discodown Posted June 10, 2010 Share Posted June 10, 2010 Before I start this its important that I make it clear that this is just my opinion and not official rules or classifications or anything. I actually work in benefits and meet hundreds of people who are on benefits every month. So I speak from experience. There are three basic categories of people on benefits. People who've made bad choices or had bad luck People who have fallen through the cracks in the system Benefit careerists These 3 categories can be subdivided but it all gets stupidly complex if we do that so i'll just try to summarise each one. Firstly the benefit careerists are the people who have always been on benefit or work for very short periods and return to benefit because they prefer it, they always want to be on benefit and could be 2nd or 3rd generation benefit careerists. The other name for them tends to be the underclass. They are happy on JSA and like having their rent and council tax paid for them. They tend to be intimate with the benefits system and know how to use it to their best advantage. Normally because they've made a few errors in the past and learned the hard way. They are the ones most likely to commit benefit fraud and the ones most likely have supplementary non declared income. Oddly enough they also tend to the the ones who are most critical of immigrants. These tend to be the tiny minority. Next are the people who have made bad choices or had bad luck. This is by far the biggest category of people on benefit. These are the people who have been laid off, single parents, older people who can still work, self employed people whose business has failed, very young people (16-18), carers, post grad students and a few other people. These people don't like being on benefit at first, they see it as a stop gap and they are confused and frustrated by the system that seems to be set up against them. Alot of the time they are semi ashamed or embarrassed to be on benefit and can sometimes be reluctant to claim but the longer they are on benefit they begin to develop more of the traits I associate with benefit careerists. Most of the mistakes they make are genuine and tend not to be repeated. Lastly we have the people who have fallen through the cracks in the system. The mentally ill, the illiterate, people granted asylum, people fleeing violence, homeless, substance abusers and so on. These poor sods should really be in care or at least have support but somehow they don't manage to get it. they are the ones right at the bottom of the pile who can't help themselves enough to get off benefits but also don't expose themselves to the proper agencies that could help them. They tend to have accidentally defrauded the system because they simply can't manage themselves or their lives and are too broken to be able to assert themselves. There are also people who fit into 2 or sometimes 3 categories but we can't discuss everyone. The basic problem is should unemployment benefits be cut or not? Arguably for some people they should. For others its not enough. If you're single and on benefits then good luck. You better learn to live very frugally. The main issue is what sort of society do we want to live in? One that has humanity and compassion or one that reverts back to basic darwinism of survival of the fittest? Clearly we want and should have humanity and compassion but this isn't a simple issue, the system is rotten from the inside out and because of that corruption has set in and the system is being abused. Therefore the system is at fault. Benefit should never ever be a career choice so we need to look at how to change this. We also need to look at ourselves as a society and look at how it would be easy to get people off benefits. Cutting them may be an answer but then everyone suffers for the sake of the few. So there are 2 main candidates we can get off of benefits while using that money for people who need it more. Firstly ageism is rife in this country and its pointless, them amount of people aged 50+ on benefit could be cut at a stroke if people would look past the date of someones birth. There are men, good men, talented men, hard working clever men signing on simply because they have the cheek to be old and its desperately sad and stupid. Get these people into work incentivize companies to employ them. Next single parents. Single parents are the people most likely to be in the benefit trap because for them to start working they have to earn enough to live on, pay rent, council tax and sometimes childcare. they're not going to do it when they've got to start at the bottom. More needs to be done to make these people employable at a decent rate and actually get companies to be flexible enough to employ them wen they need to work odd hours and during term time. As for the people left then we need to make benefits more uncomfortable for people to live on and work a better option. Vouchers instead of cash has been suggested many times and there are a lot of advantages to it but equally you can't get people to make adult choices by treating them as though they aren't responsible. I'm rambling a bit now but the point is the whole benefit system needs to be changed to make it more responsive to individual needs and more needs to be done to get people who can work working while helping the people who really need it most Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chem1st Posted June 10, 2010 Share Posted June 10, 2010 Quite simple really. We don't have the money to keep running the welfare state as it currently stands. The private sector has had to suffer cuts, so should the overgrown public sector. People who can afford luxuries such as cigggies, booze, gambling, Sky / Virgin TV (check out your local Sky dish to Alarm box ratio) and high end consumer goods are being paid far more than the 'bare minimum'. Cutting 5% will help the entire country and might force the long term unemploted to find work, rather than sitting back for the ride at our expense. Getting these people back into work will have a two fold 'benefit':- Reducing the amount paid out by the state and Increasing the amount taken in by the state. Any surplus from this, after contributing to the reduction of our natinal debt, can be used to increase benefits for those in real NEED. In a modern day school with yesteryear values the teacher would throw the calculator at you! Tot up the cost of these luxuries. 20 L&B a day would be £42 per week Booze - ? Gambling +/-? Sky - ? TV License ? (Does one dispose of the TV when unemployed to save money on the license, or risk going to jail/offer to pay at a later date - What about agency workers?) Drugs - ? Compare them to the level of benefits of a few groups. Adult under 25 - £52 Adult over 25 - £65 Pensioner - £130 Disabled a little - ? Disabled a lot - ? Single parent 1 kid - ? Single parent 2 kid - ? Single parent 7 kids - ? Disabled single parent - ? Write a list of the essentials that would be needed to survive and gain employment; Phone to be contacted by employers -? Food - ? Electric/Gas - ? Travel to work etc - ? Clothes - ? Housing benefit and council tax-benefit (tax-benefit ???) deserve their own threads. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
convert Posted June 10, 2010 Share Posted June 10, 2010 Before I start this its important that I make it clear that this is just my opinion and not official rules or classifications or anything. I actually work in benefits and meet hundreds of people who are on benefits every month. So I speak from experience. There are three basic categories of people on benefits. People who've made bad choices or had bad luck People who have fallen through the cracks in the system Benefit careerists These 3 categories can be subdivided but it all gets stupidly complex if we do that so i'll just try to summarise each one. Firstly the benefit careerists are the people who have always been on benefit or work for very short periods and return to benefit because they prefer it, they always want to be on benefit and could be 2nd or 3rd generation benefit careerists. The other name for them tends to be the underclass. They are happy on JSA and like having their rent and council tax paid for them. They tend to be intimate with the benefits system and know how to use it to their best advantage. Normally because they've made a few errors in the past and learned the hard way. They are the ones most likely to commit benefit fraud and the ones most likely have supplementary non declared income. Oddly enough they also tend to the the ones who are most critical of immigrants. These tend to be the tiny minority. Next are the people who have made bad choices or had bad luck. This is by far the biggest category of people on benefit. These are the people who have been laid off, single parents, older people who can still work, self employed people whose business has failed, very young people (16-18), carers, post grad students and a few other people. These people don't like being on benefit at first, they see it as a stop gap and they are confused and frustrated by the system that seems to be set up against them. Alot of the time they are semi ashamed or embarrassed to be on benefit and can sometimes be reluctant to claim but the longer they are on benefit they begin to develop more of the traits I associate with benefit careerists. Most of the mistakes they make are genuine and tend not to be repeated. Lastly we have the people who have fallen through the cracks in the system. The mentally ill, the illiterate, people granted asylum, people fleeing violence, homeless, substance abusers and so on. These poor sods should really be in care or at least have support but somehow they don't manage to get it. they are the ones right at the bottom of the pile who can't help themselves enough to get off benefits but also don't expose themselves to the proper agencies that could help them. They tend to have accidentally defrauded the system because they simply can't manage themselves or their lives and are too broken to be able to assert themselves. There are also people who fit into 2 or sometimes 3 categories but we can't discuss everyone. The basic problem is should emplyment benefits be cut or not? Arguably for some people they should. For others its not enough. If you're single and on benefits then good luck. You better learn to live very frugally. The main issue is what sort of society do we want to live in? One that has humanity and compassion or one that reverts back to basic darwinism of survival of the fittest? Clearly we want and should have humanity and compassion but this isn't a simple issue, the system is rotton from the inside out and because of that corruption has set in and the system is being abused. Therefore