Welfare claimants face conditions
Welfare claimants will have to do some form of work or prepare for a job in the future if they want to receive benefits, a minister has warned.
James Purnell, speaking on BBC One's Andrew Marr show, said claimants would have to take up a "reasonable job offer" or there would be "sanctions".
Only severely disabled people and single mothers with babies under one would avoid any benefits conditions.
He is to set out his plans in a White Paper published this week.
The cunt said the government was adopting a "tough love approach". (At this point please stop reading and vomit in the nearest available bag)
Mr Purnell said claimants who refused to take up such offer could stand to lose their benefits - or they would be required to carry out full-time work such as community service, in return for it.
However, he ruled out adopting any time limit to such benefits.
"In America where they tried time-limiting, first of all it wasn't effective and second it punished the most vulnerable in our society.
"It increased child poverty because some people just dropped out of the system, they weren't getting either work or benefits, so I don't think that is the right approach," he said.
Unemployment forecasts
The most controversial aspect of the proposals concerns the more than 2m people on incapacity benefit and hundreds of thousands of non-working mothers, according to an interview with Mr Purnell in the Sunday Times.
Mr Purnell told the paper: "We don't think it is appropriate to make you take work at this stage, but you should be preparing for work."
He added: "I believe very strongly in a system like the Dutch or the Danish or the Swedish, where you have more support but also higher expectations.
"They have maternity and paternity leave and then people are treated in exactly the same way."
In November the business group CBI warned unemployment could peak at close to 2.9m by 2010, up from about 1.8m at present.
The British Chambers of Commerce, and the Standard Chartered Bank have also said that unemployment could reach about 3 million before the recession ends.
However, Mr Purnell would not be drawn on how high UK unemployment could go next year, saying "governments never do that".
He told the BBC that said the government's aim was to make the recession as "shallow and short as possible. That reduces the human cost - but also the financial cost".
Comments
Hide the following 4 comments
Workers
07.12.2008 19:07
anon
Workers.
07.12.2008 20:20
Your taxes kill children, Iraqi children. Your taxes fund war. Your taxes line the pockets of the corrupt. Your taxes are used to drip feed woefully inadaquate benefits to the poor. Your taxes rob pensioners. Your taxes are spent by the corrupt long before they are paid. Your taxes are used to fund and sponsor authoritarian regimes around the world. Your taxes make you proud, your taxes make you conceited, stupid and dumb. Dumb enough to listen to idiots telling you how important it is for you to pay your taxes.
So what if you pay taxes! Who the f**k cares!
Does paying your taxes give you the right to demand that people act and behave just like you? In fact, what exactly does paying taxes give you the right to do? except talk gibberish.
Oh and by the way, something I have learned in this long walk through my life...those who rant on about the taxes they pay, usually don't pay them or are on the fiddle!
Terrorist
minimum wage?
08.12.2008 10:17
bob
get a job
09.12.2008 13:35
Control. We can dictate if you get scraps of food or not.
>>So what if you pay taxes! Who the f**k cares!
Pretty much everyone whos got a job. Thats the majority of the population. I think the point that anon is trying to make is that nobody likes a freeloader who doesn't work for their food and board.
>> Your taxes kill children, Iraqi children. Your taxes fund war. Your taxes line the pockets ....
What a bunch of capicinno-slurping, guardian-reading, smoke-screening, work-avoiding twaddle. None of this has anything to do with 'getting a job' to pay for your lifestyle. Fine - just stopping giving tax money to freeloaders.
> Does paying your taxes give you the right to demand that people act and behave just like you? In fact, what exactly does paying taxes give you the right to do? except talk gibberish.
It gives us the right to help you continue to live by providing you with food and shelter rather than kicking you out into the wilderness. But theres a breaking point, where the majority of people will want to take that right back. Which is why the government are going to chang the rules because you've taken the pi** for so long.
> Oh and by the way, something I have learned in this long walk through my life...those who rant on about the taxes they pay, usually don't pay them or are on the fiddle!
I wonder why. Sick of seeing it being wasted on people who turn down job offers because they think they can get it for free. Why shouldn't tax payers be on the fiddle because freeloaders fiddle 100% of their income if they don't take reasonable jobs.
Many people who don't pay taxes are quite happy to spend benefit money on some of the following: cigarettes, alcohol, confectionary items, plasma TVs, game consoles, betting shops, SkyTV. This commonly results in them being overweight, prone to illnesses, pale, unattractive and poorly educated. If freeloaders suddenly have their 'income' removed, a lot of them will miraciously manage to take the 'reasonable job offers' once a bit of hunger sets in.
Sitting at home all day watching TV and eating fatty foods, smoking to relieve the boredom and being bitter about the whole thing is going to lead anywhere. Get some ambition. You do deserve better, but quit whining that you should have it on a plate
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