Unemployment and Benefits

[Fester]

I became aware of a very worrying statistic today.

Although 2.5 million people in the UK are ''Unemployed, and on Job Seekers Allowance''

There are another 8 MILLION who are catgorised as ''Economically Inactive''

Children and Pensioners are not included in this figure, but students are.

Am I right to be worried (or sickened) by this?   What does Forum members think about this?

[DaveR]

"economically inactive" adults – those that have either chosen not to or given up looking for a job. They include students, parents staying at home to look after children, long-term sick, and the "discouraged", a euphemistic term used by the ONS to describe those that have given up the struggle to find a job."
I think the 'discouraged' should be 'encouraged' to find a job by a swift boot up the rear... 

[Ian]

The UK labour market comprises three main groups: the employed, the unemployed and the economically inactive. This latter group consists of those people who are out of work but who do not satisfy all of the International Labour Organisation (ILO) criteria for unemployment. This is because they are either not seeking work or are unavailable to start work.

Economic inactivity lies on the supply side of the labour market framework, as economically-inactive people have the potential to move into the labour market at some point in the future.

Broadly speaking, the inactive group can be divided into those who want a job and those who do not.

Official figures on inactivity are based on the results of the Labour Force Survey (LFS). In addition to the numbers and rates of people who are inactive, the LFS collects information on their reasons for inactivity. It is also possible to look at the characteristics of the inactive group by combinations of the criteria of wanting work, seeking work and availability for work. New questions are being devised which better measure a respondent's attachment to the labour market.

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) publishes monthly statistics on economic inactivity by age and reason in the labour market statistics First Release and in the Economic and Labour Market Review.

In purely local terms, the opportunities for long-term, well-paid employment in this area are fairly limited;  most exist within the pubic service bodies where people on even the most basic jobs are paid significantly more than the minimum wage.  However, with the impending spending cuts, we can expect such positions to become rarer and it;s also wroth noting that hotels - one of the main employer groups - have traditionally found it extremely difficult to get local people to work in them, so have had to turn to the Eastern European community for most of the staff.

Young, single mothers also form a significant slice of the economically inactive locally, so what should be done about them?   I seriously doubt there are any easy answers.

[Fester]

I have just watched an episode of The Jeremy Kyle show which showed endless amounts of people who do not work, have never worked, and have no intention of working ever.

Neither have thier parents .... and some are encouraging thier kids to do likewise.

It is a social culture problem,  only exacerbated by the lack of ''real'' jobs...

[Ian]

As long as a teenage girl who doesn't get on with her parents can get a flat of her own simply by getting pregnant then the problem will persist.

[Hugo]

I had a chuckle when I read Fester's comments on the Jeremy Kyle show. I walk the dog in the morning after the school run and arrive back when the show is on.  There does seem to be a benefit culture in this country and some of the people appearing on the show can only be described as scum.
One thing I did like about the show was the lie detector tests and think that it's a pity that they can't use it as part of the legal process, even if only as circumstantial evidence.  You seldom get accused people asking to do lie detector tests and I wonder why!
With regard to benefit  payments I was half listening to David Cameron the other evening and something he said did make sense.   No one on benefits should receive more money than the average wage earner receives.  That isn't fair to those people prepared to work and the system shouldn't encourage people not to work.
When you read about the family from Llangefni with 7 children and another on the way (she hopes to have 14 children eventually) receiving £815.00 clear in benefits per week and an unemployed Somali family in South Kensington receiving £8000.00 per month in housing benefits for their £2.1 million rented property then something is seriously wrong with the system.     :rage:

[DaveR]

I believe the new proposals mean that no family will be able to receive more than £500 a week in benefits, which should deal with some of the examples Hugo has mentioned.

I'm finding the uproar about cutting child benefits to rich families amazing...how on earth can a family with an income of £44,000 a year possibly need child benefit? They are nothing more than middle class scroungers, claiming money that could go to people in genuine need.  :rage:

As a letter writer in the Times said today, it's a couple's choice to have children - why should the taxpayer have to contribute?

[Ian]

You seldom get accused people asking to do lie detector tests and I wonder why!

Well, the polygraph is such an unreliable instrument in general that I would advise anyone - particularly the innocent - to stay well clear. One significant issue is that the polygraph only senses when someone is conflicted emotionally, not when they're lying. Normal - i.e. generally honest - folk tend to become conflicted when lying, so it could catch out the honest, or the excessively nervous. However, the habitual liar has frequently been shown to pass such 'tests', simply because they lie so much it doesn't bother them at all. And psychopaths, of course, have no such emotional responses , anyway...

[Ian]

As a letter writer in the Times said today, it's a couple's choice to have children - why should the taxpayer have to contribute?

Indeed.

[Ian]

No one on benefits should receive more money than the average wage earner receives.  That isn't fair to those people prepared to work and the system shouldn't encourage people not to work.

I agree.  But how do you stop it?

[Yorkie]

It would be simpler to limit Child Benefit to the FIRST TWO children only.  Then everyone with children receive it and those who don't know how to use, or refuse to use, contraception can have as many as they like providing they can afford them.   ££$

Some will then say, that in poorer families the additional children will suffer.   So maybe it is time to do as the Chinese have done and limit the number of offspring.  Something must be done about the rising World population.   

[Ian]

I'm not sure that it's the numbers of children that are the problem per se;  it's the socio-economic groups to whom the larger numbers are born that present uncertainty.  Most career women and graduates are delaying the arrival of children until their 30s and then only having 1.4 children on average. The real worries are about the teenage, multi-fathered pregnancies that rely solely on state support.

[Yorkie]

EXACTLY!   

[Fester]

At the risk of being labelled a Jonah, I can reliably inform you that something WILL be done about the rising world population.
It will not be a managed solution, we are not intelligent enough as a species to achieve that, instead one of the following events WILL sort out the problem.

(those of a nervous disposition look away now)

1, Dwindling resources will inevitably lead to a catastrophic war,  it may be a war based on economic need (food or oil) ... or it may a war based on religious divisions.   But the outcome will deliver a vastly reduced population.

2, A natural disaster, such as Yellowstone Park supervolcano.  The world is overdue obe of those .... and that will do the job most efficiently.

Its only a matter of timing, which one comes first.

Don't bother betting on it though ... there will be no bookies left to collect from!

[Ian]

Dwindling resources will inevitably lead to a catastrophic war,  it may be a war based on economic need (food or oil) ... or it may a war based on religious divisions.

There will certainly be more wars, and I think that they may well be about water - or the lack of it. It's always struck me as particularly sad that wars are instigated by a very small number of people, and are rarely the product of a collective will.  But I think it's safe to assume that wars of the Iraq and Afghanistan variety will increase in number and might well mutate into something much larger.   Z@@