UK Welfare Reform
At this moment, across the UK, single Mothers - whose youngest child is 12, a time when they?re expected to keep more of an eye on their teens - are being forced in for work interviews at their local DWP JobCentres. That is, forced to look for SECOND jobs (the first one doesn?t pay anything) - under threat of having their benefits stopped. Let me be clear: under threat of having no food for their children that week if they don?t attend! Certainly they will be looking at reduced benefits for not allowing their children to become ?latch-key? kids.
At these interviews they are being told outright LIES on how much they will earn were they to take on paid work alongside their child-rearing. They are all being given magical calculations stating that they would be up to £90.00 better off every week if they were ?in work?. But the reality is turning out to be quite different for many.
The C.A.B. have written a report noting that many of their Tax Credit clients are earning very little more than the Income Support subsistence/survival rate they were receiving when they were on benefits. Some women had just 10.00 extra in their pockets:
?CAB advisers suggest that while
some people are considerably
better off in work, many gain only
about £30 and sometimes as little
as £10. The subsequent loss of
passported benefits such as free
prescriptions and free school
meals, together with extra travel
costs associated with working can
completely wipe out these small gains.?
Evidence journal December 2007
Scroll down to page 7: Overcoming Barriers to work:
www.citizensadvice.org.uk/evidence-journal
The UK government?s response to this shortfall was to introduce an extra £40.00 weekly payment called the ?In Work Credit? (IWC). Which they then went on to bill as ?another? £40.00 every week. But this was actually the FIRST £40 extra. Deduct fares to their place of employment and this would then dwindle to £25.00 extra for going out to work all week. When they could have earned £20.00 per week, without their benefits being interrupted, if they had stayed on Income Support.
This £40.00 payment ends after just a year. Leaving these Mothers to continue struggling on Income Support amounts ? whilst going out to work.
Hardly taking them ?out of poverty?.
Clearly the real intention is far more sinister.
This year will see Mothers whose youngest child is 12 (currently 16) also being ordered in for work oriented interviews. This will then reduce to those whose youngest is 7 - and then 3 years old. Recent news reports now specify that when their youngest child is ONE YEAR OLD they will be considered to be a jobseeker!! At which times they will no longer qualify for Income Support and will have to claim Jobseekers allowance. With all the attendant requirements to prove they have been actively seeking work throughout the week.
From March 2009 all single parents (both Mums and Dads) whose youngest child is 12 will no longer receive Income Support, instead they will be paid Jobseeker?s Allowance.
The message is clear: Motherhood is no longer valued and they must now hand their children over to the state to raise whilst they go out and earn the equivalent of Income Support. This smacks of a deliberate psychological and financial strategy for DEPOPULATION. A deterrent for those women considering divorce and those younger women currently thinking of raising children.
Many of these single parents have already suffered emotional and financial abandonment by their previous partners, and now the g/ment is about to do - exactly the same!
It?s claimed that these new benefit changes will please taxpayers who will gain as the bills for benefit dependency come down. But this is not true either. When we get to the 11 year olds, and under, the spectre of childcare costs come into play. At anything up to £15 per hour on average, all paid for by taxpayers, how can this possibly be to the taxpayers advantage?
So taxpayers won?t gain any more than single Mums, if they went out to perform extra work outside the home. Alongside the 24/7 unpaid job that they already do at home, that is.
As for older Mothers:
?23 ?Nationally, there are 150,000 lone parents on Income Support with the youngest child aged between 11 and 16.?
www.dwp.gov.uk/welfarereform/c3_c.asp
Between 11 and 16 these children start to pour out on the streets. The hours of 6pm to 10pm are a time when they?re most likely to get into mischief and trouble. Widely known as ?hell hour? many Mums are then out on the street doing their own policing. This practice will fade if Mothers are out at, or late getting back from, their pittance paying jobs. So prepare for more youth crime and the rise of street gangs.
Given the relatively low numbers of Mothers with children of this age group ? is it really worth the bother?
Alarmingly, alongside these new benefit measures there are also other government plans ? with which overt mysogynists Cameron and Ian Duncan Smith concur ? to hand the ensuing childcare over to the state with:
?14 ? 3,500 integrated children?s centres across the country ? one in every community. Networks of Extended Schools will provide wrap-around childcare to suit the needs of working parents. Our commitment to providing, by 2010, an out-of-school childcare place between 8am and 6pm for all children aged 3 to 14 will be of real benefit in enabling parents ? particularly lone parents ? to go to work, knowing that their children have a safe and stimulating place to go. By 2010, there will be over 2 million sustainable childcare places for children up to 14.?
www.dwp.gov.uk/welfarereform/c3_b.asp
23 ??The OECD has said that ?once employment and childcare support is available on a comprehensive basis, it would be reasonable to oblige sole parents on Income Support to make use of it?.?