the system is at fault. Benefit should never ever be a career choice so we need to look at how to change this. We also need to look at ourselves as a society and look at how it would be easy to get people off benefits. Cutting them may be an answer but then everyone suffers for the sake of the few. So there are 2 main candidates we can get off of benefits while using that money for people who need it more. Firstly ageism is rife in this country and its pointless, them amount of people aged 50+ on benefit could be cut at a stroke if people would look past the date of someones birth. There are men, good men, talented men, hard working clever men signing on simply because they have the cheek to be old and its desperately sad and stupid. Get these people into work incentivise companies to employ them. Next single parents. Single parents are the people most likely to be in the benfit trap because for them to start working they have to earn enough to live on, pay rent, council tax and sometimes childcare. they're not going to do it when they've got to start at the bottom. More needs to be done to make these people employable at a decent rate and actually get companies to be flexible enough to employ them wen they need to work odd hours and during term time. As for the people left then we need to make benefits more uncomfortable for people to live on and work a better option. Vouchers instead of cash has been suggested many times and there are a lot of advantages to it but equally you can't get get people to make adult choices by treating them as though they aren't responsible. I'm rambling a bit now but the point is the wole benefit system needs to be changed to make it more responsive to individual needs and more needs to be done to get people who can work working while helping the people who really need it most Excellent post. The problem we have is that the welfare state has grown to the point where we just can't afford it in it's current configuration. Short term we need to get national debt down, otherwise interest costs will spiral out of control. The medicine we need is bitter to swallow, but as a nation we all need to take the pill. I fully agree that the benefit system needs to be reformed, with more help being given to those in genuine need. Many other things need to be done, especially to help some of those who have fallen through the cracks. You're perfectly right that some of them can't cope with life on a day to day basis; they should be in care. However we've moved to a society that views institutionalised care as wrong; a society that sees care in the community as better for the individual. This needs to be addressed as well. A voucher / benefit card system would go a long way to helping. Paying cash to a lot of these people hasn't encouraged them to make adult choices so far, so I think we should go down the voucher route. Perhaps it would be the kick up the backside some need. A question (not just for you). How much have benefits increased over the last 2 years? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
convert Posted June 10, 2010 Share Posted June 10, 2010 In a modern day school with yesteryear values the teacher would throw the calculator at you! Tot up the cost of these luxuries. 20 L&B a day would be £42 per week Booze - ? Gambling +/-? Sky - ? TV License ? (Does one dispose of the TV when unemployed to save money on the license, or risk going to jail/offer to pay at a later date - What about agency workers?) Drugs - ? Compare them to the level of benefits of a few groups. Adult under 25 - £52 Adult over 25 - £65 Pensioner - £130 Disabled a little - ? Disabled a lot - ? Single parent 1 kid - ? Single parent 2 kid - ? Single parent 7 kids - ? Disabled single parent - ? Write a list of the essentials that would be needed to survive and gain employment; Phone to be contacted by employers -? Food - ? Electric/Gas - ? Travel to work etc - ? Clothes - ? Housing benefit and council tax-benefit (tax-benefit ???) deserve their own threads. Hm, No where did I state actual figures. In a previous quote I suggested dropping from 20 L&B a day to 10. Now I don't know the price of fags in the shops (Tesco would appear to sell them for £5.55 for 20); and i'm sure much of the 'underclass' don't either as their fix is often supplied via the black (can I say that on here) market thus depriving HMRC of much needed taxation. I doubt the saving would be £42 per week though, more like £19. I think that You'd better duck as I'm sure there's a casio winging it's way towards you I fully agree with you re HB and CTB. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Anna B Posted June 10, 2010 Author Share Posted June 10, 2010 He needs to get some business advice. Has he been in touch with BIG? Check them out on the councils website Oh yes he's been in touch with BIG. They started him on this home networking business, a government run thing which turned out to be a big con. He put time, energy and money (a loan) into setting it up. He ended up in debt and worse if than when he started. There were several other people who got involved. I'd really like to hear from any of them to see if any of them managed to make a go of it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
