if so why and how long for....i tend to think today people on the dole on there by choice with a few exceptions of course..i had the misfortune to leave school during the the thatcher years and was made redundant twice before i was 18...i reckon between 1979 and 1988 i probably spent about 2 years on the dole but i had a fiddle job for some of that time...in 88 the goverment enterprise allownce scheme came in and i gave it a bash and aint signed on since..i honestly think dole/JSA should be abolished after 6 months.

I signed on for about 12 months before I went on the New Deal (when it had first come in). I went to college to study Leisure & Rec and then went to work in the states.

I haven't signed on since... that was about 7 years ago now :wow:

I agree that JSA should be a limited period and that after 6 months unemployment in say a 10 year period then JSA runs out and you get nadda.

Similar in the way Canada and the States work.

I signed on for a while and can tell you it is incredibly difficult to get any money out of them. I only signed on for a week and a half and had to complete a huge amount of forms - which they then lost. I had to fill them out again and they didn't give me any money for about 6 weeks. They seem very incompetent - especially in Cavendish court. It's a nightmare and I think is designed to be so complicated they people just don't bother with it.

After I left Uni. in 1982 I signed on to get Supplementary Benefit to give my mum a bit towards my rent until I found a job.

I couldn't get Dole because I hadn't worked to get any NI stamps.

It was quite a humiliating experience and fortunately I wasn't in receipt for very long.

I don't know whether it's a better or worse experience today; in the intervening 22 years I've never been near a DSS office as I've worked for myself most of the time.

The idea of having an 'account' that you can draw benefit from over a period of time is a good one, DB.


Joe

yep, when I finished uni I signed on for 3 months. It took me that long to realise I wouldn't get a decent job in sheffield so just took a rubbish one.

Got made redundant last summe and gigned on for 3 months again (hoping to enjoy the summer but It was the worst one I can remember :suspect: )

I signed on for 1month about 18mth ago(only for national insurance contribution as although i have worked since leaving college ,way back in in 1999 I didn`t pay enough tax )
Found the whole process appaling ,so after being kept waiting for 45mins ,with a baby wanting feeding (breast feeding),when I tried to explain this to the extremely patronising woman, I decided it wasn`t for me and walked out.
Luckily I was in a position to do this .

Sometime around 1987. Briefly. I had a part time job in a pub & it was more hassle than it was worth filling out reams of declaration of income each time, for about £14 top-up.
So I signed off & did a Betterware round as well for top-up instead.

I signed on for several years between 1989 and 1998, punctuated by a couple of dead-end temporary jobs and 3 years at university. Frankly I didn't want a job most of that time, though finding work back then was much harder anyway. But I did become expert at playing the system and was the archetypal dole scrounger.

And now? Now I work for the dole! Ironically, the day I went to make my 1st ever claim they offered me a job at the Jobcentre and I said 'No way, I'm not working here'...it's not like my sentiments have changed on that score either!

Personally I believe there's little point imposing a time limit on JSA. Any dole scrounger worthy of the name is on IS or IB anyway, though I reckon there are far fewer actual scroungers than public perception of the Daily Mail variety would have it.

I was on the andy cole on and off for about 2 years when I tipped out of uni. I'd got it in my head I was gonna be a musician and all it'd take is to wait for the royalties to roll in.

How wrong I was. I finally had enough of being skint permanently and took the first half decent job I could find.

If you've got a "scam" (cash in hand work, selling tobacco, pirate DVDS, etc) than you can just about manage but if you're on the basic you can do naff all other than pay the bills and eat so you're bored silly a lot of the time. When I was signing on it was £90 a fortnight plus your rent - £45 quid a week! Once you've got some snap and put a tenner aside for the bills thats it.

Defintely a last resort as far as I'm concerned.

Never signed on and never will. There ARE jobs out there if you are prepared to get off your arse and look for them. The dole should be there for people who genuinely cannot get a job, not for lazy scroungers.

