I had a bit of a discussion about the Dole with a few mates at work today. The general consensus was that the government were fudging the figures by placing more people on incapacity benefit, instead of classing them as unemployed. They also felt that if there are hundreds of thousands of immigrants coming here for work, then many of our unemployed were not trying to find work. One suggestion was that you should receive the Dole for six months, and If you have failed to find work in that period, you should have your payments stopped. An alternative suggestion was to get those unwilling to find employment to work on local community tasks under council supervision.Now, this all sounds a bit severe, but what can we do if a mass of people are refusing to work, when work is so obviously available?
One of the symptoms of this problem is likely to be the fact that a lot of people are just as comfortable, or even better off, on the dole.
Any Suggestions?
9 comments:
It's a big issue and I hope that while considering it your readers will remember to vote in the blogpower awards steve
I think that we shouldn't be giving the unemployed money when it comes to benefits. We should be giving them tokens for specified things like food and other necessities afterall we have every right to tell them what to spend OUR money on.
If they want to go to the pub they best get a job.
I have not worked for six months this Friday. I have been self-employed for most of my economically productive adult life and I have a profound dislike of working (by which I mean labouring for the profit of another and therefore subject to his whim) and do so reluctantly. Unfortunately I am unable to employ myself at present and must therefore work, unless I can find support from other sources.
Two weeks ago, having exhausted all independent sources of support available to me, I reluctantly made a claim for Job Seekers' Allowance. On Friday of last week I had my interview, during which I had to describe my efforts to find work. Today I found a job making components for the motor trade and tomorrow I start at 07:30. It usually takes me no longer than a fortnight to find work but this time it took me about a month. I have always said that anyone can find work if they want it.
I don't object to people taking a break on benefits from what may be an undesirable lifestyle, but I think it is a citizen's right, not a 'human right', and I think that those who pay those benefits do have the right to expect something in return. If, after a few weeks, the claimant has still not found work, I think he should be transferred to some sort of community labour corps. I would feel no shame in doing useful work for the community in return for a reasonable remuneration and I cannot see that any reasonable person would disagree.
In answer to your question: One should stay on the dole for as long as it takes to find work. If one cannot find work one should accept community service in return for dole.
As a postscript: While waiting for my interview I sat next to a young couple with a baby in a pushchair who were discussing what they should put down as the reason for their claim. They decided to write that they had just moved into a new home and needed furniture.
time limits for unemployment are the only answer. You get allotted x number of days. Use them all now or over the course of your life. But once used, too bad.
Same would have to go for sickness benefit too. Too depressed to look for work no longer a get out.
It will never happen in this country.
Rilly I'm sure they are, I will.
YDKM, your idea has some merit but it could be a little difficult to put into action. I also believe that some people are genuinely unemployed and do need state help in the form of cash.
Mr Gruff, thanks for leaving such a well thought out comment. Your comment is a great extension to my original post. If at some time I need to rely on the state, I also would feel less of a burden on society if I was earning it.
Kris,
Sadly I think you are correct. Which will mean more council tax and more income tax for those who are willing to work.
Kris, you mean sickness benefit as opposed to incapacity benefit? Obviously peopple with, say, advanced MS might never work again.
And even as to sickness benefit itself. I have a friend who's had cancer for three years. As it happens, she's married and there's money, so it's not so critical from that point of view - no benefits involved. She's a journalist, and has been writing most of that time, but clearly she hasn't been working full time. And what if she'd been a 9-5 employed person? What if her husband were a forklift operator?
The thing to beware of is fixing one problem to cause another. In America people go without treatment because they can't afford insurance, they lose their houses. Do we really want that here?
When my marriage broke up I was on income support, until my then husband decided to write to the Child Benefit Agency saying the kids lived with him - for continuity I had indeed preferred for the kids to sleep in their pown beds during the school week, but I was doing ALL the chldcare, and had a child still under school-age. So I lost that, and got the dole instead. Did I feel like a burden on society? NO.
Eventually I got a horrible temp job at Westminster Council for £5 an hour, and cried at my desk every day. I continued to receive housing benefit for another year.
Why on earth would I feel guilty about that! I know I'm not your classic scrounger, but there is a purpose for these safety nets. Thank God it was there.
And by the way - I may have been working but I certainly couldn't afford to go to the pub.
ive been unemployed for six months now,its not that i don`t want to work i very much do but i have no qualifications and no way of financing a college course so i have to do forklift driving or factory work and i just don`t fit in with the people who work in these places i find them ignorant disrespectul and stupid quite frankly and your also right i do recieve £15 a week more on the minimum wage to do a nasty little repetitive job which i hate and until i see a job i like im not budging id rather die than work with idiots.
Considering how much of the taxayers money the government wastes annually I don't think anyone should feel burdened on the dole. Milk them for whatever you can before you find work. It's paper, nothing more. They will expect you to work until your grey, then give you nuts to live on and maybe even force you to sell your home to pay for care. If you have worked and payed the government this "paper", I think your more than entitled to claim some back. Bankers, royalty inbreeds, footballers etc, are pampered like crazy and you can't tell me they earn that, I dont care how brainy they are. It's thrown at them in buckets. Anyone read the paper lately? See the banker complaining that his £1m a week wage was insufficient. Sickening. YOUR a debt slave, plain and simple. And the government are the ones creating this MASSIVE debt. Stand back and try and see the mess we have got into in the past decade. Taxes here, taxes there, cameras nearly everywhere. Then people gaze idiotically at Big Brother not knowing thats whats happening in reality all over this country. More spending on gambling less spending on youth, youth getting into trouble, using drugs, selfish, arrogant people whinging about them hanging around the streets. IT'S BECAUSE THERES NOTHING ELS TO DO!!! It might just be me that's being paranoid but this all seems planned to me. Anyway I better stop cause I could go on and on. MILK IT!!!!
ok i get where your coming from, all of you but the thing is that everybody has a diffrent story...me for example i was kicked out of home at 18, i pulled through it by working my ass off and managed to save for college, which then i lost my job and could not complete my last year.things got even thougher when i lost my next job and all i saved to finish my last year of college had to be spent on rent food etc. i went on the dole...and after waiting bloody ages for it i finally got it, i was late on 3 months rent, my gas and esb bill sky rocketed.im from portugal and have lived here for 10 years, i havent seen my family in 5 years and really im stuck here, its either go abroad see my relatives, lose the dole and my home or stay here and wait for another relative to die.i do not smoke and yeah i do enjoy the old pint in the pub, but christ otherwise id go insane.im only on the dole because i cant save for college, if i stay only a few months, ill be able to go for free. so you know what I'm trying to say is that 6 months on the dole is nothing, food allowances...stupid.once your on the dole ,your trapped, you can leave the country, you cant save,you do nothing with your self.some people do have trouble finding a job,they might not be qualified,turned down job after job, so what are they going to put on their cv's.its an endless topic but really be a bit open minded,im not proud to be on the dole infact i hate it.the government have it all very thought out.
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