Millions of people not working is ‘unacceptable’ says Labour
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ckmg5173kkyo
by Entire_House_7416
Millions of people not working is ‘unacceptable’ says Labour
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ckmg5173kkyo
by Entire_House_7416
35 comments
It does seem very high that 1/4 of working age people aren’t working at all.
Have they broke down the demographics? Is it something like barriers to childcare? School isn’t very work friendly.
Pretty easy solution: make businesses pay people wages they can live on.
I never see any figures about how many people *should* be working. Also does “economically inactive” include people living on investments? Because they’re certainly economically inactive.
The Tories tried the stick approach, maybe a Labour carrot approach will be better. But the underlying point is that there are far too many people in this country who do not actively contribute to society in an economic sense. In a developed and civilised society, we have a duty to help those who genuinely need it. But for a society to truly succeed, then everyone who can do should contribute.
It is somewhat strange that there are 10,000’s of thousands of ‘immigrants’ stuck in hotels at great cost to the taxpayer. Maybe it is the time to mobilise those people, get them on the payroll, fill the roles that UK nationals feel are beneath them and get them paying tax, rather than costing the tax payer. If they end up in work and contributing for 5 years then they can be given permission to stay. It seems more than fair when we have millions of UK nationals who do not pay their fair share.
One thing they could do in my particular situation is disconnect my partners claim from me. She’s on ESA (a disability benefit), with me declared as her cohabiting partner. If I get a job, her claim gets nulled. If I then lose the job, she has to go back to the start of the process, and hope she passes the assessment again, the taking of which in the first place wrecked her for months. Could end up on UC, meaning she loses her claim if I don’t pass job search requirements. It’s the thing she fears the most. Don’t worry though, she went to the doctor’s about the suicidal depression this caused, and they were kind enough to give her a half off voucher for 90 minutes of counseling after a year wait. Brilliant.
Currently, my choices are:
1. Leave her, move out.
2. Commit benefit fraud and pretend I’ve done 1, then get a job.
3. Adopt her like a grown up child I am responsible for. For 40 hours of work a week, I can make probably about £80 more, make our lives massively more precarious and anxious (anxiety is her disorder), and be here to help her a lot less (I don’t qualify as a carer).
4. Go on as we are, getting just enough to afford basic bills, never see any of the world, don’t drive, all our friendships withered because we can’t afford to meet up with people. Family relationships reduced to phone calls. Watch everyone’s lives on Facebook move on without us. Watch as my CV becomes less and less employable.
The state is willing to pay her a single person rate and a council flat, *and* give me a council flat *and* unemployment benefits. But it’s not willing to give us one council flat, and her a single rate, and let me work and pay tax.
Being in a settled relationship costs us so much. It’s insane. I’m not really sure how big of a group I’m in though.
edit: fixed typo, and ESA is a disability benefit.
It’s actually so demotivating to see companies making record profits year after year, while laying off thousands at a time, cost of living increasing so much that people can’t afford things people took for granted maybe 30 years ago, and repeatedly being told people need to work more and more.
I’m tired, I can’t afford even half the lifestyle my grandparents had. Everyone deserves a break. Can you really blame people for not bothering?
They also want us to have more children for the birth rate to go up. There’s a massive fucking problem here though in that childcare is non-existent aside unless you are super-rich. So if you have kids chances are one ‘working age’ parent will be not working to care for them. They want these parents back to work? Sort the fucking ridiculous childcare issue.
There are loads of people in this country that don’t want to work and want to rely on someone else’s labour to enable them to live a high quality of life. They’re called landlords. They’re called corporate shareholders. These people are the real problem.
There is the welfare/pay discusion but in lots of towns in the North its welfare or hunger as there are no jobs available.
Push work, especial gov work, out into the rest of the nation this would reduce pressure on the SE and spread the benefits.
Sir Humphry to Bradford!!!
I felt a great disturbance in the force, as if millions of Labour voters suddenly cried out in terror.
When the majority of UC recipients work, it’s a systemic issue. When two wages per household is not enough, it’s a systemic issue. When unemployment is kept over 3% as a brake to inflation…. guess fkn what?
