:laugh: I meant in relation to Delia Smith. :joker:

This change has nothing to do with single parents... or with those families on benefits with 12 kids, of which there are what, 10 if that?
Benefits don't double the more kids you have so no they don't get enough to eat take out twice a day.
I would love to see a costing for one of your culinary delights,if you were 23 and on £57pw jobseekers what would you have for tea?

Job seekers have to be actively seeking work ... how can they do that running from shop to shop?

:facepalm: Oh come on Kizzy - please.

A) Jobseekers have to say they are actively seeking work.
B) Are you saying that even the most earnest of job seekers spend 8 hours each and every day looking for work - a comparable working shift for employed people?
C) Who are all the thronging masses sitting on benches in the town center every day - some swigging cider/lager from bottles and cans, some scoring drugs, some already stoned out of their heads or already drunk?

Are you really claiming that the average unemployed person has less disposable time than the average worker?

Not 7 days per week though. They can do what people who are working do and shop at weekends? I deal with jobseekers every day and I know they are expected to do a ridiculous amount of applying for positions or risk losing the paltry amount they get but they could do it

Nope, they have to show they are actively seeking work via the government gateway or lose benefits.

What drag all 12 to tesco, aldi, morrisons, asda, sainsburys and lidl?... On a saturday, even tyler and shaniqua? ;)

Its a day out....fresh air and exercise and all that! :thumbs:

This is sort of the case and sort of not, a certain number of applications do have to be made for questions not to be asked, however (somewhat ironically) the ones who are really determined not to work tend to actually be quite clever, and know exactly how to ensure that they can apply without being taken on. However, these days those people will just end up on unpaid "work experience" so it's quite counter-productive.

I actually think, for most, that would be technically impossible. Unless you live IN a big city (or they start providing free public transport for jobseekers, which IMO is a good idea) then there simply aren't enough positions available to spend 8 hours actively seeking or applying for jobs. I suppose one could argue that the rest of the time should be spent developing skills for employment. I think the problem there is motivation, though. It's a complete myth that long-term unemployment is in any way desirable - these people are miserable and often bordering on depression. Finding the energy to study or learn skills is hard in that position. It's somewhat of a catch-22, though, as engaging in those activities probably helps to combat that feeling of hopelessness. That first step though...

Those are junkies. Junkies do not claim JSA, most of them are on disability benefits and don't have to do anything at all except keep being junkies. Junkies are another story entirely... one that I find hard to nail down my opinions on. On the one hand - what horribly, thoroughly broken people. They are certainly not happy or living nice lives, from everything I see of them it's an absolutely horrific existence, and most of them are there because they come from horrific family backgrounds. I feel awful for them, but at the same time, I can't stand them. What is there to be done, really? Would you employ one of them? Or even work beside one of them? I can tell you for certain that I wouldn't be trusting an ex-addict with the money that flies around at my work... whether that's right or wrong. So I just don't know. They are what they are, but they are utterly unemployable. What's the point in having them waste everyone's time by submitting applications or - god forbid - attending interviews?

This much is quite true. I was unemployed for nearly 5 months following University, and whilst I was actively seeking employment, I will admit that there was a not-too-small amount of Playstation and DVD box sets involved. Especially as I secured a job after 3 months but didn't start for 8 weeks. And, whilst my wife was pregnant, it was with my first so we were child-free. I pretty much did absolutely nothing.

I'm not even going to pretend that it wasn't great :joker:. I actually fully understand the desire to not work - especially as an employee doing something that you have zero passion for. Maybe it's just a balancing act. For me, the desire to support my family and for us not to struggle over-rides that laziness, as it should. If I was single and childless? I'm not so sure. I would probably want to work, but I can say with some certainty that I would have walked out of the door of my current job LONG ago, doing this: http://fc01.deviantart.net/images/em...con_finger.gif.

Well the one thing junkies have in their favour.... they're not fat.

Skeletal. It's quite haunting, some of them barely look human. All bones and dead eyes. Yeah... like I said, whilst I can't stand them, I can't imagine a fate much worse than that.

:joker: Quite funny this Kizzy.

The thread has deviated from the strict parameters of the original post and I was referring to one obese woman with 12 kids, not the benefit cuts per se.

Incidentally if I was 23 with just £57.00 income, I could eat perfectly well - I couldn't gamble in the bookies every day, or drink in the pubs even once a week, or buy a £10.00 wrap of heroin 4 times a day, but I wouldn't expect to be able to because I know that the benefits system is a safety net not a replacement for life's requirements and an alternative route to life's non-essentials.

At 23 I was working over 90 hours per week, and I did not take any kind of holiday for 15 years. My wife works now an average 62 hour week for minimum wage.

