(UK) Unemployed told: do four weeks of unpaid work or lose your benefits

[Newsjock]

Source: The Observer

The unemployed will be ordered to do periods of compulsory full-time work in the community or be stripped of their benefits under controversial American-style plans to slash the number of people without jobs.

The proposals, in a white paper on welfare reform to be unveiled this week, are part of a radical government agenda aimed at cutting the £190bn-a-year welfare bill and breaking what the coalition now calls the "habit of worklessness".

The measures will be announced to parliament by the work and pensions secretary, Iain Duncan Smith, as part of what he will describe as a new "contract" with the 1.4 million people on jobseekers' allowance. The government's side of the bargain will be the promise of a new "universal credit", to replace all existing benefits, that will ensure it always pays to work rather than stay on welfare.

In return, where advisers believe a jobseeker would benefit from experiencing the "habits and routines" of working life, an unemployed person will be told to take up "mandatory work activity" of at least 30 hours a week for a four-week period. If they refuse or fail to complete the programme their jobseeker's allowance payments, currently £50.95 a week for those under 25 and £64.30 for those over 25, could be stopped for at least three months.

Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/nov/07/unemployed-unpaid-work-lose-benefits

[enough]

1. Sounds like the first wave of indentured servitude. (nt)

[Luciferous]

41. Oh, come on. Doing charity or volunteer work in order to receive

unemployment benefits is not even close to being indentured servitude.

[socialshockwave]

44. It's just

enforcing that myth that being on some kind of government assistance = lazy.

I hate how people take out their anger and hatred on the poorest of our societies. And people wonder why I'm not a conservative anymore.

[harmonicon]

55. No? So, people will be required to work 30 hours a week...

to get 65 pounds. Minimum wage for 30 hours a week would get them 178 pounds. You think that's ok?

[ThomCat]

80. There is also the issue of taking time away from job hunting.

Do they really want these people to be out finding jobs to justify their benefits, or doing this make-work instead?

This will just delay people in being able to find a new job. But I'm sure the government isn't going to extend benefits. In fact, they're doing this to try to cut down on the number of people receiving benefits.

So it seems pretty counter-productive to anyone with half a brain.

This is about punishing people, not about helping anyone get a job.

[harmonicon]

81. exactly - it's class warfare

I can't remember which Labour MP it was, but when the Conservatives were cheering the new vast cuts in budget and infrastructure, he shamed them. He pointed out that these things were what they had always wanted, but were now using the budget crises as an excuse to implement. Cameron is the same - or worse - than the elite who run the US government. He's never worked a day in his life (not counting some name-only post at a company he helped ruin, ala Bush), but is a spoiled rich brat who hates the poor and wants them to suffer for the sin of not being one of the lucky to be born rich.

Unfortunately, I don't think much would delay people from finding jobs around here. Just like in the US, there are none.

[sendero]

82. Nice math...

... but it ignores that little detail about the 4 weeks. 4 weeks out of how many?

Folks get used to this sort of thing. It will be here within a couple of years.

I have no particular problem with it, applied to ABLE BODIED / NOT DISABLED people.

[harmonicon]

83. these people have already paid for their jobless benefits through taxes.

Where do you think the money comes from? Now they would not only have to work double for the money they have already worked for, but be forced to do that double work through blackmail; work for free, or we'll take what you've already worked for (the jobless benefit).

[Nihil]

85. That's why it is a step up from the current(*) situation.

> these people have already paid for their jobless benefits through taxes.

This is true but we/they are currently *not* provided with the benefits that
we/they have already paid for from the start - it takes *ages* to get any money
back out of the bastards.

I'd happily undertake "mandatory work activity" for 30 hours a week for a four-week
period if it means that the unemployment benefit starts being paid when I start the
community service (or whatever). That is a huge improvement over having to trudge
in to sign on for sodding weeks before they deign to grant you your first benefit
payment.


(*) "Current" = "four years ago when I was last unemployed" which also agreed with
the previous time that I'd been made redundant too. If it has changed in the last
few years then I'll accept that my point is less valid.

[ThomCat]

84. It is already here. It has been here for a few years already.

I have a personal story about the nightmare this system can be in this country.

I was on public assistance for about 6 months. I am in an electric wheelchair and have limited use of my arms and hands. I am mostly home-bound. I can't work.

When you first apply for public assistance there is this long bureaucratic process for having their doctors "prove" you have a real disability so that they exempt you from the work requirements. A scheduler called me to schedule me for my 3rd level of this review process, I happened to be in a doctor's office, so I asked them to call me back later. The scheduler got really annoyed that anything could be more important that her time and retaliated by booting my whole case. The lesson, of course is that if you have a disability and you need assistance, how dare you do anything but grovel to every employee who wants to give you hard time!

