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.

Repugnant. Companies will take advantage of those on job seekers allowance knowing they get paid a pittance by the government, saving them money like slave labour. If there is a job to keep their benefits, there is a job for a living wage.

@caringcarer

Where exactly do you think these people could be accommodated?

I think they tried something like this years ago, There were problems around employer insurances, and regular employees objected.

Anyway, it quickly failed and was dropped.

Over 40% of those on means tested, working age benefits are actually working anyway.🙄

@AirFryerNinja

what country is this? Nordic one?

I wonder if they've done the sums on this-how much more will the tax payer have to pay towards residential homes, care homes, 1-1 support for children in nurseries and wraparound care for all those being currently cared for by unpaid carers. I know that I save the tax payer a huge amount of money caring for my disabled son, all for the pittance of carers allowance and UC.

Before my son was born I used to be a support worker for people with disabilities and I earned much, much more than I get now. The difference being that I used to work 40 hours a week, now I'm on duty 24/7.

Care packages cost the public purse 100s of thousands, so the many, many unpaid carers who do it out of the love for family members are saving the tax payer a huge amount.

I know it's theoretical - I read it in the piece that I quoted. And I am aware that the larger proportion is VAT. The reason why I picked corporation tax is because in terms of enforcement it would be easier to enforce, than VAT avoidance.

I am not assuming that Amazon is "on the fiddle". They used a legitimate services scheme to legally reduce their direct tax payment to less than 1% of their turnover in the UK. However I am proposing that the government could address these loopholes, which would serve to increase tax income, rather than punishing the poorest in our society.

Someone on NMW pays basic rate tax at 20% on their earnings over the threshold. Forbes and Bloomberg put Jeff Bezos' wealth at between $136-138bn. It's an amount so large it's almost meaningless, so to put some context to it - his daily earnings approximate to £220k. Someone on NMW of £9.50 per hour would have to work more than 11 years to earn what Bezos earns in a single day. How is it defensible that Amazon pays a tax rate of less than 1%?
It's not like they can't afford it.

So because he had MH issues, his labour was not worth paying a fair wage for the hours he worked?

Can you not see how that is a problem? Someone without MH issues would reasonably expect to be paid for x hours of manual labour however many days a week.

I am sure your brother enjoyed it and didn't feel exploited but that doesn't mean he wasn't or that other people are not. Thats what these schemes can very easily end up doing, exploiting disabled people under the guise of giving them something worthwhile to do.

Back to the OP - He suggested those claiming benefits for a disability should be given work that they were physically able to do.

There are SO many issues with this...

Which benefits for disability - PIP or 'too disabled, cannot work'.

Those claiming PIP but not an out of work benefit are generally already doing the work they can do, or have chosen for whatever reason, not to claim an out of work benefit. We can, last I looked, choose not to work if we want to (it's just that some of us would starve and be homeless if we did that).

Those claiming 'too disabled, cannot work' benefits are too disabled and cannot work. So is he talking about forcing people to do things they can't actually reasonably do to any degree of skill, or without pain etc etc?

So back to PIP claimants, this is then on top of what we already do, to continue to qualify for PIP?

I already work the maximum hours I can - where am I to find the extra hours, if I could find them, I'd do the jobs I currently do for that money, it's better paid!

Sounds like a load of hot air designed to rile up the masses who can't abide the idea of someone getting something they haven't got, even if they don't need it.

You can't be expected to work 30 hours for the dole that is absurd. But what about 10 hours a week for those who've never had a job before? so you have something to put on a cv, show you can turn up for work etc

Where would this job come from?

I'm bed bound, and although the DWP say they've accepted I cannot work at all, I regularly get harassed by them, asking when I plan to return to work.

As I'm stuck in bed, I'm only surprised I haven't been offered this as an option. Yet.

I agree. It is almost like an employer gets a discount on employees with MH issues. That is not right.

There is a garden centre cafe in my town which is volunteer run... all people with MH issues. It is bloody expensive to eat there too. This thread has got me thinking if it is being exploitative.

But those 10 hours should be paid what the job is worth. I worked for a terrible boss who would take people for work experience instead of hiring admin staff. Once there they would be let loose in the archives to attempt to sort out piles of heavy, dusty boxes in a windowless basement. It was terrible for the filing system and depressing for them. The result of using people for cheap labour is that they are exploited and someone with the skills misses out on the job. I can see a place for sending people for work experience, but to enhance their employability, not to use them as slave labour.

@gnilliwdog agree 100%

Training and support into work

Oh my god @OnlyOpenMouthToChangeFeet so sorry you have to deal with this.

Thank you, it's not easy. I posted a few more details earlier, it's impossible to survive on the money I receive. It's had a severe detrimental effect on both my physical and mental health.

More than that, the thing that really makes me rage is how we're criticised and vilified by everyone, as apparently I'm raking in a fortune, and have a wildly cushy existence! No-one ever seems to be put right over this, and the names I've been called are unbelievable.

Why should the disabled be forced to live in abject poverty, with neither dignity nor quality of life? I paid an awful lot into this system before I became ill, and I thought it would be there to protect and support me. Newsflash, it isn't.

I sincerely hope no-one ever finds themselves in my position.

By the way, for those saying we should only get 5% as that's the average pay rise people are receiving, are you actually taking the piss? The basic rate for over 25's on UC is £77 per week. 5% is £3.85. If you really believe that, frankly you're fucking inhuman.

@OnlyOpenMouthToChangeFeet It's a callous, punitive system and shameful to harass someone who is already ill. The amount paid is nowhere near the cost of living rises, and I hope there is huge pressure to make the government raise it. It is certainly a massive injustice to pay into a system and be treated so poorly when you need it.

It's from a decade ago. Old news recycled there is no talk from any Tory whatsoever of workfare or working for "dole"

Amen to that.

It would be really helpful if they could do jobs that have a community impact like litter picking, gardening/landscaping in public parks, emptying public bins, washing off graffiti etc. It could be organised through local councils too and they would save a fortune on the labour as they would only need a small team of employed supervisors to coordinate and oversee the work. There are probably enough people on JSA they’d only have to do a couple weeks a year if they stayed employed long term - you’d just rotate through a different squad of claimants every two weeks. Councils are short on funds at the moment as we all know and the last thing we need is a big council tax increase next year.

It would be far more helpful if councils just had enough funding to employ the number of staff they need.

Councils already have people employed to do those jobs. And where it is done for nothing, it is by people who have committed a crime.
Being unemployed is not a crime.

So huge council tax rise is preferred then rather than having a group of 20 people doing some work for 2 weeks then being left to claim as normal?

An absolute disgrace from the most vile PM and chancellor in my lifetime. 30 hours per week for a few hundred quid a month?! It's tantamount to slave labour!

Who do you think these 20 JSA claimants are exactly? And how does litter picking actually help them find another job? And why would there be a huge council tax rise when your idea involves sacking council employees who already do this job….creating more people on JSA?

Why not just get all claimants into chain gangs and be done with it? Tory wankers.