David Cameron suggests cutting housing benefit for under-25s

[DodgyAgent]

Your views of people on the left are ridiculous.

I might as well say that you are either a ******* idiot or a nasty little piece of tulip. Fortunately I am too polite and reasonable to do so.

I happen to think working is much better than not working. But the jobs are not there. Unemployment is rising because jobs are disappearing.

The effect of withdrawing money will not be to create new jobs but to make people even more miserable, except perhaps you.

I would rather have jobs, but in the absence of jobs, I would rather less misery than more.

So surprisingly your little rant about selfishness and pretending is not accurate. I have a different analysis from you. Perhaps you thought I see things the same way and then choose to condemn people to misery.

If you think working is so much better than not working why do you support a system that pays vast amounts of people to not work?
Why is it you and your friends so much prefer to support this dreadful system when Polish workers are arriving here in their thousands (millions even) and filling these jobs. This is not the 1930s. You also seem incapable or unwilling to answer my assertion that any sort of income support is an immediate disincentive for someone to find work.
The only misery that people are condemned to is one whereby they dont work. Your system supports this.

[Doggy Styles]

You need to provide quality work for people, a policy of offering a choice between near slavery or destitution should have no place in a modern democracy.

I ask again - WHO needs to provide this? And who can?

Why is everyone entitled to 'quality work', and what is it anyway?

[DodgyAgent]

And when they do that what happens? You get people complaining about poor people washing windscreens at the traffic lights or whatever.

A lot of these low paid jobs they are supposed to be grateful for are little more than slavery and fail to pay a living wage. Even the hard working, prepared to do anything immigrants have to be hoodwinked to take them on.

Fruit pickers: 'The money we earn is not worth getting out of bed for' - Home News - UK - The Independent

You need to provide quality work for people, a policy of offering a choice between near slavery or destitution should have no place in a modern democracy.

The default position of the red necked left is that people are better off not working unless the right job is laid out in front of them on a plate. I will repeat the point that I would rather employ someone who has been fruit picking than someone who has been living off benefits. If fruit picking is so unrewarding then make it rewarding by removing benefits. If someone spends a year picking fruit they are much more likely to have the confidence to aspire to other better paid jobs.

Paying people not to work has no redeeming facets whatsoever.

[Scoobos]

when Polish workers are arriving here in their thousands (millions even) and filling these jobs.

Might not be popular, but I think that a lot of these "workers" arrive here in the thousands to do 3 months work then start claiming benefits and being GIVEN them...

[DodgyAgent]

Might not be popular, but I think that a lot of these "workers" arrive here in the thousands to do 3 months work then start claiming benefits and being GIVEN them...

Which is another reason for removing benefits. However every Pret, KFC, Macdonalds that I go to employs people who are not British.

[vetran]

The answer was - "Because you have hope, and you can move away, there's nothing for them".

That for me, is the problem.

Hope, yes. Why don't they have hope?

'A mine is a hole in the ground with a Cornishman at the bottom'.

a hundred years ago they managed it, now with international air travel its easier.

when they get there we need to help them back.

Also when you lose money working against being on Benefit (its a real issue) then you can't blame them.

[Ketchup]

But if he abolished the housing benefit for under 25 year olds, they wouldn't keep popping out sproggs. This would have a severely detrimental effect on my sex-life and where would i stay when contracting in london?

[Old Greg]

If you think working is so much better than not working why do you support a system that pays vast amounts of people to not work?
Why is it you and your friends so much prefer to support this dreadful system when Polish workers are arriving here in their thousands (millions even) and filling these jobs. This is not the 1930s. You also seem incapable or unwilling to answer my assertion that any sort of income support is an immediate disincentive for someone to find work.
The only misery that people are condemned to is one whereby they dont work. Your system supports this.

I think they should be paid because there are not jobs for them. Taking the money away would not lead to them having jobs.

Instead of hammering away at those without jobs, why not look at why there are not enough jobs? Unemployment has gone up because jobs have disappeared.

I am however glad that you are now saying that my system leads to misery, rather than implying that it is my dastardly intention. You see, we have a difference in analysis.

The question of disincentive is interesting. Of course if people were paid £2k per week, that would be a disincentive. We must therefore agree that this disincentive diminishes but remains as it reduces. However, the disincentive cannot be looked at in isolation from the job market. Also reducing benefits to reduce the disincentive is a blunt tool which will catch some people you want to and punish some people you don't want to. It's a tricky balance, andone that this country has managed by having low benefits by North European standards.

[DodgyAgent]

I counter this, in all (developed) countries all fruit picking jobs are done by immigrants, because it is perhaps the hardest physical work you can do, for the lowest wage. Try it and you'll see (I've done my bit overseas myself)

Whilst a lot of people do take the micky, I hate this generalising that "unemployed" can mean Lazy, or not. Everyone is individual and there will be individuals that are lazy and those that are not.

I think a lack of opportunity is the problem, especially in ex industrial / mining towns.

There's only so many call centre jobs to go round.

Greg says what I can't much more elequently. We all need to see the world through other peoples eyes, rather than judging everything on your own personal experiences (and I can improve this too).

Quite frankly, right wing rhetoric never sounds good from rich people in nice developed areas down south.
Left wing doesnt sound very good from people like me either (poor , from an ex industrial city up north, broken home etc).

Just because I turned my life around, I know how incredibly difficult it can be; its certainly not the land of opportunity that those in the South East can argue.

I think any blanket rule is totally wrong, but paying for individual assessment thats supposed to be being done already is not an option either. (What if the job centre got in on the agents game and turned the whole thing into a profit making enterprise? Why don't they?)

Final example on the Job Centre - I went for the dole after finishing Uni and got 2 weeks pay out of 6 - I questioned why I get the spanish inquisition and reduced payment for doing 1 days work cleaning cars, whilst an entire Sunderland family come in and just get the docket signed with no argument.

The answer was - "Because you have hope, and you can move away, there's nothing for them".

That for me, is the problem.

So you are saying we should pay these people to do nothing? If you go to Sunderland you will find that the buses are driven by Polish bus drivers. Even though there were 10,000 capable men unemployed in 2007 none of them wanted to do this sort of work because to do so would have meant earning less than benefits were paying them.

The only part of the blanket rule that should not apply is to those who genuinely cannot work and those who can but have severe disadvantages. The crime is that the patronising "guilt ridden" left by supporting this terrible state of affairs are making the lives of the genuinely disadvantages very difficult.

[Doggy Styles]

But if he abolished the housing benefit for under 25 year olds, they wouldn't keep popping out sproggs. This would have a severely detrimental effect on my sex-life and where would i stay when contracting in london?

With someone over-25.