Jobless 'To Be Forced To Work' For Benefits

[labman]

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

It's a good post Ruthie, and that is exactly the situation where I live. My niece is 20 and pregnant with her third child. Personally I thnk she should be steralised (to be slightly fair, she can't use any type of contraception but..... all the more reason to be steralised in my book). The school I taught in in inner city Portsmouth was full of unemployed families, all with 5 or 6 kids - you'd swear they were part rabbit! People who can't afford to bring up the children shouldn't have them in my book. Seeing people locally find money for their cigarettes, drink, drugs etc... while seeing their family go without is terrible.

My daughter has just done GCSE's and gone on to college. She's the first on that side of the family to do that and yes, we're proud of her. Half her friends didn't get the grades, they've gone back to school (for which they're paid £30 per week - why?) and put on courses they have no interest in.

It is all upside down. It's also a shame that money is being pumped into the deprived communities, and being abused and mis-spent. I'll shut up - it's a sore subject with me.

[ruthie59]

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

Labman, you have hit the nail on the head. My nephew has, at the grand old age of 34, just managed to get a 'regular' job. He became a father at 17 and never saw the point of getting out of bed except to sign on but I think we'll be back to square one when the novelty wears off.

[Inca]

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

My Mother (God Bless her) always said 'I didn't raise idiots'. There were 6 of us and we are all educated people,I can break bread with a Prince or a Pauper...
I raised my son with a 'work' ethic.....and he's a hardworking educated young man. Health precluded me having more children but tbh...I couldn't afford more and having a baby bloody hurt,wasn't too keen to repeat that torture

[charitynjw]

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

When I was that age, there was so much work available, you could leave one job in the morning & be employed again by the afternoon

I, & several of my friends, used to join the numerous employment agencies around town specifically to have that flexibility.

Yeah, I know; luxury, you try & tell the young people today that, & they won't believe ya!

(Reference Labman & Ruthie's posts)

[enaid]

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

Well I am sick of hearing the phrase 'one parent families' there is no such thing imo unless you are widowed.I know that sounds harsh but I am sick of irresponsible people having kids and expecting the rest of the country to bring them up.
Of course there are circumstances where it is impossible for 2 parents to be together or contribute to their kids upbringing, but in 99% of the cases there were two people to start the family a lot more should be done to make the same two finish it.

[labman]

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

I still think many of the jobs are there Chaz. You've just got to be prepared to do anything. When I tried to return to work after ill health from being a Headteacher, I worked in a cheese factory on the production line, then 'graduated' to a position in a Comet call centre. I didn't mind. I'd been raised to work, and I was working. It beat slaving away at a coal face down a pit as most of my family before me had done.

When I registered with the employment agency, they saw my degrees and were surprised when I said I'd do anything. I started at the cheese factory 7am the following morning as they couldn't get people to work there. Also did a short stint on nights at Bristol Airport parking cars - it paid the bills, so I did it.

[TUTTSI]

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

Exactly what I was explaining to my daughter a few days ago. I could leave a job on Friday and be in a new one the following week. I was never unemployed for more than a few days.

Today it is so different, CV's and important how you set them out, qualifications - you can be over qualified or not qualified enough. My daughter has had her fair share of rejections and she gets very disheartened. She has a degree in Animal Science, but the sort of jobs she wants to do she does not need that degree and other jobs she has applied for she does not have enough qualification, I now wonder why she spent 3 years at university with no prospect of finding a job in her desired line of work. Yet they run these courses and get students to take these degrees with no prospect of finding a job in that field. Most of her friends who took the same course as her have mostly taken jobs in factories, teaching English... but nothing to do with what they studied for.

The one thing she has not gone on unemployment and she does not receive any benefits (only what Mum and Dad help her with). She does a few part time admin type jobs on an self employed basis until she can find a more permanent job.

When I was that age, there was so much work available, you could leave one job in the morning & be employed again by the afternoon

I, & several of my friends, used to join the numerous employment agencies around town specifically to have that flexibility.

Yeah, I know; luxury, you try & tell the young people today that, & they won't believe ya!

(Reference Labman & Ruthie's posts)

[Inca]

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

I can honestly say there s NO way on Gods Green Earth I would ever ever allow my son to claim JSA,,it's demoralising,they are treated like cattle,they have to do ridiculous things and jump through hoops to get the princely sum of £71 a week..and if their 'advisor' decides they haven't done enough or written in their little diary they sanction them so they get nothing.
I'd support him myself . Having said that,Jack would do anything to earn his own cash.

