second job so the. They end up back where they started hours-wise. It won't work for people who are reskilling/retraining in their non-work time. There are a whole lot of people it won't work for.

It's a shit idea by a shit government, designed to kick the people at the bottom to distract from the utterly cuntery going on amongst the people at the top.

The only decent system is one that brings tax and benefits together - negative income tax is one name for it.

An unemployed person on benefits doesn't stop receiving benefits and start paying tax when they get a job. They go from a position where their income tax bill is a large negative, to one where it is a small negative (because they have a very low paid job. When they earn more they stop receiving negative income tax payments but don;t pay anything. When they earn even more they start paying tax, and when they earn loads they pay quite a lot of tax. Abolish NI at the same time.

The whole point is that under such a system there is always an incentive to work. Even doing 15 minutes work in a month is worthwhile, because you will have no change to the tax / benefits system you are on (ie no new forms to fill in or wait for payments to start) and you will always have more money after tax because there is no cut-off line where your access to benefits changes.

This would only work if everyone has access to affordable childcare and if zero hours contracts are severely restricted (from the employer's pov) so that jobs which pay are actually available.

So it won't work and it'll be just another kick in the face for poor people. What did we expect fromt he Tories?

Perhaps instead banning zero hours contracts for many jobs would be a better start. All retailers can plan ahead, so can all call centres, parcel delivery companies as can most office based jobs.

As others have commented, the childcare is not there to facilitate this. I work at a nursery doing supply work and there is a huge shortage of childcare workers who are qualified.
I'm in 2 minds about this really. I do some hours in a week at nurseries but struggle a lot with it especially as I have 2 autoimmune diseases. The days I do are long, incredibly stressful and the pay is laughable. Yet I know someone who works from home on six figures and is nowhere near working as hard as I am. I'm looking to do nannying but again, many parents are working from home and/or can't afford to employ a nanny.
I believe that the minimum wage needs to increase to make it fairer but that's not going to happen.
On the other side, I know a lady with the same autoimmune disease as me and they don't work at all. Except everyday they are out socialising and having fun. She definitely could manage a few hours work and I say that as someone who also has chronic illnesses.

Ha ha. Benefits have been cut over the years and our economy is great now isn't it? Very robust, oh........😂

The level of ignorant shit on MN today has gone up a notch today, so the Tory bots are out oin full force clearly. Do you think they might be announcing something soon? They are trying to save themselves at our expense now.

I was looking for jobs I could do, and there are 1400 vacancies on the busy bees childcare website.
The issue being they are low paid, long hours.
And I can't get my children into childcare to start at a nursery for 7am. Or 8am.
Most people have 9.15-3 available for work, if they have children of school age.
I do think raising it to 15 hours is a good idea. But also maybe incentivizing employers to offer more part time contracts!
Everything I'm applying for is full tim.e once I've paid for childcare (not that I can find any!), disrupted my already tired children, and get my wage I'm not really better off.

Totally agree.

I know 2 Mums who chose to work 12 hours a week because that was minimum they could work and get benefits, but as their children are at school now every day they could both work a few more hours if they chose to. They will probably just move up to working 15 hours a week. That is still only 2 full days a week or 3 hours a day. If people have a child under 3, I wonder if that will be applied to them or just those with school aged children. Providing it does not affect those with disabilities I don't think it is a bad policy. To grow our economy we need to be more productive and we need those who can work to work, and receive less benefits, so we can support those who can't work and increase their benefits.

once I've paid for childcare (not that I can find any!), disrupted my already tired children, and get my wage I'm not really better off.

This. And the Tory solution (of course) is to cut benefits, not to raise wages. Typical. People on low pay must have their benefits cut to incentivise them, whilse already very wealthy bankers must have their bonuses increased. It's insanity.

And not to create more affordable housing so fewer people have to claim housing benefit.

@Notlosinganyweight I think @LetMeSpeak was being sarcastic, hence the angry face.

Maybe if the government actually took steps to stop companies forcing older workers out, there wouldn't be such a shortage.

With many years of experience, I was made redundant at 60. I was actually the lucky one, the rest of my team was forced into a fire and rehire situation, the jobs were tweaked very slightly so that the hours were not acceptable to them due to outside commitments such as looking after grandchildren, being forced to work weekends so that cherished hobbies would have to be given up, longer shifts gong into the evening etc

One of my team asked to keep her hours the same and was refused even though her exact hours were being advertised. The only one to survive the cull was the only one who was under 60. (She was also the laziest, rudest and least skilled member of the team)

I got redundancy because I made it absolutely clear that I would take them to a tribunal, I was in a union and my job was being downgraded.

I now have a job which pays little more than minimum wage and which I hate. None of my colleagues have returned to the workplace. I wish this was unusual. It isn't.

As someone who works in this area, there's a lot of people for whom working FT isn't an option and they're more likely to stop working altogether.

I think I read that the biggest underemployed group of concern to the gov was the over 50s

How about resolving the dire issues in healthcare if you want people fit to work into their late 60s ffs

This is my view too. Two full days or three hours over five days is manageable unless you have disabilities or a pre-school age child, in which case you’d be exempt anyway. Transport issues, childcare etc is not a valid excuse in my view - people are already managing these for the twelve hours they currently do so will just need to adapt for a further three.

For over 50s, the government can’t actually force them back into the workplace unless they are in receipt of benefits. And if they are, when they are capable of working, then they should indeed be doing so! If they are self funding then it’s really nobody else’s business whether they work and presumably there isn’t a lot the government can do.

And before I am accused of being a Tory Bot, I am actually a fairly left wing person. I believe in social welfare but it requires everyone to contribute to the fullest extent they can. Not to do 12 hours when they could do more, just because of a strange quirk of the benefits system.

They don't have the remotest clue about real life.

It is a bit of an issue that Labour and the Tories have both wrestled with over the years. A lot of people would love to work part time if the state paid them in effect for the days not working. I don't think it is wrong to try yet again to do something about it. Iain Duncan Smith tried very hard to make work pay but even he ended up with a system where you lost an awful lot of money if you up your hours.

Tell me again why people shouldn’t work more?

To people who said Tory's should be putting up wages. On radio this morning I heard living wage is going up to £10.90 and £12 something in London. So they are attacking problem from 2 stances.