Kemi B - the best form of welfare is a well paying job...

[Oofftheflooff]

She is absolutely right isn't she? Discussing the triple lock pension challenge and instead focusing on getting people into work. Do you agree with her ? Working 3 or 6 or 9 hours to then top up with benefits isn't the way forward (not including disabilities in here )

Many of the council houses round my way have been extended in a haphazard way since being sold and are now HMOs. Front gardens concreted over for the 6 cars of the residents.

So people should work for wages that don't allow them to afford the basics in life?

So people doing the jobs that keep this country going should have even less money to live on?

So she doesn’t agree with her own soundbite then!
Working in care homes and being TAs are not the easiest and least demanding jobs either!

They should get paid what the market rate is for their skills

I presume you are not on MW.
When was the last time you looked for a job.
I have seen jobs which require a degree, years of experience, skills and knowledge offering a 'competitive' salary of 25K - a couple 100 quid over MW.

And when the market rate is outdated and incorrect?

and that's the problem. When there are tens or hundreds of people applying for ANY job they can pay what the hell they like.

Apologies. It's hard to distinguish satire sometimes

There are people on the thread saying they’re working reduced hours as if they work full time they’re no better off. So they are saying they are better off on UC. There are people saying they get over £500 of UC a month. The person who started the thread was asking about not working as she wasn’t sure whether she’d be better off or not.

I admit perhaps my first post misrepresented the person who started the fb post, though not the overall theme. Please do forgive me, I skim read it and didn’t go back to check it. Wasn’t even sure I’d find it again as I’m in numerous groups and wasn’t sure which one it was in. So maybe the conversation starter only asked if she’d be better off on UC rather than saying she would be but other people said they purposefully curtail their hours as they’re better off working less hours and getting more UC. 🤷‍♀️

Over the years I’ve seen similar threads and also talking to students, etc who have discussed not working. Whether they’re better off or not I guess depends on the individual circumstances. But I do think it’s crazy that someone who is in a professional job needs so much UC. They should have better wages. I don’t think that’s a controversial thought?

If £12.71 an hour is too much, what do you suggest that these jobs pay and how will anyone afford to live on less than the minimum wage?

Henry Ford knew what he was doing about 100 years ago when he raised the wages of his workers in his car factories, arguing that if people didn't earn a decent wage, how would they be able to afford to buy his cars?

A similar apocryphal story tells of a car factory director who invested in a new production line operated entirely by robots. He took the trade union officials to see this new line and asked them, "How are you going to get these guys to go out on strike?" - to which one of the union officials replied, "How are you going to get them to buy your cars?"

For millions of people wages are not keeping up with inflation, particularly the costs of vital items such as housing, utilities and childcare, and the impact can be seen on the reduced spending on non-essentials such as eating out and other leisure activities and the subsequent closure of cafes, pubs and so on. People are not earning sufficient to cover the essentials, so there is no spare cash in many people's pockets for the discretionary expenditure on small pleasures.

why only 50%? single and with no caring responsibilities should work full time and not have any top ups

It is the government's job to regulate markets so that they benefit society as a whole.

Indeed. The market deems for example that a footballer is worth thousands of pounds an hour more than a care worker looking after older people or people with disabilities. That is because more ppl can be carers than elite footballers

Objectively though it benefits society far more for its old and sick to be properly looked after

so we look to government to bring balance

Having worked in the benefits system for many years I do think the handing out higher rate PIP mobility is something that needs to be tightened up on.

People need to strive to be the best that they can be and not be reliant on benefits. There are far too many unproductive lumps in this country who are content to take and never give and they see nothing wrong with this.

Then how are you going to get companies to offer 30 hour+ contracts. So many low hour contracts have the expectation that you'll be available for extra shifts at the drop of a hat, or shifts that are not the same every week. Effectively meaning that people can only have one of them.

Is Badenoch going to go after these companies, improve workers rights perhaps?

Why would it be incorrect? Employers play according to the going rate which is determined by supply and demand

Care workers and TAs ( for an example)are massively underpaid. The SEND and care systems being overhauled will highlight this hugely, both
sectors are going to rely hugely on these workers whose jobs have changed massively in the past few years .

Well everyone would like a well-paying job, but it's about creating a world where jobs pay enough to live on, which now many simply don't. So you get people living at home until later in life, people holding down 2 or even 3 jobs to keep a roof over their head, food on the table and the lights on.

It would help if hugely profitable organisations gave more back to their workers rather than their shareholders and those workers were then able to contribute more to the economy because they'd have more spending power than keeping their head above water.

It would help to have a job support system that actually helped people, rather than treating them with an assumed contempt that they're obviously a lazy wanker who doesn't want to work. It cannot be beyond the wit of man for such a system to better match people to jobs or training in shortage areas (and yes, maybe employers will have to stump up to train people on the job).

Then the welfare support has to adapt in line with the fact that there are not enough jobs and many of those jobs don’t pay enough to allow someone to support themselves.

This always comes with the caveat, that is very rarely specifically defined and spoken aloud - for a physically and mentally healthy person with zero caring responsibilities, of course employment is ideal. But individuals (unlike the government) cannot influence or create mass employment opportunities. She fails to reference the impact of sexism and ageism on opportunities, or the increasing number of employers escaping their legal responsibilities by offering "freelance" contracts rather than employed roles, let alone speak about those with caring responsibilities or disabilities.

I saw part of her interview this morning, where despite whining about the number of people on benefits, she failed to make a connection between years of deliberately underfunding healthcare and education and the impact that has on employability (perhaps she did mention this earlier?). Maybe if people didn't have to wait so long for medical care, their conditions wouldn't have worsened and they wouldn't have needed to be on benefits. Perhaps if the Gov actually had some sort of care plan (and actually provided rehab etc for children who need it, thereby improving their health and opportunities), thousands of parents of disabled children wouldn't have to give up work, any hope of career progression, financial security and even a marginal pension.

And outsourcing and thus shareholders and an extra layer of admin.

Are there jobs in this country that pay poor wages? Yes
Do we need people to do these jobs? Also yes (many fall into the category of 'key workers')
Do employers take the piss - offering a set number of guaranteed hours but varying shifts so employees are at their beck and call? Yes.

It isn't as simple as just saying 'get a well paid job'. Kemi Badenoch knows this, but she is appealing to brainwashed idiots who can't thibk critically. Many of them will be retirees who were able to own a house and save for a pension (alongside state pension) on 1 wage, or 1 wage plus a minimum wage part time job when children had grown.

If they are paying too low another competition offers a higher wage to gain employment. It's how supply and demand works