Jobless 'To Be Forced To Work' For Benefits

[charitynjw]

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/jobless-unp...e.html#nvbvABU

Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith will announce tough new conditions on the payment of unemployment benefits at the Conservative Party conference next week, according to reports.
The Daily Mail reported that the long-term unemployed will be told that they must do an unpaid full-time job or lose their benefits.
The paper said it was expected that claimants who go through the Work Programme - the Government's main back-to-work scheme - but fail to find a job will be required to take part in unpaid community work or work experience.
Refusal to do so could mean the loss of welfare payments.
Mr Duncan Smith told the Mail: "It's not acceptable for people to expect to live a life on benefits if they're able to work."
He added: "Benefits should be a safety net - but not something that gives claimants an income out of reach of many hard-working families."
Mr Duncan Smith also announced the Government's benefits cap is now fully in place across Britain.
The controversial cap - which limits benefits to £500 a week for couples and lone parents and £350 a week for single adults - is a key plank of Mr Duncan Smith's welfare reforms. It is expected to affect about 40,000 households.
The cap covers the main out-of-work benefits - jobseeker's allowance, income support, and employment and support allowance - and other benefits such as housing benefit, child benefit and child tax credit and carer's allowance.
It was piloted in four London boroughs last April before being introduced across the country from July.
Mr Duncan Smith defended the cap, arguing that it restores fairness to the system, ensuring households where no one is working cannot claim more than the average family earns.
Critics say that it penalises out-of-work families in areas with high housing charges, forcing them to move out to cheaper areas.
But Mr Duncan Smith told the Daily Mail: "We have now successfully delivered a cap on benefits so that out-of-work households know they can no longer claim more than the average family earns and we have returned fairness to the benefits system."

[Amethyst]

Re: Jobless 'To Be Forced To Work' For Benefits

Wasn't this a couple years ago and everyone started complaining about sweeping up in poundland ?

[wales01man]

Re: Jobless 'To Be Forced To Work' For Benefits

I always say if someone is able to work they should if it has to be paid other work it should be a condition of getting benefits but at minimum wage at least not slave labour on the cheap.

Wait for the flack from the do gooders in this country

[bluebottle]

Re: Jobless 'To Be Forced To Work' For Benefits

There has already been a United Nations investigation into the Bedroom Tax in which it was slammed as being in breach of Human Rights conventions and the Working Capability Assessment is now under UN scrutiny, too. Don't be surprised if IDS's willy-waving, alluded to in this thread, gets put under the UN microscope and slammed as slave labour, something that is banned under international conventions, both ECHR and UNUDHR. And just to add to this, we have George Osborne announcing he is taking the EU to court to protect bankers' bonuses.

There is a saying "Before the gods destroy you, they make you go mad." Even if the gods are currently working on that, IDS and Boy George Osborne seem to be making a pretty good job of destroying the Tories and their credibility. Expect a General Election sometime soon.

ECHR = European Convention on Human Rights
UNUDHR = United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights

[enquirer]

Re: Jobless 'To Be Forced To Work' For Benefits

This is a rerun of a previous scheme that collapsed after a legal challenge. It fell under the definition of slavery, if I recall.

[enquirer]

Re: Jobless 'To Be Forced To Work' For Benefits

Don't be surprised if IDS's willy-waving ...

Well, he was an officer in the Guards ...

[charitynjw]

Re: Jobless 'To Be Forced To Work' For Benefits

Wasn't this a couple years ago and everyone started complaining about sweeping up in poundland ?

http://www.boycottworkfare.org/?p=2834

In February 2013, the Court of Appeal held that the 2011 Regulations under which most workfare schemes were operating were unlawful, and quashed them. The Court’s ruling said that the Regulations were far too vague: they didn’t relate to the schemes that existed
After that judgement, no-one could be be forced to participate in workfare – except MWA, which wasn’t covered by the regulations – until new regulations were drawn up. (These were made the same day the Court of Appeal handed down judgement.) It looked like £130 million of unlawfully applied sanctions would have to be repaid.
But the government responded by passing retrospective legislation which re-wrote history and re-made the Court of Appeal’s judgement in their favour. By ensuring that no-one could reclaim money taken away from them by unlawful sanctions, the government denied claimants access to justice and violated their human rights. After this hearing at the Supreme Court, that legislation will be subject to judicial review.
The Supreme Court hearing is important, though. Public Interest Lawyers, representing Jamie and Cait, will argue that the government’s approach to workfare continues to be unlawful. If the Supreme Court agrees, the new Regulations, like the old ones, may be quashed and the government might be forced to take a different approach, publishing details of all workfare schemes.

