I cannot believe this government.

[elisi]

From the BBC:
Eighteen Church of England bishops have signed an open letter, criticising the government's proposed welfare changes.

In the letter, in The Observer, the bishops express concerns about plans to limit the amount any household can claim in benefits to £500 a week.
[..]
The government says the changes, due to come into effect in 2013, will save £7bn in welfare spending and will encourage people currently on benefits to go out and find a job.

But the Children's Society, which supported the bishops' letter, has warned the cap could make more than 80,000 children homeless.

'Children in Need' was the day before yesterday... There are thousands of children in this country who live in poverty, having to rely on charities to get by, and *this* is what the government proposes?

Comments

[sueworld2003.livejournal.com]

Yeah, sick isn't it. :(

[cassi0pei4.livejournal.com]

Yes, because, if only those stupid poor people would get off their lazy asses and hand out a few resumés, clearly there would be no more poverty. Obviously the government just needs to give them a wake-up call to strengthen their work ethic.



Sometimes, I really hate people. Because there are people out there who would have agreed with those statements, without realizing that I said them sarcastically.

[adoxerella.livejournal.com]

I can totally believe it. Then again the Republicans in my government would rather cut medicare and social security than tax the people who make more than $1million a year.

This is why I wish those damn Occupiers would have gotten their heads out of their arses and organized enough to become an actual movement. They have the right idea, but they couldn't come together enough to present it in a way that made sense to the masses.

[elisi]

I understand the need to save money. But surely the government should save money so it could help those in need...

[eve11]

Okay, so to me, 500 pounds per week sounds like a lot for a straight unemployment check. That's like 26000 per year in British pounds = $41K/year in US dollars ($750/week)? What is the current rule?

[elisi]

At my place of work there are currently two cleaning jobs being advertised. We have a had a LOT of applications... The whole 'they should go get a job' would be so much more convincing if there actually were jobs out there for people to get. I'm still slightly shocked that I actually have a job because finding one was so difficult.

[elisi]

Yeah, I keep telling myself that at least they're not Republicans... It's a crying shame that the Labour party is in such a shambles though, because we really need a good opposition. :(

And oh yes, I hear you. Good idea, but they needed a focal point, or spokes person, or *something*.

[elisi]

I honestly don't know. It's a massively complicated system, and making the system *fairer* is absolutely a good thing. It's the attitude that gets me. OK, so there are certainly people abusing the system, but most people on benefits would much rather work if they could. However, having been looking for work myself for a good while (and still ridiculously grateful to have found some!), and having had a look into other people's circumstances thanks to job clubs etc, there are many many people who are forced to rely on government help, and it's not easy. Every penny can count. There are a *lot* of people living in poverty... Children in Need highlighted a breakfast club run by a charity, which fed children who would otherwise go hungry because their parents could not afford to feed them. Looking after people in genuine need should be at the heart of things, not designing systems that presume that everyone is lazy, and punishes them. /end rant

(Sorry. But if a lot of people - like churches and charities - are saying 'this is a bad thing', I tend to believe them, far more than the government.)

[rothas-writing.livejournal.com]

This is the kind of thing that honestly makes me despair in our government...

[rothas-writing.livejournal.com]

It's a good value for some, maybe a person living on their own, but if you have a househould of say... 4 kids? It's common enough. Then that money is going to be spread very thin. There's also the fact that even amongst just 1 or 2 people in a house, this money probably pays for food, in some places education, clothing, and RENT. Which is the biggie. Does this help at all?

[rothas-writing.livejournal.com]

The London ones aren't doing too bad last I heard. British police are taking a lot better to them than American police.

[rothas-writing.livejournal.com]

But surely the government should save money so it could help those in need...
They save it in all the wrong places, don't they?

[owlboy]

the approval rating for OWS varies between 50-60% in polls. "the masses" seem to get it and support it.

