In 2011 Cameron said, “Never again will work be the wrong financial choice … We are finally going to make work pay for some of the poorest people in our society.“
What a laugh!
As you know, I found part-time work. I was quite excited by this. I’m now told my Jobseekers’ Allowance has been stopped, I’m entitled to reduced Housing Benefit and I’m not entitled to Council Tax Benefit
I’ve received a number of letters pointing out differing amounts I am or I’m not entitled to and my head is spinning but I’ve tried to calculate what this means.
And I’m £21 per month worse off by working. Add to this the money I have to find for rent and Council Tax and I’m a massive £158 a month worse off before I’ve even paid the rest of my bills.
It’s literally impossible.
I will, of course, also pay high bank charges when I inevitably become overdrawn losing yet more from my paltry income.
If my calculations are accurate, I’m at very real risk of becoming deeper in debt and, ultimately, losing my home.
Over a year since Cameron excitedly said work will pay, the reality is I’m now awake in the early hours panicking about not having any money, fretting that I won’t have fares to even get to work and questioning whether I’ll be penalised for packing in my part-time job and returning to full benefits.
Stay on benefits. You know it makes sense.
I understand I can’t get Working Tax Credits because I work fewer then 16 hours per week.
I’ve not been given any advice on alternative benefit options so don’t think there are any. I have to accept a loss of £158 per month and work.
So – for those who think the unemployed should try to get at least a few hours work – it is an impossible challenge. That is, unless you’re working as part of slave labour for multi-million companies while “earning” your benefits.
As Tories gleefully claim that we’re out of a recession unemployedhack takes a look at the Tory Attacks Chart to see the hottest releases featuring assaults on the most vulnerable in society.
Children, disabled people, unemployed workers, young people, pensioners … everyone except the rich get a kicking from this Coalition government propped up by lickspittle lackey Lid Dems.
Straight in at #1:Ian Duncan Smith arrogantly concludes in a speech that domestic violence, drug addiction and family breakdown are solely working class experiences and uses benefit reforms and cuts for his warped social experiment. The rich, meanwhile, are not penalised for these issues because they have wealth.
Hot release:Benefits are destructive says top Tory – and the number of children benefit claimants can have could be capped leaving them “freed from” the decision of whether they can afford to
An unsurprising entry: Universities face a funding black hole as higher education is privatised and Tories/Lib Dems are seen to have fudged the figures
New entry: Cutting funding for Sure Start and children’s services will damage lives of underprivileged children ruining their chances before they’re even out of nappies
Moralistic non-mover: The country’s 1.9 million single parents are forced onto Jobseekers’ Allowance – as Sure Start centres close and Workfare takes paid jobs
Surprise entry: Thatcher’s Tory government included a paedophile - and Jimmy Savile spent his Christmases at Chequers
Pop summary: Tories – and their Lib Dem sidekicks – are a cruel, wealthy, self-centred axis of Eton attacking the vulnerable and defending the indefensible.
Also, Still think the Tories – and Labour – need to make cuts and are not just looking for excuses to reduce the State?
I’ve been told a few times this week that I’m whining about “compassion” or told – with an equal lack of irony – that it isn’t just for “lefties” but for ardent Tories too.
In 2008 the Tories were being hailed as the compassionate conservatives. Three years on, a Coalition in place, and attacks in the most vulnerable in society impossible to ignore and this now sounds like a bitter joke.
Adding: “Because it’s not enough to know our ideas are right. We’ve got to explain why they are compassionate too.”
I don’t know about you but – as more people need benefits at the same time as Universal Credit ensures they’re denied them - I can see the Tories changing their approach to “compassion”. I think, in much the same way as rants about “political-correctness”, they’ll soon declare it’s “compassion gone mad!” as they silence anyone defending the vulnerable.
I’m so certain of this I will bet my £71 a week which is, of course, such a huge amount of money I’m now entirely unwilling to work and, instead, happy to live in state-funded luxury with the obligatory enormous television.
