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Should the UK stop giving out handouts to the unemployed?

Should the UK stop giving out handouts to the unemployed?  

137 members have voted

  1. 1. Should the UK stop giving out handouts to the unemployed?

    • Yes
      58
    • No
      59
    • Maybe
      20


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heres a story for you

 

 

i was unemployed for a period of about 2 months last year. I heard that the job centre offer single mothers some help looking for a job. So i thought yeah ill go ask about that cos im not having any look getting a job im qualified for and experianced in so il try getting wot ever they have. Please also bear in mind i was not claiming any benefits while i wasnt working as i felt i didnt need it as i was living with my mother even though i was able to claim loads.

 

So i go down and i get told : sorry miss but we cant really help you as you are not recieving any benefits for unemployment. So rarther confussed i say : So because i havnt claimed anything you cant help me even though im unemployed and asking you to help me? they said : yes miss thats correct we are sorry but we are unable to help you in this situation but! if youd like an application form for income support then you need to go downstairs where someone will help you fill it in and send it off for you:confused:

 

So ill get help to claim benefits i wont get help to keep me off them!!

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:wave: Kathythebean,

I've never seen the show, but why did 'Frank Gallagher' allow himself to become an adult (I assume he's an adult) who is barely literate? Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't this government give free literacy classes?

 

I don't agree with the idea that children from low-income homes do not have high aspirations. There are grants and scholarships available for the hard working who cannot afford top educations. If the children do not work hard to end the cycle, then they just repeat the same mistakes their parents did. I know of a girl who- like her mother- fresh out of high school had a baby at 17. Unlike her benefit claiming mother however, she is currently looking into part time Nursing courses that will allow her to work and take care of her son. Now why should we make excuses for people who make the same mistakes she did, but don't have the stones to make amends?

 

Its not quite as simple as that though is it stars_gazing - for example - ever seen Shameless? Brilliant TV - not too far from real life in my opinion.

 

Frank Gallagher - who on earth is going to give him a job? Ever? Hes a boozing no-hoper whos barely literate.

 

And those kids - they're not going to grow up thinking 'oooo, I could be a lawyer, or a doctor' or 'I wonder whether I should go to Oxford or Cambridge' - the teaching at their schools I'd bet is more crowd control than career aspirations. Being on benefits is not an good option - the best thing is to be in a job that you love with a stable secure home life - but not everyone can, or knows how to, aspire to that.

 

I'm not making excuses, I just think its too much to expect an army of Jobcentre employees to be able to sort all this mess out by sweeping the country for 'genuines' and 'spongers'.

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:wave: Draggletail.

I have not. I wouldn't allow myself to be unemployed. People say it's not that straight forward, but it is. Anyone who is desperate for work can find it. It's just that some people would rather not do jobs that they don't find too appealing to them :rolleyes:

 

HA well that says it all

 

NEXT

 

i cant be arsed to explain my expreience of finding work theres numerous threads on here somewhere explaining it all, needless to say not everybody on the dole are shirkers

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My qualm with some of these "genuinely unemployed" is the scenario of:

Joe Bloggs trained as a fashion designer and worked for The House of Fraiser for five years. He lost his job over a year ago and has since been sending out resumes to all the top fashion houses, who continue to reject him. He claims benefits whilst doing this.

Now every day the local paper advertises for cleaners (who are always needed), waiters, bar staff, store clerks ie. jobs where one can be trained 'on the job' - he does not look twice at these advertisements.

Local fashion houses are head-hunting, but they do not pay nearly as much as he used to earn.

He has the opportunity to re-train and follow a new path, but he'd rather hold out and be a designer for a well known company.

Is he "genuinely unemployed"?

 

So say this Joe Bloggs from The House of Fraiser (sic) has a degree, and 20 years experience, in IT and touts himself around all the agencies looking for any work having been made redundant. Or better still, say it's me. These agencies then say there are loads of jobs for unskilled workers and I say, yes, I'll take one. 12 weeks later and it's still the same answer, there are loads of jobs but no one wants you as you're over qualified. Even the Job Centre has failed to send me to one interview.

 

So am I a work-shy, lazy dole seeking sponger who refuses to work so I can claim £56 per week?

 

Fortunately not, as I start work on Monday, but that is beside the point. The point being, Joe Bloggs may want to work as a waiter or barman or clerk but no one will employ him as they all expect that he'll leave as soon as something more suitable turns up.

