The Benefits System

kabayiri

Jimmy_31 wrote: »

Its quite simple for a food stamp system to work, and if it doesnt then the government can just give the benefit claimants the actual food and clothing.
...

One of the reasons the 'benefit book' was replaced by Direct Payment into client's bank accounts is because benefit books were indeed tradable commodities in the black market.

You will be surprised just what people will flog to get their next fix, or pay that loan shark.

It's a toughie because I agree that giving some people money and expecting to manage it themselves is not always the answer.

jamespir

DirtyDick wrote: »

A job that paid £67 per week? Probably not; but if you're only taking from society for a long time it's only right and proper you make a contribution to that society.

no pay them a proper wage and get them of benefits

DirtyDick

pqrdef wrote: »

Using the unemployed as a source of cheap labour is a circle that's been gone round many times in the last 400 years, most recently as Youth Opportunities and Work Experience.

Usually it ends up with a bad reputation. After all, it's not that far removed from legalised slavery.

It's true that if governments could do joined-up thinking, the saving in benefits could be set against the cost of employing more people.

Slavery? By that token, taxation is no more than legalised theft.

I agree it could be a pain to implement because it'd doubtless be done in a half-arsed way, with numerous caveats exempting people and costing tens of thousands to investigate each non-attendee. That is not to say the principle is unsound if it can be done effectively.

It would only work if one were prepared to see non-compliance result in total removal from the benefits system - starvation or reliance on charity.

jamespir

bristol_pilot wrote: »

Making people work for their benefits has consistently failed in this country and others. My preferred approach would be to phase out all benefits except the state pension and contribution-based jobseekers, then let people sink or swim.

thats just stupid more people are losing their jobs on a daily basis cause companies are going bust
so its not their fault

and what about the ill ?

Going4TheDream

pqrdef wrote: »

I don't think it's been established that there are that many of these people. A lot of claimants do in fact have a bad back. A lot more have mental health issues. A lot are just unemployable.

If we have people who are employable and able to work but choose to accept a reduced lifestyle on benefits, maybe we should accept that voluntary unemployment is a relatively civilised way to deal with a surplus of labour. Force them to work, they're only taking jobs away from people who want to work.

If we have people who choose not to work because they're better off on benefits, then we have a really serious problem. This is tantamount to saying that what is considered a fair and acceptable wage for a worker might not be enough for a family to live on. We'll have to abandon the common (but rather modern) assumption that everybody can marry and have kids. We'll have to go back to the pre-industrial days when only a man with a small-holding or a trade could afford to marry, and the rest had to live on just enough for their own bed and board and stay single. Clearly, if we really have more kids than the economy is capable of supporting, the only answer is fewer kids.

Ok, I accept that we may well never have full time employment for all, due to the economy. However I do believe people who are seriously ill enough for this to impede their ability to work would be covered under disability benefits or should be so shouldn't be expected to work. There are many who find themselves in the position of being unemployed but want to work but cannot find any. Whilst I agree that many are unemployable, and that in itself is an issue as to why, I find the term voluntarily unemployed quite repugnant really from the point, as irrelevant of the fact they may choose to live a reduce lifestyle, that they create no value to society in real terms and at the expense of others who have to pay for their choice. For me the concern is they will have children who will then grow up to see non working as acceptable and so the cycle continues but grows, whilst those that do work limit their choice to have further children or any based on financial restraints. The point you make about people being better off on benefits than working is in existance and often perpetuated by the system, we already see certain elements of society allowed to have many children at the expense of others. Surely the two combined create an unsustainable long term financial burden and the solution cannot be to do nothing but accept it?

A._Badger

It is certainly true in the part of rural Kent where I live that breeding is the main career choice for teenage girls - often as young as 14, as the previous poster says.

Clearly, the system is broken.

DirtyDick

jamespir wrote: »

no pay them a proper wage and get them of benefits

Would that be affordable? Lovely idea if doable, but I fear not.

If Society is already paying someone a 'wage' of sorts in benefits and getting no tangible return on it, do they not have a right to expect them give back something?

pqrdef

The_White_Horse wrote: »

it is always the fault of the lefty. always.

Actually it was the Thatcher government that invented the modern ways of disguising mass unemployment - Incapacity Benefit and the various ways of extending school-leavers' "education" indefinitely so they don't have to be counted in the workforce.

ILW

If unemployment has been a problem for some while, why did the last government allow mass immigration and keep saying it was good for the country. Am I missing something?

pqrdef

heathcote123 wrote: »

No, you would need to have the work done by a man with a bucket and sponge & a reciept book he bought for 99p whsmith.

Not advisable to issue paperwork if you don't want to declare your earnings for tax. Danny Alexander is taking on an army of extra tax collectors, and they'll go for the easy targets. No point in taking on accountants who're cleverer than they are. But results will have to be produced, so expect an onslaught on the black economy.