Recently though I’ve found that rare species we know exists but hardly ever encounter … a compassionate Job Centre Plus adviser. He is friendly thing, doesn’t speak to me like I’m a thief, stupid or both … and he advises. Perhaps this is an indication that those who consider themselves to be in a powerful position – that is, in work – are recognising their own employment vulnerability. That they too could soon be treated with a lack of compassion and accused of whinging if they demand it.
This also to some extent explains why it’s been some time since I’ve blogged. It’s not, sadly, due to my being employed but to my feeling I have, in a way, little left to say.
Firstly, my experience is a repetitive one – I am again moving from unemployment to under-employment and so fighting the draconian measures of my benefits being suspended before I’ve even seen an employment contract. I am as ever stressed out by this but also oddly used to it. I now know how to “play the system” because you have no choice but to learn because – aside from the Lesser Arrogant Job Centre Plus Advisor I’ve just encountered – no one helps you at all.
I’ve again gone without heating – but I imagine you have too. I’ve again gone without food and have no social life – but I imagine that sounds familiar.
My experience is now a very common one: many of us are now losing our jobs; seeing our homes threatened; being treated as parasitic benefit cheats; being ripped off by utilities companies; being blamed for our poverty; watching as banks benefit from it in charges; recognising our qualifications are not worth the money we paid for them; waiting for the axe to fall or signing on then off then on then off then on then …
Update:
Chaplin is well. He is currently enjoying a catnip cigar and, thankfully, prefers Lidl and Aldi catfood to the big name brands
Luxuries I’ve bought to irritate Tories who think my benefits are too high: an electric blanket; a halogen heater and the aforementioned catnip cigar
Poverty plan: To work two part-time jobs in the hope that this means I can sign off until March 2013. Fingers crossed
Some intense investigative reporting on my part has resulted in my having something to do other than play string with Chaplin – and in unearthing the latest questionnaire used by Jobcentre Plus advisers.
This Q&A will be used at each and every interview unemployed workers attend in the hope that they will finally collapse, demoralised and exhausted, and choose to sign off rather than face the repetitive, humiliating process over and over again. What happens to them then is of no concern.
A Jobcentre Plus unofficial, completely imaginary, spokesperson said: “When addressing the needs of customers facing deferred success and cashflow challenges, it sometimes makes sense to clarify your process using a flowchart.
“Using a customer service process flow chart can help advisers deal with customers in a way that represents Jobcentre Plus’ overall customer service outlook while, at the same time, avoiding customer intimacy or, heaven forbid, making eye contact with the employment-challenged.
“Going forward we hope that they will finally collapse, demoralised and exhausted, and choose to sign off rather than face this repetitive, humiliating process over and over again.
“What happens to them then is of no concern to us and any discussion about the validity of this flowchart will result in our effective, and government-backed, use of blamestorming.”
If you’re due to sign on remember this is how they think – even if the more wily ones don’t follow the Q&A openly …
Are you a slob? Do you deserve nothing but contempt? Are you a so-called chav who should be humiliated at every chance? Well, here’s your chance to find out with this personality quiz asking: which unemployment stereotype are you? The answers are based on a scientific analysis of the Department for Work and Pension’s desired response to your situation no matter what the reality. Good luck.
1. What job did you do?
a: I’ve not worked yet. I’ve just left school/college/university and can’t find a job
b: I was an architect/journalist/middle manager but the company closed down.
c: I had a manual/professional job but struggled to find work at home so moved to the UK.
d: I’ve never worked and I never intend to. Working is for fools like you.
e: I was a qualified, experienced worker who enjoyed working but, sadly, I can’t work now because I’m unwell.
2. If you had to work what would you be willing to do?
a: I’d like to do something I’d enjoy or to use my qualifications because I’ve just graduated and I’m proud of my achievement. I’d do anything to start though.
b: Ideally I’d like to do something I enjoy, closely linked to my qualifications and experience.
c: I’m willing to do anything that’s available but would much prefer not to be here, if I’m honest.
d: I told you, I’m never going to work. My parents didn’t work, my siblings don’t work. No one in my family works, never has and never will.
e: I’d go back to what I like doing. I’d start tomorrow if my health improved.
