Crosswords5 mins ago
A Modest Proposal
43 Answers
I was mildly irritated (OK - spitting tacks) to read a statement in this article
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2324671/Migrant-exodus-fruit-fields-send-prices-soaring-Romanians-soon-free-jobs.html
that "the way the benefits system works meant a person working long hours in a field could receive as little as £100 extra per month".
That is a fundamentally wrong way of looking at the income from a job versus the income for not working - but I have actually had it said to me by someone I offered a job to - "you are expecting me to work for 15p per hour" (being the net difference between working and doing nowt).
So - given that there are loads and loads of jobs which will never get done in this country because we can't afford to pay people to do them (just look at the state of crumbling infrastructure and general untidiness of green spaces in towns and litter about the roadside everywhere for instance) - I have a modest proposal :
For every person in receipt of state benefits, we divide the gross amount of benefit by the current minimum wage and they are then required to do that number of hours of 'useful work for the community' - up to a maximum of 37 hours per week.
Obviously not applying to people on any form of incapacity benefit, and also with allowances made for people who are working part-time already.
I suspect people can pick a lot of holes in it - but in essence it doesn't seem unfair?
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that "the way the benefits system works meant a person working long hours in a field could receive as little as £100 extra per month".
That is a fundamentally wrong way of looking at the income from a job versus the income for not working - but I have actually had it said to me by someone I offered a job to - "you are expecting me to work for 15p per hour" (being the net difference between working and doing nowt).
So - given that there are loads and loads of jobs which will never get done in this country because we can't afford to pay people to do them (just look at the state of crumbling infrastructure and general untidiness of green spaces in towns and litter about the roadside everywhere for instance) - I have a modest proposal :
For every person in receipt of state benefits, we divide the gross amount of benefit by the current minimum wage and they are then required to do that number of hours of 'useful work for the community' - up to a maximum of 37 hours per week.
Obviously not applying to people on any form of incapacity benefit, and also with allowances made for people who are working part-time already.
I suspect people can pick a lot of holes in it - but in essence it doesn't seem unfair?
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For more on marking an answer as the "Best Answer", please visit our FAQ.The theory is that people on benefits (other than sickness/disability etc) are supposed to be "actively seeking employment" so if they are made to spend 37 hours a week litter picking, they are not going to have time or energy to seek properly paid work. When I was signing on, I would have been happy to do an 'appropriate' amount of 'community servic'e for my £60 ie. about ten hours p/w (roughly in line with the NMW). Wouldn't that make better sense?
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