Lazy Welsh too dense to realise that they could take a bus to work. Hurrah for Iain Duncan Smith, who has shown them the light.

[JenaiMwahHaHaHaaaaah]

Those Welshies - they "didn't know that if they got on a bus an hour's journey they'd be in Cardiff and they could look for the jobs there"

Newsnight

Guardian

Thank goodness the good people of Merthyr have now received such excellent guidance [hhmm]

What a twat.

So the argument is that there are plenty of jobs in the UK, it's just that people don't know which bus to get. I see.

I'm wondering how often Iain gets the bus

Head/desk

I think what he was saying was seek work elsewhere, outside of your locality.

Do you not think though that some of the following might be true?

a) those people not choosing to find work outside Merthyr had other reasons for not working in Cardiff and were pulling the interviewer's leg.
b) Many people in Merthyr actually do work in Cardiff
c) Actually, spending 2 hours on a bus to do a job that pays the minimum wage might not be worthwhile once you have to factor in childcare.

I mean, plenty of people commute an hour to work where I live (London), but generally, the job pays them a worthwhile wage for doing so.

I know nothing about Merthyr or Cardiff but the idea that someone should be prepared to travel for work isn't all that shocking, surely? Obviously, everyone weighs up the cost of the train/bus/car against the wages to see if it makes sense. He described certain people as 'static' and I think he's got a valid point - although it's a difficult point to make without sounding patronising. I've noticed in various threads (HB changes, public housing changes) recently how terrifying some seem to find the idea of moving house. But if you're not prepared to relocate or travel and you happen to be in an area of low employment, what's the realistic alternative? Wait for jobs to be brought to you?

It's all fair and well to look outside ones locality but when the job is minimum wage, doesn't really make it worth it does it?

Chil - yes I find the thought of moving elsewhere in the country to try and find work somewhat scary.

To end up spending over 1k, trying to find a house, and a school, and a job in an area I don't know, where I know no-one is a pretty terrifying thought.

It's a lot of money to spend to find yourself back in the same position as where you started out.

I think IDS's 'get on the bus' comment could have been more tactfully delivered.

However, this POV that travelling an hour each way for a minimum wage job is 'not worth it' doesn't sit well with me. Surely anything to get off benefits? See the job as a stepping stone to something better eventually? Benefits are there for people who can't help themselves, not those who choose not to because 'it's not worth it'.

If minimum wage job versus staying on benefits is financially disadvantageous then there's a problem with the system that needs to be fixed,but if it's like for like then surely the job wins hands down?

Job = opportunity, pride, self-sufficiency, hope... Benefits = treading water.

Comments like this came from the last Conservative government. Anyone remember, think it might have been Norman Tebbit telling the unemployed to 'get on their bikes'.

Yes Tebbit's gaffe went down equally badly...

Sadly very few politicians and policy makers aactually ever talk any sense when discussing unemployment benefit.

How about subsidised bus travel for people newly back into work? Upping the free bus travel limit from 60 to 65 for pensioners (disabilities notwithstanding) would pay for this.

It's a clever line to use though. They're setting up the rhetoric well. Because there is nothing unreasonable about moving/commuting/widening the search to look for work. Nothing at all.

What is unreasonable is that there are likely to be few jobs, and that they are laying the expectation at people's doors that working for minus money is the same as taking pride in earning a living wage. (Minus money being what you take home if you do a minimum wage job and have to pay for childcare for eg three under-5s - just a rather vague example.)

So everyone who thinks this sounds reasonable is disingenuously encouraged to think that it's applicable to everyone who's not working, and that everyone who's on benefits isn't working (far from true) but could be if only they weren't so feckless.

"To end up spending over 1k, trying to find a house, and a school, and a job in an area I don't know, where I know no-one is a pretty terrifying thought."

If you approach it purely speculatively then of course it's terrifying. But most people scout the area to see if it's worth considering, has good schools etc., find the job next, then the house and then build a new social circle where they end up. It's not something anyone does lightly but, if the alternative is long-term unemployment and poor life-chances for your children in due course, I think it's a no-brainer.

Good job someone told them, then eh?

Dh has epiliepsy and cannot drive (well technically he can drive, he has been fit free for over a year now, but he won't he once had a fit whilst driving and almost ploughed into a bus stop full of school children) it's costing us a small fortune in bus fares, not to mention the fact that bus time tables don't always fit in with working hours.