I’ve been out injured since December, and I want back in, because my benefit situation is impeding my housing situation.
That being said, it’s never just that easy, the obvious issue being the huge injury related gap in my employment history.
As well as the fitness issues in general, which best case scenario, I probably need six months of hitting the gym multiple times per week, before I can pull my own weight both figuratively and literally.
If government want to put me back to work, then find a slot open for me and I’ll play ball, but I’m going to need time, a ton of support, and I’m nowhere near being in shape enough for the front lines.
There are 9.2 million people of working age who are classed as out of work. There are currently 900,000 vacancies in the UK.
They’re applying the blame and pressure to the wrong area.
They need to look at the fact that employers simply don’t want to hire or train unemployed people. Even more so if that person has a disability and has been out of work for a long time.
Until the government start addressing this issue then nothing is going to really change.
I don’t know any unemployed people who don’t want to work, not one. Every single one of them (myself included) would love to be given a chance, but employers simply won’t hire us.
They can throw all the “skills” courses known to man at us but it won’t help. Employers aren’t looking at “employability skills” or “soft skills that can be transferred to the working world” they’re looking for experience. And the job center isn’t handing that out to anyone!
My MIL had to leave her job after her breast cancer diagnosis (she’s ok now other than some shoulder pain) as she could no longer do the manual labor required for her job (worked in a hotel laundry). She currently doesn’t work but has been trying to learn basic computer skills but nowhere will hire her as she’s too old/too inexperienced/been out of work for too long. How do they plan on getting her back into work?
1.5 million classed as “unemployed”. Further 15 million economically inactive. UK currently has 800k job vacancies.
Stop blaming the victims of a broken economy. There are no opportunities here.
I wonder how many people are like me, signed off and waiting for the NHS to fix whatever is wrong with us so we can go back to work?
I love the NHS but it’s such an uphill struggle to get anything done.
There’s not enough jobs out there! I’ve been applying for hundreds over the past year and nothing but a few interviews here and there. This is with 20 years of experience and a passion to work
Whilst having a welfare state is necessary, there are hidden costs. I personally know people who effectively died from this system of backward incentives. They’re made redundant, apply for all the available benefits and slowly, without a purpose or structure in their life, turn to alcohol, drugs, not getting out of the house, bad diet, etc. within a few years of this, especially in older age, their body gives up. Really sad.
We need to evolve from the mentality that working yourself to death is a good thing. I work 2 jobs over 7 days a week and I feel like I’m wasting my existence just to pay bills, it’s ridiculous.
Okay sure, more wages would be nice but effectively useless in the face of rising energy, utility, food, tax, housing, fuel, and childcare.
The more we are all paid, these greedy companies will just up things in kind. There needs to be some sort of balance and honestly I’ve no idea how it can be achieved practically.
Maybe fix the fact that employers are not interested in employing younger, inexperienced people, and force older, WELL past retirement age workers OUT of the workforce NOW.
How can people be expected to find work when most employers won’t even actually respond to applications? Most job advertisements on websites like Indeed are fake, only existing to make it seem like these companies are looking to hire when they have no intention of taking anyone on. The government needs to do something to force these employers to hire more people.
Is it still 7m people on NHS waiting list? Maybe fix that and see what happens. Also, my childcare is 2k a month.
An anecdotal case study of this…
A friend of mine 37m is single. He had a good enough public sector job for approx 10 years. He was offered enhanced voluntary redundancy almost 3 years ago, which gave him 6 months tax-free redundancy, pocketing him around £40,000. He was on furlough during covid and saved loads.
Being single most of his life, he has saved a lot of money over the last 15 years.
He also received an inheritance recently – I don’t know how much but would guess five or six figures. He will receive further inheritance in the future when his grandparents pass away and will inherit a property. He will receive further very decent sized inheritance when his parents pass away.
His fixed costs are about £900 to £1,000 a month.
He is obviously burning through his savings, but he also said he’s got loads left and just wants to chill and play video games for the foreseeable.
I personally think it’s short-sighted, but the thing is, he has no real incentive to change from this situation to the nuclear opposite of Mon-Fri 9.00 to 5.30. His choices are relax comfortably or completely change into a totally unrelaxing environment for not needed money.
