Hello Workfare

Another great blog, Bill. Excuse any errors - I'm off my PS3 and getting used to a laptop.

I really have to agree with pretty much everything you've said. The JobCentre staff are pretty much straight out of Royston Vasey. The unemployed do seem to be blamed for their situation and will be frontline casualties when this illegitimate government start making their "tough decisions".

I fear that workfare will be used by the Tories (for this IS a Tory government) to undo the slight advances Labour made. WTC and CTC are already being highlighted as probable targets for cuts. The minimum wage is too politically sensitive to abolish, but will almost certainly be allowed to wither on the vine. I confidently predict that it will be worth less when these charlatans leave office than it is now.

Making claimants work for Benefits will simply result in a low wage "slave" economy and furthermore, we don't have the unskilled vacancies for them to fill. Education is not so much the elephant in the room as the room around the elephant. It would require massive investment however and that is going to be out of the question under a Tory administration that won't implement the "mansion tax" and a Lib Dem one that won't scrap trident.

No government in my lifetime, of any hue, has ever dared to ask people - especially the poor and disaffected what they want to do. It's a bold step, especially for the right. I believe it's the key to an economy more dynamic than we could dream of. Getting on should not be so formalized and ritualized. Everyone performs better doing something they prefer to do. Don't worry about the bins being emptied... there are people who would choose to do that.

For vast swathes of people at the bottom of the ladder our society denies choice and opportunity and that is how you breed a benefit culture.

If work fare does come in I was wondering about the impact on those on NMW. If an employer can access people on work fare for nothing what is the point in employing people. I suspect that it will have a lowering impact on waages for the working poor.

Secondly a moral question. Offenders are often called to carry out menial jobs as part of their community service. Is their going to be competition between those ao community service and those on workfare for the most menial task? Anyway it follows that the unemployed equate with someone convicted of a criminal offence.

Thirdly linking this with the companion post on part time work. It seems to me that the only jobs available are the part time and the temporary. I go back to my Citizens Income advocacy which is a Green party policy. If the future of work is going to be bitty and irregular it doubly makes sense to reform the tax and benefit system. If people have a minimum living base than they are more likely to take on part time work or try self employment to secure a better standard of living. This also has implications for local economies as the low paid tend to spend their income in local shops and use local services

Re workfare participants taking the jobs of the low paid. As the Nobel prize winning economist Robert Solow
pointed out, “the burden of adjusting to any genuine replacement of welfare by work will fall primarily on low-wage workers, especially those virtuous ones who
have been employed all along. The burden will take the form of lower earnings and higherunemployment, in proportions that are impossible to guess in advance.”

"For Britain’s low wage workers, a Citizen’s Income would provide a measure of security on which they could build. Part-time work and self-employment would become more attractive, allowing people to develop more flexible patterns of working more consistent with their own and their children’s or other dependents’ needs. Thus consistently high levels of employment can be expected.

(For a single person living alone and simply, and maybe for other categories of people, a Citizen’s Income might have a disincentive effect; but for most individuals the incentive effect of lower withdrawal rates will outweigh the small disincentive effect of receiving the Citizen’s Income.)

A Citizen’s Income would help people to undertake higher education, training, or retraining by providing a small, secure income.

Above all, a Citizen’s Income would help to tackle poverty by providing an income on which people with low earnings potential could build through paid work and savings. Rather than destroying the work ethic, as our present system does, a Citizen’s Income would help to lift people out of the various traps outlined above and would encourage them to earn a living"

The Citizens Income is a Green Party initiative, right?

I'm feeling far more drawn to the Greens now the glitz of the election is over. I've got much more homework to do, but Ms Lucas impressed me on Any Questions. She seems to expose the myth that capitalism is the only way to run an economy, far better than the traditional left have ever done... why should the devil have the best tunes? Please post some links Bill.

Getting back to workfare. What annoyed, if not downright angered, me during the campaign was Cameron's attitude. I appreciate he was addressing his natural constituency, but why this assumption that "workfare" needs an element of compulsion? I believe if real and worthwhile activities were available, helping the community and instilling a sense of self worth, most of the "unwashed" would gladly participate.

To focus so heavily on coercion seems to thinly veil the true intention, which I suspect is merely to find excuses to cut benefits.

Happy days.

"Build it and they will come" as far as the Green party is concerned watch this space for a special meaasge

I bumped into a guy I have seen around Leek many times. At 57 he is about 2 years older than me. He is well known in the town although on this occasion he was in Hanley. As long as I have known him he had been out of work. I don't think as far as he is concerned it is not for the want of trying. He told me that he is on some mandatory job centre scheme. He has been around this course several times. he is always enthusiastic and told me that he was given a very positive report from the last course he went to at Stoke College. " They said I was a brillants student". In my experience no one could have been more willing or pliant in terms of fitting in with what seems to be a carousel of courses and initiatives that the Job Centre has simply to move people on and off the jobless register.

In many ways T's experience sems to me to be typical of a man in his middle years whose journey back to work has been blocked by ageism and indifference. I am sure that T would be a very willing worker and he does exhibit an almost child-like willingness to please authority. Sadly as far as T is concerned all to no avail.

T's case demonstrates the yawning gap in the large range of agencies that have been set up to deal with people like T who without any fault of their own are now long term unemployed. Not only do the jobs that probably T could do are in very short supply, but also he has to stuggle about prejudice and indifference and at there exists a range of agencies that exist supported by the tax payer who seem rather clueless on how you deal with the many T's that exist locally.

The Govt plans for welfare reform involve Big Government forcing individuals to change their behaviour through a mix of sanctions, financial incentives, and payments to private companies based on performance against closely defined outputs.

There is a pretty massive gap in this approach. Reducing unemployment and poverty can’t be achieved just by the state and individuals – the role of employers and of civil society is crucial. As someone once said, there is such a thing as society, it’s just not the same as the state. And the spirit of “we’re all in this together” means that employers need to recognise their responsibilities and do their bit, rather than just relying on government and unemployed people to behave differently.

Reducing in-work poverty requires action on issues such as employers hiring workers on zero hour contracts which seems to be a growing trend locally; and action to prevent employers requiring workers to do a four week unpaid work trial at the start of a new job. Big companies which make billions of pounds in profit and even some voluntary groups don’t pay their staff enough to live on.

Whether it is replacing minimum wage jobs with apprenticeships, or requiring unemployed people to do community work, the Government might actually increasing the number of people who are working, but not earning enough to live on.