UK Government Proposes Making People Work for Unemployment Benefits

As part of the need to reduce the national debt, the government in the UK is proposing a bold new move to make those who are on unemployment benefit "work" in order to quality to receive benefits.

The plan will require those who are unemployed to do four weeks of unpaid work, which could be any type of labour, including manual work such as cleaning the streets and gardening.

Those who refuse to participate and help their local community, or who do not turn up on time for work, could lose their £65 a week ($100) Jobseekers Allowance for at least three months.

The aim of the plan is to help get people back to work, by getting them used to doing jobs, and restoring an ethic for working, which many thousands of people in the UK who have been on benefits for over ten years do not have.

The plan is already facing a lot of criticism from those who say that it will take jobs away from those who do want to work, but at the end of the day, the UK faces a drain on resources from those who have no desire to work, and who claim not only unemployment benefits, but also housing and other benefits, yet contribute nothing to society.

The benefits system in the UK was designed to help protect the poor, and while it does, it also protects those who are too lazy to work, and who seek to abuse the system.

In some areas of the UK there are families where nobody goes out to work, and that is nobody in four generations of the family. The younger generation of these families, who are still in school, do not see the purpose in learning or studying for exams, because when they leave school, they are going to sign on for unemployment, like their brothers and sisters, parents, aunts uncles and cousins.

Being unemployed and living off benefits has become a way of life for some people, and as well as getting benefits from the government, many do undeclared jobs without paying taxes, and often have more money to spend on luxuries than those who work hard and struggle to keep their heads above water.

Although there has been a lot of criticism of this proposal, a poll in Express And Star shows that almost 75% are in favour of making those who receive unemployment benefit work to earn it.

Those people who genuinely want to get back to work and who participate in this plan should be praised, and the record of what they have done while unemployed should feature on their resumes to show their willingness to work in support of their country.

Who knows, but many of those who perform some form of community service might find a job as a result, or might even find a way to be an entrepreneur and to set up their own business.

One thing is certain, and that is no country can continue to pay out ever increasing sums of money to help lazy people sit around and do nothing. It's time for the lazy bums in the UK to earn their benefits, or to suffer without.

The shadow minister focusing on social exclusion, Jon Trickett, said that the government should "hang it's head in shame" over these new proposals, but if this is what it takes to get the UK back to work and to make those on benefits earn the right to them, then I am all in favour of it.

Having discussed this topic in fact over a number of years with family, friends and colleagues, I don't recall a single person who didn't agree that the government needed to stop paying benefits to those who did not want to work.

Now this is thankfully set to become a reality, and I can see only two categories of people who should oppose it: those who are blind to the reality that there are thousands of lazy people in the UK, and those who ARE the lazy people in the UK.

Sources:

BBC News

Express And Star