Confused re attitude to benefits and work experience

[catontheroof]

Your thoughts please - why has it become so politically incorrect to suggest that fit adults in this country should be expected to work for a living?

I believe that we need a safety net but cannot understand why people should not have to take jobs that they are qualified for if those jobs exist. I also cannot understand why people "deserve" tax credits etc.

If large chunks of our population do not work then our GDP is low. The only way that we can afford to have so many on benefits with a relatively high standard of living is by importing goods from other countries where the workers live and work in atrocious conditions.

Why do we think that it is right and proper that people in this country sit around being paid not to work whilst tens of thousands all over the world work in sweat shops to provide them with a lifestyle?

If our fit population all worked then we'd increase GDP and have money to help people in other countries where there is real poverty.

Hecubasdaughter hysterical not hysterically funny. you must know they are v different.

why aren't you ashamed of all the free education, free medical care, child benefit, etc you've personally received from strangers as I have said - I do work so I am at least trying to do my fair share. I pay tax.

So do most people that get TC's.

FFS how long have those 400 000 jobs been advertised for? There is churn in the jobs market, the 2.6m unemployed this week are not all the same people as the people who were unemployed 6 months ago. People get jobs, but other people are made redundant or have contracts end or finish courses or one of a multiude of things which puts them back out of work.

And Jobseekers does require you to apply for jobs, to show evidence of this and sometimes even the job centre will check up that you have genuinely applied for a job. If someone cannot find a paying job, how is it helpful to donate their time to a big company who are making massive profits for them to do an unskilled job?

This just takes still more demand out of the labour market without providing anything useful in exchange. Tescos et al could all afford to pay minimum wage on a short term contract and then take on everyone who has worked hard, rather than taking people's time for free and throwing most of them back to unemployed at the end of the "placement".

Hecubasdaughter - you can clearly afford some sort of computer and broadband access - why should I pay for this for you when I would rather pay for vaccines or fresh water for people who have neither?

By definition anyone online can afford to be online - that seems like a pretty high standard of living to me compared to that experienced by millions of people worldwide.

"I do work so I am at least trying to do my fair share. I pay tax."

There you go then, you've answered your own question.

I didn't feel ashamed receiving Incapacity Benefit because I still pay tax, and I worked (paid) before I was ill and now work in unpaid and very tiny ways because that's what I can do to contribute to society.

compared to that experienced by millions of people worldwide.....who if they want anything have to work for it.

and if there arent jobs, they work at creating their own.

The more the OP posts the less I think she understands.

You don't put into a tax "pot" and then it gets distributed as YOU like, if that were the case I certainly wouldn't be happy for bundles of my Hard Earned Tax to be spent on the things I don't agree with.

What a pointless argument.

"when I would rather pay for vaccines or fresh water for people who have neither?"

Oooh, is that a yes to paying for the irrigation system?!

....You don't put into a tax "pot" and then it gets distributed as YOU like,

I know that - I am simply asking why people in this country feel entitled to such a high standard of living. Ie why do people say things like "I'd be no better off if I got a job" - why is this relevant?

Surely they should get a job simply so that they are less of a burden on the tax payer. This would free up more money to go to people who are really badly off - so badly off that they are spending all their time working, often taking their children with them or sending their children to work. Some of these people do not even have computers Maybe more of the worlds children could be educated if we in the west were all prepared to work harder rather than expecting to be handed a relatively high standard of living on a plate..

thats not the kind of fairness some posters want. they want the kind that benefits them.

& if we really care about global fairness, we'd all have to lower our expections of lifestyle.

Maybe you should start by harranguing the big corporations who make billions at the expense of the developing world - y'know rather than harranguing the poorest in our society how about having a moan at the companies who have picked up and taken their jobs to India where they can treat the staff like shit and pay them peanuts as the poverty there is so crushing?

Fuck me - I think there are people who are actively hoping that the poorest in out society actually start dying, that'll get them off their arses to get a non existent job (or create one for themselves!! )

You do realise that in our economic system which is almost totally built on debt that in order to have some people be rich, other people have to be in debt, it's the way the system works? It's a giant pyrimid scheme.

We're sold this idea that if we just work hard enough, long enough and smart enough that, we too, will be successful. It's a lie. Yes, successful people have these traits, but so do many who never 'make it'.

Well off people like this story because when they look around them at the world and see how unequal it is, they can tell themselves that they deserve to be one of the better off. Poor people like this story because it gives them hope of one day being not poor and it keeps them quiet which rich people like.

Cat, you never answered the question about if your children are privately educated and have private education. Or are tax payers having to foot the bill for you children? Because that money would be better spent on people in developing countries, according to your argument. If you were really trying to not be reliant on the state, you'd have worked a bit harder for a bit longer and paid for your children's own education and health care, rather than relying on other people.

Somebody on ESA really needs that money to survive. Why don't you work nights in a supermarket? Then you could home educate your children and the money saved on the tax payer having to educate them could go to a family where either the parent or child was disabled, rather than a household like yours where both you and your DH are capable of full time work but still see fit to expect the rest of us to pay for your kids.

'As to my situation - I work on lots of short term teaching supply-type contracts, exam marking etc so am always looking for work. It is very hard locally (I'm in the south west so not much about) and so I work mainly in the Midlands at the moment with a 2 hour commute each way.'

.. so what are you going to do when your supply work dries up?? Cos if you think the employment situation for teachers is not going to get worse, you need to take a reality check.

TheReality, I've worked for a large range of employers, from small businesses to universities to government agencies. I've participated in hiring practices in each. IME when people complain they can't get people with a high enough level of skills, it's because they are not being competitive enough with their job offers. It's true that's just my own experience though.

That's not to say there isn't a shortage of whatever particular technical skills you are looking for, but you seem to lack sympathy for the many unemployed out there because you cannot fill these two positions, when in fact perhaps you could fill them by upping your salaries a bit.

We do have private health care. We cannot afford private education but only because we pay so much tax - we could afford it if we didn't may the tax for all the benefits.

Somebody on ESA really needs that money to survive.
I think that this statement makes my point well for me - no one needs that much to survive. You could survive on hostel accomodation and food coupons. Many people in the world genuinely cannot afford to survive.

what are you going to do when your supply work dries up put up with a lower standard of living - not expect someone else to foot the bill to maintain my current standard.

harranguing the big corporations who make billions at the expense of the developing world i dont think they care about a few people harranguing them when many more are their customers but i bank with coop, dont fly, buy fairtrade food & clothes. shop local etc.

Edwina? Is that you?

you could fill them by upping your salaries a bit businesses wouldn't need to pay salaries which cause them to be uncompetative on an international scale if we didn't have such a high level of available benefits in the UK.

Why shouldn't people on benefits work for these benefits? Why should they get them for nothing and then use other people's money to buy goods manufactured by people who are a lot worse off than they are and who are working for a lot less?

you seem to lack sympathy for the many unemployed out there because you cannot fill these two positions no - the last person i hired had been unemployed for 9 months & he is great.

i dont have the type of work to retain someone who can command a high salary.

Having the laptop is a lifesaver for me a laptop is a luxury good. Fresh water, vaccines, antimalarial drugs etc are lifesavers. The fact that you see a laptop as a "lifesaver" demonstrates my point about our sense of entitlement to such a relatively high standard of living.