Apparently we are spending 14% of our national income on welfare

1.4million people in the UK have been on an out-of-work benefit for nine or more of the past ten years

Sickness benefit has risen from 15% in 1981 to 43% today

Well done to the Caolition again for their plans to target the jobshy.

They have even invited the predecessor James Purnell to help draw up plans to reduce "benefit britain"

Well done I say

[quote="chip fireball"]heard it all before im afraid. lots of rhetoric, zero action.

every new government promises it, none have delivered.

at least labours working tax credits and minimum wage incentivised people to take low paid jobs, meaning people who genuinely wanted to work were better off in jobs than on benefits.

the last tory government got in on the back of their " labour isnt working " posters, then put 3 million on the dole. cant see how slashing public services, not building hospiatals, and scrapping working tax credits is going to reduce the numbers out of work personally.

take smackheads for instance, who is gonna employ them ? or drug dealers ? or gypsies ? or those working in the black market ?[/quote]

Make them do voluntary work i.e. clean graffiti, pavements etc... or stop their benefits!!!

How do you make people do voluntary work?????????????

Scrap the minimum wage and make them work doing stuff like cleaning the streets up in order to qualify for their "benefits".

How do smack-heads get benefits anyway, they surely arnt actively looking for work as you require a lot of time to go robbing / on the game, to feed the large cost habit.

It all baffels me that people can be on the dole etc for so long, granted if they cannot find work due to low employment, but I know a lad who is 24 and has been on the dole for about 3 years as he cant be arsed.

Ah I see.

You don't get money for looking for a job, you get money for turning up at the dole office and abusing the staff till they get sick and give you the giro anyway.

Personally I have a problem with the timing of the "find work or get no benefits" thing even though I totally agree with it in principal.

At the moment the country's economy is struggling and there isn't the quantity of jobs necessarily available to poke people in to. I have every sympathy for people who generally want to work but can't as there isn't a job for them to take. Equally, whilst I think that there are too many people on the likes of incapacity benefit who shouldn't be on it, I also think that the people who generally cannot work and therefore rightly qualify for this benefit should get more than the pennies that they're given nowadays.

Dole money should be just for people who want to work but can't for a temporary period obtain employment, not for those who don't want to work. But how do you determine the difference? Should it be based upon how much you've paid in taxes and NI in past years? That's the trickiest question.

Income Support is a different kettle of fish again. In principal I do believe that the state should support everybody who isn't working, but if they're not suffering temporary unemployment and fall into the "won't work" category for any reason I reckon that instead of being paid dole MONEY, they should instead be given vouchers that can be used to pay for rent, food, heating etc but not spent in off licences and pubs.

Should just scrap the entire system as it is.

Take the 164.7 bn they are gonna spend this year. Divide it between the 65 million people in the country and give them £2500 each.

If you want to live off that fair enough. If not get out and get a job!

I'm a great believer in everybody working if they can and making a contribution to society if they can.
However If someone is offered a job which he turns down and subsequently loses his/ her benefit, who feeds him/her and any children they may have?
If they are unable to get food they will die or the state will have to provide it, especially for their children. So the taxpayer still foots the bill.
This is the problem successive governments have been faced with. How do you get these people off the backs of the taxpayer?
No one has come up with a realistic solution yet.
We can't just let people starve, or can we????
Once we start generating consequences we need solutions to these consequences.
It only takes one person to die, especially if that person is a child and the shit hits the fan.
It is definitely a problem that needs solving but the current suggestions don't fill me with any hope, especially in the current climate. On the one hand this coalition lambasts the previous government stating that the economy is in the worse state in living memory and on the other hand they are suddenly going to get everyone employed or at least offered employment, when the only thing they have done so far is generate conditions in which more people are liable to be on the dole.
Like Chip has inferred...........talk is cheap.

The 164.7 billion you want to divide up currently goes on the Armed Forces, The Health service, The Police, The Fire Service, Education, Cleaning the streets, The Inland Revenue, The Civil Service etc etc.' plus the knock on effect the departure of these institutions would create. So you would immediately cut the funding of these services putting further untold millions of people on the dole..............without any benefit other than the £2500 you have generously awarded them.
Pray tell me where the jobs are that you suggested they could find, after you've decimated the economy.
You would single handedly do at a stroke what it took Gordon Brown thirteen years to achieve.
Aye why not............................

Aye, I also know you've gotta be on a wind up.

