I bet Earwicker loves Little Britain.

yaledelay wrote:how much do you get to be on this program? what are the requirements? It seems fair to me that the goverment should expect you either to be doing something (in the US we pay into the program every paycheck) to get paid...

For a single person the current weekly rates of benefit for JSA/IS are:

Single under 18 £35.65/46.85
18-24 £46.85
25 or over £59.15

JSA is split into contribution based and non-contribution based. These are contributions from the National Insurance scheme (taken from wages).

You forget that welfare isn't supposed to be ersatz wages, it supposed to afford people things it is their right to have. Heat, food, communication, clothing, means to social acceptability, etc. That some may be dull enough to buy adidas and sky dishes with something that should be paying for a good diet and travel expense, is neither here nor there when it comes to their right to have that if they want it. That some school children are anti-social and unwilling to learn does not mean that they no longer have a right to schooling.

Cameron's plan is basically stripping poor of things that it is their right have, that previous generations of politicians have decided that all people have a right to, if they are unlucky enough to remain poor.

Seeing welfare as mere finance is sickening.

big_dave wrote:Cameron's plan is basically stripping poor of things that it is their right have, that previous generations of politicians have decided that all people have a right to, if they are unlucky enough to remain poor.

Word.

I believe in France, although I'm willing to be corrected on this, they pay you your previous wage for at least 6 months, if you lose your job.

big_dave wrote:You forget that welfare isn't supposed to be ersatz wages, it supposed to afford people things it is their right to have. Heat, food, communication, clothing, means to social acceptability, etc. That some may be dull enough to buy adidas and sky dishes with something that should be paying for a good diet and travel expense, is neither here nor there when it comes to their right to have that if they want it. That some school children are anti-social and unwilling to learn does not mean that they no longer have a right to schooling.

Cameron's plan is basically stripping poor of things that it is their right have, that previous generations of politicians have decided that all people have a right to, if they are unlucky enough to remain poor.

Spot on.

There's also a presumption that those on welfare don't contribute meaningfully to society, but I wonder how many actually do jobs that aren't usually categorised as gainful employment, such as caring for the sick and elderly.

Also, throughout the 80's and 90's the unemployed in the UK seemed to be a pretty active political class of sorts.

big_dave wrote:

simmo wrote:Given that the kind of tasks that the unemployed would be carrying out are exactly the kind of tasks currently being performed by people accorded community service punishments, isn't this proposal tantamount to saying that if you're out of work for two years, you are the same as a criminal?

Spot on.

Also eery how people are equating welfare with welfare fraud.

Why let the facts get in the way of a good argument?

CWEP programs, at least in the US, aren't even remotely like chain gangs. They're essentially internships for the unemployed. My stepdad participated in a CWEP pilot program, and the participants were some of his best employees. When he could, he hired some.

On the other side, welfare, SSI, and workers' comp fraud run rampant in some parts of rural Appalachia. There's an axis of evil in the western VA/southern WV/eastern KY/eastern TN area. Ask anyone who evaluates applicants for SSI permanent disability benefits-- many of them pinpoint every legal loophole with surgical accuracy. Two common tactics for claiming permanent disability are claiming cognitive impairment due to alcoholism by dressing shabbily and acting like a burnout while telling some hard-luck story about an abusive childhood, or by gorging yourself to 450 pounds to throw your back and knees out. Either way they can't touch you because outlawing cases like that means people with genuine problems suffer. You'd also have a valid claim in a civil discrimination suit.

Fraud does happen, and it happens often.

big_dave wrote:They also offer you crap jobs that you are obliged to apply for

Who should take these crap jobs?

People that are crapper than you? Nobody? Does nobody benefit from the execution of crap jobs? Do you not?

My wife works for the DWP and thus I hear horror stories about multi-generational dole-sucking families almost daily. I'll get her to write something involving specific figures in the next few days if she's agreeable.

Adam I wrote:People that are crapper than you? Nobody? Does nobody benefit from the execution of crap jobs? Do you not?

These weren't picturesque Park Keeper/Dustbin Man type manual jobs or cheery community fare, but stuff like shelf stacker or telesales. I do not benefit from this sort of 'customer service', in fact it barely needs to be performed at all. Not wishing to belittle those that take the jobs, but those jobs are needless exploitation and they are crap.

Fraud does happen, and it happens often.

How frequent it happens does not mean that welfare = welfare fraud.

How people behave on welfare should not affect their entitlement to it if it is all that they have. I am glad to pay my NI contribution, I have no right to demand the policing of the lives of those that NI supports.

Adam I wrote:My wife works for the DWP and thus I hear horror stories about multi-generational dole-sucking families almost daily. I'll get her to write something involving specific figures in the next few days if she's agreeable.

I work as a benefit advisor of sorts and I can match tenfold any story of multi-generational dole-sucking families with families on or below subsistence level benefits struggling to pay rent and have eviction orders, multiple debts, refugee families living on thin air.