Benefits Street

[AndyinLiverpool]

People need support to get into work and once they are in it.

 

If a proportion of benefits continue to be paid for a period after a person starts work, then is reduced over time, the individual can start work at a low level of pay and then the employer can build that up based on performance etc.

 

This would also help employers take on more staff.

 

If the individual quits, they get a vastly reduced benefit rate. 

 

An employer who lays someone off under such a scheme, only to hire someone to do the exact same job at the original rate would be subject to prosecution.

 

Reduced unemployment and a living wage.

[Asanovic]

I'd love it a Channel did a documentary on working poor, or benefits dependent people - see how they get by, budget, provide for their family, survive. Probably not as interesting as alot of the ***** on Benefits Street taking the p*ss out of the system, but might provide some balance.

 

I'm not politics savvy at all, but I believe in looking after each other and making communities, rather than individuals happy. How can that happen when the people that run the country are all of a certain background?

 

This is a brain dump but would love to see a group of people from different backgrounds run the country. Someone like Cameron, someone from a council estate, someone uni educated, someone with no qualifications and went straight to work. One man with an extremely wealthy and priveliged upbringing unfortunately has a total lack of understanding of people like those on the programme, or even of people like me - just average Joe's, not breadline, not coined.

 

I'm not on the brink of rebellion but I don't feel like anyone give's a fiddler's about me, and I suspect the vast, vast majority of the country feel the same. I'll vote next time but only for the purpose of ousting the Tories, as I think they're the most toxic party of the lot. Other than them not being in power, I don't really care.

[eddie]

Having had a year on benefits, a year when I was completely housebound other than the occasions when just about my entire disposable income for the week was having to be spent on a taxi to hospital or for a DWP 'assessment' and having been called all the names under the sun by some when they found out that I was on Disability Living Allowance, I am very uncomfortable with this programme, and the reasons for it being made.

 

The poor, the unemployed, the sick and the incapable are just another Goldstein for the general population to have another choreographed '5 minutes of hate' at. Everyone will end up being tarred with the same brush - not just the skivers and those 'working the system'.

[froggg]

Only by thatcherites and the gullible Eddie?

[eddie]

Only by thatcherites and the gullible Eddie?

 

Aren't they the same people?

[froggg]

Aren't they the same people?

Good point

[uttoxram75]

Aren't they the same people?

No Eddie, unfortunately they aren't. They are the lazy majority who just read the headlines in the Sun.  

[uttoxram75]

How surprising - a millionaire Tory property owner is a private landlord raking it in from renting out sub standard houses on Benefits Street.

 

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/benefits-street-millionaire-tory-paul-3062319#.UuT5wtJFDMw

 

Praps Mr. Cameron could have a word with him and get him to mend his tenants boiler.

[LeedsCityRam]

Programmes like this are voyeurism at its worst but they basically follow the papers agenda of vilifying the poor. Benefit cuts can easily be justified if the perception is people like this are the only ones affected.

 

The truth is that most benefit cuts will hurt the working poor. Getting a job is no longer a way of getting out of the poverty trap. 

 

The cost of housing (buying or renting), utility bills, food, council tax, if you are earning £6.31 an hour on minimum wage, make life very harsh for many.

 

We all know idle, feckless ***** who milk the system, but lets not use them to batter the working poor.  

 

The government should be targeting these areas for creating jobs, tax incentives for small businesses, regeneration, local public transport, infrastructure, affordable house building, etc, etc.

Create reasonable jobs for people then hammer their benefits if they don't take them. 

 

Successive governments have deliberately allowed this benefit culture to fester by pandering to the multi-national corporations and money markets rather than sorting out the problems closer to home.

 

I think you're partially right & partially wrong. Sadly, there is currently little disincentive for folk to sit at home having numerous kids - the system will pay for them & it is creating an underclass of people with benefits-dependency who have no intention of ever getting a job. I spent a lot of my childhood in Ssausagehorpe - another "victim" of a Channel 4 documentary ("Skint") & it was the same there, a significant % of the population with no ambition to work at all because the system doesn't incentivise it. There are of course a myriad of other factors such as poor education, low ambition & investment in these areas but the current benefits system isn't helping.

 

Re the working poor & the unemployed (not unemployable) - yes, every effort should be made to help them (not just blind handouts either). But that wasn't what this programme was about. Barely any of the featured characters had any ambition to work - they had a sense of entitlement that the state should pay them their way in life.

 

Where I think you're right is the fact the focus seems to be on these people, who's miserable existence is used to justify benefits cuts & more repulsively, to "entertain" the nation. Where is the focus on the thieving multinationals not paying any corporation tax? Where is the focus on the companies not paying minimum wage? Where is the focus on the massively rigged markets in this country - from energy to public transport to housing driving prices up & squeezing the budgets of the poor? Clamp down on these more serious crimes & perhaps we wouldn't have such a massive budget deficit or such a vast gap between the rich & the poor in this country.

[ladyram]

Debate on this now on RD, should be worth a listen and I will do so with an open mind and realise everyones circumstances are different. Some may be struggling through no fault of their own.

I can't promise not to swear at the shirkers if they phone in though.

[tomsdubs]

TV shows like this are just made for muppet reactionaries who get all riled up reading crappy newspapers in ignorant bliss. Corporations rob us of billions a year and no one gives a ****. The government has fleeced us of billions through pointless wars. You'll never get a perfect utopia where everyone is hard working and honest, that's human nature I'm afraid. Much in the same way bot everyone gets a good start in life, not everyone gets good role models and nice ideals planted in their young impressionable mind.

[PistoldPete2]

TV shows like this are just made for muppet reactionaries who get all riled up reading crappy newspapers in ignorant bliss. Corporations rob us of billions a year and no one gives a ****. The government has fleeced us of billions through pointless wars. You'll never get a perfect utopia where everyone is hard working and honest, that's human nature I'm afraid. Much in the same way bot everyone gets a good start in life, not everyone gets good role models and nice ideals planted in their young impressionable mind.

 

I don't really see that Benefits Street has an  anti- benefits agenda. It just shows a street where lots of people are on benefits and struggling to make ends meet. Its been called poverty . There is some weird fascination with this but I dont feel outrage at the people on Benefits Street if anything you cant help but feel sympathy for them, on drugs alcohol, anti depressants etc.