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.

This is the biggest problem. It’ll have knock on effects to workers who will lose their jobs to freebie workers on benefits.

From a business viewpoint it is genius. Just think how much can be saved in salaries?

No fucking way.

Either there is a job, in which case the company should hire someone and pay them fairly or there is no job and any 'work' being undertaken in return for benefits should be living wage, something benefitting the community not a company, a reasonable travelling distance, suitable for the person's skills and abilities and with exemptions for certain groups of people.

Wow this is utterly disgusting. Ethically bankrupt.

@FlorettaB it's just a name. Community work, community service, community contribution - call it what you like. If the logistics could be sorted so it wasn't a burden on charities, I think expecting people to make a contribution for the money and housing benefit they receive (10 hrs or so each week) is reasonable in principle.

If the job exists, pay someone a proper wage to do it

This - nothing more to be said.

The contribution they should make is full time job hunting and being on said benefits for as short a time as possible.

Swerving on the employer contributions is the really attractive part. The reality is these companies could pay nmw out of their own pocket and the taxpayer could pick up the benefits part and they'd still be quids in.

And people support them getting an even better deal than that

It sounds dodgy as hell. How can you justify forcing people to work for less than the minimum wage (because 30 hours a week for the equivalent of JSA or whatever it is called now is not minimum wage)? What will happen is that we all get laid off and forced to work for pennies by unscrupelous employers (the decent employers will go out of business because they can't compete).

Given that most people on UC already work and just don’t get paid enough it amazes me that anyone could fail to see this for what it is.

It’s another way to funnel money to businesses.

Why does anyone think it’s a good idea for taxpayers to pay more for Tesco/Poundland/YMCA/Others to have staff they’re more than capable of affording themselves?

They had this in NZ & Australia. The NZ Labour government have something called ‘ Mana in Mahi’ ( mahi means work ) and they subsidise jobs and apprenticeships for young people on the dole. You may think the employer is getting too much for free, but not every business owner is rich and the government helps both business growth and the young person training. You obviously only get to be part of the scheme, both as the unemployed person or business, if you meet certain criteria.
when I was on the dole in NZ I was made to go to job workshops that lasted all day every day or work in jobs they had to fill. To be honest, it made me push myself into something I wanted to do rather than feeling like I was being punished because I had abusive parents and got kicked out at 16! I didn’t like the scheme but tbh I was not putting enough effort into sorting myself out before they made me.

But also 100% predictable.

What a normal person sees as an unintended disadvantage of the scheme was in fact the whole purpose of it. It was primarily a tory bung to large corporates which had the additional 'advantage' of being acceptable to the Daily Mail hate crowd.

Doesn't anyone else find ironic that it's a Tory idea to introduce communist-style full employment?

That would be giving them a job, therefore.

I've been around many decades and have seen Tory goverments trot these kind of 'appeal to the hard of thinking' "ideas" out on many occasions.

Anyone who cannot see that this kind of "idea" actually leads to more unemployment, not less, is deluded.

Exactly - it's win-win for nasty people with or without brainpower.

I don't think it is a good idea or workable. The only exception I think might work is for teenagers who've never had a job. A suitable work experience position where the company they are working for puts in some real support might be a good idea. They'd get some experience, a reference and they might get a job if they do well. I think they should get an extra payment on top of benefits though because going to work costs money, travel/appropriate clothing etc.

This!

He is being unreasonable for referring to 'dole'. Does he think people still queue up for their giros each week?

Why not pay people properly to do those jobs so that the people doing them can afford to live? Taking benefits from people unless they agree to be exploited is gross. Some people probably are workshy if they see little financial benefit in working. That doesn't give permission to exploit them though. Up the minimum wage, make people want to work their way out of poverty that way. Some people will no doubt be judged fit to work when they can't and plunged into even more poverty, this increases ill health and then just costs more in healthcare on the NHS...

It's a no from me.

It’s crackers.
Aside from ethical considerations, think of the cost! The criminal justice community payback stuff costs money to administer and run. Having people work in a similar way for benefits will also be more expensive than if they just get paid the benefits.

I can see the MH and well-being aspect of doing something of value to society for 10 hours a week if otherwise you’ll not be working. Forces you out the house, and some charitable work is “feel good” for the right person. But why not just Treat people like adults and signpost volunteer experiences if appropriate.

It was unreasonable in 2013 and it is unreasonable now.

We have apprenticeships in the U.K. for young people WahineToa. This isn’t exclusively about the unemployed. It’s about eg a 26 year old single mum with small children who works 18 hours a week while she can get free childcare from her mother or a 56 year old who has chronic health issues and can no longer work full time but does 20 hours a week.

And yet, sadly, there are enough staggeringly stupid and/or vindictive people in the UK that it might be a vote winner.

Wow, that is utterly disgraceful, not to mention demoralising. Just awful, hope things are in a better place now.

I agree with others that if there is genuine work to do then whoever does that work should be paid a standard wage to do it.
However... I also think more should be done to help people into work. For example, businesses should be able to offer work training and experience - you don't need to have some work that "needs" doing to offer this. You can have someone in shadowing and learning. It keeps skills up to date and adds value to job applications. If you are actively looking for work you should be willing to do something like this.

There are those sorts of schemes available already, often with an education element as well. Usually cover up to about age 25 and I agree they are good. Usually run by social enterprises etc used to working with that group - rather than large corporates cashing in on free labour .