Forums Forums General Forums A - Z Lifestyle Work Or Lose Your Benefits - Why It Could Work!

In Britain, the share of working-aged people who are out of work - over a quarter - is unusually high. Close to six million people are living on benefits of one kind or another, a tenth of the whole population.

The recession may have caused the numbers of unemployed to grow, but 4.5 million people were living on out-of-work benefits even before the recession. And the largest number of dependents, 2.6 million, claim to be disabled and are living on incapacity benefit. Steps have been taken to move all of these groups, as well as lone parents, toward employment, yet dependency on benefits remains high.

In contrast, the US welfare reforms of the 1990s succeeded in cutting the number of people claiming welfare by over two-thirds, and in the state of Wisconsin we reduced the number by 80%.

It was tough love - if people did not work, they lost their benefits.

Claimants were told to look for work as soon as they went onto aid, or even applied for it.

Many left welfare for jobs quickly. Even larger numbers moved into work directly without going onto welfare at all.

And the programme also affected lone mothers with children, a group which in Britain is seen as less employable and faces, as yet, no definite work requirement.

More important is the fact that many people still believe in entitlement - this is the idea that you have a right to get benefits if you qualify under the income rules, and you should not have to work for them.

I met some trades union staff who defended this attitude. They failed to see the irony - originally trade unions defended the rights of working people, but now they were defending people who lived without working, even for years at a time.

A further influence is that even claimants who accepted the idea of compulsory work found it difficult to imagine actually going to work. I met a group of unemployment benefits recipients at a community centre in Anfield, one of the most depressed areas in Liverpool.

When I broached the idea of their having to work to get aid, they came up with all kinds of problems. Some doubted that jobs were available, but more doubted they could get the child care or training that they needed.

Above all, several claimed that if they took a job they would lose more in benefits than they would gain in earnings, and thus would emerge worse off.

It appears the US system even got the teenage mothers/career mothers who feel in the UK, they can pop a kid out every 7 years and have a right never to work...

If it wasn't for the unemployed, the DSS would be out of a job. And let us not forget that billions of taxpayers' money is wasted on rubbish such as "defence".

Leave the honest scrounger alone and target those who deliberately defraud the system by claiming for non-existent kids and such like. And certainly don't give benefits to so-called "asylum seekers".

Work kills. Do less. Live more.

Leave the honest scrounger alone

WTF is an honest scrounger?

Some know my situation. I'd love to know how some of the people who screw the incapacity system do it. I've been told to apply for DLA but even for me, the form is a nightmare.

I'd love to work - I hate having no money, scrimping to pay bills and try to work my budget out to eat a decent diet so that I can stay as healthy as possible. I get housing benefit and council tax benefit but I still have to pay some out of my benefit. Unlike those on JSA, I wouldn't get my prescriptions free. I do but that's because of a particular medication I have to take. I don't get dental treatment for free either. I'll happily give anyone a breakdown of exactly how much I get and what is paid out, showing what exactly is left over every month.

If I could find an employer that won't mind me having at least 3 days off every 3 months (I have injections every 3 months and can't walk unless absolutely neccessary for 3 days), a morning/afternoon off every week for physio, a morning/afternoon off ever 2 or 3 months for hospital appointments, 2 weeks off every 6 months or so for surgery and recuperation and a day or 2 off at the drop of a hat if I do too much and can't walk then I'd gladly take a job!!

I guess I could take that as holiday time, but I'd end up owing "work" time.

What I don't agree with is paying druggies and alcoholics to sit at home to do drugs and drink. They get more than any!! It's not an illness, it's a choice!! I had no choice with my accident or being subsequently made redundant.

I will fight for DLA - if I get it, I get it. If not, there's not much I can do. That's the system. I don't know how to "play" it and I wouldn't anyway. I've worked bloody hard over the past *mumbles* years and paid my national insurance, the key word being INSURANCE. I see it as an insurance that should I need help, I can get it.

If you've never worked a day in your life then you should be made to work for your benefits.