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Why not go the whole hog and stop giving free help to drug addicts .That will save the N.H.S. a few quid.:rolleyes:

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:wave: Draggletail.

I have not. I wouldn't allow myself to be unemployed. People say it's not that straight forward, but it is.

 

No, it isn't. After finishing my degree a few years ago I claimed unemployment benefit for around 3 months before I went off to start a postgraduate degree. Before making a claim, I did everything I could to find a job. I'm not the person who can sit around doing absolutely nothing for that length of time, and I would rather be earning a proper wage than £40 a week. I lived in a very small town in the south, nothing like Sheffield. I signed up with every temping agency, but there were no temporary/bar work etc. jobs going because of the influx of students that had come home for the summer and took the positions. I applied for several permanent jobs but was refused because in their words 'You've got a degree so you'll obviously be moving on to something else soon'. I even lied and said I was staying permanently, but they still wouldn't take me.

 

Unemployment benefit is valuable to those who truly need it, i.e. those who use it as a stop gap for a short period of time whilst trying to find a job.

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do i think that a lot of dolees are blaggin it? yep, i was one for a while, and really only stayed for as long cos i didnt want to work in some crappy job. eventually i got said crappy job, and although it was a ball-ache, at least i was earning.

 

that was 4 years ago, and im never going back on the dole, ive got a better job at the moment, and at least a little self-respect and pride.

 

but i DONT think we should cut the benefits system...it needs to be there for those who genuinely cant work. and they DO exist.

 

if anything, id like to see it increase! one of the problems when you are on benefits is not having any money to buy stuff with, your lucky if you get away from baked beans on toast! that contributes to feeling down, lack of self-worth, general apathy, all of which are not great motivators to most people.

 

give em more money, and rather than get on their backs every five minutes what about a bit of interest/encouragement, more re-skilling courses, keep the ideas going.

 

or maybe im a naive nobhead after all, and we should simply remove all benefits, like lithuania or wherever it is.

 

better yet, lets poke em with a cattle prod once a fortnight when theyre queing to sign on, get some pavlovian association goin on between collecting the giro and feeling pain.

 

that could work.

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Why not go the whole hog and stop giving free help to drug addicts .That will save the N.H.S. a few quid.:rolleyes:

well they could make them pick their used needles up that the majority just throw anywhere

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Why not go the whole hog and stop giving free help to drug addicts .That will save the N.H.S. a few quid.:rolleyes:

Sense at last - let them die out in their squats then the cost of supporting them goes away.

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Tosh. What is a "large proportion" and how can you possibly know?

 

The government believes that around 20% of incapacity claimants could work. In 2003 alone, £2bn was wasted on benefit cheats.

 

 

Hmmm, forced labour. Why not just put them in concentration camps and have done with it?

 

It's not forced. People who don't want to put work back into their community to earn their benefits wouldn't have to - they'd just not get any benefits. It's called earning one's keep and not sponging off other people.

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It just becomes complicated when you have a situation - say for example, a man in his forties who has been made redundant afew years previous, and spends his days in the pub propping up the bar - now, he may find it really difficult to get work after redundancy, or he may be an alcoholic - however people may just look at him, and say (understandably) - he is just sponging, he is fit and healthy, he should go to work.

 

Is he 'genuine' or not? He may genuinely find it impossible to get a job or may genuinely be addicted to drink. or maybe he just needs resources to help him find a suitably understandable employer, and rehabilitation to help his drinking problem - all these things cost far more than the hundred odd quid a fortnight for his jobseekers.

Alcoholics do not have their addiction thrust upon them - they make their own problems.

Why should people who screw their own lives up be a burden on the taxpayer? If he's of any use to rest of society he will prove that by sorting himself out.

If he continues as an unemployable addict he does not offer a positive balance of contribution to society and should be cut loose to succeed or fail without state support.

Why should we help those who won't help themselves? Let evolution work its way with such people, and we protect our gene pool.

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A friend of mine told me that recently in Slovakia, the government stopped giving out benefits to the unemployed. Funnily enough (and as I would have predicted) the employment rate shot up and people were suddenly going out and earning an honest day's work. I asked him whether the amount of crime had risen too and his reply was that it had not. He explained that crime is more to do with one not having anything to do than poverty. Imho the amount of taxpayer's money that this country spends on benefits is shocking. Should the UK government take a leaf out of the Slovaks' book?

 

I dont agree with it at all, i myself have claimed benefits while looking for jobs.

 

I waited upto 3-4months till employment came.

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