After that, my public assistance got terminated every single month because I didn't meet the work requirements. I was officially listed as able to work in their system, and they had no mechanism to correct that after you are in the system. Every month my case was closed automatically for failure to complete work hours. Every month I would have to attend "hearings" and bring medical documentation proving again that I could not work and should not be part of their work program.

Being home-bound much of the time, attending hearings is a big problem. If you reschedule hearings, you're a trouble maker. If you request hearings by phone, even if you're entitled to do so because of medical need, you're a trouble maker. I was labeled a trouble maker. They find ways to see that you don't get benefits you should be entitled to. It requires hearings to get them reinstated. Nice vicious cycle.

It was the same case worker every month in these hearings. She would demand the same medical documentation, and even though I had already provided it last month, and the month before, I had to provide it again, new and signed by my doctors. According to the bureaucracy, in every hearing you enter as if no previous hearing ever happened and no previous records were ever received. If the same issue was previously dealt with, go through the motions as if it wasn't.

It was bureaucratic hell.

I had ended up having to file and appeal for a "fair hearing" at one point all the way to the state level for mediation because of benefits that were missing or withheld without explanation. I won the mediation and the judgment was that I was supposed to get several months of a rent supplement to make up the missing balance. They closed my case in retaliation and said they couldn't honor the judgment of that hearing because I no longer had an open case with public assistance, and only people with open cases could collect judgments.

How's that for bureaucratically Kafkaesque.

If I ever need public assistance again, and if I am willing to deal with bureaucratic hell, I might somehow be able to collect this judgment somehow. But I doubt it.

I will know to have someone else ready to answer my calls at all times for me, acting as secretary, so that irate tyrants can't possibly get put into voice-mail or get asked to call back later, and I won't risk this kind of retaliation again, of getting put into work program hell.

I hope I never have to deal with public assistance ever again. I don't really know how I would manage it without being able to go live in their office day after day, because that is what it takes. So all I can do is hope I never have to do it ever again. :(

[regnaD kciN]

2. Well, techinically-speaking, it isn't "unpaid work"...

...if they get to continue receiving benefits while doing it.

[geckosfeet]

5. and technically, you are not endorsing state sponsored work farms

[regnaD kciN]

8. No, I'm not...

...but don't lots of states have a "workfare" provision for receiving benefits?

My main concern for Britain is the apparent very low level of unemployment benefits there. 50-65 pounds a week isn't a whole lot...I was getting over $400/week when drawing unemployment.

[Prophet 451]

16. It's the workhouse

Thirty hours a week of heavy manual labour (according to the BBC) for fifty quid a week. It's the workhouse and it's all part of the plan of social cleansing.

[cstanleytech]

18. meh, i suppose it depends on what work they want them to do.

I dont think say if it was requiring them to do work like picking up trash along roads or parks would be all that bad or maybe even having them to do some basic things like assisting at a nursing home.

[Prophet 451]

19. Really?

So doing a full-time manual labour job for fifty quid a week is fine by you?

[uncle ray]

45. it's not full time for fifty quid a week.

they will be expected to work four weeks to get benefits for 3 months.

[cstanleytech]

51. Which if true isnt anything to go "OMG the sky is falling" like about.

Now if it was fully time all the time I could maybe see there being a reason for the reaction.

[harmonicon]

57. so, 1/3 of minimum wage is ok for some jobs? nt

[cstanleytech]

62. Considering its a minor amount of time they appear to be considering

yes that wage is fine depending on exactly what they want these people to do, after all its kind of silly to just give them money and not ask them contribute in some way while they are seeking a new job.

[harmonicon]

64. So would it be ok for companies to pay some employees 1/3 minimum wage?

It's better than nothing, right? While they're at it, they could get rid of other labor laws. Shit, if people want cheaper shirts, let their kids work in factories for $4/day; smaller hands make smaller stitches.

Everyone who has ever worked in the UK contributes to jobless benefits - it's the way that social welfare works. You pay taxes when you do work, in part to insure that you'll be able to get jobless benefits if you can't work. Would you suggest that seniors in the US who get social security should have to work for it? After all, "it's kind of silly to just give them money and not ask them to contribute in some way."

[cstanleytech]

66. Look we are not talking about companies but rather the government requiring

people who want benefits to do some work and depending* on what the jobs are exactly thats really not much of a burden to ask of people who until they can find a decent job have nothing else to do.
If the jobs are say working at a nursing home or say something like a food kitchen or even picking up trash in the park whats so evil about that that it would kill they poor souls?

(*bolded to make it easier to see)

[harmonicon]

69. what don't you get about this?

1. Those who have ever worked pay taxes. Those taxes go to fund jobless benefits. Ergo, the jobless have already contributed to this benefit, in some cases many times over what they will ever receive.
2. Minimum wages exist for a reason. It doesn't matter if it's the government or a private company paying that wage. It's unethical to undercut it by 2/3 for those who are desperate for money.

