Changes to Benefits

[Kwacky]

This appears to be receiving very little coverage in the news.

The govnerment is reducing Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) for certain claimants from £103 a week to £73. It will affect people who are deemed unable to work at the moment but capable of making some effort to find employment, including attending work-focused interviews and taking part in training.

We're being told that this is a move to force people to look for work.

People who have a disability. Like they're not struggling enough. The facts and figures make it clear that you are less likely to be offered work if you're disabled, but the higher rate of benefits isn't for that, it's because these people need additional care and support as well as payments for equipment they need.

There are 5 million people without jobs who could work. On the governments best figures, unemployment is 1.68 million.

There are just under 1 million jobs available.

The Tories seem determined to bring back work houses and slums.

[duke63]

The whole concept of what democracy and being a politician should be about has become totally lost.

I don't feel any of them are there to represent me as a citizen of this country.

I honestly cannot see me voting in an election again until something drastic changes.

[D41]

Well, it's hardly going to change without voting???

I think many, if not most politicians get into politics with the best of intentions, albeit with different avenues of achieving their goals in mind...let's face it, no-one realistically wants other peoples lives to be crappy...at least I don't, and that's why I should prolly run for office.

VOTE DARREN!!!

[Rossgo]

I'll vote for you Darren!! Haha

[StMarks]

Fwiw I think that it is a step in the right direction (see what I did there).

I think the benefits culture is what is fundamentally undermining our society. When the first of my peers left school, back when I was 15/16 I was dumbfounded to learn that some of them were being paid money by the government to do nothing.! Whilst I got nothing whatsoever for studying & attending school.
My upbringing had kept me utterly unaware of such things, and even at that tender age it seemed perverse & obscene. That (lovely hot) summer I was actually sorely tempted to kick school into touch, so that I could "claim dole & kick about having fun with the lads".

As automation, computerisation & efficiency become increasingly prevalent in all sectors, the roles for "workers" diminish. So we are going to have to work out a completely different social strategy.: The current system is already broken & utterly unsustainable, but worse it is blatantly heading for oblivion IMO.

[Monty]

// exit stage Left

[Kwacky]

I think they stopped the YTS about 30 years ago....

[Jack]

I recommend national service , to ensure that our future generations of unemployed are well trained in the art of warfare , that should sort things out .

[Kwacky]

It's too expensive to put kids through the services. Plus we haven't got the room for them alongside the regular armed forces.

[StMarks]

It's too expensive to put kids through the services. Plus we haven't got the room for them alongside the regular armed forces.

With the cuts that are being applied, there is more "room" than "services" in our Armed Forces,?

National Service (as it was) is less applicable, because, as Jack points out, it has serious flaws.

The future is easy to foresee in this respect.; there will be less & less that humans can do, that computers or machines can't do far better.
What use will we have in the future.???? (A serious question.)

[rocket]

I think there's a Messy line here were there are some people who need extra support don't get it and some that don't need it get it. Its very hard to call and in some circumstances made a lot worse by the media they love a good story. Mean while this lets the government come up with hair brained none thought out policy's and people nod and agree / disagree what ever side of the fence you are sat.

What i think needs to happen is a better system for working out if you need the support. it was and i still think is run by ATOS and the questions are ridiculous there's not much medical background used and if you are willing to tell a few porkies its an easy road. Also this company is paid MILLIONS to sort this out and seems to do very little to want to change anything. The person who wrote the test has public said its not very good.

[Kwacky]

Things change. The same arguments were raised in the 18th and 19th Centuries when machines started to do manual labour work and farming became automated. The population had quadrupled since then and we're still working.

Look at the car industry. We employ more now than we did in the 70s, even though robots do a lot of the work.

For a start machines need to be built, serviced, upgraded, maintained. So there are jobs which flow directly from that. The machines have to be designed, new hardware has to be created along with the software required. People need to be trained how to operate the machines and how to repair them. The machines alone generate jobs.

[StMarks]

Things change. The same arguments were raised in the 18th and 19th Centuries when machines started to do manual labour work and farming became automated. The population had quadrupled since then and we're still working.

Look at the car industry. We employ more now than we did in the 70s, even though robots do a lot of the work.

For a start machines need to be built, serviced, upgraded, maintained. So there are jobs which flow directly from that. The machines have to be designed, new hardware has to be created along with the software required. People need to be trained how to operate the machines and how to repair them. The machines alone generate jobs.

All valid points, but I wonder if the tipping point has been reached now. Previously all those tasks have required human intervention, but logic dictates that is unlikely to continue for much longer.?

I think there's a Messy line here were there are some people who need extra support don't get it and some that don't need it get it. Its very hard to call ..........

The main problem, as I see it, is that we prop up those who don't warrant it. I agree that support is a morally preferable system, but I don't think it helps to promote a positive & dynamic society.?

[Kwacky]

Jobs will be created, whether we need them or not is another issue.

Have you ever been to India? They specialise in creating jobs you don't need.

[StMarks]

Jobs will be created, whether we need them or not is another issue.

Have you ever been to India? They specialise in creating jobs you don't need.

They don't have a welfare dependant society, they have that (more dynamic & inspirational) approach instead.?

[Kwacky]

I'm not sure if you've missed my point. In India jobs are created that aren't needed.

Notwithstanding that, they do have 10s of thousands of beggars though, temples giving away food, people living hand to mouth, and people living in abject poverty. The sick and disabled are left to their own devices. So you're happy for that to come to the UK?

[Jack]

halve the working week and double the hourly rate , instantly twice as many jobs , and besides that its pretty much what we were promised (that machines would work and we would have more leisure time ) by Tomorrow's World and the Jetsons .

[duke63]

The general decision making process with government in these cases appears to be - Will this person/family struggle on regardless if we don't give them any assistance? - Yes or No.

[Monty]

The general decision making process with this government, is feck em

[Kwacky]

The general decision making process with this government, is ..

Will this have any impact on my family and friends?

Can I make money from this?

Don't forget Cameron had a disabled son, and he claimed all of the benefits he could when his son was alive.