discodown Posted June 10, 2010 Share Posted June 10, 2010 Excellent post. The problem we have is that the welfare state has grown to the point where we just can't afford it in it's current configuration. Short term we need to get national debt down, otherwise interest costs will spiral out of control. The medicine we need is bitter to swallow, but as a nation we all need to take the pill. I fully agree that the benefit system needs to be reformed, with more help being given to those in genuine need. Many other things need to be done, especially to help some of those who have fallen through the cracks. You're perfectly right that some of them can't cope with life on a day to day basis; they should be in care. However we've moved to a society that views institutionalised care as wrong; a society that sees care in the community as better for the individual. This needs to be addressed as well. A voucher / benefit card system would go a long way to helping. Paying cash to a lot of these people hasn't encouraged them to make adult choices so far, so I think we should go down the voucher route. Perhaps it would be the kick up the backside some need. A question (not just for you). How much have benefits increased over the last 2 years? Last year JSA for a single childless person over 25 was £64.30 (i think) This year its £65.45 so things aren't increasing a great deal but the people who need it is. To my mind we need to get the people who can work into work, support the people who really need it and the feckless, the lazy and irresponsible should have benefits cut. Theres an argument for the voucher system and it is tempting to go down that route but how do you enforce it? You could try similar rules to what some immigrants have to follow. I.e if you can't prove you have been self sufficient for at least a year you can't claim benefit Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Anna B Posted June 10, 2010 Author Share Posted June 10, 2010 Before I start this its important that I make it clear that this is just my opinion and not official rules or classifications or anything. I actually work in benefits and meet hundreds of people who are on benefits every month. So I speak from experience. There are three basic categories of people on benefits. People who've made bad choices or had bad luck People who have fallen through the cracks in the system Benefit careerists These 3 categories can be subdivided but it all gets stupidly complex if we do that so i'll just try to summarise each one. Firstly the benefit careerists are the people who have always been on benefit or work for very short periods and return to benefit because they prefer it, they always want to be on benefit and could be 2nd or 3rd generation benefit careerists. The other name for them tends to be the underclass. They are happy on JSA and like having their rent and council tax paid for them. They tend to be intimate with the benefits system and know how to use it to their best advantage. Normally because they've made a few errors in the past and learned the hard way. They are the ones most likely to commit benefit fraud and the ones most likely have supplementary non declared income. Oddly enough they also tend to the the ones who are most critical of immigrants. These tend to be the tiny minority. Next are the people who have made bad choices or had bad luck. This is by far the biggest category of people on benefit. These are the people who have been laid off, single parents, older people who can still work, self employed people whose business has failed, very young people (16-18), carers, post grad students and a few other people. These people don't like being on benefit at first, they see it as a stop gap and they are confused and frustrated by the system that seems to be set up against them. Alot of the time they are semi ashamed or embarrassed to be on benefit and can sometimes be reluctant to claim but the longer they are on benefit they begin to develop more of the traits I associate with benefit careerists. Most of the mistakes they make are genuine and tend not to be repeated. Lastly we have the people who have fallen through the cracks in the system. The mentally ill, the illiterate, people granted asylum, people fleeing violence, homeless, substance abusers and so on. These poor sods should really be in care or at least have support but somehow they don't manage to get it. they are the ones right at the bottom of the pile who can't help themselves enough to get off benefits but also don't expose themselves to the proper agencies that could help them. They tend to have accidentally defrauded the system because they simply can't manage themselves or their lives and are too broken to be able to assert themselves. There are also people who fit into 2 or sometimes 3 categories but we can't discuss everyone. The basic problem is should unemployment benefits be cut or not? Arguably for some people they should. For others its not enough. If you're single and on benefits then good luck. You better learn to live very frugally. The main issue is what sort of society do we want to live in? One that has humanity and compassion or one that reverts back to basic darwinism of survival of the fittest? Clearly we want and should have humanity and compassion but this isn't a simple issue, the system is rotten from the inside out and because of that corruption has set in and the system is being abused. Therefore the system is at fault. Benefit should never ever be a career choice so we