Would you think it was ok for the US government to establish a group of jobs at 1/3 the minimum wage for those who are most desperate to work? That is what you're advocating, and the logical conclusions that lead from it are absolutely chilling.

[cstanleytech]

71. I believe we have reached an

impasse and are just going to have to agree that we just both disagree on this issue.

[harmonicon]

73. We certainly agree to that.

I just hope that you never find yourself in a situation as desperate as that of the jobless in Britain, and that if you do, people with more sympathy and compassion than you come to your aid rather than having the already powerful exploit your weakness.

[Luciferous]

42. I didn't see anything about heavy manual labor...

[Occulus]

46. I didn't see anything about "concentration" camps.

Sorry. Just reaching back into history, you know, for people who forgot it.

[Prophet 451]

74. From the Beeb

I got it from the front page of BBC News (my emphasis):
"Long-term jobless 'made to work'
Benefit claimants could be forced to do compulsory manual labour under government proposals being put forward by Iain Duncan Smith, it has emerged."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-11704765

[bloomington-lib]

7. I think you're right

I didn't read the rest of the article so I'm sorry if it mentions this, but what kind of jobs are they? If it's somewhere comparable to $64 then I don't see a big problem with it. If it's a community bettering job that you do while you're out of work and get something out of it, I could see this as a positive. I feel like if I were to lose my job, I'd like to feel I'm doing at least something. Maybe some here wouldn't like this but I think it would help me stay moving.

[muriel_volestrangler]

35. 30 hours work at minimum wage would earn you about 3 times the Jobseekers' Allowance

So technically, they're going to have to call it 'unpaid work', or break the law.

Minimum wage rate: £5.93 an hour aged 21 and over, £4.92 18 to 20: http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/Nl1/Newsroom/DG_178175

[rurallib]

3. so they do have a job then

a really shitty paying job that they must go to or they lose any aid.
I have no doubt the Boners of the US are drooling waiting to see how this comes out.

[regnaD kciN]

10. Well, the unemployment law here (in WA)...

...requires you to accept any job offer, even if it is far below your current salary level, in a different field, of have an impossible commute, or lose your benefits. And, if you haven't found a job within a certain time, they call you in for an audit of your job search. If you can't prove that you've been really looking for a new job, goodbye unemployment.

[aquart]

11. Why? We've been doing this for years.

When unemployment runs out, the only recourse is welfare and this is standard welfare policy.

And now I'm going to stick my neck out and say that I've never heard a bad word about it, except from people who never had to do it. Doing something useful when you've felt useless is a wonderful feeling. I don't know what the British will do, but our system incorporates a good deal of choice in what you'll do and where.

[Prophet 451]

21. The Tory system will incorporate no choice at all

According to the BBC, the plan is for the unemployed to do manual labour full-time for their fifty quid a week benefits. In other words, it's a punishment for not being able to find a job.

[northernlights]

49. yes, there is a choice.

They have the option off not working for 30 hours and not receiving benefits for 3 months.

I hate to write this, but I HAVE SEEN UNEMPLOYED PEOPLE RIGHT HERE ON DU bitching and whining because they were being made to look for *any* job at *any* pay. This is from people who have been on public assistance for a couple of years now, and after they turned down one too many jobs that weren't good enough for them, they were forced into supervised job searches and then bitched and moaned about that.

Excuse me, but last summer when I ran up against it, I took a minimum wage job at Subway to feed my family until something better came along. What makes those other people think they are better than I am?!?! Their multiple years out of the workforce on public assistance?

And the fact is that sometimes, when you take whatever you are able to get, something better really does come along...and fairly quickly too. And the other fact is that there are crappy jobs out there and yes they are crappy...but that looks one hell of a lot better on a resume than several years of holes to fill in.

Furthermore, I just finished 10 hours of unpaid work in my community. 5 1/2 hours of doing a clam survey (very hard work, and muddy too), followed by 5 hours of shoreline cleanup. Actually, that 5 hours was paid, as the little family that invited me to join them let me take the garbage bags full of cans and bottles, so I got $5.20 "pay." :D

I may -- or may not -- win a lottery for any new clamming licenses issued next spring. But I met very nice people and had a good time.

I will be doing a repeat in the spring in another clamming "district" so as to increase my odds of gaining a license.

Even if I don't get a license, I don't regret the work. You won't hear me complaining that the mean towns "made" me do work to qualify for the license. The work needs to be done, it takes a lot of labor hours to do it, and it ultimately benefits the clammers by ensuring there will be a continuing supply of clams.