(More on link)

[labman]

Re: Jobless 'To Be Forced To Work' For Benefits

I find this quite interesting having moved to where I now live. I live in a very beautiful area, but with very high unemployment and defined as a deprived area.

Very sadly, many of the 'youngsters' (not intended to be patronising) here expect a life on benefits as an entitlement. That doesn't mean they won't work if a 'hobble' comes along cash in hand.

I know it's not quite what is being mentioned here, but there are people within my family who are aged 20 and never have any intention of working. They are living far more comfortably on benefits than we do, and we claim none. That cannot be right.

[Sapphire]

Re: Jobless 'To Be Forced To Work' For Benefits

Sorry, but if your on benefits and are signing as 'fit for work' then yes, you should be contributing in some way to gain those benefits, I see nothing wrong with the unemployed giving something back and that should be in the form of some kind of voluntary work, there's plenty of parks/woodlands that need tidying up, plenty off OAP homes that need gardens sorting out or they could go into say a charity and do the admin, you only have to look around at your local area and you can see there's plenty of 'tidying' up that needs doing, anything can be done in the field that the claimant has some kind of experience in or they are fit enough to do.
Also, lets face it there are a lot of people who are working and claiming, so if they were all made to do a couple of days a week then it would make life very awkward and stop them working and claiming.
Its a win, win, I think.

[enaid]

Re: Jobless 'To Be Forced To Work' For Benefits

Or they could pick strawberries when in season on the farms that grow them. I watched and heard a girl that had come all the way from Poland to do it and she could earn up to £500 per week. Not a bad little earner and at that rate per week for 6 months you could live quite nicely for the next six months and do naff all.

[Sapphire]

Re: Jobless 'To Be Forced To Work' For Benefits

Or they could pick strawberries when in season on the farms that grow them. I watched and heard a girl that had come all the way from Poland to do it and she could earn up to £500 per week. Not a bad little earner and at that rate per week for 6 months you could live quite nicely for the next six months and do naff all.

Exactly Di, absolutely bang on.

[Inca]

Re: Jobless 'To Be Forced To Work' For Benefits

I know it's not quite what is being mentioned here, but there are people within my family who are aged 20 and never have any intention of working. They are living far more comfortably on benefits than we do, and we claim none. That cannot be right.

If you are entitled to benefits why not claim them?

Totally agree with enaid and Sapph..it's time the 'money for nothing' culture ended.

[enquirer]

Re: Jobless 'To Be Forced To Work' For Benefits

It is one thing to suggest that the unemployed be required to do some form of work for the state (ie, the general good), but it is something else entirely to see them used as slaves by big business.

[labman]

Re: Jobless 'To Be Forced To Work' For Benefits

I know it's not quite what is being mentioned here, but there are people within my family who are aged 20 and never have any intention of working. They are living far more comfortably on benefits than we do, and we claim none. That cannot be right.

If you are entitled to benefits why not claim them?

Totally agree with enaid and Sapph..it's time the 'money for nothing' culture ended.

That's what I was saying Inca - we're not entitled to the benefits. There is a thing in economics called the poverty trap which has got worse as benefits have given a better lifestyle.

The poverty trap is where your income is just slightly above the threshold for being able to claim any benefits, so if you earned a bit less, you'd become entitled to a range of benefits which would make you better off. That's exactly where we're stuck.

Believe you me, if we could claim even just a fiver a month in benefits, we would.

I totally agree with all the above about people putting something back in for what they get out in benefits. £70 per week is roughly 12 hours work on minimum wage, so do their 12 hours work and they've earned their benefits.

[ruthie59]

Re: Jobless 'To Be Forced To Work' For Benefits

One of the schools I worked in was in a deprived area. It was so depressing and made me very sad to see the kids leave school after doing their GCSE exams with no idea what to do with their lives except to head straight down the Job Centre like their parents before them. Many of the parents of these students were in their early 30s, having given birth at 16 or 17 and the cycle was sadly repeating itself.

Have just read about a mother of 7 who has been jailed for 22 weeks for benefit fraud but will be released in November. Apparently she would like more children! I think that she is the sort of person who should be giving something back to society when she is released, not planning to have yet more children.

Apologies for the long post.

Ruthie