Anyway, back to the budget of £57.00;

ASDA Pig Liver by Weight (100g) 17p
I Kg White Potatoes: 47p average Market price (enough for 5 more meals)
Aldi 200 g Fresh Geen beans 75p (enough for 2 meals)
Oxo 6 Beef Stock Cubes 35G £0.80 (enough for 5 other meals)
2.5 kg Onions £1.00 (enough for 7 more meals at least)
98 g Tesco Everyday butter 98p (enough for all week or more)

Delicious Creamed mash potatoes, fresh green beans, and Liver in a rich onion gravy - very nutritious and only £4.17 but with more than enough potatoes, butter, green beans, onions and stock cubes to make the next meals even cheaper - for example; the next days dinner could be Baked Jacket potatoes with a sliver of butter, green beans and a grilled pork chop -- ASDA Smartprice Pork Chops (765g) £2.79 with enough Pork chops to do other meals.

Well now you're deviating the thread from overweight welfare claimants to addicts.

Oh.. sorry you haven't factored in water, gas, electric, phone, bus fares (to interviews) a wonga loan to get the cooker fixed, laundrette (no washer in the flat) and bedroom tax.

Oh gosh Kirk, asda smart price meat I wouldn't touch with a bargepole,it is awful, totally tasteless unless you competely cover it with something else.

I am really fussy as to what 'meat' I eat anyway,I don't see why being on JSA or ESA or other disability benefits means not t eat properly.
Also as to JSA,I wonder how someone living alone with bills to pay and to get around too, how on earth they manage.

The question really is should people who are out of work, ill, disabled and vulnerable really have to live an existence where they have to eat really cheap,often substandard food,with no variation as to real choice, day in day out, week in week out, year after year unless they hit lucky and someone does offer them a job eventually.

I have even come across jobcentres actually checking as to if someone unemployed actually had an interview with a company or firm and that they even went to it..

There are still not the jobs available for all the unemployed,nowhere near the vacancies needed,to be encouraging and forcing the sick and disabled into work too only adds to that problem,never mind increasing the retirement age.
Until that environment is there that has vacancies for those out of work,they can sanction all the like and threaten this and that as to all ways of making people look for work.
It isn't there,with a wage that would be needed to cover all the additional costs of working too,such as travel costs.

The work I am currently doing and where I live and have to go to, costs me loads in fuel for the car and then parking fees to be there most of the day when I am there.
I am fortunate,I can easily manage to do so but that is not the case for everyone else.
I just don't accept that people should be 'forced' to live in a sub standard way just because they are out of a job, ill, disabled or vulnerable.
More should be done to help that majority of out of work citizens to find work but from a true supportive angle and not by sanctions that bring even more misery.

All those that are benefit claimants that make up the 99% that official independent statistics say are claiming rightly.
If that is so, then why should they, whether they be unemployed, overweight or disabled and vulnerable be expected to live in a sub standard way.

If this govt; had created enough 'genuine',I stress genune, vacancies with regularly paid work over the year, then there would be little defence of people not finding work or not going to work ' 'if they can'.however that day is a long way off and all this shambles of a govt; can do is set out to create havoc and misery in those vulnerable peoples lives.
Jobcentre staff are snowed under trying to help people into work,they must feel they are banging their heads against a brick wall as the task they have is an impossible one, since you canot fit the unemployed into the far less vacancies currently available.

Now you're moving the goalposts - The statement which included your question was; "I would love to see a costing for one of your culinary delights,if you were 23 and on £57pw jobseekers what would you have for tea?" And I answered your question. Which you make no mention of or comment on.

Anyway, are we assuming that this 23 year old claimant has never worked at all then for 8 full years and has no possessions at all?

If his accommodation is a bedsit, the cooker is the responsibility of the landlord. If not there are grants available for essentials and also schemes which provide free white goods.

The rest of your list are all things which everyone has to pay and budget for. A 23 year old man working a 40 hour week for minimum wage has all the same outgoings and expenses as your 23 year old non-working man, but in addition he has bus fares to work, work clothes to buy and wash in addition to his non-working clothes (so much more expense because work clothes need more frequent washing) and he has his lunch to buy at work or packed lunch to cater for, and he has his rent and council tax to pay, and I will wager that when all deductions and payments are made, the working guy is not much better off - if at all - than the non-working guy. Which is a very real reason why SOME people do not want work at any price.

My friend's on benefits and she's been put on courses that involve her sitting in front of a computer in the job centre and looking for jobs from 9-5 every week day. It's easy to use stupid generalisations to say how easy a life on benefits is but hearing some of the horror stories she has to say about it makes me glad I'm working. I could not do what she has to do every week.