[rothas-writing.livejournal.com]

This. Someone who at the time was a very close friend, and is now a bit more, spent 6 months looking for a job. He went from graduate job, to anything he could get. And by that point, and he still didn't have a job, he had to leave Scotland and return to live with his family in Canada. And another 6 months later, he still hadn't found a job, and FINALLY (after handing out more than 100 CVs) he has a devillish night shift that at least pays his rent and heating bill. It's INSANE. If jobs are this bad for people who graduate with a 1-grade at a British university, how does the government think it'll be for people who didn't? For those who couldn't afford further education? For those struggling to get through it? There simply aren't enough jobs to go around, no matter how much you smile and wear a suit and walk around town handing out CVs.... /sighs

[eve11]

I guess it's also a social contract. If you are willing to say that when you do work, you're okay with the government subsidizing people to keep living in Central London when the other option would be for them to find somewhere $93 pounds per week cheaper to live, then I guess that's all right? From the article, the churches seemed to go from the assumption that X amount of people wouldn't afford their current rent to X amount of people had the possibility of being homeless. Well, yeah, if all those people can't find cheaper places to live.

honestly, perhaps this is bad timing and I wouldn't have brought it up except my boyfriend and I had a long and somewhat tense conversation about similar things last night, and I have a tough time talking to him without either of us getting defensive :( He believes that it is absolutely unfair to redistribute wealth and rely on the state. I'm ... my beliefs are probably somewhere in the murky middle, and your post (of which you are also much closer to the situation because you had to live through unemployment and such) to my mindset becomes the question of, okay, if I am allright with some amount of taxation and wealth redistributions, then what standard of living is a person's by right? Or is it just that they have the right to maintain their current level and not be uprooted from their house if they lose their job? And maybe my reaction of "$750/week, what?" is like a North Dakotan looking askance at a Floridian for thinking 40F is cold.

[lonewytch.livejournal.com]

Yeah it's depressing. What really gets to me is the inevitability of it. This is always what the Tories were going to do once they got in, and this is what they will continue doing while they are in power. They really have no clue.

I hadn't heard about this, but i was ranting to a friend just yesterday about the recent government review that says people off work sick for longer than 4 weeks will have to be assessed by an "independent panel of Doctors" to be signed off for any longer.
Because the family Doctor with a working knowledge of your medical history and perhaps complex case isn't trustworthy, right?
And the panel will be as accurate in their assessment of fitness to work as the current ESA assessors, of course. /sarcasm

And then don't even get me started on the new "work experience" placements the job centre do, where people are working full time for their benefits - less than minimum wage, obviously. And in places like Poundland, Tesco etc. So these companies get free labour, thus taking paid jobs off the market.
I'm all for supportive work experience, but ffs make the companies pay up the difference to make it into minimum wage, so it's effectively a proper job.

Labour need to organise. I had high hopes for Miliband as he seemed to fall very left of centre, but he doesn't have the charisma or the energy to make a really effective opposition.

[frelling-tralk.livejournal.com]

From what I understand a big part of the issue is housing benefit and the government presenting it as it not being fair for people on benefits to get really nice houses paid for in places like London, when most working people couldn't afford to live there. But then the other argument is that if you price all the people on benefits out of London then it's going to disrupt the current system of rich and poor people (to an extent) all living together, and will shove all of the poor people together into cheaper housing...Which will lead to its own set of problems

Another issue is that the government also has discussed plans to stop paying if someone on benefits has more than four children. (I believe four? Maybe three?) Which some people argue is only fair because of this belief that people keep having more and more kids to claim more benefits, but then obviously if they do go ahead with these plans it's the children that will suffer and be forced to live in poverty if the government refuse to help those familys out :/ I'm in the middle too in that in some ways I can understand the frustration when nearly everyone inevitably knows or has heard of some family who do keep having kids and the parents blatently don't want to work, but at the same time if you look at the bigger picture, is it really worse to fund those families then the alternative which would be to plunge so many more children into poverty through no fault of their own

[frelling-tralk.livejournal.com]

And then don't even get me started on the new "work experience" placements the job centre do, where people are working full time for their benefits

I actually did something similar to that when Labour were still in power and I was unemployed, but the course I was on sent us to places like charity shops to "volunteer" at. It ended up being a positive experience for me actually, and I got a great reference on my CV which led to me finding paid employment after that, so I've always been somewhat in favour of those sorts of courses as I believe they do help motivate people to an extent. But I had no idea that the current system has people working for companies like Tesco, that does seem ridiculously unfair. Surely it should be about helping out the community at the same time as getting some work experience in. If anything helping out in the NHS or something maybe, but definitely not companies like Tesco that can afford to pay for their own staff urgh

[eve11]

Yeah, and I would imagine that a single person doesn't actually get 500 lbs per week on unemployment, do they? There's some kind of grade based on need?