[Prophet 451]

76. That isn't what we're talking about

By teh Coalition's own figures (and the testimony of virtually everyone who's ever worked in the system), those voluntarily choosing to live on benefits rather than work are a tiny, tiny minority. They barely exist but they make very good folk devils for pushing this sort of crap.

[defendandprotect]

4. How about the "habit of joblessness" and corporations "harvesting slave labor" .....???

[alp227]

6. Elaborate on "mandatory work activity."

Hmm. What kind of work would be required.

Maybe the British politicians should meet people who actively seek work but are always rejected. I've heard plenty of those stories in America. Maybe the politicians should be required to meet up with their troubled constituents or lose pay too, how about that?

[Prophet 451]

14. Heavy manual labour

According to the BBC website.

[Psephos]

26. The phrase "manual labor" does not even appear in the article. Where did you get that from?

The article does say recipients would have a "mandatory work activity" requirement and that "The Department for Work and Pensions plans to contract private providers to organise the placements with charities, voluntary organisations and companies."

Sounds like community service-type work to me, not breaking rock piles with hammers.

The program would require recipients to undertake a single 4-week period of "full-time" work (30 hours/week) to foster experiencing the "habits and routines" of working life.

Whether or not this is a good idea is eminently debatable, but making shit up does nothing to help the discussion. It doesn't take a particularly astute observer to see how broken the current system is.

[Prophet 451]

30. Or, apparently, to pretend a system is broken which isn't

There is nothing wrong with the current system. By the Coalition's own figures (and the testimony of virtually everyone who's worked in the system), the number of people who choose to live on benefits voluntarily is miniscule.

And I got it from the front page of BBC News (my emphasis):
"Long-term jobless 'made to work'
Benefit claimants could be forced to do compulsory manual labour under government proposals being put forward by Iain Duncan Smith, it has emerged."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-11704765

[jtuck004]

9. Good idea. It is simply unstainable to be paying out

money without getting a return.

Ask California when they start having to pay interest on the money they are borrowing from U.S. taxpayers to pay unemployment, probably next year. Most likely taxes will go up on all taxpayers to pay interest while they are still borrowing new money from US.

Kind of like WPA, except really weak and won't accomplish anything toward creating new business.

[regnaD kciN]

12. I don't think there's anything wrong with asking people on unemployment to work...

...as long as a) there are jobs that need doing, b) they are given enough free time during the week to really look for a permanent job, and c) the unemployment benefits they are receiving while doing this are comparable to a "living wage."

My problem with the British rule is that, while there may be a need of jobs to be filled, thirty hours a week will really be an obstacle to a serious job-hunt, and 50 pounds a week is ridiculously low for actually doing work.

[alp227]

13. Yeah, here's a similar story from America.

"Unemployment payouts push California deeper into debt" (LA Times)

[Prophet 451]

15. Please welcome back, the workhouse

I'm afraid that, seeing this in isolation, you aren't getting the full picture. What's going on here in the UK is the Coalition of Tories and used-to-be-Liberals (who, it has become clear, have no voice whatsoever in the coalition), taking an axe to the welfare state. To start with, after being unemployed for a year, your Housing Benefit now drops by 10%, forcing many to make the choice between having somewhere to live and eating. Those on ESA (sickness benefit) are assessed into three categories (fit for work, partially fit and unfit) by a notoriously corrupt company who think the "unfit" category doesn't exist. Well, now the "partially fit" category will have a one year time limit. If you're still sick after a year but not able to get classed as "unfit" (by the already legendarily corrupt and unfair tests), tough shit, you're now considered fit for work regardless. The "mandatory work activity" mentioned here will, according to the BBC, be manual labour (regardless of your skills or fitness). In other words, the workhouse.

Additionally, the coalition are planning on replacing all the existing welfare benefits with a "universal credit". I will bet you my life (LITERALLY) that the universal credit will be significantly less than the benefits it replaces. The child tax credit removed in such a way as to benefit the rich. Retirement age removed entirely. Oh, and in the middle of cutting welfare to shreds, they're going to fire half-a-million civil servants.

The UK didn't need austerity. We didn't actually have a debt problem, we just had a lot of scaremongering about one. But the Coalition are using the scare to do what they were hellbent on doing anyway: Destroying the social safety net. Austerity is going to cut us into a double-dip recession but this isn't about austerity. This is social cleansing. Remember Alan Grayson's riff about the Republican's healthcare plan? Same thing. The Tory plan for the economy is work until you drop, find another job instantly if you lose that one and if you can't, die quickly. Understand, there's no real percentage of people choosing to claim benefits because they don't want to work. Even by the Coalition's own figures, those voluntarily choosing to live off teh state are a tiny, tiny number. But those few make really useful tools for demonising the poor, unemployed and sick.

