General Chat

My Oh was told, because he was registered disabled, that he should just take the money and go home. This he would not do, he had been a carpenter/building worker, so he started working for himself. was not able to earn a full wage and we had to produce motnthly accounts to the benefits office. They made up the difference and got us housing benefit. He worked like that until he was 60. He had to work slowly, but he did a good job and was repeat employed by some people. Its not easy, but can be done. Nephew in law started a gardening business when he could not get work and is now fully active.

I've paid tax all my working life - even when I worked for a minimum as a single parent.
I'll willingly pay for police, firemen, schools. I'm happy for my tax to go towards the NHS - though I think 'boob enhancements' are a bit beyond te pale - hardly a medical issue are they?
I'll willingly pay for the unemployed - there but for chance go I - BUT I resent paying for ANY cheat /fraud - and that includes politicians' expenses, and any tax -dodger - whether it's 'legal' or not.
This county loses billions more income through tax defraud than any number of benefit cheats.
How firms - including such well known ones as Boots, and even Barclays - which we all own a bit of, as we bailed it out - can claim their 'head office' is a post office box in Switzerland - no employees, just 4 directors - and get away with it beggars belief.

IGP would you not have been entitled to JSA in any case ?

I was made redundant at 56 and get not one penny from the government as I was stupid enough to invest most of what I earned in a house and saved the rest, a few pounds each month, from the day I started work.

Yet STILL I am expected to pay for those who seem to think they deserve it more than I do.

Why?

DetEcTive

They don't even need to have been in the higher rate tax bracket........just highly paid e.g. £35 - £40K - to find that shops, supermarkets, care homes and the like won't even give them an interview. :-(((

And this was one of the points I made in my first post - with less than a year to retirement, my sister is just not seen as a viable career prospect now.......but she needs to work!

I understand that, so does she........if I were running a business I wouldn't want to take on someone with less than a year to go to retirement with all the costs associated with employing and training up someone new........I would want to employ someone that I thought would be around in the job for a few years at least.

Mary

Sounds good in principle but where are these community jobs coming from? If they will be available as community jobs in the future then why aren't they around now as paid jobs?

Last year I was made redundant just before Christmas when the company I worked for went into Administration. I had never signed on before and what an eye opener that was. I received £65 Jobseekers Allowance plus £55 Child tax credits in addition to my Child Benefit. My rent is £550 per calender month and I received £105 towards this. Council tax was paid. By the time I had paid the rent, gas, leccy, water rates etc I was left with the princely some of about £35 to feed and clothe my daughter. Not easy I can assure you.

Where I live is a mainly toursist area so a lot of jobs are mainly seasonal, worst time for me to be made redundant, plus when the season starts employers are looking for staff with experience. I applied for that many jobs that I think I kept the Royal Mail going, plus most employers do not even acknowledge job applications unless they offer an interview. Soul destroying.

I was lucky bedcause I eventually gained employment after six months. It is only 3 days a week at just above minimum wage but I can now pay my bills, just about but my sanity has been saved

Not everyone is a "doley" by choice

Regarding finding work.....if the person was a highly paid proffessional (and I do mean higher tax bracket) and approaching 60, no one will look at them because of that person's previous salary expectations.

And lets be honest, an employer would rather train up someone cheaper with 15-20 years working life within spitting distance of the Job Spec, than an oldie with perhaps 5 yrs left.

My brother did get his redundancy pay but only £10000 and he had some saving but could not have survived for long on that.

Not everyone signing on the dole are work shy but there are some who have never done a days work in their lives. There are jobs available but not what anyone wants to do. I worked three part time jobs rather than sign on and my son works two for minimum wage rather than sign on. The benefit system is suppose to be a safety net not a way of life. Why not expect those on benefit to do some kind of community service?

I have a friend who use to be a dental technician making crowns and bridges who then retrained as a care assistant in an old peoples home when he was laid off. He then became a builders labourer and now he has his own landscape gardening business. What I am trying to say is just because someone used to have one career that they enjoyed does not mean that other options should be dismissed as they may find something else they enjoy.

Merlin sometimes work/work experience local to you can involve travelling expenses. I'm not claiming JSA but if I was and my work experience took place in town then it would cost me £3.80 per day in travelling expenses, public transport doesn't come cheap.

I believe one of the purposes is also to weed out people claiming while working.

It may make those in that position sign off and make their work "legal".

Gwynne

Tootyfruity.

Presumably your brother received a significant amount of redundancy pay otherwise he would have been entitled to £65 per week at a minimum?

So that's not really a fair comparison to make is it? Your post sounds as though everyone else just goes and claims benefits without trying to find any work at all, but that's not the case.

