Are Apprenticies entitled to any benefits?

Jowo_2

leveller2911 wrote: »

I believe ,if youngsters are trying to do the right thing then they should at least get paid travel

Seriously, what is the point of encouraging a youngster to become independent, look at the bigger longer picture of an apprenticeship, take responsibility for their personal budget and then cushion them from a fairly common and typical expense that the majority of employees incur?

On the one hand you argue that the OP is getting ripped off because they aren't earning the NMW despite their drive that has secured them an apprenticeship compared to those with no work ethic that are content to pick up JSA.

Then despite your criticism of benefit dependency, you want a person working on a full time basis to have some of their expenses picked up by the state. Seriously, don't you realise the contradiction at the heart of your argument - rewarding a working person with access to additional benefits?

leveller2911

Jowo wrote: »

Then despite your criticism of benefit dependency, you want a person working on a full time basis to have some of their expenses picked up by the state. Seriously, don't you realise the contradiction at the heart of your argument - rewarding a working person with access to additional benefits?

So why do we have WTC and CTC, people work for say £800 per month take home and yet can be "awarded" £1,700 per month from benefits??? Feel free to have a look on the bankruptcy theads at some of the SOA ,s that people post...

Sorry but I don't see a problem with the taxpayers of this country investing a small amount in young people through travel allowances etc ,now if I had the choice of paying an apprentices travel money or paying for housing benefit,JSA, council tax benefit etc for a 17yr old then I know who I would rather invest in......

I haven't got a problem with benefits as long as they are targeted and justfied.....Im happy for my taxes to help our young people to obtain qualifications......Lastly sorry but your link between my benefits dependancy critisism as a whole and giving an apprentice some travel money is a bit weak TBH......Like you said apples n pears really..

Jowo_2

leveller2911, I actually want the whole tax credit system scrapped - it is part of an unsustainable benefits system that will cripple the country. I don't believe that households on benefits should have any parity of income with working households. I would much prefer a change to the tax system and NMW to ensure that working households are actually better off than non-working households. I appreciate you can't have seen my other posts on other threads where I criticise the fact that a non-working or partially working household can enjoy an income and standard of living that they cannot enjoy if they work as often the gross taxable figure is something they can never achieve.

For example, my sister works for a call centre and she cannot persuade any of the part timers to take up full-time positions because they are so cushioned with benefit top-ups, they don't feel they get anything out of working longer hours. We've now got a benefit system where a part-timer gets full time income, or where a household of 2 adults where only 1 works, gets the equivalent of two working wages because of tax and child related credits.

Another example is my landlord friend who retrospectively discovered his tenant, a single mother with 2 kids, got £900 per month in benefits, plus an equal sum in CT/LHA which means a working household would have to earn 30k to have this standard of living.

Put simply, the examples I gave you would ensure the recipients would get withdrawal symptoms from the prospect of each unearned pound being swapped for the same sum which they actually have to work for - it's a relatively unappealing prospect to take up employment when the state will pay the same sum if they don't...So we are in agreement about how the tax credit system saps the will of people to work.

But you fail to realise that you create benefit dependency at the outset of a young person's career by demanding the state pays their travel expenses. This means you are creating an immediate benefit dependency and sense of entitlement the very first day of a young person's working life and then the subsequent resentment of its loss the moment they no longer qualify for it. What a rotten message to give to an apprentice - we should encourage them to look ahead to their greater prospects in the future rather than send a signal that they are due a state safety net from day 1 of their first full time job...

I know you mean well, I know that £95 isn't a great sum even for a young person with low personal expenses, but I really truly believe that the only way to prevent benefit dependency and the culture of entitlement is by making the on-flow onto benefits much harder at the outset because its always much trickier to reduce the off-flow.

My preference would be for a higher apprentice wage rather than a separate additional benefit and get the recipient to feel that they have earned their wage rather than simply feel entitled to benefits to make up a perceived shortfall in their standard of living.

McKneff

Wow, Jowo, all really good posts there, and i agree with everything you said.:T

Have one on me.:beer:

leveller2911

Jowo, I agree with pretty much most of what you said, but I cant agree that giving young people subsidised travel whilst they are training is encouraging a dependancy on benefits.

I know people who have cut their hours each week because they are better off ,working less hours and getting more benefits.Its fair to say that this year was the 1st year ever that tax receipts have been outstripped by benefits which is an terrible situation.
If you look at some of my previous posts on some of the benefit threads you will see I am very critical of the system too. But ,like I said at the top, giving young trainees travel subsidies will not end up with a dependancy...