This particular measure might look reasonable (if you get a kick out of the idea of people being forced to do full-time manual labour for fifty quid a week) but when the full picture becomes clear, it's obvious that this is a full-blown attempt to gradually roll Britain back to the days of Dickens where you starved in the street if you couldn't find a job. It's an outright attack on the poor, the unemployed and the sick, class warfare on behalf of the rich (raising taxes wasn't even mentioned as a solution, it's been all but declared blasphemy), social cleansing.

I have serious mental problems. I can't work. I'm considered a danger to myself and everyone around me if I try. Without the disability benefits I receive, I will die, it's that simple. Cameron is proving to be even worse than Thatcher for the traditional "kill the poor" Tory attitude but they don't have the guts to outright euthanise us (although a fair number of the populace would applaud that and most days, I'd welcome it). Instead, they're gradually making teh safety net smaller and smaller, ensuring that fewer and fewer people meet more and more restrictive requirements. All part of the plan. Remove the safety net by degrees, create a populace so desperate and hopeless that they'll work themselves to death for pennies an hour on behalf of their "betters". Social cleansing.

[dixiegrrrrl]

22. It is called Neo-fuedalism, and it is happening here in USA also.

And you are NOT exaggerating the plan. ALL social safety nets are in line to be shredded, on both sides of the pond.
A constant pool of cheap labor is the goal.

Sadly, many people here on DU have no idea of what life was like before social welfare programs,
before unions created living wages.

Look up The Children's Aid Society and the Orphan Trains sometime. An eye opener.

[Prophet 451]

24. I'm familiar with them

Our history is filled with these "kill the poor" systems. It also explains why the money worshipping right would join up with the religious fanatic right: Outlawing abortion and contraception increases that pool of desperate workers competing for ever fewer jobs.

Neo-feudalism is a very good name for it because, like traditional feudalism, it imagines a permanent class of the ultrarich who command a working class of bondsmen and serfs distinguished from slaves only in the details. Bondsmen and serfs had a few limited freedoms, making them not quite slaves, but they lived and died at the whim of their "betters". And what they're trying to do is only different in the details. Instead of bondage and slavery, you have wage slavery for pittance wages. Give it enough time and it'll become an actual criminal offence to be unemployed.

They only call it class warfare when we fight back, when the underclass (the poor, unemployed and sick) get tired of being kicked around for the benefit of the upper classes. I'm part of that underclass so I take it kinda personal when they declare war on me.

[BolivarianHero]

17. Fuck this shit...

If the job needs to be done, pay somebody a living wage to do it. Where the Hell are the unions? Still stuck to Tony Blair's ass?

[Prophet 451]

20. The unions are too frightened

There are half-a-million public sector workers about to be fired due to the barbaric cuts and every single part of teh welfare state is under attack. The Tories have always despised unions and would dearly love to take Thatcher's union-busting further.

[Odin2005]

23. "Are there no workhouses?"

[Prophet 451]

25. There will be n/t

[Catherina]

33. +1 n/t

[slackmaster]

27. Desperate times sometimes call for desperate measures

I'm sure most of those people would rather get decent private-sector jobs.

[Prophet 451]

32. Which would be great if the jobs were there

But they aren't. And the Tories are about to add another half-million to the unemployment figures by firing public sector workers. This is taking an axe to the welfare system exactly when people need it most, social cleansing.

[LeftishBrit]

39. +1

All very sad and disgusting.

All the standard Thatcherite Tory anti-poor policy. Treating it as a crime (community service orders are after all a common form of punishment here). And made even worse by Duncan-Smith's unctuous religious-right view that he is really doing poor people a favour by punishing them for their poverty.

It's all very well to tell people to get a job, if there are actually jobs - but there aren't!

[Prophet 451]

77. IDS is a, well, fill in your own expletive

He's playing on the common idea that there are people voluntarily choosing to live on benefits rather than work. That's what all the right's moralising about "culture of worklessnes" actually means, it's a highbrow way of saying people choose to be poor. But even by the Coaliton's own figures, those voluntarly choosing to claim rather than work are a tiny, tiny minority that barely exists. They make really good folk devils to justify ever nastier crackdowns on unemployment though.

[Turborama]

28. If they weren't so obsessed with stockpiling their private armouries, the UK sounds more & more like

...a Teahadist's utopia.

[Swagman]

29. more window dressing from a corrupt ruling class bereft of ideas

..there is untold wealth in the UK..just as the rich have got obscenely rich in the USA so have the top tier in Britain.

This is about applying a coup de grace to the welfare state. It's idealogical vandalism.

Corporations who profit in Britain but are headquarteed in tax havens now rule the country...rule the world.

These schemes do and create nothing except misery and lower wages. This a backlash and against the glory days of FDR and the Welfare State.

Corporatism rules..fascism on the rise.