Not everyone gets redundancy pay and has to claim in order to eat and pay bills. :-((

Mary

Maggiewinchester,

The truth is that, yes, some people do opt for living a *life on benefits*.........most don't! Most are like your friend and like my sister.

The benefits system as it is doesn't encourage people to work.......like your friend found to his cost......and that's the problem. :-((

Anyone finding some work, be it for a few days or a few weeks, then has to make a fresh claim once the work has finished.......which (in the case of housing benefit if you have a mortgage) entails going without money to pay your mortgage for 3 months (it used to be 9!).....and puts people in the position of becoming homeless. Fine if you live in social housing, or private rented accommodation, your rent will be paid from the first day of your claim, but if you've a mortgage it won't......so you just get further and deeper in to debt.

How does this system encourage people to take temporary jobs - temporary jobs which could lead to permanent jobs, and also gives people a sense of purpose????

If, as a family with children, you become homeless, you have the right to be re-housed........but a single person doesn't have that right. They just become homeless!! Which is then becomes a vicious circle, no home = no possibility of getting a job!

Mary

It might work,but only if it is so sort out the "Wheat from the Chaff" i/e those who have never worked,and those who don,t want to work because they are doing quite nicely thank you doing jobs for cash in hand as well as signing on.( And most people can name a few ) if people have to travel to where the work is,then transport cost should be paid to them otherwise the work/work experience should be local to them.**M**.

"Actually I'd much prefer litter picking to working in a shop lol, even in the rain...the litter is easier to deal with ;)"

Lol Rose :-)

Litter picking may be easier but it won't teach you how to deal with people, for example. It'll only teach you how disgusting some people are.

I do think that a travel allowance should be paid to get too and from these voluntary positions.

When my brother was made redundant 2 years ago he signed on the dole even though he received no payout, not even £65 per week. He still had a mortgage to pay and household bills. He is a truck driver who used to work for As*a. He signed on with an agency and received no work and after 6 months changed agencies and received bit work. He drove vans, trucks, slept out in his truck basically took anything. After 2 years of doing this he has finally found a permanent position.

Needs must and is a very good motivator

Can those who have been unemployed for a year really be accused of 'opting for a life on benefits'?
I have a friend - 60 in December, who is a carpenter. He's been unemployed for 18 months. During that time, he's been offered a few jobs of 3 or 4 days duration. He took 2 of them, using his own tools - and ended up having to fill in copious forms at the Jobcentre, treated with distrust - and ended up losing money - as he had to drive miles for the jobs.
In times gone by - when the Dole was called the Dole, accepting short term jobs was perfectly acceptable and encouraged - not so now.
He'd love to work full time again, but realises the longer he's unemployed, the more is muscles are unused to the physical strain.
He initially did environmental voluntary work to 'keep his hand in' and retain his physical prowess, but now can't afford the petrol.
If he has to get rid of his car, he'll be up the Swanee, as he lives 2 miles from the nearest bus stop an needs his car to get to jobs and carry his tools.

Litter picking/gardening for a month a year is hardly going to 'prepare' him for work!!!

About time too.

When you read it a bit more closely is appears the scheme is said to be designed to flush out claimants who have opted for a life on benefits or are doing undeclared jobs on the side.

You can't disagree with that.

If these community 'jobs' are availble for random unemployed people to do - why don't they offer them to the unemployed as permanent jobs?
Will the use of the unemployed to do various community jobs result in employed people losing their jobs? After all, if a firm can put themselves forward as a potential 'helper' and get their gardening done for free by the uemployed under this scheme, what's the point in keeping on their gardener?

...and with the rise in the retirement age will come more unemployed......

Absolutely agree with every word you've said there Rambling Rose!!

In reply to earlier postings........in theory making people do some sort of community work for their benefits so as to give *them* motivation, self esteem, new skills etc sounds good.

But, there are many people - my sister being one, who has worked continuously for over 37 years, without a break, paying a considerable amount of tax in that time - and like the example Rambling Rose gives in her post above - how much more motivated can they get???? It's obvious just from those 2 examples that the jobs are just not there! If they were, both that bricklayer and my sister WOULD be working, not trying to exist on £65 per week!!

As one politician said: "there is a world of difference between the workLESS and the workSHY", and that is very true.

The problem with our benefits system is that it's a *one size fits all*, so those that are willing and wanting to work will be doing the community work, and the workshy will find ways of *working* the system to ensure that they don't do any community work, or indeed ANY work.......and the rest will have to find travelling costs out of their meagre £65.

I absolutely agree that something needs to be done about the whole benefits system in this country, for far too long those that don't want to work have been able to milk the system, whilst those that now find themselves out of work (and want to work) because of the recession are finding themselves in a dreadful state of poverty.

Mary