Not signed on yet, but I am sure I will do at somepoint.

Originally posted by Agent Gypo
Never signed on and never will. There ARE jobs out there if you are prepared to get off your arse and look for them. The dole should be there for people who genuinely cannot get a job, not for lazy scroungers.

There are always the minority of people who are actually better off - financially - on benefits than if they were in full-time employment.

Originally posted by jackthedog
There are always the minority of people who are actually better off - financially - on benefits than if they were in full-time employment.
i can never work that one out..explain please

basically I know people who if they stayed at home on benefits they would be £10 worse of than workinga 30 hour week...

The benefit system is a double-edged sword.

On the one hand we have a duty to protect the vulnerable and reduce poverty.

On the other hand the system should not be of such a generous nature that it discourages workable people to seek paid employment.

There are jobs available but the pay and conditions are insufficient to compete with the current benefit system, particularly where one wage earner would need to support a family.

How would you propose this situation be resolved?

Never signed on in my life. Worked, got married, had kids, had part-time jobs. Kids grown up now, Still work part-time.

To be honest i would go round the bloody bend stuck at home all the time. I like to have a bit of independence, plus it does me good to get out of the house and mix with other people.

I think there are jobs out there if people want them. But also not All the people on the dole want to be on it. Granted there will allways be the odd lazy git who would rather cash a giro & then maon about being skint, rather than getting off their ass & going to work like the majority of us do, but that's how life goes isn't it.

And when Thatcher came to power most peole i know ended up having a spell on the dole. I remember the younger members of my family leaving school and there was nothing for them, no work, no jobs, nothing. Ah ! the great Margaret Thatcher, but that's another subject.

Originally posted by robbie
basically I know people who if they stayed at home on benefits they would be £10 worse of than workinga 30 hour week...
a lad who works for me married with kids receives family working tax credits that alone is more than dole money plus he's got his wages surley that apply's to everyone so how can anyone be worse off working:confused: :confused: :confused: :confused:

I agree that the dole keeps you from finding a job, especially as pay is so low and rent etc is so high.
However, being on the dole has allowed me to find really good jobs which I wouldn't have had the time to do if I'd had to take the first Mcdonalds job that came along.

Originally posted by kirky
a lad who works for me married with kids receives family working tax credits that alone is more than dole money plus he's got his wages surley that apply's to everyone so how can anyone be worse off working:confused: :confused: :confused: :confused:

if you don't work you can get:

Housing benefit
Unemployment benefit

and a few other means tested ones.

Originally posted by robbie
if you don't work you can get:

Housing benefit
Unemployment benefit

and a few other means tested ones.

Council Tax Benefit
Free Prescriptions
Free Glasses
Free Dental Teatment
School Dinners
Reduced Charges at Council Sports Facilities

I wouldn't know where to start as regards making a claim.

Up untill a few months ago I'd never signed on in my life. But little did I know you can get £90 every 2 weeks for doing absolutely nothing. The dole is a great idea and everyone should take full advantage of it.

If you work it out £90 you can buy:

A new tracksuit
At least 4 bottles of white lightening
And about 200 fags

Please note humour was intended in this post.

it buys quite a bit of chocolate too.....:thumbsup:

I was on the dole in 1997.

Not by choice however, I was forced into it cos I declared to the DSS my intention to work when I left College so they took my fuffing disabled benefits off me :mad:

What a waste of time, they put me straight on the chuffing New Deal thing, even though I was clearly too old at 21 for 90% of the jobs they jokingly set me up on interviews for... Including a 2 quid 50 an hour job answering phones in a Taxi place up near the Lane Top Netto.

The Disability Employment "advisor" was an idiot, he kept sending me for warehouse work when I'd clearly told him I wanted shop floor based work in retail... And as for the other staff, WTF?! Sent me for jobs that were already gone, could never find my details on the computer on "pay" day.. Everything about them was completely idiotic.