You have to pay out of pocket for your kids to go to gradeschool? That's not how it works in the US, well, unless you send your kids to private school. Or are you talking about subsidizing continuing education for the head of the household?

Of course rent is a biggie. So the question becomes, when you yourself are working, how much are you willing to pay to subsidize others to not work and to live in places you could not afford, because that's where they were when they lost their jobs, and the other option would be uprooting and finding somewhere cheaper? If you're okay with paying that level out so that you can get the same when the cards are down, I suppose it's okay. But if the fact that everyone is entitled to make X dollars is causing the housing/rent prices to get artificially inflated... what then? There is a balancing act there in this system that has the possibility to catastrophically fail if entitlement can't keep up with production. See, eg, Greece.

So yeah, I agree on principle that one should receive benefits in proportion to need, and that kids shouldn't suffer for more because they are in bigger families. I guess I'm just wondering how a family can have free health care from the government, free school for their kids, good public transportation that opens many options up for housing, and on top of that earn $41K per year and not be able to afford food and clothes for their kids.

[eve11]

But then the other argument is that if you price all the people on benefits out of London then it's going to disrupt the current system of rich and poor people (to an extent) all living together, and will shove all of the poor people together into cheaper housing...Which will lead to its own set of problems


Yeah, this seems like a big problem too. If "move" means "move to slums" then it is not a good solution.

[lonewytch.livejournal.com]

*nods* I think work experience is great, it really benefited my boyfriend too, and he also worked in the vountary sector - in his case it actually led to a paid job in the charity he was working for.

And i'm sure there are some great jobs in this system they are using, but like you said it's just plain wrong for large companies to effectively get free labour, thus taking those jobs off market for the vary same people.

[elisi]

honestly, perhaps this is bad timing and I wouldn't have brought it up except my boyfriend and I had a long and somewhat tense conversation about similar things last night, and I have a tough time talking to him without either of us getting defensive :(
Ah, I see how that could easily become problematic. Re. your point about standards, then that *is* a complicated issue. I know that we couldn't have survived in the first years we were married (post-university) if it hadn't been for Tax Credits - we were a young family with two small children, and Darcy's job didn't pay enough to cover everything (and we had no expensive habits). Tax Credits tied us over. So I don't mind supporting a system which helped us, y'know? (Must run again, sorry if this is short. But I appreciate your comments!)

[stormwreath.livejournal.com]

Jobseeker's Allowance - the basic unemployment benefit - is only around £50 or £60 per person per week. But then you get housing benefit to help pay rent, child benefit for any dependent children you're looking after, and so on. It can add up.

And it's £500 per household, not £500 per person. And average rent for a two-bedroom house in London is £315 per week - nearer the centre it can easily be double that.

[eve11]

Exactly, and so I think I would be able to strengthen my arguments against "no taxes, no welfare of any kind" if I could try and figure out what I am okay with vs. not, and what the implications of that are, as the case may be. I too, am okay with supporting a system that helps those in need, but at the same time, someone is always paying for it, and thus I think it should not be abused. That the whole world is going through a global economic downturn right now also is not helping matters, because nearly everybody is hurting in one way or another.

Thanks for your conversation, and for not jumping on me outright for presenting some skepticism. Lots of things for me to think about, these days, with the Occupy stuff and all the awful things happening at my old university and all that...sometimes it's enough to make me just want to say "screw it, I'm going to go write some fanfiction." And then get annoyed at myself when I can't stop poking at real-world issues.

[adoxerella.livejournal.com]

Oh I have no doubt that most people like the main idea that OWS raised. The idea that most of the world's wealth is controlled by a tiny fraction of the population is hard to deny. Plus after seeing the banks benefit from the bailout while most people are still struggling means that any group that opposes 'big business' will garner support.

I was mainly referring to the fact that every article I read about the rallies stated that there was no organization or hierarchy within the camps and that disparate nature meant that when someone like the mayor of Oakland proposed a meeting with the leaders of the protest to discuss ideas there were no real leaders to meet with.

I think if OWS or any of the other Occupy movements could create some kind of set agenda then they might be able to persuade some of their detractors over to their side and create a movement with the potential to be taken seriously during the upcoming election.