3. How do you spend a typical day?
a: I look for jobs on in the internet and in papers then I watch David Dickinson or other afternoon television but with a great sense of irony. I’m often bored.
b: I search for jobs online, in newspapers, contact friends then I watch afternoon television with a great sense of dread. I’m often bored.
c: Looking for work: I go to employment agencies, check newspapers, try to make a call home if I’ve enough money. I’m often bored.
d: Hang about with the locals, sleep on the settee for a bit, then I might have something to eat before hanging about again. Take it easy, you know? I get into fights in my neighbourhood sometimes but, seriously, why stress out about stuff.
e: I have a routine around my medication and healthcare which can make doing anything else almost out of the question.
4. What do you spend your benefits on?
a: The essentials. It’s not enough for anything else.
b: The essentials. It’s not enough for anything else.
c: The essentials. It’s not enough for anything else.
d: I want decent food. No store brand rubbish and I can usually get it. If I can’t get it myself I know someone who will. I also get the drugs I want, the bedding I like. I come and go as I please. I live a charmed life.
e: The essentials. It’s not enough for anything else.
5. How many people do you know who are unemployed?
a: A few people. Some have found bits of jobs others got lucky and have full-time work.
b: Quite a few. These are people who thought they had job security but are now like me.
c: A few, here and at home. We none of us like it.
d: Those I depend on are unemployed. Makes no difference to me. Why would it matter? What is this obsession you have with working? Chilling out is much better.
e: I know more and more people in my situation and many are now being forced to work despite still being really, really ill.
Mostly As: You’re lazy. You’ve just left college/university and not looking hard enough for work. You clearly find living on benefits a suitable alternative lifestyle because it keeps you in luxury accommodation, enjoying fine-dining and enough computer games to keep you awake all night so you can sleep all day. You’re still cheerful and proud of your educational achievements. Stopping your entitlement to benefits will sort you out.
Mostly Bs: You’re lazy. You lack motivation, ambition and the ability to start-up your own business. You’re dependent on the state when you should be out there finding something, anything and lying about your qualifications or experience just so long as you find work. Did you not see The Pursuit of Happyness? That man slept in a toilet while he looked for work and so should you. Workfare will sort you out.
Mostly Cs: You’re lazy. Worse still, you’re foreign. You’ve come over here thinking our benefit system is easy and you can live off the taxpayer. We’ll show you by making sure there’s no work here either. Being scapegoated and blamed for mass unemployment in the UK will sort you out.
Mostly Ds: You’re my cat, Chaplin. You sleep most of the day and think people should run around after you. You’ve no intention of working, can’t begin to understand what it even means. You’re a cat but sometimes your characteristics are forced onto people who are struggling to survive on the least amount of money it is possible to live on.
Mostly Es: You’re lazy. Just because you’re ill doesn’t mean the taxpayer should help you. It’s not our fault you got ill. You should’ve taken better care of yourself or kept on eye on your dodgy genes. If you can walk, you can work, now get up and get earning.
It staggers me that I can still be dismissed as lazy, that those facing the brunt of mass unemployment globally can still be dismissed as lazy. With 2.64 million unemployed in the UK alone – the highest level since 1994, according to official figures – this reaction, and the short-sightedness and cruelty of it, is beyond my understanding.
Perhaps it’s because most Tories – certainly Tory leaders – don’t worry about such trivial things as low-pay, gas meters, the threat of homelessness with repossessions and rent too high for benefits, redundancy, over-priced train fares, losing their Disability Allowance or other benefits …
And perhaps it’s also as a fascinating recent study from UC Berkeley suggests – that individuals in the upper middle and upper classes are “less able to detect and respond to the distress signals of others” while “people in the lower socio-economic classes are more physiologically attuned to suffering, and quicker to express compassion than their more affluent counterparts”.
Social psychologist Jennifer Stellar, lead author of the study, says the upper classes “may just not be as adept at recognizing the cues and signals of suffering because they haven’t had to deal with as many obstacles in their lives”.
According to the latest statistics, as reported by the BBC, the numbers claiming benefits rose by 3,000 to 1.6 million in November last year and the total number of employees fell by 63,000 to 29.11m, mostly due to job losses in the public sector.
