Voluntary work or lose benefits

[Marjoriew]

Government intend to cut benefits of claimants on JSA who refuse to do voluntary work of 30 hours a week over a 4-week period.
Benefits could be stopped for up to 3 months if claimants refuse to comply.

Daily Mail reader alert!

Oh, by the way, if you are currently in receipt of ANY sort of benefits right now...your opinion doesn't really count for much, does it?

No turkey is ever gonna vote for Christmas!

how do you make your money, sumfing?

BeerTricksPotter - lost the argument (ahem, "slagging match") h,ave we?

Resorting to vitriol (ahem, "abuse"), are we?

but life doesn't work like that. sure the means are available for people not to get pregnant if they so wish - well there is always an exception to the rule as has been mentioned on this thread.

yet still despite various means of contraception - we still have abortion. if contraception was that effective, if humans were that reliable..if..if..if

but humankind doesn't work that way. you can get pregnant accidentally. shit happens. but my argument has always been this.... why are people who do claim benefits long term, content with doing so? why do is there no ambition for themselves or their children? why is there no hope of a better future? why is being poor and getting by enough? i think it is questions like these, which would help us.

I am not currently in receipt of benefit, I never have been in receipt of benefit and when I could not get paid employment I worked anyway because I could not bear not to work. Does this give me the right to postulate, respectfully, that you, SumfingNew, are a dickhead?

As you were, ladies.

If the government stopped Tax Credits and Housing benefit overnight for low earners, well, I'll just describe my situation if we had to live on DP's wages. Our rent is £1000pcm. DP brings home after tax about £1100pcm. Need I say more? Now if we were in council housing rather than private rented (i.e. if there were any council properties left haha) we would be able to pay the rent that for an equivalent council/HA property is around £450 pcm in my town, without any HB, and still just about survive.

I'm not trying to say that right now, with our TC's etc, that we are dying from poverty etc, but we just about get by, which without the TC's and HB, we just...wouldn't. Not without DP's wage rising to £12.00 /hr instead of £7.00 /hr. How many employers could absorb a wage rise like that overnight, for a huge chunk of their employees?

AitchTwoOh - I advise organisations on making efficiencies and savings.

You?

SumfingNew so if you don't "pay people to have children" what do you think will happen:

1. People will simply stop having children except where they can afford to bring them up

1. People will continue to have children when they don't know how they will be able to afford them, and without any benefits, many thousands of children will be brought up in extreme poverty

If you think it's option 1, you are extremely short sighted IMO.

Erm, actually sumfing - I do class myself as a turkey, considering I believed the Tory bollocks pre-election promises that they wouldn't hurt the working poor, and voted for the bastards reprobates!

"Oh, by the way, if you are currently in receipt of ANY sort of benefits right now...your opinion doesn't really count for much, does it?

No turkey is ever gonna vote for Christmas!"

That's such a stupid stupid argument.

Did you want to extend that, all those with mental health problems should have a say on mental health care?

Tbh, I'd say those on benefits actually know more about the benefits system. As far as I'm concerned, unless you actually have some knowledge of experience of benefits (eg. not anecdotal evidence from a friend of a friend) then you're opinion is worth sweet fuck all.

indeedy kaloki, indeedy

Although under option 2. many would choose to abort. Are you comfortable with that?

I am pro-choice myself, but am very uncomfortable with the idea of women aborting otherwise wanted children for financial reasons.

people just dont understand...your benefits can be stopped for up to 6mths from the moment you make a claim...

To me it's cheap labour lets see where and what these jobs will be shall we...

cory - abuse...rise above it and respond with something meaningful, please.

Loudlass - you have been badly let down by the system. You have had your lifestyle subsidised when, in all honesty such support should never have been provided in the first place and you would have had to cut your outfit according to your cloth...

I hope you adapt well to the coming 4.5 years and learn from them.

The New Labour spend-fest was abuse, in so many horrible ways.

And why should only people earning above a certain amount be allowed to procreate? Or are we getting back into the teritory of Eugenics again. Which is how these threads always seem to end up.

Sumfing - so are you advising them that paying their unskilled workers £12K pa will make them savings and profits? Because if so, then you are guiltier than most of causing the situation whereby it has become necessary for the Goernment to subsidise employers such as those you are advising!

and i have extensive experience of benefits..

On the one hand it is wrong for people to have children if they cannot afford to bring them up without state assistance.

On the other hand, society depends on a number of jobs which society chooses to pay so badly that it is not possible to bring up children on their wages without state assistance. But the solution of people leaving those badly paid jobs en masse is not one that we- that is those of us with more earning power- actually want to see, because we know perfectly well we couldn't cope if the jobs were not being done.

So- we just decide that large sectors of the population must not have children. Nice

the way the system is set up, if you wanted to get a job at xmas, when there are possibly more low paid jobs around, if you were looking to the future, if you wanted a reference to call on, if you wanted something to put on your cv, if you wanted the experience...its not bloody worth it becuase the system itself works against you. If you were claiming benefits, then stopped to take up temporary work, it takes so bloody long to reinstate them, that someone with a family can't risk it

lowrib - preferably option 1...if option 2, it's my problem how exactly? So we should just subsidise feckless w*nkers impregnating young women left, right and centre, should we??

kaloki - I did time on JSA last year thanks. A less effective means of getting people back to work I think you'd be hard-pressed to find!

The government has been and will continue to subsidise employers...they will just make the recipients of benefit jump through more hoops tis all...makes those not on benefits feel satisfied the money is well spent..

"And why should only people earning above a certain amount be allowed to procreate? Or are we getting back into the teritory of Eugenics again. Which is how these threads always seem to end up. "

Quite Loudlass.

So SumfingNew fancy answering some questions instead of insulting people, being patronising or making stupid comparisons to child abuse cases?

Who do you think deserves financial help?
What do you think should happen to those who cannot find work?
What do you think should happen to the children of those who cannot find work?
Where will those you deem unworthy of financial support live?
What will they eat?

Sumfing - Originally I did cut my outfit according to my cloth, my existing DC were conceived while I was in a fairly highly-paid job,and was the main breadwinner in my family, in fact rather than working FT for not much, my DP worked PT around my job and did the bulk of the childcare. I then faced the shitty situation whereby I was diagnosed with a disability that barred me by law from doing the job I was trained to do, and I had to leave my well-paid job, and DP had to get the best-paid FT job that he could using the skills that he has, which bearing in mind his LD's, aren't much.

Should I have done something with the DC I already had at that point? What do you propose?