Emma Parker Bowles, writing in The Soaraway Sun:
... I went to stay with an unemployed single mum called Louisa and despite our backgrounds we bonded. She's lovely.
We went to the Jobcentre to look for work and spoke to a lady who dealt with single mums, who was very helpful. But I got a shock. We worked out Louisa is better off on benefits than if she had a job*. It's crazy this situation exists in modern Britain, it's just not right.
We looked into childcare for her toddler, Joshua, and while you do get some financial help for this if you start working, you lose out on other benefits. It seems nonsense, and this was someone who wants to work. How many other people must exist like her? And how can you blame them?
My eyes have been opened. Before, I felt there were people out there who fiddled the system and I was quite cocky about how easy it was to find work. Not now. I now have a lot of respect for people who are unemployed and hunting for work. It's hard and it's too easy for others to judge.
* And she'd be equally daft to get married to somebody with a job, which would cost her about £200 a week in benefits.
Tuesday 9 March 2010
Citizen's Income Round-up
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3 comments:
* And she'd be equally daft to get married to somebody with a job, which would cost her about £200 a week in benefits.
Any job under £780 pm for me would not cover the standing costs, before we look at food and travel. Dole would cover everything, with about £30 left to spend.
Just so we know what we are talking about here. it is not that benefits are too high - they are barely subsistence level. I defy anybody to survive on benefits for very long without running up huge debts. No, the problem is low wages. Why work your guts out in a low status job, enduring an insufferable bully as a boss and with little or no prospects, just to exist and nothing more? Imagine trying to live on £5.83 an hour. Amazingly millions do work for this pittance. That says more about human nature than the few who abuse the benefits system.
Anon, I never said that benefits were 'too high' or 'too low'. My workings assume that any universal benefits would be pegged at approx. Income Support or Pensions Credit levels (just to get the ball rolling).
It's the benefits trap - the withdrawal thereof if you do go to work - that bothers me, and yes, it is quite amazing that so many people go to work nonetheless.
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