I blogged about how I’m going to take up a job offer – despite the fact I’ll have less money, despite the fact it will cost me to work, despite the fact it is not permanent or even full-time – I am going to work. I’m doing so because it might lead to more work, but I recognise it might not. The chances are I will be unemployed again in a few months and I have no control over that.
This somehow met with abuse. It would seem we – the unemployed – can’t do anything to satisfy the rabid Tories. Not even while their party leader admits that unemployment is a problem. Not even when it’s obvious that unemployment is a global problem.
I’m told “get a job, you lazy bum”: The Telegraph (Torygraph) reported that there are at least 23 people chasing every job adding, “over the past year, the number of applications for each job vacancy has jumped by more than 50 per cent for customer service, secretarial and retail roles. An average of 46 candidates apply for each customer service job, 45 for each secretarial job and 42 for each retail job.”
I’ve been secured interviews, indeed I’ve been congratulated at interviews having being picked among almost 100 to make it to the shortlist. Sadly, there was one job available and I didn’t get it.
Still, my inability to get a job – despite applying for many for which I am over-qualified, many for which I’m under-qualified and thinking as laterally as Dali on LSD – is, to Tories, my fault.
I’m told “start up a business”: I don’t have enough money to start up my central heating so where I’m going to get funds to launch a business is beyond me. One would have to lead an odd life to think anyone, anywhere can start up a business. The romantic notion of having a market stall that turns into a chain of supermarkets is celebrated because it is remarkable.
Still, my inability to do so – despite volunteering to join the government-funded New Enterprise Scheme and having a business plan for a social enterprise – is, to Tories, my fault.
I’m told “a stint in Tesco’s/M&S/McDonalds would show you some humility”: I’m not able to get a job at McDonald’s or the other places. I fail to understand why people think just anyone can get these jobs. It’s not snobbery on my part but recognition from employers that I have zero experience in retail: it would be extraordinarily arrogant of me to assume I can just walk in and do these jobs. Employers also know I won’t stay working there for a moment longer than I have to because I want to earn more and do the work for which I qualified.
Still, despite working hard to gain qualifications which I was assured would secure me work for life, my current failure to don either a McDonald’s uniform or a Ronald McDonald suit is, to Tories, my fault.
I don’t mention my qualifications to appear superior but because I have them, I worked hard for them, and I still can’t find work. The change in education and our understanding of it as workers is discussed in an excellent video which states: “We were kept at school with a story that if you worked hard and did well and got a college degree you would have a job. Our kids don’t believe that and they’re right not to.” All workers are in this mess of mass unemployment together – whatever qualifications we do or don’t have.
I agree wholeheartedly with Owen Jones who says, “Mass unemployment is not an individual fault; it is not the product of millions of people ‘choosing’ to go on benefits out of a ‘lifestyle choice’; it is not the consequence of people failing to look hard enough for work. It exists because – to repeat myself – there is simply not enough work to go around.”
I saw – and still see – many jobs cuts in journalism and I became freelance. I worked in schools, wrote articles and taught at university where I was lucky enough to have my department pay for me to qualify as a lecturer. Then the axe fell in higher education and I struggled for a while – a good friend even paying my rent one month – until I had no choice but to sign on. I still haven’t been able to pay my friend the money I owe.
I rest assured that I’ve done all I can to find work, that I’m still doing all I can and will continue to do all I can. I now hope the coalition government will do something, anything to create jobs. No one chooses to live on £67.50 per week if there is an alternative.
Still the Tories – with a sociopathic lack of compassion – want us to blame ourselves for the state of the economy. They think we can’t recognise that we’re not responsible for a global economic crisis.
Instead they want to reform welfare cutting benefits and forcing people off the dole in search of jobs which don’t exist. Instead they stop Disability Allowance and force even more people – those unfit to work – to search for jobs which don’t exist. You can read more about this here. Instead they plan to stop Legal Aid for those challenging benefit decisions: intending to change the rules so it can’t be used to help people challenge mistakes despite the fact that inaccurate decisions push people into poverty. You can sign a petition to stop this here.
I can’t see how forcing people off benefits by arguing they can find work can make any sense to anyone during a global economic crisis, a national recession, when unemployment is at its highest in 17 years and when dozens of people are chasing each and every limited vacancy.
