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.

Exactly this. People show their true colours on how they think of people who need to rely on benefits when ridiculous idea like this are thrown around. Show that some people aren't very bright.

I dont like it.

However i do think there's an issue where parents in particular become acclimatised to receiving money but also having plenty of time to be managing homelife, collecting children etc. Because they children they may be eligible for quite a bit between housing & child elements as well as job seekers. Then when considering paid employment, there's a mental struggle because its perceived as "not much more money, and far less time with children", so people conclude its "not worth working". I'm not sure how we shift that mentality.

All that needs to be said. Pay people a living wage for the work you want them to do.

That’s because benefits are viewed as “free money”. That’s the headline.

Problem is that if they removed benefits then they would inevitably come for the pensioners next.

If they removed benefits people would starve to death.

👏👏 Exactly!

Yep starve/freeze, turn to crime, sell their bodies etc. Some people would seemingly prefer this.

But if the media don’t report on it then none will be the wiser.

Point being that media has a lot to answer for here.

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

Umm HELLO this is the answer!! Write there in your own OP!!

Right there* ugh MN please let us edit

Id be more supportive of a scheme that assessed how much income someone was receiving, and provided a suitable amount of work or training at living wage rates. Eg ic someone is not working at all and receiving £240 a month, i don't think its totally unreasonable to suggest they undertake 24 hours of work/training a month in return.

Its not ok to suggest people essentially work for under minimum wage.

Why don't you Tories do proper research for your salary , rather than refer the question straight on here? It's endless.

And underhand

@paintitallover Agreed! New policy idea! Let's get on Mumsnet and see what people think. It is very boring and quickly gets old.

And if you do this, I will personally help set up a campaign to boycott every single charity or business that takes part. It is easy to do with social media. A list on a website of every employer who exploits people in this way alongside social media accounts encouraging people to boycott.

I am sick of rich people exploiting poor people. If there is a job pay someone. The minimum wage is not high. No one should be paid less.

I would like to see it contributions based, if you've not paid enough Tax and NIC then you need to get out there with your bucket, apply the same criteria they do for disability. Why should one group be targeted in these initiatives and the other get away with it ?

The pensioners have 'paid in '
They get all the support ( I'm old myself , so I'm not being ageist here, but I won't get a pension for years yet )
They are not keen on anyone getting something they are not.
The government want people to aspire to a higher wage, but when people strike for the companies to pay more , they are seen as bad.
It's always the contradictions that muddy the waters
This new initiative may work , but it'll be fudged and only a few might benefit and the majority will be exploited by tesco etc.

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.

The tax gap is theoretical. A much bigger chunk of it is income tax self assessment & vat - that tradey you love who's cheaper than everyone else but only takes cash? That taxi company who don't charge VAT if you pay cash. We all enable this tax avoidance every day, every time we say we are taking our food "to go" in a cafe and then sit in to eat it anyway, we are avoiding VAT.

There's also a massive chunk of both this and the corporate tax gap which is tax relating to insolvent business which can't be collected.

Its easy to assume its google, amazon etc on the fiddle. The reality is these days the sorts if "schemes" that used to be used to reduce tax are much rarer.

Pensions ARE contribution based. If you do not make enough contributions you get a very small state pension. Then you can apply for benefits, but if you have much savings will not get anything.

Is there a detailed proposal somewhere?

My parents both died in their seventies. I am glad they got a few years retired, although not very many.

the evidence from the US suggests that this is required to make the scheme fully effective.”

Love this as well. Glad we're taking advice from that pinnacle of modern society, the USA....

Its easy to assume its google, amazon etc on the fiddle. The reality is these days the sorts if "schemes" that used to be used to reduce tax are much rarer..

Most of the old egregious avoidance schemes are gone, sure, but many large multinationals are still playing pretty fast and loose with transfer pricing/thincap/cross-border transactions. The bigger the group, the greater the extent to which CT becomes an optional tax.

If the people are treated fairly and paid and not discriminated against, for a few people it might just work ..
it's bound to be another government cock up though :(
The CEOs at these big companies will just cash in to get money and won't train up the ones working there. It's bound to end up costing more than it gains as all these schemes tend to go.

I'm really not okay with this
If people don't work and rely on UC it's almost always for a really really valid reason. Making people work who can't for whatever their reason is, is really cruel.

No normal minded, honest and vulnerable for whichever reason person needs to be humiliated and degraded any further by being forced to work to survive. It's a miserable and not flush existence on UC and it's unreasonable to humiliate someone into surviving. I really hate it!!

UC is designed to help people to survive.

So workfare renamed? That failed miserably, the amount of people I know who worked via workfare, applied for permanent positions when they came up and were then told, after 6 months that "sorry you're not the right fit for the company." whilst continuing the work their asses off for them for fear of being sanctioned 😡I actually think it could have been a good thing, but it was thoroughly abused by the higher ups.