[Prophet 451]

31. It's social cleansing

A deliberate and concerted attemt to destroy any form of social safety net. The end goal is 1) a working class so desperate that they'll work for pennies; 2) eliminate any and all help for the unemployed; 3) if you lose your job, die quickly.

[Catherina]

34. +1 Workers of the world, unite now. n/t

[lib2DaBone]

36. Sounds like the U.S. where Congressmen show up drunk on the house floor...

.. and propose laws to drug test the unemployed.

(Because as we all know.. if you are unemployed.. it's your fault and you must have been doing drugs to lose your job)

Make the unemployed and under-privledged slave for free... that will teach them to be born into a land-owners family next time.

http://www.pensitoreview.com/2010/03/22/was-boehner-drunk-during-his-shame-on-you-speech-before-health-care-vote/

[trud]

37. actually,

I would prefer to work for money rather than be handed it, But that's just me and the way I was brought up by my immigrant grandparents and blue collar parents.

[Name removed]

38. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[bloomington-lib]

61. That's the kind of stuff that makes du look bad

Putting words into someone's mouth, arguing with that assumption, and then insulting them. Happens all the time here.

[pattmarty]

63. And, a good Sunday to you too. What the poster said was bullshit.......

.......and I called it.

[Book Lover]

54. Unemployed people are having their money handed back to them

My immigrant father taught me that if you pay into a governmental system, you have every right to not be ashamed to receive the benefit you paid for. As far as I'm concerned, I've already worked for my unemployment benefit; I'm just getting my money back now.

[harmonicon]

58. actually, you're about one logical step away from justifying slavery.

Under this proposal people would be forced to work for less than a living wage - about 1/3 the minimum wage. It would be incredibly hard to live on 65 pounds a week - just my cheap rent is more than that. So, people shouldn't be upset if the government/plantation owner forced them to work in return for food and housing, right?

[Luciferous]

40. I think it's a good idea. They are going to be working with charities

and volunteer groups, most of which could probably use a little extra help, and it's also something positive they can add to their CV. I think it's a little ridiculous to equate this with indentured servitude or workhouses.

[pattmarty]

43. Good. Then have the "wealthy" give some of their time/money to charities too..........

........If you are FORCED to work that is indentured servitude. However you want to cut it, it is a bad start to a lousy idea that can get nothing but worse. Sounds to me kinda like Carl Paladino's idea about having out of work people living in unused prison cells to teach them "personal hygiene". Maybe we could also partner this up with the old "chain gangs" and this would "solve" the unemployment problem too. :sarcasm:

[cstanleytech]

53. I agree.

[harmonicon]

59. of course it is...

It's not like the government would be preying on those who are the most vulnerable and exploiting them by making them work for 1/3 of the legal minimum wage under threat of losing government benefits which they've paid into their entire lives. Oh, sorry... that's exactly what it is. Next time that you need a job, maybe you can suggest working somewhere for 1/3 of minimum wage. There will be takers, I'm sure.

[petronius]

65. The article adds "companies" to the list after charities and volunteer groups

That's the part that concerns me - there seems to be a potential for farming out welfare recipients to connected corporations (sort of like prison industries here in the US)...

[cstanleytech]

68. Thats a valid concern I will grant ya, would you feel better if they dropped that

part thats mentioning companies?

[petronius]

70. That would be a step in the right direction - I certainly wouldn't want this program

putting people in jobs where they replace/fill-in for workers that would otherwise need to be hired...

[Prophet 451]

78. They're going to be doing manual labour

I posted the BBC link on that several times up-thread. There are already provisions for forcing the long-term unemployed to do charitable work under Labour's "New Deal", that's not what this is. This is a punishment for being unable to find a job.

[Honeycombe8]

47. Poor people in TX and LA don't get welfare money. Just food stamps. What states

still give welfare money? (Well, I should say that poor ADULTS don't get welfare money...I think children of poor adults get welfare checks and some assistance with housing...I think. But adults don't get those benefits. Just food stamps. And you don't HAVE to be unemployed. Just poor. You can be employed and poor.)

OOPS...never mind. I see now that it's UK, not America.

[surrealAmerican]

48. If the government made those actual jobs ...

... (instead of mandatory community service) then they could hire those "unemployed" people to do them, and it would reduce unemployment.

[malletgirl02]

52. The government

It seems like the government doesn't want people to have actual jobs. They want the work for the faction of the price. The groups that these unemployed people will be working for will be getting free labor.

[Bragi]

50. Breaking the "habit of worklessness" indeed!

That's the goal. It's absolute right-wing moralistic the unemployed have only themselves to blame logic.

As I understand it, the UK unemployed paid into an insurance fund which gives them the right to payments. It isn't welfare.

Fuck the UK conservatives and their coalition.

