People who won't work otherwise they lose benefits

[Alphavilla]

Came across BBC article recently quoting a 20 year old man saying he had cut out Netflix and booze to cut his costs in these difficult times. However apparently he could not work more than his 16 hours otherwise he would lose his benefits. My DH is a manager in large organisation and he finds it difficult to get shifts/jobs covered as the employees claim they can't add more hours to their part time shift because they would lose entitlement to benefits. So there is work to be had, but it seems it is more lucrative not to work. What has gone wrong?

Universal basic income ?

This. ^ Also, why the fuck SHOULD someone go out to work, 'for £400' when working gives them just £600? If working pays barely anything more, why should anyone bother? Especially taking into account the fact that travel expenses and work clothes and lunches etc will have to come out of that. Now offer someone say £1850 instead of £400 and most people will happily work. PAY THEM BETTER and people will want to work.

MOST people are not bone idle, they just don't want to go out to work for 10 or 15% more money than what they get on benefits! It's not lazy or grabby or entitled. Most people - unless they are one of the fortunate few in a job they absolutely LOVE - won't choose working, over staying at home with family/children/pets, socialising with friends, doing hobbies, being able to go to the beach for the day at the drop of a hat, enjoying their freedom, and lying in, and chilling all day etc, when they only get 10% more than they would on benefits!

Most people would rather not have to go out to work, but if it paid really well - say 4 to 5 times more than benefits for instance, then most people would be OK with going to work. Like fuck would I go to work full time if it only paid 10% more than I'd get on benefits.

People berating others for staying on benefits/working part time - like 10-16 hours - and getting top ups to pay rent and bills etc, are just bitter and jealous that they themselves have to work full time (and probably don't have much surplus income!) When people berate and deride others for something, it often boils down to jealousy and bitterness.

@KellyJt I agree with other posters, God help us ALL if you are a typical example of a 'work coach!'

As a work coach I go above and beyond to help many walks of life. I don't see how the theme of tge post relates to homelessness.
many reasons for being homeless.

but tge original.siscussion was about how people think it's not worth working as you lose benefits but on UC you are always better off working and should your money drop, your benefits go up. there's a safety net.

THAT ^ is obviously assuming the £400 and £600 is for a month not a week!!! Especially seeing as benefits wouldn't generally pay £400 a week!!!

???

admittedly I answered the first post and did not have time to read 15 pages of messages.

judge judge around here lol... what a lovely bunch

spectacularly thick work coach lol

no just busy helping people and raising a family, doing charity work... no time to read 15 pages. but judge away in your glass house

@Asher33 it is literally the only socially, acceptable answer. Currently we already have a ridiculous amount of people doing non-jobs, creating income for themselves and convincing themselves that they’re so clever when they in reality do nothing that adds any benefit to society overall. That’s gonna become more and more the case..

If you'd bothered to even have a cursory read of the thread you'd have seen multiple times why your statement that "on UC you are always better off working" is demonstrably false. If you're the calibre of work coach no wonder we're in the gutter

tbf I see people turn down well paid jobs all the time.

personally I don't know how people manage on benefits. we put thousands into courses and training and jobs but believe it or not some people just don't want to work.

we are lucky here. not all countries have benefits. I've been on benefits myself.

bottom line if we are giving someone 400 a month to live on and I can get them to become a qualified xyz and they refuse then they shouldn't complain that the tax payers aren't giving them enough to live on.

it's not a magic pot of money. the aim is to help people and a lot just don't want help

Is your husband offering permanent contracts and full time hours or ad hoc hours because I couldn't afford to live and pay rent on that either.

UBI would be an utter, utter disaster. You'd have a class of people, never having worked, raising children with no idea of what work even is, going to school with no expectation of ever having a job, having more and more children with no prospects. It would be a nightmare world. Eventually the people paying for it all would have had enough, UBI would stop, and you'd have anarchy.

It sounds crazy to me too. Where’s the incentive to work?

Do you? What are all these well paid jobs that people without qualifications can get? I left school without many qualifications and all I've been able to get are low paid admin jobs. Most request a university degree nowadays.

Currently we already have a ridiculous amount of people doing non-jobs, creating income for themselves and convincing themselves that they’re so clever when they in reality do nothing that adds any benefit to society overall
I agree with you, however, I'm not sure about UBI either tbh😕

raising children with no idea of what work even is
I think it's possible some countries will have to start paying people in order to incentivize them to have families, so being a parent may be seen as a paid job...?
(not suggesting that wont be problematic!)

It's not that simple.

UC covers up to 85% of childcare costs to a maximum of £646 for one child or £1108 for 2 children. That 15% is a lot to cover yourself if you are living hand to mouth. And a full time nursery place for one child here is over £1200.

And even if the childcare is affordable, it's also about availability. Some areas of the country - particularly less wealthy ones - simply don't have many holiday clubs or wraparound care options. My children go to after school club now but they were on the waiting list for 18+ months. The waiting list for breakfast club is 2+ years. Not surprising considering there are over 400 children at our primary school and yet the capacity for breakfast and after school club is only 40.

@KellyJt Could you, as a work coach, explain to me why it would cost me 30% to study a masters part time as well as fulfil my work commitments? I am on UC, desperate to retrain so I can return to being a higher earner, even had an unconditional offer last Summer but not one of your UC colleagues could give me the same answer as to how much UC I'd lose if I returned to study, and why if I was losing the equivalent of 30% of my student loan in UC deductions, I was expected to pay the whole loan back on the other side? I genuinely don't understand what a financial agreement in the form of a loan, which I intend to repay in full, is any business of the DWP?

I don't see why. What use would paying people to have children be when there are jobs for those children to do?

The truth is we need to manage the population and control who is allowed to have children and how many children they are allowed to have. Run the numbers, and use that data to plan for the future.

Sitting here with my popcorn waiting to @KellyJt the self-proclamied 'work coach' to answer this........ I think we'll be waiting a long time.

The experiment done on UBI back in the 70s or 80s in was it Canada? (Shall go and Google in a minute) was showing good results in some respects I believe…… before it was shut down. It’s worth reading about it before you dismiss it out of hand.

Now I know you're trolling.

Have googled but can’t figure out how to do the link on my phone …..

If you Google Universal basic income experiment Canada it brings up a quite comprehensive article on the BBC.

The truth is we need to manage the population and control who is allowed to have children and how many children they are allowed to have
really, is that what you think?? Gosh!

The truth is we need to manage the population and control who is allowed to have children and how many children they are allowed to have. Run the numbers, and use that data to plan for the future.

Oh come on.

I think it's inevitable. The current system of increasing the population in order to pay the benefits of the next generation is not sustainable in the long run.