Completely agree with this.

I half agree. the minimum wage is also a joke, without tax credits no one in poor areas will be able to afford to pay the minimum wage for the most menial jobs, so jobs will be lost in their tens of thousands. tax credits offered to subsidise wages in these poorest areas.

However this business of everyone limiting themselves to only 15 hours work in order to keep all their benefits has been a mess. Will this actually be solved with this new tactic?

I doubt it. We should never underestimate quite how moronic nearly all politicians are these days in all parties.

meanwhile tim ferret the idiotic new liberal leader said the solution is simple bring in a £12 minimum wage.....what a pillock

With the technology that we have today it is very easy to see what people spend their money on given to them from the state. So for me the focus should be on that. OK so we can see that most of the money we gave you this month was spent on cigarettes and alcohol so we will now cut those benefits. :thumbs:

This is tax credits though.Working adults should be able to afford cigs and booze if they choose imo.If employers paid decent wages then people could afford these things without the tax credits.I agree with you on people claiming JSA and other non working benefits though.

Speaking of hounding, you should read this http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2015...n_8332674.html
insurrection comes to mind :unsure:

I know I've already said this but its worth repeating.
Over 60% of British people within working age are only one pay slip away from the poverty line. If a person works for 20 years before getting struck off; if that person can’t find immediate suitable employment to sustain their normal outgoings which includes their mortgage; in the present system they will fall into a financial crisis very quickly. Should we add to that pain by removing JSA from such people if they happen to smoke?

Quote of the day^ :clap1:

Working adults should focus on putting food on the table and nappies etc long before getting drunk and smoking IMO.:wavey: If any adult with children spends that money from the state on fags and booze then they deserve to have that credit cut. We are all aware of the damage kids suffer from drunken parenting.

trouble is employers in poorest areas cannot afford to pay much more....having 1 national minimum wage across all the uk is insane as the wealth disparity is phenomenal
London average gdp is £42,000 per head....central London nearer £70,000
wales n Ireland nearer £16,000? the north £18,000
how can you have the same minimum wage in a place averaging £70,000 compared to one averaging £16,000? the city is 4 to 5 times richer per head than wales and n Ireland? all this will do is increase the gap and see 100000s of lower end jobs lost

Some people sit living comfortably on benefits for life without even trying to get work and they spend the majority of their benefits on an alcoholic lifestyle and use that as an excuse that they can't work.That is more what i meant.Fags not so much.I have nothing against people smoking whilst actively trying to find work.I've been on JSA and smoked in the past.It's the ones who use benefits as a lifestyle choice and expect the tax payer to fund their nicotine and alcohol addictions that i would object to.Alot of working people can't even afford to get drunk now and then.

Yes we should all prioritise the fundamental necessities in life first.However i see nothing wrong with somebody having a few drinks at the end of a hard week of work to relax.We should all get paid enough to afford that.When the government gets employers to pay decent wages then there won't be a need for tax credits.

can you afford to pay people £12 an hour to do the most menial work in the poorest parts of the UK? whilst still making a profit to live off? this raising the minimum wage endlessly is an over simplistic joke and will cost tens of thousands of jobs in the poorest areas. think again.

why should anyone have to work and not even be allowed a decent life -

:clap1::clap1::clap1: NO ONE who IS working should EVER be placed in a position where they would be financially better off by NOT working, or be placed in a position where they ARE financially worse off than some who are NOT working - WHATEVER the reasons behind such an inane status quo.

Exactly. A huge part of their argument is that the tax credits cut (in 2016) will be "balanced out" by wage increases / other increases "within this term in parliament" (i.e. by 2020).

This is typical Tory logic to be honest; these people making these decisions come from families with money and have always had a pot o' gold in their kitchen. They simply can't comprehend the quite obvious fact that millions of people can't afford to "dig into their (non-existent) savings" to cover the shortfall for four years.