[Prophet 451]

75. You would be right

We pay an average of 9% into the National Insurance fund.

[BillH76]

56. £64.30 per week = $104. UK benefits suck. nt

[Hydra]

60. I have to laugh at the DU'ers who think this is a good idea

Next thing you know, they'll want the people retired on SSI to work 30 hours a week 3 months out of the year for the benefits they already paid into.

[harmonicon]

67. I can't laugh at it - it scares the shit out of me.

The US isn't fucked because of what Republicans do. It's fucked because those who would stop them think that shit like this is a good idea. Basically, people on DU are arguing that it's ok for the poorest of the poor to receive less than minimum wage... isn't that the same shit that people like Joe Miller were campaigning on?

[Nihil]

86. So ...

> Basically, people on DU are arguing that it's ok for the poorest of the poor
> to receive less than minimum wage...

Are you just saying that UK unemployment benefit is too low?
If so, I would agree with you.
If not, then they are already getting "less than minimum wage" at the moment
(for doing nothing) without anyone complaining.

Are you suggesting that it should be raised to the minimum wage?
If so, how is that an incentive to get a minimum wage job?
If not, what are you complaining about as getting "less than minimum wage"
is exactly what they are doing now ...

I volunteered to help a local charity while I was unemployed - partly to avoid
going stir-crazy between job-searches and partly to make sure that at least
*someone* would benefit from my shitty state. This applied even while the
bastards were refusing to pay me *any* benefit at all.

That means that I was doing exactly what is being proposed but off my own bat
rather than having to be pushed in that direction.

My only disquiet on this whole proposal is the reference to "companies" in the
statement:
>> The Department for Work and Pensions plans to contract private providers to
>> organise the placements with charities, voluntary organisations and companies.

If they stick to "charities" and "voluntary organisations" then damn right
I'm in favour of it.

[harmonicon]

90. Tory voter?

"Are you just saying that UK unemployment benefit is too low?"
It is, but that has nothing to do with this.

"..they are already getting "less than minimum wage" at the moment
(for doing nothing) without anyone complaining."

Bullshit. Working and paying taxes isn't "doing nothing". It is the taxes that workers pay which fund things like the NHS and the jobless benefit.

"Are you suggesting that it should be raised to the minimum wage?"
No. There would be no way to correlate not being able to get work with a certain number of hours of work.

"If not, what are you complaining about as getting "less than minimum wage"
is exactly what they are doing now ..."
Nope! Now the jobless get what they are entitled to as workers and tax payers (and permanent residents - though I've worked in the UK and payed taxes, I'm not entitled to jobseeker's allowance under terms of my visa.)

Under this proposal, people would be forced to work for a fixed number of hours which then directly correlates to their benefit, thus making a wage comparison possible.

"I volunteered to help a local charity while I was unemployed"
Well, isn't that super for you.

"That means that I was doing exactly what is being proposed but off my own bat
rather than having to be pushed in that direction."
So? I do loads of shit for free that other people would ask money for, and there are probably things I ask money for that others would do for free. You have no point here.

"If they stick to "charities" and "voluntary organisations" then damn right
I'm in favour of it."
Voluntary organisations cease being voluntary when those doing the work are forced into it under threat of having their legal entitlements denied them. That's not volunteering.

[Nihil]

91. Oh are you?

:P

>> "Are you just saying that UK unemployment benefit is too low?"
> It is, but that has nothing to do with this.

Glad we agree on some things at least.

>> "..they are already getting "less than minimum wage" at the moment
>> (for doing nothing) without anyone complaining."
> Bullshit. Working and paying taxes isn't "doing nothing". It is the taxes that
> workers pay which fund things like the NHS and the jobless benefit.

Correct. Working and paying taxes isn't "doing nothing". Neither has it
anything to do with the subject. (BTW, it is NI - National Insurance - rather
than standard income tax that funds those things.)

Receiving unemployment benefit whilst unemployed is - by definition - receiving
money for doing nothing (apart from looking for a job).


>> "Are you suggesting that it should be raised to the minimum wage?"
> No. There would be no way to correlate not being able to get work with a
> certain number of hours of work.

Again, fair enough and I agree with you.


>> "If not, what are you complaining about as getting "less than minimum wage"
>> is exactly what they are doing now ..."
> Nope! Now the jobless get what they are entitled to as workers and tax payers
> (and permanent residents - though I've worked in the UK and payed taxes, I'm not
> entitled to jobseeker's allowance under terms of my visa.)

Your visa constraints notwithstanding, the jobless get (theoretically) what they
are entitled to as workers and tax/NI payers. (As I noted upthread, the "theory"
isn't always translated into practice - or at least not in a timely fashion - so
if this new proposal will fix that sort of deprivation of benefits, go for it.)


