'Forced' work from Job Center.

Londonsu

kazzah wrote: »

my hubby is currently unemployed
he has to sign on for JSA every week
he gets NO job seekers allowance due to a small pension ( £500) per month
out of that we need to pay £681 mortgage
council tax £145 per month ( adult son living with us so no point applying for reduction)
water rates £45 per month
food
fuel
he has worked for 42 years
when he is unemployed ( he works in the voluntary sector and jobs are usually contract not permanent) he spends ALL day EVERY day searching for suitable jobs to apply for - he spends HOURS tailoring applications for roles against his skill set
he does this willingly because
HE WANTS to WORK
He NEEDS to work until our mortgage is paid off.
if he had to travel to a "workplace" to do unpaid work- who pays his travel costs ?
we don't have any spare money and have almost exhausted our life savings - there are lots of people who DO want to work- but I don't see why they should be forced into unpaid work - which lets face it rarely leads to permanent employment - why would an employer pay someone to work if they can get free staff from the Job Centre+

Are you not working then?? and is your son not working or working but not paying his way to help with the household finances.


Why is your Hubby signing on anyway if he has worked for 42 years he has enough qualifying years NIC to get at least the new full basic state pension (which is 35 years), under the new pension rules he wont qualify for any extra pension based on any NI contributions or credits paid from April 2016 if he already had the 35 years or more qualifying years so if he has been told he needs to sign on to get extra pension then that's not true.

ScorpiondeRooftrouser

Amazing how many people think it's a great thing for taxpayers' money to be poured directly into the pockets of multi-billion pound businesses by providing them with free labour, but get hugely judgemental at the idea that an individual might be getting just enough to live on.

RedfordML

t-mids wrote: »

I have been signed on since Dec 2016 (only receive JSA) and today was my appointment and the lady told me that I have to attend an actual job, which is full time hours for 8 weeks but no pay. She said I have to take this as the government is forcing people to do this. I honestly would not mind doing this job, however not for free.

Is this right? I really do not want to work for anybody for free. I have heard of the work programme but this does not sound like it. I don't even know the title of this program as she said she could not show me any information on it as her computer was not working at the moment. She just written down an address and phone number and told me to go there.

I hope this is in the right forum also.

I don't understand, if your only concern for working the 8 hours isn't getting paid, why are you not in employment??

kazzah

Londonsu wrote: »

Are you not working then?? and is your son not working or working but not paying his way to help with the household finances.


Why is your Hubby signing on anyway if he has worked for 42 years he has enough qualifying years NIC to get at least the new full basic state pension (which is 35 years), under the new pension rules he wont qualify for any extra pension based on any NI contributions or credits paid from April 2016 if he already had the 35 years or more qualifying years so if he has been told he needs to sign on to get extra pension then that's not true.

no I don't work due to a disability( for which I do not claim DLA or PIP -before you ask- my choice!)
our son is Autistic and has a very basic level job ( which we are VERY proud of him for achieving) and he contributes £100 towards the household costs every month.

nobody has TOLD my husband he must sign on - I didn't say that anywhere in my post and we are well aware that he has enough NI credits to claim his full pension.
He signs on because sometimes when he has been unemployed for 12 months or less we pay a mortgage insurance premium to cover some of our mortgage payments and they require evidence that he is signing on.
This only lasts for 12 months maximum and is not guaranteed for each claim.

my point was that there are a LOT of people who think that being unemployed is the gateway to myriad "benefits" which people can claim and then just sit back on their laurels - this is not the case for everyone.

takman

kazzah wrote: »

no I don't work due to a disability( for which I do not claim DLA or PIP -before you ask- my choice!)
our son is Autistic and has a very basic level job ( which we are VERY proud of him for achieving) and he contributes £100 towards the household costs every month.

nobody has TOLD my husband he must sign on - I didn't say that anywhere in my post and we are well aware that he has enough NI credits to claim his full pension.
He signs on because sometimes when he has been unemployed for 12 months or less we pay a mortgage insurance premium to cover some of our mortgage payments and they require evidence that he is signing on.
This only lasts for 12 months maximum and is not guaranteed for each claim.

my point was that there are a LOT of people who think that being unemployed is the gateway to myriad "benefits" which people can claim and then just sit back on their laurels - this is not the case for everyone.