The Tories know that what they are spouting is economically and politically untrue. The Tories want to create a nasty narrative of hatred towards the unemployed, to blame individuals for their situation, despite global economic problems, and to divide and rule workers. This is easier than creating jobs and helps justify the vile decisions they’re taking which plunge individuals and families into abject poverty.
Wanting to leave people with no state help at all in such economic circumstance is, again, a lack of compassion beyond my understanding: I simply don’t hate and dismiss my fellow human beings in this way. To me, calling anyone a lazy bum for being unemployed in the current circumstances shows a lack of understanding of economics, political history – and a severe lack of empathy.
While we’re talking about the psychology of Tories, I also think their constant suggestion that we’re lazy bums, snobby and avoiding work is a massive psychological projection on their part.
I keep being offered bits of work. It’s not enough to live on but could, potentially, lead to more work. It’s also a way to keep me engaged, active, employable, away from Twitter.
I’m now trying my maths skills (not always wise) to see if I can accept this work. It’s not enough to pay rent and bills and it seems I’d be a few pound better off on the dole – but it’s an opportunity. If I keep turning down work I’m unlikely to be the first choice in the future.
I’ve been told – repeatedly, threateningly – that I’m not allowed to do any work while signing on. Now I hear I can sign on up until my first pay packet, potentially, or can still claim housing benefit for one month and get a £100 job grant.
Of course, none of this will stop me struggling on a low income due to having just a few hours work – but it is helpful. It took me almost nine months of being unemployed to find this out. My understanding is that it is of no value to anyone who has been unemployed for less than six months.
Previously I’ve been told, “we’re not good at helping people in part-time work” or “if it’s less than 16 hours we can’t help you”. I’ve felt desperate and fed up as former employers and contacts have been in touch with various opportunities I’ve had to turn down because the Jobcentre computer says “no”.
The Jobcentre sees work as: full time work of 16 hours or more, part-time work of 16 hours or less and, if claiming with a partner, work of less than 24 hours per week. I’m child-free (Chaplin doesn’t count, apparently) so not entitled to In Work Credit. I’ve not been unemployed due to illness or disability so I am not entitled to Return to Work Credit. This is if you actually get these benefits when you apply anyway – I imagine it’s as difficult as claiming on insurance.
I have to do something to make a change. I sit home in my jogging bottoms, watching mind-rot afternoon telly, swearing at the screen, spilling tea down my front. Chaplin is in and out all day, once again happy and healthy, looking at me as if to say, “Have you been outside? Do you think you should go outside? You smell a bit.”
I keep in touch with people by computer. While I’ve written two PhD proposals (yes, two) that might lead to something, I’ve also not worked my way through the reading list as planned. I have, instead, watched more rubbish films than Mark Kermode but with a far less articulate response, shouting at the screen as butty sprays everywhere. This is usually the point when Chaplin thinks sitting outside in the rain is preferable.
I have no routine, now waking up late morning, sometimes as late as 2pm on occasion. This might sound luxurious but it is oddly depressing after a while. I’m also awake till the early hours or not sleeping through the night, getting up to watch the news then going back to bed. This is probably because I fall asleep during the day, exhausted by the banality of television’s offerings. I don’t want to live in a world where employment dictates our body clock but I miss having a routine.
So I think I’ll take the work. It’d be better than being sent back to entrepreneurial training scheme that will lead to … no work. I’ve had my fill of walk-on parts in League of Gentleman. I’ll take the risk because, while I’m scared of getting behind on my rent and bills (not credit cards, etc, they can wait), I’m more scared of being on the dole permanently. I’m now existing rather than living.
I came across an interesting website today which outlines the amount of unemployment benefit available to jobless workers across Europe.
In the UK we’re spongers, yes? We sit on our backsides, living off the backs of hard-earning taxpayers, right? We don’t want to work because benefits keeps us in the lifestyle to which we have become accustomed?
I know many readers don’t think like this but if you know someone who does, show them these figures for European unemployment benefits in 2007 for a single person with no dependents. In Euros.