You’ve got to admit that our government have done a grand job when it comes to promoting class interest by diverting anger from the top to the bottom. I think its bloody alarming that so many low earning people still believe that its the benefit claimants and immigrants that have caused our present economic crisis. This party and Labour before them have taken advantage of a pliable media to put blame on the feckless underclasses, whilst the wealthy have walked away from any blame scot free. It’s a classic case of divide and rule.

Only 3% of the welfare budget goes to the unemployed and only 0.7% of that is claimed fraudulently. Benefit fraud costs our country an estimated £1 billion a year whereas tax evasion costs our country a staggering £70 billion; so when our government tell us they are cutting £12 billion of our welfare payouts, what they are actually doing is taking money away from the working poor and pensioners.

People who work and who are attempting to find work should be fully supported. If you've not found work in two years you should be given a job, and you should do it until you find something more suitable for yourself. No more long-term arse-sitting.

Yeah, the government are going to be all over that one. Take the UK's 1.8 million unemployed, and instead of giving them £70 a week jobseeker's allowance, create work for them and pay them the £250 a week minimum wage.

It's a brilliant idea in theory but for some reason, I can't imagine it happening.

This rotten govt brought in ESA with 2 groupings,the support group for long very long term/permanent health conditions and disabilities and the WRAG group for those who may be able to do some work a year or 2 down the line.

Now they are moving the goalposts again, those deemed unfit for work from 2017 as to new claimants but who are felt could work in a year to 2 years down the line, are going to see the ESA rate slashed by at least £25 per week and bring it in line with jobseekers.
Yet these are people still deemed unfit for work at this time by the DWP.

Another absolute disgrace and the benefit bashing goes on and on, a say again a surplus founded on and built in any part of from the sick, disabled, poor and vulnerable should be a total disgrace.

It is all well and good to say people should be in work rather than be unemployed but with far fewer real full time jobs available and still 1.8 million unemployed, until you have the reverse of those figures, everyone in real full employment is pie in the sky.

This govt may well eventually be economically more confident but has not a scrap of decency as to its social policy making and really protecting the vulnerable.
I will put all my energy into getting this shower of s...e removed at the next election,no matter who may take over as long as they have decency. compassion and a social conscience at the heart of their policymaking.

A Frank Field plan
will modify this
On next monday

Yes, I did read that there have been suggestions that the HoL might try to block this or have it amended and even that there are several Tory MP's who aren't inclined to support reductions for those in work. Maybe some of them are semi-reasonable after all...

It is utter madness when you think about it. How can they really justify more sweeping cuts for those who are IN full time employment? What more can you really ask of people? It's not a question of not wanting to or not being bothered - as is the argument with those not working (not one that is often true, but still, there's some logic to it) - but someone already working full time hours isn't going to turn down the opportunity to be paid more for them. Having higher pay if you're already working full time is a question of education, experience, intelligence, ability and availability. No one is going to be able to jump into higher paid work over night and some people frankly just don't have the ability level to be paid much above the minimum wage and never will have. If those people are still up in the morning, out to work often hard full time hours... how can you justify taking more? Just, how? It makes no sense at all.

Surely it's more likely to make people just consider giving up. They come along saying "If you work hard then you will do well", then mere months later, "actually it doesn't matter if you work hard, your quality of life is still going to drop significantly. Sorry lol."

I'm not talking about GIVING them £250 a week, I'm talking about setting them to work for £250 a week, actively doing something to contribute while still looking for whatever it is they would be happier doing.

I do not, waterhog

A good many are TS,I know of a good number who would love Osborne to climb down on this but he and this hopeless PM won't listen.

The sad things is they are when outside their party decent people but they will not vote against their party even when they really believe it is wrong on an issue.

That is a real sad state as to politics.

Yes but the fact remains that the government would need to find an aditional £180 a week for 1.8 million people (£17bn a year). It doesn't seem very likely...

Also slightly amused that you think people who don't have jobs only don't have jobs because they haven't found one they would be "happy" doing. Most people on minimum wage are slogging it out doing something they hate.
(As are some of us on significantly more than minimum wage... le sigh)
And most jobseekers would take any full time paid employment offered to them whether or not it was their dream job.