> Under this proposal, people would be forced to work for a fixed number of hours
> which then directly correlates to their benefit, thus making a wage comparison
> possible.

Nope. The "wage comparison" argument would only be applicable if
1) the period for which they were paid benefits (three months) matched the period
for which they were expected to work (30 hours per week for four weeks);
or
2) if the amount that they received in benefits increased with the more hours
they work above this requirement (it doesn't);
or
3) if the amount that they received in benefits decreased pro-rata with the number
of hours they didn't work below the required 30pw x 4w (it doesn't).

There is no "directly correlating benefit", it is a simple binary relationship:
work the trigger time & get all the benefits, don't work the time & get nothing.


>> "I volunteered to help a local charity while I was unemployed"
> Well, isn't that super for you.

Conveniently skipping the rest of the paragraph in order to get a snark in. Woohoo!

>> "That means that I was doing exactly what is being proposed but off my own bat
>> rather than having to be pushed in that direction."
> So? I do loads of shit for free that other people would ask money for, and there
> are probably things I ask money for that others would do for free. You have no
> point here.

Wrong. My point here is that many people *would* rather be doing some useful work
to make them feel that they are still worth something even though they've been
dumped "on the scrap-heap" in the first place. That desire for self-worth might
seem something to be scorned if you've never been there but it is real.


> Voluntary organisations cease being voluntary when those doing the work are forced
> into it under threat of having their legal entitlements denied them. That's not
> volunteering.

I can see your point there.

I also agree that every good idea can be corrupted by the greedy & malevolent.

I still believe that the proposal is a good idea (and can relate to how it would
have been a good idea for me at that time) but can also see that the combination
of potential for abuse and the "trustworthiness" of the politicians tasked with
developing the idea is a cause for concern, especially if you can't see any
"good side" to begin with.

[cstanleytech]

72. And here I thought SSI was for the disabled

......anyway you can laugh all you want thats ok but just keep in mind people will also laugh at some of things you believe and think you are a fool, that doesnt mean they are right about you though.

[Hydra]

89. That's SSDI

And along with Unemployment insurance, they are all programs people contribute into one way or another.

I'm used to being scorned rather than laughed at. Apparently individual and collective rights are not in vogue now that Bush isn't illegally occupying the WH. This is another one of those issues I see paving the way toward slave labor.

As George Carlin put it so well:

"Have you ever wondered why Republicans are so interested in encouraging people to volunteer in their communities? It’s because volunteers work for no pay. Republicans have been trying to get people to work for no pay for a long time."

[Prophet 451]

79. As I said, the workhouse

I'm long-term sick. I have serious mental issues that make me a threat to myself and anyone around me if I try to work (which is why I only post here on occasion). Here, the sick are assessed into three groups by a notoriously corrupt firm called ATOS: Fit, partially fit and unfit (bear in mind, your own doctor has already classed you as unfit). ATOS are notorious for outright ignoring the unfit category and classifying as fit those who clearly aren't (such as paranoid schizophrenics, a double amputee and a suicidal girl who still had shunts in both wrists). Better than half their decisions are overturned on appeal.

Well, teh coalition have now put a time limit on the partially fit category. After a year, if you're still sick, tough shit, you'll be treated as fit regardless. In isolation, this measure might seem fine but when you see it in context of what else they're doing, it becomes clear that this is a full-blown assault on the social safety net.

[cstanleytech]

87. I thought the topic was regarding unemployement not disability or am I mistaken?

If I am mistaken though then my apologies.

[muriel_volestrangler]

88. The plan is to combine all benefits into one payment

and so the current http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/DisabledPeople/FinancialSupport/esa/index.htm">Employment and Support Allowance will be combined with Jobseekers' Allowance and Income Support and others to become "Universal Credit". But part of that is to restrict the payments currently given for ESA:

Up to 1 million people could lose £91.40 a week in disability benefits, under plans announced in yesterday's spending review.

George Osborne announced that the length of time people can claim the contributory element of employment support allowance (ESA) would be limited to one year.

ESA was brought in to replace incapacity benefit, and supports people who are unable to work because of ill-health or disability. The cuts mean that people who moved on to ESA, and who previously worked, will only be able to claim it for one year. At the moment, there is no time limit, and people can claim ESA until they find another job.

Half a million people are already on ESA, and the government began the process of reassessing 1.5m people on incapacity benefit this month. According to estimates from the Department for Work and Pensions, 345,000 of those 1.5m are expected to be deemed "fit to work", and will be moved on to job seekers allowance (JSA). About 290,000 are likely to be deemed too incapacitated to work, and will not see their benefits time-limited. That would leave 865,000 people on incapacity benefit placed in the "work-related activity group", who will see their benefits cut after one year.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2010/oct/21/disability-benefits-million-losers