www.dwp.gov.uk/welfarereform/c3_c.asp
? One could be forgiven for thinking that these Mothers are being taken away from their children and sent out to the modern day version of the ?workhouse?, or equally that the children are being covertly taken away from the people and handed over to the state to bring up. Whilst making more ?productive? citizens of their Mothers. The E.U. agrees:
?16?The Genesis Wales project, funded by £12.5 million of European Structural Funds, is providing a comprehensive package of advice, guidance, support and childcare for people wishing to access work, training or learning opportunities?.
www.dwp.gov.uk/welfarereform/c3_b.asp
Considering the multiple skills required, the many and varied tasks to perform and the 24 hour job it actually is, surely it would be far better to leave the original carers at home, doing the original job - and far more cheaply.
Mothers have always been left dependent on man/ church/ state when raising children. One would think the idea was new to them. It certainly wasn?t lost on them after the second world war when the paltry ?Family Allowance? was introduced, to encourage women to have more children. To re-populate the place after all the men had died. The connection was well understood back then.
Now that we?re at the other end of the cycle, with certain right wing groups looking to cull what they see as too many ?cattle?, the strategy has been reversed. (Groups who usually applaud their own little women staying at home to raise the kids as the best strategy for them. But it seems the poor children have different needs ?)
Is this how they plan to: ?halve child poverty by 2010?? By reducing the population per se?
These changes are being literally rammed through. With no thought whatsoever to Mothers who are half way through their ?family? programme. Comforted and aided by the Law - that many good people went out and fought for - which stated that help would be there for them until their youngest child reached 16.
These Mothers, many of whom worked before having children and have paid in their taxes and insurance stamps like everyone else, have already sacrificed any chance of a career or higher paid job. Consequently they are therefore only able to take menial, peanut paying work. Which again forces them to go ?cap in hand? to other taxpayers to make their wages up to - Income Support subsistence level ? !!!
How is it right to change such fundamental Laws overnight? Shouldn?t they have been given at least 16 years notice for such a change?
Women have always sold the offspring far too cheaply.
And this at a time when we?re supposed to be undergoing a low birth rate and can?t afford our future pensions bill, hence the introduction of immigrants ?
So shouldn?t we be looking after our indigenous Mums? Instead of bringing in more migrant workers??
Government seems equally confused on the matter:
?7 ? Growing numbers of retired people and a low birth rate mean that only by ensuring that everyone who can work is in work can we secure dignity and independence in retirement.?
www.dwp.gov.uk/welfarereform/executive_sum.asp
One could also be forgiven for seeing the American ?Workfare? system in these methods, where in some US states the single Mums are practically rolled out in chain gangs to do the most menial of jobs in order to earn their literal daily welfare payment.
Is this what g/ment means by women ?fulfilling their potential????
We should be wary of following the example of barbaric America ? on anything. Particularly the way they treat their poor single Mothers.
All of which totally misses the fact that these women are ALREADY WORKING. On an economic level they are PRODUCERS, they ?produce? the next generation. Taxpayers, consumers, voters. Vital for the future economy. It is their offspring who will foot any future pensions bill, who will fund the future NHS and fill the market vacancies. They might not take too kindly to the way their Mother?s were treated when they get there.
Don?t be surprised if they become equally callous as regards those in need when they become tax-payers. Careful what we teach them now ?
The apparent inclination, by successive governments and markets, to dismiss all of the above is most disturbing. One could also be forgiven for seeing a certain mysogynist bent in it all. Certainly there?s a component of contempt to be seen. One might think that daring to continue raising children without a partner was a crime. Yet these are the ones who stay with the children. Heroines all of them. And yet we kick them where they lay.
But I hear the number of lone parent fathers is rising and they?re fast coming up on the outside lane.
Perhaps now everyone will ?get it?.
But it gets worse, talk is that the responsibility for these forced JobCentre interviews will soon be handed over to the private sector ! ? Where targets and results will determine their wages and funding. One wonders what psychological guns will then be held under the table:
?Jobcentre Plus now has contracts with a range of service providers to deliver in-depth work-focused support and training across the country through the New Deal, and through programmes tailored to meet the particular needs of harder-to-help client groups. These organisations can bring a distinctive approach to service delivery, based on their specialist knowledge, experience and skills:?
www.dwp.gov.uk/welfarereform/c5.asp
? 36 At the same time, we have brought in private and voluntary sector providers. In Employment Zones, providers are paid not according to what they do, but according to what they achieve. By giving them greater freedom, they have improved performance ? independent evaluation shows that they achieve significantly better job outcomes than Jobcentre Plus does with comparable clients.?