No it doesn't thats just the Social Security budget! GO and check the figures if you don't believe me. For the first time ever this year we are gonna pay more in benefits than we get in in income tax!

A peoples stipend like I suggest is actually paid in some small countries.

I do sympathise with those who genuinly want to work and jsa should start at a minimum of £100 a week for the first 6 months of those being made redundant.
The extra cash would help with job searching etc
However, those unemployed for 6 months plus should attend some sort of training scheme which could maybe help them back into work.
Those unemployed for 1 year plus to clean the streets.

We also need far more rigorous medicals for those on incap.
If they then also refuse to work or do voluntary work then give them a choice. They receive no benefits at all or go to Afghanistan.

Blind people, disabled people etc fully deserve whatever benefits they are getting, however for every genuine case I bet there's another at least that isn't.
How you distinguish between the two I don't know, that's for the politicians to sort out.

The kids would be getting there own £2500 as that figure is per person not adult.

I agree my point was bit extreme but was intended to illustrate the fact our system is way out of control and the sums currently being spent. Tinkering around the edges just won't cut it.

There are very few people uterly icapable of earning something the trouble is unless you can get a very good job it is too easy to simply be far better off on benefits. Thats just wrong and a kick in the teeth for blokes who go out and graft to be no better off than their neighbour sat on his arse all day.

I was just rooting around the net and found a report from a few years ago where Blair was saying the £100 bn budget we had was unsustainable we are now 60% above that.

But it's politicians that have got us where we are.............................

We could always stop child benefit, reduce the state pension, free prescriptions, free bus passes, free TV licences, the winter fuel allowance, pensioners extra credits, free contraceptives, family planning clinics, free eye test and dental care for pregnant mums, maternal and paternal benefit. Just for starters like.
Get rid of that lot and the welfare budget would drop dramatically.

We could then make every worker take out sickness insurance to save on sickness benefit. You could have a no claims bonus attached to it, which would stop malingerers and reduce the extraordinary number of days lost through "sickness".

Gee whiz...........I have only just got started.....................and I haven't shot anybody..............yet.

I agree some people just will not go to work if they are only going to £30-£40 a week better off.
Mind, some people just won't have work full stop.
The main reason for sickness these days is anxiety and depression, the doctors just sign the form and they are sorted.
It's people in work in call centres, factorys etc who should be depressed!!! I know, I've worked there.

And what about the millions of people who work hard for the minimum wage

I think we probably all know similar types Mutters.
However if we suddenly force them to work what sort of employees will they be.
More trouble than they're worth no doubt.
A bit of lead behind the ear is eventually going to be the only solution.

No mention of the many wealthy employers who knowingly pay cash in hand to millions on benefits every year to avoid paying tax and N.I.And yet still moan about scroungers..

Pay them the market rate.

The reason I mentioned scrapping the minimum wage is because you'd probably have a bit of difficulty in law by trying to make people "work" all week for their benefits of about £100 under the current system.

I take it the majority of you have never been ill, unemployed, claim a state pension or have relatives who do.

The biggest part of welfare expenditure is state pensions.
When Mrs Thatcher closed the mines and the shipyards the men thrown onto the dole were actively encouraged by the government to apply for Incapacity Benefit to get them of the Unemployment count. The same goes for anyone else who had any kind of illness.
So while New Labour claimed that more people than ever were employed the numbers of inactive benefit claimaints continued to rise. Plus the wonderful capitalist system requires a flexible, low waged work force with a pool of unemployed.

There are a number of issues for now. Just were are these training places going to be? The recent recession meant people who have never experienced unemployment, IT, bankers, etc when now unemployed. Some of them have been out of work for 2 years. Are they scroungers? Are you going to force them to clean the streets?

Are street cleaners only worthy to earn the dole? Shouldn't crinials be cleaning up the shyte?
Here's one for the eurosceptics. Why don't we kick out all those eatern europeans who clean our hotels, the plumbers, the electricians, the fruit pickers. These are all jobs the unemployed of this country can do.
The problem is of course the system traps people in poverty. The single parents, the carers, the mentally and physically ill are all dependent on society's help. There only a very small number of people that won't work. We should rightly target them and not lump all benefit claimants and pensioners together.

As for shooting them in the back of the head? You can welcome to the board to communist China.

