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.

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

@Choconut if you accept the concept that people should work for nothing what is the difference between 10 hours or 30 hours?

You clearly think it''s okay for people to work for nothing as long as it's for a certain period of time. What is the cut off point for you - 29 hours 59 minutes? Or an infinite number of people working for nothing for the same company in 10 hour shifts? When you give an answer would you show your working in the margin because I don't get your reasoning.

If you have a full CV as many people who claim unemployment benefit to which they are entitled do, what would you pay them? Would you reject them in favour of a school leaver who you can pay a handful of magic beans they can put on their CV? Again, why would that be?

If a job needs doing then you pay someone to do it and negotiate the rate according to employment law. If someone is less experienced you pay them less than someone more experienced and accept they might not do as good a job. But you still pay them don't you? Or is getting paid a fair day's money for a fair day's work absurd to you?

I don't think you've thought this through, have you?

This exactly
also those people who aren’t working or aren’t working enough are in work search groups. I was placed in work search for taking two weeks unpaid leave in the summer holidays last year because I couldn’t afford childcare all through
so the following month I then had to work search work f/t in the hospital look after DH with a chronic illness manage my home and support a sen preschool child.
it’s grim already it doesn’t need to be harder

@LikeTearsInRain We volunteer for our local litter picking group, and have helped with some gardening. Everyone should be encouraged to take care of their neighbourhood, rather than getting a group to do it for them, under duress. Where the job can't be done by local good will, it should be paid work.

YYY @missprism

Or since the Tories are so taken by all things American, why not bring in some good old fashioned Southern peonage.

No… whilst I believe people on benefits should have the option to top up their benefits with paid hours. if they can find some casual work or whatever there shouldn’t be a barrier to them taking on the work as it maybe fulfils a seasonal or short term urgent need and helps build their skills. But they should be paid at least min wage for the hours they do.

forcing people to work on benefits for no extra money is demoralising, criminal as they won’t get minimum wage and actually would take more jobs out of the workforce as employers would opt for the cheap labour causing a poor cycle of being people being trapped

👏👏👏
Absolutely well said

SarahSissions · Yesterday 11:07
Work 30 hours a week- I’m on board. For those “on benefits who are already working” if they are only doing 15 hours they can make up the other 15 working for the state before they get any money. for those not working then they can do the full 30.

nothing in this life is free…apart from benefits it seems.

I don’t know why some people find the idea of work so offensive“

I sincerely hope that you never find yourself in circumstances you could never have imagined and reliant on benefits through no fault of your own.
(we are reasonably well off, I have never received benefits but I am very, very glad that they are there.)

Terrible idea. It’s either a job or not a job. If an employer can find 30 hours of work then they should create a real position.

SarahSissions · Yesterday 11:07
Work 30 hours a week- I’m on board. For those “on benefits who are already working” if they are only doing 15 hours they can make up the other 15 working for the state before they get any money. for those not working then they can do the full 30.

And for those already working full time but in receipt of some benefits due to being a single parent, and on a low wage, and where the other parent pays and does fuck all? Because it won't stop that particular problem of men walking away without a care in the world from their responsibilities leaving it to someone else and the state to fill the gap. What do they do to 'get their free money?' let me guess 'get a better job'.

And those who can only work 15 hours because that's all that's available, because they're on a zero hour contract and that's all they were given this week because the employer wants to keep their staffing costs low but have a workforce available at the drop of a hat? They can't work today because they've got to do their state mandated hours but the needs of the business mean they're needed and if they're not available they're then unreliable and not given even 15 minutes the following week?

And those who are caring for disabled/elderly relatives around that 15 hours or in fact full time, who cares for them the rest of the time? Is the state going to fund that? (Far more than they'd be paying in benefits to that person - but hey at least the tax payer knows that anyone on benefits is having to do something they approve of right?)

Those that are disabled or sick themselves, where are these jobs that they can suddenly do going to come from? Who's going to be paying for the reasonable adjustments needed for them to be able to do something state approved for their benefits? And why if it can be done so that a section of society can feel superior and like their tax isn't going to lazy scroungers, can't it be done to empower people now?

nothing in this life is free…apart from benefits it seems.
Or work when employers are getting it for free. Are we going to start calling businesses lazy scroungers when they've got a large part of their workforce made up from benefit claimants, paid for by the tax payer and then pocketing the difference? I doubt it. And as for doing work directly for the state, so, so many things supposedly run by the state are in private hands anyway, so someone other than the state is going to benefit financially, be that a contracted company or a manager who's saved a fortune on wages and then gets a nice fat bonus.