I'd hate to be employed in today's climate and be demonised by people like you for simply trying to do my best. Not only do people in her situation basically work full time hours, they get paid less than minimum wage for it too. With such draconian schemes in place it's understandable that the unemployed not only go for the cheapest option but also the easiest, I could not 'shop around' for the best deals on healthier food if I had been made to suffer 8 hours of tedium every day. At least in work your mind is switched on and you're actively doing stuff, I imagine my brain would rot and I'd fall into a constant state of death-like lethargy if I had to do any of these 'courses' I've heard about.

I'm sick of 'Dancing this dance' to be honest. Again, you are misrepresenting what I've been saying. I am not referring to all claimants, especially not the genuinely unfortunate ones who do want to work but can't find a job - and NOWHERE IN MY POSTS DO I STATE SO. I was referring specifically to FRAUDULENT CLAIMANTS to begin with, then responded honestly to specific points and questions raised by Kizzy in her responses to me.

Your example might be true but it is NOT THE NORM in my experience, because most job-seekers I know whip in and out of the Job Centre in 15 minutes without being given any draconian 'grilling'. Yes, periodically, some have to prove they have actively sought work - as Joey says - but that is not all and not regularly.

So I am not making "stupid generalisations" at all - and I am not attacking anyone. You are Quixotically 'tilting at windmills' if you perceive that I am Dezzy, and there really is no need to be so ultra sensitive and over defensive for 'imagined attacks' on society's unfortunates.

Erm....

Looks like sweeping generalisations to me...they sound like sweeping generalisations. If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck.....

Also who are YOU to decide what the norm is? Why is your interpretation of the 'norm' more valid than mine?

It also just sounds like you pass by a job centre and make snap judgements about what you see rather than bothering to know or understand what life is like for the other side. The benefits system is not a cushy lifestyle, it may be for a few but for the majority it's rapidly becoming a vicious system that doles out torturous exercises masked as courses in which the goal is to force people off the dole by crushing them mentally instead of giving them the help they need. As more of these 'courses' get rolled out, it would not surprise me to see poverty and crime on the increase because it's obvious to anyone that they aren't meant to help jobseekers.

As for the rest of your snipe-y post, I won't rise to the obvious bait.

Why do you always make insulting remarks? I am not being snipey and I do not presume to declare what the 'norm' is - you are so intent on having an argument with me that you never read my posts correctly. I actually said:

"Your example might be true but it is NOT THE NORM in my experience"

So my statement is no different than yours - YOU are posting opinion based upon your experience and so am I.

So why the transparent aggression and unfounded accusations?

There really is no need, so I would appreciate it in future if you merely ignore my posts and I will reciprocate.

What you are continuing to do with me is totally unfair and you are trying to bully me by abusing your position as a moderator.

I honestly do not think Kirk is trying to bait Dezzy. I work with job seekers daily...some have been on the courses you describe but by no means all of them. I also get hundreds of cvs daily from people applying for jobs they neither have the skills or experience for but they have to apply for certain numbers of positions through jobs match to keep their benefits. They have no desire to go for interviews for these positions (from experience I know this) but they have to apply so they do. I agree these constraints that are put on them are ridiculous - it also is a problem for people who genuinely want to apply for these roles as employers get so many applications that they don't look at all the cvs. It's a no win situation for all. I honestly don't know what the answer is

No I'm not it's a normal everyday scenario,you have to factor in other outgoings in the budget don't you?
He has no parents and no qualifications and lives in a 2 bed council high rise flat in Birmingham.
There are no grants available anymore and yes he pays a percentage towards council tax from his JS. He can't afford insurance and was burgled last month so no he has nothing of value.
The difference between him and the guy working 40hrs is that once the guy working full time has paid his weekly or monthly expenditure there's money left for food and other things, with JS there isn't.

Therein lies another problem which is minimum wage. I've just done some quick calculations and once someone has worked 40 hours on min wage, paid full council tax, full rent, paye and NI contributions, utilities etc (even bring conservative on rent and council tax payments) that will leave approx £50 per week for commuting to and from said job, food and any other expenses. Then just say this is a single parent factor again child care costs which will be more than tax credits it's crazy how anyone is expected to live on.

Ah yes the 'living wage' that's not even on the back burner anymore is it? it's not been mentioned for months :/
I agree minimum wage is shocking, and for young people I don't know why they even bother it's ridiculous.

The living wage is a red herring in my opinion, for anyone but the young free and single. If wages were increased then tax credits would be decreased more or less to match. Taking the burden off of the government and onto the employers, but not leaving many people any better off.

For anyone living at home with mum and dad with no responsibilities or bills to pay other than "their keep" it would be brilliant, though. And maybe for young singles in a house-share situation. Utterly useless for working families.