The amount paid in the UK remains roughly the same today.
Country Wages Benefits
Luxembourg €32,604 – €21,346
Denmark €32,564 – €18,302
Netherlands €32,363 – €15,758
France €32,540 – €15,605
Portugal €32,288 – €14,323
Belgium €32,636 – €12,415
Finland €32,577 – €12,339
Austria €32,499 – €12,212
Sweden €32,643 – €11,924
Germany €32,631 – €11,821
Italy €32,529 – €11,179
Spain €32,625 – €10,522
Ireland €32,747 – €9,662
Greece €32,731 – €4,407
UK €32,381 – €3,631
My ultimate fear is if I don’t get some work for which I’m qualified and experienced and which I might actually enjoy then I’ll end up working anyway as the Tories bring in Workfare which will see me working full time for benefits in a job I don’t want to do.
So wish me luck and I’ll keep blogging … I’m still an unemployedhack, after all.
As I struggle to have anything resembling a social life I live vicariously, watching the characters in soaps. I lie on the settee as they attend works’ Christmas parties, sit in cosy pubs or posh bars, eat in cafés and restaurants or find work without leaving the street, square or village.
Then I wonder: why does no one mention the dole? No character seems to be simply unemployed or in need of Incapacity Benefit.
It turns out the average Brit spends a year watching soaps – an entire year imagining work is easy to find, benefits are abnormal and struggling nobly to make ends meet is better than taking a handout from the state despite having paid many, many years of tax and national insurance contributions … worse still, characters are fiddling benefits.
Last night Mo in Eastenders was found to be fiddling the benefit payments of Jean. How she does this is beyond me but it is the basis of many a soap view of people on benefits: cheating is the norm.
Meanwhile, Billy Mitchell spends every minute in Eastenders trying to earn a few quid, lives in a squat with his granddaughter and does any job thrown his way. Why doesn’t he sign on? He could have some money to rely on for him and whatever she is called.
In Coronation Street – where everyone finds work in the factory and they live ten to a two-up-two-down – no one seems to sign on. Little Chesney Brown sells Christmas trees outside his house or dog-related tat on a market stall while his pregnant girlfriend stresses about losing their home. Why does he not claim housing benefit?
Ali Spencer was on benefits in Emmerdale but gave it up to make ends meet and earn a living cleaning the Woolpack. This is, of course, fair enough but was an unemployed character willingly accepting benefits too much for a soap to show in 2011?
Characters’ problems are rarely shown in context with the economic situation – even when soaps make efforts to drop in last-minute references to the deaths of pop stars, as Eastenders did with Michael Jackson.
Some representations can be less sympathetic as benefit fraud rears its ugly head. Eddie Windass, in Weatherfield, was a taxi driver while fiddling Incapacity Benefit. Keith Miller, in Walford, was reported for benefit fraud. He was, though, later revealed to be illiterate, despite a fascination and ability to recite animal documentaries, to ensure some sympathy. Dawn Woods in Emmerdale took odd jobs to make ends meet but was shopped by an ex and spent three weeks in jail.
The 80s, of course, brought us many unemployment-related dramas in Boys from the Blackstuff, Brookside revealed the embarrassment of middle class unemployment (before everyone on the soap also lost their jobs) and Arthur Fowler, in Eastenders, was jailed for nicking the Christmas Club money while unemployed.
Today we consistently see Billy, Chesney and Ali as individually responsible for their situation: circumstances are against them, they’re unlucky, things can only get better.
One can’t help but think that soap writers are being fooled into thinking viewers believe the rubbish they read in the Mail and Express.
As soaps strive to have realistic themes – albeit in a shallow form – and have storylines about teen pregnancy, murder, incest, domestic violence, homelessness, rape let’s have someone struggling on the dole. I need a character to relate to while I’m stuck in watching TV.
The media repeatedly demonizes the unemployed, failing to show the reality of joblessness … now a survey shows that the nation is turning on the vulnerable in times of financial trouble, placing the blame at the feet of the poor.
A new survey from the National Centre for Social Research shows Brits as a small-minded, individualistic, mean-spirited bunch who think the needy should be left to rot.
