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

Lone parents on tax credits can still work just 16 hours right up until their kids leave education. I have a friend who was doing this until recently. Now her child has left education and the tax credits ahve stopped she is scrambling to find a full time job. I'm sure there are not a huge number who stay on 16 hours for this long but it does happen.

People are working part time because of either poor health or caring responsibilities. At a time when NHS has massive backlogs, provision for special needs and disabled children is extremely poor and social care is on its knees this policy seems particularly idiotic. Perhaps they might do better to fix some of these issues and people would choose to work more hours.

Some reason jobs are unfilled that they could actually helpfully work on are that inflation means some jobs don’t pay enough to live on, and we no longer have EU workers nor do many sectors have sensible visa schemes.

Seriously, let’s all agree never to put these idiots in charge again.

@Raddix sure they are, lucky them! That’s why people sometimes have limited sympathy when the prospect of them working 15 hours rather than 12 arises…

Its not my job to raise other people’s families, sorry.

Won't this effect people claiming carers allowance? Your restricted on how many hours you work because you need to be providing 35 hours a week care to get your £69 along with that you get the benefit of not having to job search because your a carer but you CAN work as long as you only work a couple of hours

Many people claiming carers allowance will also be claiming Universal credit but they have no work commitments as a carer so won't need to look for more hours.

Tbh the only job I've found like that is hotel housekeeping suck it up with holiday clubs in summer and claim back the 85%.

It's an excellent use of my law degree, obviously!

This is literally terrifying, it's getting Victorian.
If you support this then quite frankly you have no fucking idea what you are talking about.

I have prolapses, my female organs and bowels are literally falling out of my body from childbirth complications (my children are nearly adults now) and all the highly, highly unpleasant debilitating symptoms that you can imagine come with your organs falling out, and yet I am not believed by the DWP, to be unfit for work. I absolutely cannot work more than part time, but I'll be put through this new measure and threatened with sanction and literal starvation and homelessness if I cannot increase my hours (which is what 'sanction' is by the way - no money to live on).

I wish so, so much I could work full time like I used to and have some agency in my life. You have no idea how much I wish I could just work again.

Do you people think that you just tell the dwp that you have a health problem and then bingo you are exempt from their threats of sanction, can go part time and claim all the monies??!! (the £77 a week..). It doesn't work like that. Disabled people wait months and years waiting for appeal after appeal against the 'decisions' of the dwp. The majority of those deemed 'fit for work' by the dwp are overturned at independent tribunal, which takes many months or even years. This is a proven fact.

With the state of the NHS it took me over a year to get a diagnosis even though it was more than obvious what is wrong!! What are we supposed to do?? Schrodinger's disability?? We cannot access medical care and are therefore fit to work full time??

I genuinely, genuinely, despair that some people think this is somehow okay that the Tories make the rich richer, whilst perpetrating this against low paid and disabled.

Please, please, open your eyes.

You can work full time and claim top up benefits. I did.

I work 35 hours a week so fairly full time and get roughly £800 in UC a month less if it's a five week month. More if I've paid childcare costs.

Yes this is the problem and needs to change. It’s not right that people can choose this. Fair enough if people are genuinely too unwell to work more but not if it’s a choice.

The article says that it's targeted at the over 50s who overwhelmingly will not be the demographic unable to work more than 15 hrs/week due to childcare issues.

The group who may have a real issue will be those who have kids under the age of three, as free childcare isn't available.

And they'll average that 10 hours/week over something like 11 weeks which means that you can still end up with no hours in a given week. Stopping this sort of exploitation is something that is really difficult to legislate for - especially because you don't want to throw the baby out with the bathwater as zero-hour contracts are quite useful for some employees (such as students), provided that the employer is genuinely flexible.

It is a big concern for many people in full time work, that they are working very hard to pay high costs like their rent, heating, after school care and yet others who could work (not those unable to work) are choosing to work part time whilst the state makes up the difference.

I agree, but sadly I think the whole political system is the same- labour and Tory. I don’t trust either, I think they are all out of touch and full of horseshit. There is no one to vote for, they are all liars.

These subsidies need to be paid for.
These past 2 yrs people have had subsidies for:
Salaries/wages-furlough.
Grants
Loans
Heating bills
Help to eat out.

Now suggesting childcare so people can work an extra 3 hrs a week.
I'm not so sure whether quantitative easing for the people is a good investment, it's all getting a tad out of hand. The government does have the power to print and spend, however, the expenditures do have to have a meaningful return.
I'm not sure plugging the holes in the economy is the right approach.

See what i mean? never criticise a Tory policy, no matter how pointless, the total numbers involved is less than 150k people out of 5m UC claimants, the number of the over 50s in that group is even smaller.

Any ideas on how you can target a specific age group? what about a 49 yo.... vs a 65yo?
Esp an age group many employers simply don't want to employ.

Meanwhile lets give a £180 NI saving to someone on 30k p.a but £1000 saving to someone on 100k.

A carer on 18k wont even notice.

Its a smokescreen to mask their disastrous Brexit & hide their Give to the Rich Tax Cuts.

I know what's going to Trickle Down on us and it's not the small change from Kwasi Kwarteng's pocket. More of the same. We have surrendered our country to the economics of a third world state run by grasping financial illiterates.

Thats what the Cons want you to believe, believe it and you might as well stick with the Cons.

Labour wouldn't have been in for 15 years (by the time of the next GE) almost no one of the present Labour front bench was in Blairs Govt.

So saying they are all the same simply isn't true.

Labour and Con policies are at complete odds now, very clear dividing lines.

Absolutely.

The government need slaves to service the requirements of the rich, powerful elite, that's whats the benefit bashing is about. They: the elite, tory and rich dont give a fuck about poor people. Trickle down has never worked, apart from widening the gap between rich and poor.

It's not cutting benefits, it's increasing the number of hours you need to work to be classed as working for benefits purposes. Currently it's only 9, increasing to 15 shortly. 24 seems reasonable to me for single parents, with 35 for everyone else. I'm all for giving benefits to those on low incomes but not those who can't be bothered to look for full time work

Kicking rhe people at the bottom creates a handy scapegoat for the government though: "oh we aren't the reason you're skint and everything is shit. The reason you're skint and everything is shit is because Debbie from down the road and c.120,000 of her pals are only working 12hrs a week and that mere drop in the ocean in terms of our overall spend is somehow bleeding the country dry...."

It'll be disabled people next and then wider claimant groups, just watch. The narrative of "deserving" and "genuine" vs "undeserving" and "piss takers" will be ramped right up so they can justify further cuts to welfare and cuts to services.

Absolute cunts the lot of them. They wouldn't piss on you if you were on fire but they would probably find a way to bill you for the heat generated.

If they subsidised childcare to make it actually affordable none of this would be needed. Women will suffer disproportionately from this (as usual)

This affects roughly 120,000 people which is a tiny fraction of rhe overall number of people eligible for benefits. I'm going to guess that the majority of those 120,000 have solid reasons for why they can't increase their hours.

It's not going to save vast amounts of money, it's not going to suddenly revise the economy, it's just Tory tactics of divide and rule - giving people a demographic to blame for the shitted up mess the government has created to try and distract them from blaming the people who are in charge.

Most older people i know who work part time have genuine reasons for doing so, usually fitting around care for elderly parents, not FT carers but irregular medical appointments, house work etc.

Its targeted at the over 50s, so not single parents, its illegal to discriminate on age grounds, so i doubt this measure will ever happen.

Like all Tories policies full of shit.