LEM that is eactly thereason I never argue to stop benefits forcertain groups- eg long term unemployed when work available.We as a sociaety do have a responsibility to the very most vulnerable, and thatmost definitely includes children in familliesin the benefit cycle.
There arealso ways the cycle can be broken- for examplewhen you go back to work benefits stop immediately even if pay dosn't come in then.
Fair enough if you were amde redundant in the last ar or so,you'll have ben able to put money back as benefits technically start from that day 9although what with means testing may not actually).
A completely different proposition entirely when people have never worked, or have beenlong term off for wahtever reason.
It would make sense tometo instead not pay anything until the number of weeks paid at the end of a job are used,but to pay benefits until the week of pay.
Childcare is of course still a maor issue: wraparound care at our school? You must be having a laugh! You used to be able to leave the kids at 8.30, can't even do that now as Head pulled funding with days notice,oh that helped the working parents!
the city I live near is recognised as one of the worst three areas for being hit by the recession, the jobs thata re available are mainly in shiftwork,Are there any palces providing shift childcare? you guessed it.... nothing for kids with SN unless they attend one specific unit (mine don't),
It's allw elland good to say people should... but there has to be a way for them to do that. Most would: working pays,in veryy many ways,socially,personally and indeed formany financially- when DH lost his ft job the benefitamount wegained was£400 pcm: I promise you,as amanager for a well known haulage fiorm,he earned a damned site more than that! Clearly working did pay.
It's very true that there are those choosing to not work, but equally there are those prevented from working and I suspect addressing that would savem oney as well, if you looklong term anyway, but that never gets the empahsis does it? OK so helping to provide Sn childcare now costs XXX but if it means peoplecan pay their bills, own a house (so no lifelong HB claim), have a pension, pay tax surely long term benefits must be rpesent?Even for things like MH and the like?
We'relucky in that DH had a PT job as well which means with Uni we can get by but he really dislikes being labelled as aclaimant when in fact between the two he is putting in 70+ hours (he has a thing about acing every assignment). That's very far from sitting at home with the plasma and a beer and contributing nothing. And it means he might just get back into FT again one day (its te sort of degree where you come with actualqualifications to do,rather than a useless arts degree like mine)