In reality though more people are giving to charity – Brits who usually show generosity to those in need now respond to the poor and the unemployed in this way because they’re seriously, intentionally ill-informed.
The Daily Mail is, of course, full of glee at this news stating: “Britain turns to conservative values as recession bites: We want the State to stay out of our lives and sympathy for benefit claimants has evaporated.”
The media and politicians need to show the reality of the struggle to find work and to live on unemployment benefits so the results of the social attitudes survey can be taken more seriously.
26% think poverty is due to “laziness” or “lack of willpower”.
63% blame workless parents for children living in poverty
54% think benefits payments are too high and discourage people from finding work
75% recognise that the gap between rich and poor is too large but only 35% think the government should step in to redistribute wealth
In the mid-90s when we could all afford futons and focaccias those who thought the poor were lazy was just 15% and in 1983 those who thought benefits were too high was just 35%.
It is not a coincidence that people’s opinions are changing. It is convenient to blame the jobless for their situation and people are not given accurate information to truly understand life on the dole.
Thatcher said in the 80s – during mass unemployment – that there was no such thing as poverty, it was just that people didn’t know how to budget properly: Edwina Currie has been repeating this cruel dismissal of the poor rather than accept that government cuts are failing and unemployment is rising.
Today Eamonn Butler of the Adam Smith Institute says of those interviewed,
“They don’t want to see their taxes rising anymore and they also become less tolerant of people who are on benefits but not actually actively seeking work.
“When times are good and everybody’s well off you can afford to overlook that but I think now people are much more critical of folk who are on benefits and not actually doing something positive to get themselves off benefits.”
At risk of repeating myself:
When claiming Jobseekers’ Allowance you MUST prove you are actively seeking work at a fortnightly meeting or risk losing benefits. You sign a Jobseekers’ agreement to which you must adhere or you will lose benefits and have, literally, no income at all.
Jobseekers’ Allowance is just £67.50 per week – and the unemployed have no other income and are not allowed to work while claiming this.
Perhaps this is why the queues for food parcels are lengthening – with those facing delayed benefits, job losses, domestic violence, low income and homelessness among people in need.
Owen Jones, author of Chavs The Demonization of the Working Class, quite rightly responded,
“There aren’t enough jobs to go around. There’s over 2.6 million unemployed, there’s another million on Incapacity Benefit the government want to push into work – and there’s less than half a million vacancies.”
Less than half a million vacancies. Unemployment – and long-term unemployment – is inevitable while there are not enough jobs to go around.
There are 68 journalism jobs advertised on the Guardian jobs pages today; 39 on journalism.co.uk and Hold the Front Page has 14.
At my last Jobcentre Plus meeting I told my adviser I was now looking for jobs in book shops.
“I’ve no experience of sales,” I told him, “But I do know about books.”
“I’ll keep my eye out for you,” he said, with a supportive smile. “But in reality a lot of bookshops are struggling and closing.”
People are unemployed because the economy is failing and there are not enough jobs and too little being done to create them. As the government fails to act on unemployment the numbers losing their livelihoods increases every day:
With a workforce of 1.6m people, local government is England’s biggest employer but its 353 councils have already cut 145,000 staff in the last year – and a new report says more cuts are coming.
Kraft Foods plans to cut 200 jobs at three of its sites in Birmingham.
Up to 220 jobs could go at a company that makes replacement joints in Wiltshire.
The number of permanent job placements fell at its fastest rate in November since July 2009, according to the Recruitment and Employment Confederation. A survey of 400 recruitment firms showed that unemployment will continue to rise in December and January.
Meanwhile Midland News Association, which publishes the Express and Star and Shropshire Star, has told staff it is looking for up to 50 voluntary redundancies from next month on top of 90 redundancies announced at the Wolverhampton and Telford-based titles earlier this year which saw overall headcount reduced by a tenth.
Further job losses are possible at Trinity Mirror as restructuring takes place at Scottish titles but the company is not confirming any details as yet.
Those civilian support staff, council and factory workers – and journalists – are not to blame for their job loss and won’t be to blame for the poverty they could be plunged into.
As a nation we need to consider who is really at fault.
What a laugh!