Why don't you claim DLA and PIP if your entitled to it? It sounds like your finances are very stretched from your previous post so it seems silly to not claim what your entitled to.

kazzah

takman wrote: »

Why don't you claim DLA and PIP if your entitled to it? It sounds like your finances are very stretched from your previous post so it seems silly to not claim what your entitled to.

yes - I agree - but my disability is very personally embarrassing and I am not sure it would meet the descriptors for PIP
I know that seems bizarre - but we still have a few savings, which we will use and then if hubby doesn't get a job, I may have to reconsider - but I worry, because my disability is hidden, there are so many judgmental people about and I would potentially be viewed as "one of the scroungers"

I appreciate this may change - but for now I prefer not to.

BJV

invisibility wrote: »

This 'holier than thou' attitude when it comes to whether you would claim benefits/live off savings is awful.

The whole point of benefits is so that you don't have to save up for a safety net in case you were out of work. Of course, many do, but you shouldn't HAVE to use your savings for that.

You have the right to claim JSA if you have less than £16,000 in savings. Could someone who has £15,000 afford to live off their savings for a while? Yes. But that's besides the point. I wouldn't judge them for claiming JSA at all. I'd want to protect my savings too.

What? Really? I work really hard, far too hard & pay lots and lots of tax. I also pay child care and can not afford to save. Next month I will end my 14 year child care bill. I have never been able to claim anything . Ever ! Why should I have to pay 40% tax so you can keep your savings??? You say holy'er than thou but how is that fair?

Sorry but our welfare systems are amazing the issue and the whole problem with why we have "all over spent is not the system it is the people who selectively abuse it.

I employee people and I would always want to see a get off by bum attitude. I would be very worried if someone was on JSA for years and did nothing. I would and have employed and do employee people who have been out of work but I would always want to see what they where doing while unemployed. What work did they do, what re-train?

BJV

ScorpiondeRooftrouser wrote: »

Amazing how many people think it's a great thing for taxpayers' money to be poured directly into the pockets of multi-billion pound businesses by providing them with free labour, but get hugely judgemental at the idea that an individual might be getting just enough to live on.

Or is it big business offering to re-train? To get people back into the work force. Hey I don't agree with the free work but it would actually cost money to employee some people.

annandale

It's not 15000 people can have in savings and still claim jsa. It's six.

Forcing someone to work for free isn't always going to end up in them being trained or retrained.

A number of businesses where I live used to take people on for 26 weeks, then let them go and then take on the next person who was on jsa.

That's free labour

Someone might end up on jsa having been made redundant and having a lump sum as a consequence. That's not abusing the benefits system if it's under 6000 pounds

ScorpiondeRooftrouser

BJV wrote: »

Or is it big business offering to re-train? To get people back into the work force. Hey I don't agree with the free work but it would actually cost money to employee some people.

Some people are indeed virtually unemployable but training them doesn't help. How many times can you train a person to stack shelves? How long does it take?

In any event, training may help an individual to get a job over another individual, but it doesn't create employment. The supermarkets don't take people who have done these schemes on in addition to taking on their normal quota of staff, they take them as part of the normal quota of staff. There will still be just as many people unemployed and claiming benefits as they will have taken them on instead of somebody else. In fact having a steady stream of free labour to call on quite obviously lowers the amount of paid employment available. How could it not? In fact several of the larger companies have bowed to the obvious pressure, recognised this, and stopped participating in this scheme which was only deigned to increase profits for their shareholders. Another brilliant example of how public money is diverted into wealthy private pockets, just like housing benefit.