I don’t know why some people find the idea of work so offensive“

I don't think many find the idea of work offensive, a great many find the idea of exploitation offensive, but then I guess if you're one of the ones exploiting and you stand to gain from it, or already do, you won't be offended.

If this work exists then it should be paid at at least nmw, not benefit claimants used to do all the shit jobs in the country that no one wants to do because they're shit, wages and conditions appalling and in some cases exploitative. It's just going backwards with this idea.

I don’t have much of a problem with the idea of benefits being provided as guaranteed work at the living wage of x hours a week. (With other provision for those who aren’t able to work). I think expecting people to work for less than the living wage is where it becomes exploitative and Othering.

However, it would probably be significantly more expensive to provide work schemes (even at less than the living wage) than it currently is to provide UC. And the government’s track record with work and training schemes isn’t encouraging (I remember YTS too and while a few people did well out of it, there were plenty of abuses and pointless make work projects. One near me famously had a group of YTS digging holes, then a month later another group came along and filled them in.). Though I do think if it was set up as a way to benefit the community with work being community and charity related, rather than a way to subsidise businesses or be a deterrent/punishment/“moral corrective” for those on benefits, it might work.

Who might benefit from a workforce requiring nil payment? The same group who benefit from the 40% of benefit recipients already in the workforce as paid employees who are paid so little that their wages requiring topping up at the taxpayer's expense? Privatise the gains and socialise the costs?

Because people already moan about NHS money being used for management and admin so having more admin staff would cause uproar.

Evidence from the US? You mean where there exist whole shanty towns/no go areas of homeless people? Frankly I don’t think we should copy the US on any policy at the moment although Biden is a lot better than the angry hateful orange blob.

People are not ‘working for nothing’ they are working for benefits being paid to them.

I entirely support this idea. It would encourage healthy able bodied people to get a better paid job and to start getting used to the idea. We can’t have millions languishing on the dole endlessly. It’s not good for the country or them.

You will find plenty of opposition on here. Plenty of people that are on benefits object obviously and Labour devotees but in the real world most working people want something done about it the huge volume of people on benefits as the jobs are plentiful.

"The real world' aka the crap the tories and Channel 5 poverty porn portrays?

Or actual real world based on evidence?

If there are 30 hours of work available do you think these hours should be paid at minimum wage (or indeed the going rate?)

NB I think the PP is using ‘nothing’ in the sense of ‘pittance’..

Don’t be preposterous. Most people that work for a living and pay taxes are strangely not keen propping up those that can’t be bothered to get a job ( unless it is people with real disability of course)
It is not exactly breaking news! 😂

I am happy to support any scheme that gets people into jobs - full stop.

It is highly unhealthy to be languishing every day without direction or purpose and relying on other people to pay your bills. It’s not good for anyone and a terrible example to their children.

It’s ridiculous how some pp on here find the vey idea of working so offensive. Everyone should be working, period.

You have missed the point. The numbers who fall into that category are minimal yet presented by the tories and media as significant numbers. Funny how they never break the figures down?

In the real world the vast majority on benefits are either disabled, carers or working.

Define "real disability" please.

I agree that it’s not good for your mental health to have nothing to do every day and people do lose confidence when they become unemployed/ get made redundant etc.

So when people get back into these jobs should they be at least paid minimum wage, in your opinion?

Well… those claiming benefits often are long-time taxpayers. Interesting that you perceive it to be ‘us vs. them’

What work are they going to do and who for? Especially at the moment, if they're willing and able to be a half way decent employee, there's plenty of unskilled work available.

It's not the same thing, but I have worked with teams of people doing community service and it's really hard work to get any actual work done. If people don't want to be there, they're more of a liability than a help.

That's not to say all unemployed people don't want to work and there might be one or two success stories where they get into a routine, apply themselves and it's a way into work for them, but on the whole, finding them things to do and then monitoring attendance and performance will be more expensive the the benefits IMO.

I am talking about the people that do zero work and have no intention of getting a job, or those doing the absolute bare minimum and exploiting the system. I am certainly NOT talking about those on low pay that work hard, I completely support anyone working.

I don’t feel I share any values whatsoever with someone that takes no responsibility for themselves or their lives. I can’t abide laziness either.