It seems we actaully agree on the basic arguements...

Jowo_2

leveller2911 wrote: »

Jowo, I agree with pretty much most of what you said, but I cant agree that giving young people subsidised travel whilst they are training is encouraging a dependancy on benefits.

Because it cushions them from economic reality for a typical expense that virtually every employee has to pay and because on day 1 of their introduction to the discipline of working and budgeting, they get a state subsidy which they'll become accustomed to receiving. Why get someone used to the state picking up an essential basic cost at the outset of their working life?!

There are currently around 50 or so different benefits, allowances and credits who could do with a massive simplification and reduction. Adding an extra one is deeply unwelcome.

Apparently, there are around 240,000 apprentices. If we say their fares will average around £20 per week, that's an annual bill of £240,000,000

As you've rightly noted, the UK currently pays out more in benefits than it receives through income tax receipts. The only way to pay for it is to increase taxes! And/or cut down on other benefits...

kingfisherblue

Good points Jowo, although I take it you would agree that carers (who get £53.10, due to increase to £53.90 a week) should get a reasonable increase? Not all of us on benefits can help it - my son needs twenty four hour care, and often when he is at school, I go back to bed to get some sleep as I am up at least four times a night. This is the type of scenario that the benefits system was surely set up for? To support those who cannot work, through no fault of their own?

dktreesea

The garage across the road from us has one or two apprentices on at any one time. Usually for two or three years, and then they are gone. They get paid peanuts, - he doesn't give them any more than their statutory entitlement, but he also is not the sole person paying them. He receives quite substantial government grants for taking an apprentice on. He gets all the cr*p work done at his garage and gets paid handsomely by the government for giving his apprentices the "chance" to do the work.

Don't imagine the employer is the only one picking up the bill for each apprentice taken on. The taxpayer is paying quite a chunk towards their pay as well.

dktreesea

Jowo wrote: »

...the UK currently pays out more in benefits than it receives through income tax receipts. The only way to pay for it is to increase taxes! And/or cut down on other benefits...

I don't agree with either of those proposals. The minimum wage should be increased to a living wage. If you have a minimum wage job, with a partner and two young children, the government, i.e. other taxpayers, top up your wage to make it a living wage. That top up means you end up, after tax, with more than the gross amount you earn, let alone the net. That's ludicrous. If the minimum wage is set so low that not even the gross amount is enough to live on, let alone the net amount, surely it should be increased.

And don't imagine these days that having a trade, via an apprenticeship, will protect you from this fate. I remember a time not so long ago in Britain, when bricklayers and carpenters got £15 to £20 an hour. Well, there's a huge housing development going on not far from where I live, just over in East Lothian, where construction workers are working for subbies for the minimum wage. And they are happy about it, (they're mostly from Poland and say they don't know why Britain is like this, but hey, it is what it is) because lo and behold, the top ups they get from housing benefit, child tax credit, council tax benefit and the like mean not only don't they pay any tax, they even "make money on their tax".

It seems to me, if you work in Britain, have children and get minimum wage, you get two paychecks - one from the employer and the other, quite substantial one from other taxpayers, via the government. I don't want to cut benefits or increase taxes. Instead I think employers should have to pay people enough so that working means you earn enough not to be eligible for benefits.

I'm not one for hoping that Labour gets back in - I prefer the Lib Dems and the SNP, but one thing I do like about their proposals is a plan to raise the minimum wage to £7.60 an hour.

Jowo_2

dktreesea wrote: »

I don't agree with either of those proposals. The minimum wage should be increased to a living wage.... I don't want to cut benefits or increase taxes. Instead I think employers should have to pay people enough so that working means you earn enough not to be eligible for benefits.

A previous poster suggested that apprentices receive a travel allowance which I calculated would cost the country £240 million pounds. Apprentices are exempt from the minimum wage. How else can their travel expenses be paid for out of state funds if such a proposal is implemented? The only way to accommodate changes like this is by raising taxes and/or cutting other benefits.

Overall, I agree that tax credits are crippling the country and it is bizarre that households with no or limited employment can get benefits approaching what they can earn with an employer, hardly an incentive to work extra hours or get the second adult to take up a job. I can see why the safetynet was put in place for those in areas with little job prospects or personal commitments but its has the inadvertent affect of allowing a full time income for part-time employment. This is why my sister can't get any of her part-timers at her company to go into full time roles - it's not actually 'worth' them doing extra hours.