If anyone wants to get up at 8am on Sundays to drive my Dh to a nearby town for work I'd be grateful? The buses here don't start until 10am. You'd be saving us £15 a week.

it's just a bit different to 'get on your bike' isn't it ?

it's hard to scout an area if you don't live locally, it costs money to get there, potentially somewhere to sleep overnight if it's a long trip. Then the same for the job interview. And possibly several trips for the house as well.

Then even if you find the job, the house, and other practicalities you've still got to find the money to move!

tbh unless the job was going to be well paid I can't see many people wanting to do that even if they could source the money from somewheere.

I had to take out a social fund loan just to help me move almost 2 years ago - I'm still paying it off. Will be until the middle of next year.

I can also agree with Dooin on the bus fares and timetables not fitting with work.

Last year exH applied for a job in the next town, he was offered it. FAB you'd think.

Except we didn't have a car, the only way to get a bus there in the mornings was to arrive 1 before he started work with the journey taking 1 1/2hrs (and the office wasn't open before then), and then the bus back he would have had to wait almost 2 hours for the bus - for the same 1 1/2hr journey back, for minimum wage, and a bus fare of £10 return a day.

6hrs a day travelling/waiting (and no-where to wait either other than at the bus stop) for minimum wage.

After much number crunching and talking he didn't take it(which in hindsight was just as well as he was actually really rather ill at the time but we didn't know it then).

I have a close friend whose daughter works in a nursery on the same industrial estate. Thankfully the DD has just passed her driving test, as he mum was having to drive her over to work in th emornings , before driving back to our town and to her own job, and then back to pick the DD up after work. Different working hours to exH's job but the bus times and fares just made it impossible to do otherwise.

Speaking as someone who back in the eighties took Tebbit's advice at face value ... OK so it wasn't a bike, more like a rather elderly Ford Fiesta that I opted to escape in... I couldn't understand why anyone would choose to stick around in a place with no prospects then any more than I can pretend to understand it now. What keeps people so devoted to dead places like Merthyr? Lack of alternatives? Loyalty? Optimism? Fear?

@MaMoTTaT... what you're describing is an investment of time, effort and a little money but if it means you set your family up for a more prosperous future, isn't it worth it?

Children
Family and friends whom you depend on and who may depend on you
Harder as you get older
Difficult to do when you can't afford the financial outlay to look for work (as others have outlined) AND have a family to support
Chil I guess you were pretty young then...comparatively less encumbered?

Chil - my parents did the same thing in the 80's - they packed us up (well not all in one go they lived separately for a while as my dad found a job and house "darn sarf") - it was for better job prospects for me and my brother.

Fat lot of good that did us, by the time we were job seeking age there was no work to be had. My brother ended up moving elsewhere - he was young and single, and had no dependants, MUCH simpler to "get on ya bike" when you have no family to lug with you, and can sleep on sofas, shared rooms, shared houses etc.

Exh and I moved half way around the world for better prospects for us - was easy to pack up our 3 bags of wordly goods and bring them on a plane and share the single room (with DS1 who arrived 6 months later) in my parents house than if we'd tried to do that later with 3 children in tow.

I'm missing something here. How can an unemployed/very low income family afford to relocate on the basis they might get better jobs?

Who is going to pay for deposits on new houses? Rent in advance? Removal services? Bus/train fares and/or hotels whilst looking for this new house?

I couldn't even afford to move to the next street and I work.

Heaven knows if the benefits people paid it there'd be uproar

Yup we moved countries so my dad could make enough money to set us up back here eventually - but the point was, he wasn't going to a minimum wage job.

Yes, I was young and unencumbered when I made my initial big break for freedom. :) But I've also been through redundancies, divorce and other things that have forced house moves and job changes since. Children are pretty adaptable, I've found and family are still there wherever you end up.

Even if it's just the young, single people that 'get on their bikes'... isn't that better than nothing?

a little money???

Have you travelled on a train or bus with a family recently (or even on your own) ???

£1000 it cost me to move 5 minutes drive down the road in the same town. Thankfully so close that even after several trips with the very cheap van (a lovely MNer drove it for me, and helped me move along with another RL friend) the petrol gauge hadn't moved so we didn't need to top it up before returning it.

It may not end up being long term gains, if you get yourself into debt to move and don't get a well paid job you could be stuck in a perpetual cycle of debt.

It's such a tired old comment, to move to where the job is as if it were all very simple for everyone.