To ask what you think about ‘work for dole’ idea?

[WakeUpAndBe]

Is it reasonable or unreasonable?

Pros: on the surface it sounds reasonable. Means the public won’t view it as “free money” if people are working 30 hours a week for a lot less than the national living wage.

Cons: risks of exploitation and returning to Charles Dickens’ style workhouses for the poor.

Chris Philp said UC claimants should be forced to ‘work for dole’

“In his paper, Philp suggested those claiming universal credit should, after a certain time, have to work for their benefits if they were employed for less than 30 hours a week. He suggested those claiming benefits for a disability should be given work that they were physically able to do.
^^
“Philp said they could be asked to complete community work such as cleaning graffiti or clearing parks, charity work, supervised job searching or recognised training to top up their hours to 30 a week. He said a referral to the “work for the dole” scheme would be triggered between three months and two years after first claiming depending on previous national insurance contributions.
^^
“If anyone is not compliant with work for the dole activity requirements, they should automatically have all their universal credit payments suspended as long as the person is not working for the dole,” he wrote at the time. “Although the complete suspension of universal credit benefit payments may seem an extreme sanction, the evidence from the US suggests that this is required to make the scheme fully effective.”

Number crunching

The National Living Wage is currently £9.50 x 30 hours x 4 weeks = £1,140 for 4 weeks

According to the website, monthly UC is £265.31 for single and under 25,
£334.91 for single over 25,
£416.45 for couples under 25
and
£525.72 for couples over 25.

Not fair across the board, is it? Some areas will not have sufficient jobs - therefore regional discrepancies should be borne in mind. But they won't be. Everyone will be treated the same, as lazy, could do more, layabouts. The truth is that most people do work, but they have commitments such as children, elderly parents, disabilities, transport problems, etc.

When my husband was looking for work, they wanted to send him 25 miles away for an interview. There were no transport links. I said 'Are there no unemployed people in that area then? Why send someone from here who can't get there without transport?' Blanket policies do not work, and are unfair on certain people.

If there are any 'spare' jobs available, they should be filled at a decent wage - this proposal can be exploited. Getting people to work for a lesser wage, etc - no, totally disagree with it.

Agreed.

It’s still forced labour on pain of death. Doesn’t matter if it’s a quick death by firing squad or a long slow decline of eating through savings (if you have any), being made homeless and starving to death due to being starved of a basic living allowance.

You have to take literally anything that comes up.
You're allowed a short amount of time to find work in your field, if you're not lucky then you have to look for anything and look further from where you live.
Might have changed now I'm not sure.

@TooMuchToDoTooLittleInclination If you are over 25 years old you get £77, under £25 £61. Plus some help with council tax and rent. That is it. It is poverty subsistence were struggling to eat is difficult. Unless you are working cash in hand you will take a job asap because you will struggle to survive.

The last time this happened people in receipt of unemployment benefit were working in Tesco for their benefit. Tesco ffs

The Tory in a nutshell. The rich are morally good and are wealth creators. The poor are lazy, immoral and a drain on society.

Well the pandemic did demonstrate that supermarket workers are essential.

I remember. It was a disgrace. And put people out of work.

Bad idea , if there is a job , then the proper wage should be paid .

Dane happened to my nephew. He worked over 40 hours a week for a year with the promise of being taken on by the man who owned the store.
As soon as his time was up he was replaced.

Work needs to be paid at minimum wage levels. The exploitation will be rife. People will be given jobs for which they are completely unsuited, in locations they can't reach. Soon we will be making people wear hi viz tabards marked benefit scrounger, clearing wasteground under a uniformed guard

UK unemployment benefits for 2021/22 cost approx £1.23bn according to Statista.

The tax gap - theoretical tax income which should have been paid but wasn't - as published by HMRC in June this year, is £35bn. Of which £5.6bn is the estimated corporation tax gap.

Remind me again why the modern day version of indentured servitude is being encouraged, when companies like Amazon had a tax-to-turnover rate of 0.37% in 2020.......

Not that what separates the two groups is luck?

*same

Let's face it, they don't want anyone on any benefits
The pensioners are alright to keep their triple locks on state pensions. Anyone else , even those that work and claim , are a 'drain ' on the state. This isn't my view, but it's how some of the conservatives see it I think !
It's been ever thus :(

It wasn't a good idea.

The YMCA had my niece, as I detailed earlier, and gave her glowing reports for 5 months then decided she "didn't fit" and she didn't get the role full time.

She also got a reference that reflected the fact they had chosen not to give her a permanent role - this impacted on her going forward.

Yet a short time later they called her when they had another, exact same, role suddenly available.

It was a pisstake for big businesses to have cheap labour.

Tesco, Asda, Sainsbury’s, Boots, Burger King and many others. Some employers dropped out of the scheme after their involvement was publicised. All those hours of cut price labour for big companies who could easily have given them to staff they already employed or new hires.

I think we should stop focusing on the people who don't want to work and start focusing on the people who do want to work but are struggling to get jobs (lack of qualifications, disabilities, caring responsibilities etc) and then reward the ones that do work (get to keep their benefits or get an alternative allowance) so they people will clearly be better off working.

The most poorest and most vulnerable in society have less means to voice themselves and be heard.

The richest and most powerful in society have lawyers, the media and other professionals they can pay to speak for them.

I agree. The poor are the wrong group in society to target for any problems, but that has almost always been the case. Because it’s easy. People like easy things.

And Tesco should be employing, and paying for, the staff they need. They are already subsidised for the fact they don't pay their employees a living wage. We don't actually need to be paying the whole cost of some of their staff again.

I was a YTS in 1982 and it worked for me as they helped me to get a job.
I'm sure it's just exploited these days

I don't understand. If these jobs are there, why don't they pay properly? Sounds good to be able to match people with jobs quickly but they should be paying an actual salary.

I'd really love my disabled son to be able to work, and he would too if he could. I would be interested in what they think he could actually do

I remember there was one Christmas particularly badly affected. The normal seasonal jobs just didn't materialise because – surprise! – the companies had used Workfarers instead.