?45 Successful bids will receive initial seed-corn investment from central government and a financial reward for meeting their aims. Bids would need to demonstrate robust accountability arrangements for the delivery of agreed targets and a commitment from local employers to engage in, and support, the initiative.?
www.dwp.gov.uk/welfarereform/executive_sum.asp
The UK government?s appalling treatment of these parents, mainly women, is also echoed right across the board for other similar ?in need? groups. We?re seeing the ill and the disabled called in for the same interviews, and now the 50+ age group - and those of pension age. Along with the New Deal for younger people and the New Deal 25+ - usually youths in deprived areas. Also the partners of men on benefits are now on the radar. The overall intent seems to be to get all the ill, the disabled, the elderly, the Mothers AND the children focused on ?work?.
Vulnerable places that we all find ourselves in at some point in our lives.
!!! ? A sad, sad indictment on our society.
And if you thought life would get easier as you moved beyond middle age:
?By 2024, an estimated 50 per cent of the population will be over the age of 50, due to a combination of increased life expectancy and low birth rates. Despite people living longer than ever before, they are spending a smaller proportion of their lives in work than previous generations did.?
?The overall effect is that employment rates for those aged 50 to State Pension age are lower than for the population as a whole. The consequences of this are far reaching, both for the economy in the light of an ageing population, and for the ability of individuals to make provision for later life.?
Disability? Not a problem. Even the blind can?t escape:
?For example, blind people are currently consigned to the exempt group, although most blind people are capable of, and indeed wish to, undertake appropriate work, with appropriate support where necessary. Our proposals will correct this anomaly.?
This quote stretches all credulity:
?51 Our economy will benefit from higher employment rates among lone parents, older people and people with a health condition or disability. Taxpayers will gain too as the bills for benefit dependency come down. But the gains for those individuals helped into work will be the greatest: respect, dignity, security, and achievement.?
www.dwp.gov.uk/welfarereform/executive_sum.asp
(!!!) All completely laughable! There is no ?respect, dignity, security or achievement? in forcing the weakest groups in society into workhouse conditions. Taxpayers will find they have an even larger benefit and tax system to pay out for and our future economy will wilt further as no-one will bother to have any babies.
Well done!
And finally, who do you think it was who masterminded all these changes? One ex-Investment banker ? David Freud! From a group who can?t even manage their own affairs properly. The Labour g/ment approached HIM! Which is akin to asking the wolves how to deal with the chickens. Single parents are a group from whom the bankers will NEVER make any money. They were only ever going to maximise thr current ?economic output? of these people. With a characteristic shortsightedness for the future of our society and a total non-understanding of the concept of ?family?.
Given this outrageous move and the consequent poverty and despair that it will surely bring ? shouldn?t we be flushing this banksters recommendations down the toilet?
But no, even after their recent illegal, nay CRIMINAL, damage to our economic system and their unbelievable reluctance to help those they have impoverished ? g/ment is STILL intent on following these recommendations!!!
Maybe it?s now time to consider some non-governmental, public ?Mother?s Insurance Scheme?. Where payments can be started from birth for every female. Ensuring that those who are left holding the babies later in life will be able to receive adequate funds to look after their families.
And finally, FINALLY, take all the woes of women out of the hands of man, god, state ? and banksters.
C.A.B:
'We are concerned that the Department for Work and Pensions is prepared to consider work for benefit schemes without addressing the key problems found in the international comparison research, commissioned by the Department.
We do not think that abolishing income support, whilst extending JSA entitlement to lone parents and carers not required to look for work, makes the system any less complicated for claimants.
The sanctions regime must be fully supported by thorough safeguards to ensure personal advisers exercise appropriate discretion so that vulnerable claimants, such as those with learning difficulties and language and literacy barriers, are not disadvantaged. The importance of training for Jobcentre Plus personal advisers must not be underestimated.
We whole-heartedly welcome the introduction of ?payments on account? (advance benefit payments) as part of the Bill?s proposals to reform the Social Fund. We maintain that help from the Social Fund should not be conditional on the recipient having to agree to accept information or guidance on budgeting, as this may be counter-productive.
We welcome, in principle, the proposals to pilot auto-payment of Pension Credit to those who are eligible for it and would welcome more detail on the proposals.
We would welcome more detail on the proposals to introduce additional sanctions on benefit claimants who are violent. We question the need for these, given that criminal sanctions against violent conduct already exist in law.
Current earnings disregards are too low and mean that at present lone parents can only work three or four hours a week without losing their benefit, which is not enough to allow real progression to work.
The proposal to allow the Child Maintenance Enforcement Commission to make disqualification orders directly would appear to conflict with a basic principle of human rights, i.e. the protection of due judicial process.
www.citizensadvice.org.uk/welfare_reform_bill_-_second_reading_hoc