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.

Why is it better for government to pay someone the same amount for not working as they could pay to get them do something useful that contributes to GDP?

The companies are only nominally being subsidised, they are not really benefiting from taxpayer money. The extra labour is only worth what they are actually paying out over and above the subsidy, otherwise the jobs would have been created anyway.

If there were no mimimum wage, the jobs would exist, but would pay less than the minimum wage. Effectively my proposal is restoring jobs that have been destroyed by the existence of the minimum wage. It's undoing the damage done by one interference in the market with an offsetting scheme.

What my proposal is doing is saying that where people are capable of doing something useful, but their labour is not worth the minimum wage, then it's better for them to be paid what they are worth than for them to sit at home and be paid by the benefits system to do nothing.

@Maverickess ”All so some people can feel even more superior about where their tax goes. Straight into the pockets of those who already have plenty seems fine, info the pockets of those who struggle, goodness me no.”

People who also feel erudite reading classics like Dickens (and fail to heed his message).

If the government actually cared about getting more people and especially women into working more hours they would look at childcare. The cost and availability of child care is a huge factor in why many women work under 30 hours a week. Look at other European countries and the role of those states in ensuring affordable childcare for lower earners. That would both create jobs and get more people working. It’s just ideologically incompatible with this government.

''@cawfeee
Pensioners are the largest expense, get them lazy bastards out cleaning graffiti, litter picking for their money.

My dads still working in his 70s, why should his peers not have to do the same.
Wonder why that ones not been suggested.''

Unbelievable.

Elderly people are ''lazy bastards'' to you and because your father is still able to work in his 70s you think everyone else is physically and mentally able to do the same.

There really are no words ....

What my proposal is doing is saying that where people are capable of doing something useful, but their labour is not worth the minimum wage, then it's better for them to be paid what they are worth than for them to sit at home and be paid by the benefits system to do nothing.

ie abolish minimum wage

Bleak

Hello Chris Philip, thanks for joining the thread.

How would you assess “worth”?

Basically, either:

a) A job needs to be done, in which case it is necessary and should be paid a fair wage. (Litter picking would fall into this category because having waste in public spaces is bad for public health, in particular things like needles, condoms etc. Public health is a government responsibility, and should be funded properly.)

b) A job doesn't need to be done at all, in which case making someone on benefits do it would only serve the purpose of humiliating and degrading them. A bit like prisoners being made to break up rocks on the chain gang.

Imagine if we had a real time flexible benefits system that allowed people to take seasonal job, flexible jobs. Where a change of circumstances did not result in being unable to pay your rent for six weeks. We have computers, we could do it.

This!

I agree with this. Better funding for childcare would make a massive difference.

@cawfeee, Pensioners have already worked in many cases for 45-50 years. Pension is not classed as a benefit as people have contributed into it all their working lives. Pension gets paid out at 66/7 years. At that point the pensioner chooses to retire or carry on working as your Dad chose to do. Other pensioners may have paid into good private pension schemes as well as paying NIC's all their working lives, or have private investments and don't need to work for financial gain so instead choose to retire. We all have choices through our lives of how much to contribute to our pensions. Those choices have long term consequences. It is unfair to think just because your Dad has chose to continue working other pensioners should do the same. They may have worked harder at contributing to a private pension during their lifetime and/or have different goals in older age.

Perhaps you would also agree that to get your full state pension at retirement that you need to do x amount of hours in the community as well?

If the job is there it should be paid the going rate for that job, obviously at least NMW

Nightmare when you are attending interviews

I found it hard enough last time I was job hunting and on jsa to make it to the appointments at job centre as I was temping at various jobs / on call getting hours here and there last minute and having to turn it down as I had to go to job centre - then I was trying to rearrange interviews to make it to job centre a few times as well 🤪 don’t know where I’d have fitted in the work for the dole as well

the good news is it only took me about 8 weeks and was back to work

Agree with this.

If it's 30 hours of stuff that doesn't actually need doing then it's degrading to ask an unemployed person to do it for a joke wage.

There’s an unspoken prejudice against single mothers, especially unwed single mothers. That’s why they won’t account for childcare.

Wasn’t Boris vocal about this?

We’ve had this before.

it just allowed big groups like Tesco and YMCA to have free labour and take the piss out of people.

My niece worked full time hours in an out of school care setting. Mornings and after school. For £60ish a week. Twice she was sanctioned for taking a day off (with advance notice) to attend interviews. For five months she was given glowing reviews. Then, unsurprisingly, in the last month they decided she wasn’t a good fit in their team. So “regretfully” didn’t offer her the job full time at the end of the six months. Instead they got a new freebie from the scheme for another six month trial.
Less than a month after she was deemed unsuitable she got a call from them when someone unexpectedly quit. She was back to being a superb worker again and they wanted her full time.

These schemes are massively open to abuse.

And anything that involves a government agency deciding what disabled people can do must, must, must be seen off. Given what they’ve done to disabled people and the benefits system we simply cannot allow them to attack disabled people from another angle.

If there is a job that needs doing then pay someone at least the minimum wage to do it?
Something like new deal, which gives career coaching in a particular area that an unemployed person would like to develop I'd be in support of.

Thorny topic. It’s not like for like contributions. Or is it?

Have you never heard of sarcasm...?

Bad idea. Either a job needs to be done, in which case people should be employed to do it, for at least NMW; or it doesn't, in which case people shouldn't be made to do it as a sort of punishment for being unemployed- not to mention that the need to administer the 'busywork' will be an extra cost to the taxpayer.

@JustLyra ”And anything that involves a government agency deciding what disabled people can do must, must, must be seen off. Given what they’ve done to disabled people and the benefits system we simply cannot allow them to attack disabled people from another angle.”

What is with the government attacks on the disabled?

Personally, I think the government should protect the disabled in the same way they protect pensioners.

We all have choices through our lives of how much to contribute to our pensions.

Yes, but let's not pretend there is equality here. Someone living from one pay packet to the next does not have the choice to make high pension contributions. As with most things, those who are well off have significantly more choices available.

I despair that 26% of people voting on this thread think this is an acceptable idea.

@FarmerRefuted, it is not forced labour. No one stands over you with a gun and shoots if you stop. If you claim you want to work then you work if you don't want to work you stop claiming you do and receiving benefits. Many people who claim benefits work cash in hand so actually are not available for work.