An excellent post Grab

Until Sept last year I had worked my knackers off for over twenty years, but have been on the pat & mick since then

I didn't ask to get a disease which threatened my life but it appears the vast majority of this board appear to think everyone who gets unemployment benefit or sick pay, a whopping £90 a week btw, is a canoute

And as for 'paying the going rate' does paying somebody less then a fiver an hour seem fair in the 21st century

[/quote]And as for 'paying the going rate' does paying somebody less then a fiver an hour seem fair in the 21st century[/quote]

And they are willing to defend footballers getting paid £70k a week because that's the going rate.

Hope you get better/improve and can get back to work soon Talbot when your ready.

This may get me some abuse but as the new coalition has said it will scrap child fund trust, should they not "tamper" with the winter allowance for OAP.

I'm not on about scrapping it but can you tell me the likes of Alex Ferguson, any member of the royalty and millionaires from any occupation should actually get it.

Yes many need it but many don't but there's no difference you receive £250 if over 60 and £400 if over 80. Even pensioners who go abroad for 6 months of the year for the sun receive it.

What do other's think.

Just playing devils advocate.

As with child Benefit if you means test it you won't save anymoney because of the administration costs. I think it should be paid after the winter when the bills come in providing OAPs are taken off prepayment meters. In the civil services it is cynically regarded as Christmas present money. Having said that it was certainly needed this last winter.

Your not really playing the devils advocate are you though?

I think if you are millionaire or just a tax payer who has paid into the system you should be entitled to the benefit, even if you dare to live in Spain off the cash you have saved all your life

I do hope it helps

Good post mate.
On the shooting them in the back of the head. We all seem to know what are commonly called benefit scroungers.
This new coalition recognises there are benefit scroungers, so they are proposing that they work. Nothing wrong with that. If they refuse to work then they'll lose their benefit. Unless they get charity or gain money illegally then they starve. If they starve then they die. So to put them out of their misery and to avoid a slow lingering death, we shoot them like dogs.
What I'm trying to illustrate is the inevitability of what is going to happen to the unemployable, and that category exists.
Because the alternative to shooting them is feeding them, so the problem hasn't been solved has it?
Everybody is so clever at highlighting the problem and even providing the answer to the problem, but nobody is prepared to address the consequences of these magnificent solutions. Hope you understand where I'm coming from now.
I have been ill, have been unemployed and I receive state pension, so I meet your required criteria.

In 7 years of working for Npower I have only ever received one call from a pensioner asking to make a payment of their winter fuel allowance on to their account to pay their energy bill.

Sorry to hear that Mr Avenger, and I hope you get well soon if you're not already.

It's things like that which are why I said previously about people who genuinely deserve or fall into the category of sickness should get more than they do now. Surely weeding out the "scroungers" would make more money available for the genuine?

My winter fuel allowance goes directly into my bank account and my payments to the fuel suppliers come out of my bank account, so there is no need to contact anybody.
I would suggest that applies to most recipients of the allowance.

Sorry to hear you're ill, Talbot. Hope you're soon on the mend.

Remember..lots of fruit and spinach, and lay off the booze a bit.

I probably haven't made my point very well there. Lots of pensioners accounts come out of the winter with large outstanding balances, mainly because the payments they are making are insufficient to cover their actual usage. When they get the opportunity to make a large payment of £250 they have received especially for this purpose, they don't.

I pay mine monthly at a rate decided by the energy company. Invariably I find myself in credit at the end of the annual period and either my payment is adjusted downwards or I get a rebate.
This year Npower have charged me £54 per month for my electricity, which after six months usage has been reduced to £33 per month for the remainder of the year. If I gave them the £250 when I receive it I would be miles oversubscribed.
I look upon the allowance as a contribution to my income, no different to any other part of my income.
I pay all of my bills monthly where possible, something which I have always done.
If the energy companies reduce the annual bill by £250 BEFORE they work out the monthly payment then I would be only too willing to give them the £250 as I get it, but they won't do that.
Perhaps a good idea would be for the government to pay the allowance directly to the energy companies on my behalf and for the energy company to take that into account when estimating my monthly charge.
Either way the allowance is part of my income.

100% agree, I've advocated that myself, but of course I don't have any influence on decision makers in either the Government or the Energy Industry.
The problem isn't with customer like yourself, who are covering their usage with their monthly payments, but with customer who refuse to accept the advised amounts that their regular direct debits or cash payments need to be, and want to carry on paying too low an amount.