[enquirer]

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

... we're not entitled to the benefits.

It is increasingly obvious that they want to abolish the welfare state and the NHS. However, to do so will require a major shift in public perception.

The government would very much like us to forget that we pay National Insurance ... insurance.

Rather, the government wants people to believe that all benefits are charitable, hence the never ending use of the pejorative term 'handout'. Even pensioners who have paid in all their lives, have been sneeringly referred to as being on 'handouts'.

If people can be led to believe that paying in entitles you to nothing, and that the government may take money off you and give nothing in return, then their propaganda will have been successful.

[labman]

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

I think they're caught between the devil and the deep blue sea, as they've let things go so far, they can't turn the clock back. Sadly the clock needs turning back a bit, not mad new schemes introducing to enable them to try to claw a bit back here and a bit back there.

A dose of 'tough love' for those who can work, and a dose of genuine love for those who, through no fault of their own, can't.

[enquirer]

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

I think they're caught between the devil and the deep blue sea, as they've let things go so far, they can't turn the clock back.

This is known out East as 'riding the tiger'.

They desperately want to get off, but they dare not!

[des8]

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

Beg to differ from the general consensus on this thread that those in receipt of benefits should (if they are fit & able of course) be made to do community works for their benefits.
If those community works need doing, the unemployed should do them, but not for their benefits. They should be properly employed, with a contract and the going rate for the job. There was a comment (labman's I think) that we don't want to supply slave labour to commercial outfits. Well nor should we supply slave labour to the community!
Community service was brought in for offenders (shades of the American chain gangs), do we put the unemployed in that grouping.
I feel that whilst we have a benefit system that is a very basic safety net we have to accept that there will be some (only a few) who abuse it. That does not mean that we should use everyone caught in that position as cheap labour.

And for the record I am retired and no longer employed. One of my children is on benefits unable to work due to a medical condition, the remainder, or their partner, are in employment. With my background you'd expect me to be a true blue Tory....I'm not :beagle2222:

[labman]

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

What I said Des, and from your post above, I think you'd agree with this, is that if they get £70 per week that's approx. 12 hours work on minimum wage, so they should be asked to do 12 hours work for their benefit money - the rest of the week is then theirs to go out job hunting etc...

My stronger views were on those who have no intention of ever working, and breed like rabbits. I do see both sides to this, living in such a community. It's terrible that they are brought up never to intend working, but also rather sad that despite all the aid and money pumped into the community (and there's been loads), nothing is changing. IMO, large parts of the money are being misdirected.

[des8]

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

I have no objection to the idea of the unemployed doing suitable work, BUT (and there has to be a but ) it should be at the going rate for that job, (not necessarily at minimum wage), and with a proper contract, perhaps part time only and with the benefits that come from that. Why should they be used as cheap labour?

Re your second paragraph I totally agree, but that is a problem of changing an attitude to life. Communities where we live (both urban and rural) have been badly affected and devastated since the '80s and that has IMO killed the work ethic.
As you say money has been mis spent. Locally approx £20m was used to build a tech parc, with promises of up to 4000 jobs.This was at a time of the loss locally of 450 jobs because of the closure of the main local employer. Many made redundant thought it was to be their saviour. It went ahead despite others pointing out we were a rural area without that sort of population and without the necessary skills. 10 years later it employs about 6 local residents and is basically empty.

Enormous problems and no easy solutions, but demonising ALL the unemployed and benefit claimants

And having read over thread again it was Enquirer who talked about supplying slave labour to commercial enterprises
My apologies to both:sorry:

[Inca]

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

And another thing that pisses me right off is those who 'play the system' and use Mental Health as an excuse to lounge about at home 'cos I'm depressed'...trot off to Drs armed to the teeth with all the info they need to make their tale plausible (all gleaned from the internet they have connected at home,and on the computers they have at home)
Now...I'm not for one minute suggesting that every MH case is dodgy,not at all,but a hell of a lot of them are,and in a perfect world the wheat could be sorted from the chaff.
I have clinical chronic depression,,so I take the pills the Dr churns out and I do things I enjoy doing,I'm limited by my mobility issues so I'm an armchair crusader.
I see 'agoraphobics' out in town......how's that done then?
It really pulls my chain that 'depression' is the new 'bad back' excuse..........cos noone can see it and it's easily flipping faked.