I lost my rag recently with someone who said I have an "easy life". That opinion soon changed when they put my brace on and tried to walk with it on and I explained that to give them a slight idea of the pain, I'd put a row of drawing pins on the floor and they could kneel on them for 10 minutes! That's not even the half of it.

They can gladly have the nights when I wake up screaming because the knee has dislocated in my sleep or I've torn the cartilage in my sleep (which is what happened a few weeks ago), the nights I can't sleep at all because the painkillers don't work, the leg that looks like a childs dot to dot puzzle with the injection and surgery scars, the days when the knee dislocates up to 6 times just because it can, the side effects of the painkillers - drowsiness, constipation, headaches, nausea, sickness...the list is endless. They can gladly have not being able to walk more than a few yards without wanting to cry, the name calling from chavvy bitches that think it's funny to point and call you a "spastic", the dirty looks from people on the bus because you ask them politely to give up their "for disabled passenger" seat on the bus because you actually ARE disabled, the tuts because it takes you a bit longer to get off the bus....

Shall I carry on??

Brave face Andy and I pay for a night out with not being able to walk for a few days - hence I don't go out very often at all.

I think you don't see me as disabled because you know me and knew me before the accident - I'm just Jac to you (and I mean that in a nice way). I like it that way my love

Pah, why wait, just get a room

That is not the attitude to have.
Work less, live more?
So were do people get the money for nice things, clothes etc?
My hobby is fixing up old cars, if I didn't work I wouldn't be able to do that, even on my day off I'm working on my own cars, I don't get how people can enjoy 'lazing around' at home.
I'm all for this.

i don't understand this------work for your dole---but were are the jobs? if they can create jobs for working for your dole,why can't they create jobs with a decent wage so you can come off the dole? what this country wants is slave labour! work for a pittence!!think i heard once that these employers who take on people who work for there dole get a payment for doing so.
i say if they can create jobs for dole money then they can create proper jobs!

Its creating jobs to help the community and gets people back into the swing of doing a days hard graft. How many people on the dole actually spend the whole day averyday searching for work?

Its creating jobs to help the community and gets people back into the swing of doing a days hard graft. How many people on the dole actually spend the whole day averyday searching for work?

my son for one! he sends application after application,phones,emails, and half of them don't even reply!some say he needs a driving licence,how is he supposed to get one if he has'nt got a job to pay for the lessons? or they say need experiance,how do they get it if they can't get the job? what ever happened to learning on the job? the only way to get experiance is to get the job?

my son for one! he sends application after application,phones,emails, and half of them don't even reply!some say he needs a driving licence,how is he supposed to get one if he has'nt got a job to pay for the lessons? or they say need experiance,how do they get it if they can't get the job? what ever happened to learning on the job? the only way to get experiance is to get the job?

I was suprised to see many other applicants at the interview dressed in suits / ties looking more like they were attending a wedding rather than a low paid temporary job interview.

What surprises you about that!?

I'd never attend an interview without being fully suited and booted inc. tie, anyone who does is an idiot.

There's no such thing as being over dressed when it comes to an interview. Self respect.

ive been at an interview were someone turned up in a sports shirt haha

What surprises you about that!?

I'd never attend an interview without being fully suited and booted inc. tie, anyone who does is an idiot.

There's no such thing as being over dressed when it comes to an interview. Self respect.

There are plenty of people out there with both experience and a driving license and in this climate employers have their pick of the bunch. I agree it sounds like a vicious circle.

Tell him to join the army and learn a trade, that's where it's at.

Thing is most employers don't like taking on ex army people now sad but true

Every time you say the Government should pay for, it is not the Government that pays it is the ordinary tax payer. The Government as individuals pay nowt, it is you and I who pay. So, every time you bark that the Government should pay for think about it because you are only digging a hole in your own pocket. Benefits are meant for the needy not for the greedy. If you still smoke, drink, go on holiday and can't get off your fat arse and get a job then you don't need benefit. It's self defining.