need to look at how to change this. We also need to look at ourselves as a society and look at how it would be easy to get people off benefits. Cutting them may be an answer but then everyone suffers for the sake of the few. So there are 2 main candidates we can get off of benefits while using that money for people who need it more. Firstly ageism is rife in this country and its pointless, them amount of people aged 50+ on benefit could be cut at a stroke if people would look past the date of someones birth. There are men, good men, talented men, hard working clever men signing on simply because they have the cheek to be old and its desperately sad and stupid. Get these people into work incentivize companies to employ them. Next single parents. Single parents are the people most likely to be in the benefit trap because for them to start working they have to earn enough to live on, pay rent, council tax and sometimes childcare. they're not going to do it when they've got to start at the bottom. More needs to be done to make these people employable at a decent rate and actually get companies to be flexible enough to employ them wen they need to work odd hours and during term time. As for the people left then we need to make benefits more uncomfortable for people to live on and work a better option. Vouchers instead of cash has been suggested many times and there are a lot of advantages to it but equally you can't get people to make adult choices by treating them as though they aren't responsible. I'm rambling a bit now but the point is the whole benefit system needs to be changed to make it more responsive to individual needs and more needs to be done to get people who can work working while helping the people who really need it most Brilliant post. Thankyou. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
max Posted June 10, 2010 Share Posted June 10, 2010 In addition to the incentives to help the jobless into work there are 2 other options available which no one has mentioned. Firstly, we need to persuade employers to pay a minimum wage which is enough above the amount available in benefits to encourage people back into work. While ever wage levels dissuade people from moving off benefits then we, the taxpayer, are in effect subsidising low paying employers. Secondly, as we are moving away from a society which relies on manual labour, we should be looking at improving education and reducing the number of hours we all work. Rather than a working week of 35 - 40 hours we should be encouraging more part time work, at all levels, to free up employment opportunities. In parallel with the reduction of hours society should find ways of utilising the extra time we have away from the work place. This may be enabling career advancement by supplying free further education and/or making leisure facilities more affordable. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bonzo77 Posted June 10, 2010 Share Posted June 10, 2010 In this tough economic climate there's going to have to be be a crackdown on public spending. Apparently Cameron and Cleggy are going to ask the people where the cuts should fall. Would you vote for unemployment benefits to be cut? It's one of the highest areas of expenditure. Bare in mind jobs are going to go left, right and centre, so you might be on the receiving end. THey should stay in line with the cost of living! There are many other benefits that could be tweeked instead. Like people earning over £xxx shouldn't receieve tax benifits. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cyclone Posted June 10, 2010 Share Posted June 10, 2010 In addition to the incentives to help the jobless into work there are 2 other options available which no one has mentioned. Firstly, we need to persuade employers to pay a minimum wage which is enough above the amount available in benefits to encourage people back into work. While ever wage levels dissuade people from moving off benefits then we, the taxpayer, are in effect subsidising low paying employers. There's no persuasion required here. The government sets the minimum wage, the amount every possible benefit pays out and the way the two interact when someone starts work. The correct changes to these things (ideally just to the way benefits are withdrawn) will ensure that there is no benefit trap for anyone no matter what their circumstances. The basic rule should be that working, from as little to as much as you like should never leave you worse off than not working (indeed working should always provide a marginal benefit). Benefits need to be withdrawn in a fractional way to ensure this. Secondly, as we are moving away from a society which relies on manual labour, we should be looking at improving education and reducing the number of hours we all work. Rather than a working week of 35 - 40 hours we should be encouraging more part time work, at all levels, to free up employment opportunities. In parallel with the reduction of hours society should find ways of utilising the extra time we have away from the work place. This may be enabling career advancement by supplying free further education and/or making leisure facilities more affordable. You can't force people to work less, but encouraging employers to allow it more freely can't be a bad thing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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