He said he could last another 15 years like this before going broke.
Again, I think it’s a bit dumb but clearly, the incentive to work just isn’t there.
I suspect loads of educated people are in this situation… waiting on big inheritances and living frugally meanwhile.
Many people are just comfortable and don’t need to work.
Wages are unlivable and we just had a pandemic rip through our population (it’s still going on btw even if you’re ignoring it) that has severe long-term effects that we keep ignoring. Millions of people didn’t just decide not to work you fucking idiots.
Why do they never address the problems:
1. We have too many people not enough jobs. Hardly any new jobs available compared to the number of people unemployed as a result of layoffs and outsourcing.
2. Jobs demands have been increasing over time as a result of this competition. Its no longer enough to just have a degree to get a graduate job you also need some connections and the ability to “market yourself”. Employers are very hesitant to train people with no background they would rather employ people who already have experience.
3. If you have a disability the odds are even more against you especially if you have been out of work for some time and are unsuitable for most jobs. The government want people off benefits but no employers want these people.
4. Pay has stagnated for too long especially for professionals outside finance. When people who don’t work earn more money from renting out properties what incentive is there to actually work?
Meanwhile my condition “Autism” isn’t fully reconised as being something that prevents me from normal living and mangaging on my own.
And yet I feel like i’m commiting fraud just to be able to live (not without it negatives..)
I’ll (and many others like me) will get forced into work and suffer IMMENSLY as a result.. so no systems or understanding will be put in place for it…
Yay….. I can’t wait to become a statistic of suicide for not being able to support myself in a society that doesn’t want me.
We need to lower unskilled third world immigration
I’ll give a tentative agreement, but note hard that the devil is in the details. Identify _why_ they are not working, and fix the problem.
It’s not as simple as ‘bullying’ people into employment, and never will be.
Most people actually want to do something interesting with their lives, and enjoy learning skills.
There’s just usually a load of barriers to entry. Sometimes that’s because their educational needs haven’t been adequately supported thus far. Sometimes it’s because they learn a different way to most people. Sometimes it’s because their physical or mental health is degraded to the point where ‘going out to work’ is disproportionately difficult.
And sometimes it’s because of ‘benefits traps’ where you get punished for even trying.
A job where you spend 2 hours each way on the bus is not a viable choice for anyone with responsibilities, and yet they’ll often be expected to do exactly that.
So my solution is pretty much just to pay people to learn. Make education ‘sorta free’ conditional on actually bothering to try. Let them learn as much as they want, because sooner or later they’ll find they can turn that learning into a profitable source of income – as a teacher/assistant/tutor if nothing else.
Build up the UK’s world class universities to be much more than they are now, and shoot to be the University of the World in the process. Plenty of learning can be delivered cost effectively via web seminars/teleconferencing. Some will need lab/office space of course, but ….
3 million people in the UK have become disabled due to Long Covid in the past 4-5 years
( ongoing devastating health complications by the virus )
Maybe look into funding for trials and treatments to get those millions healthy again and back into the work force
Side note : When a politician has 4 houses and 9 million in the bank and the average person is struggling to pay their bills… theres something wrong with the political system.
Maybe then you should fix the waiting times for a doctor. You can not wonder why people are sick. When you can never see a GP.
Also unacceptable that financial speculators make money by building nothing, but here we are.
It’s a global phenomenon post-pandemic where entire generations of disillusioned people were overcome by nihilism and have no reason to strive anymore. What’s it all for? Who’s it all for? Certainly not them.
A rising tide of mental health issues spurred by terrible socioeconomic conditions did this. It’s not as reductive as laziness although the less intelligent would happily package it up that way to make it easier for people to swallow.
Employers (understandably) don’t want to hire people who can’t predict when they will and won’t be able to work.
Many sick and disabled people would love to work and be productive, but our conditions are so unpredictable that it would be impossible for employers to arrange a schedule that works for them that doesn’t unduly disrupt the rest of the workforce.
But flexibility is only one part of the problem. The greater issue is stability. Disabled people don’t live in a vacuum. We have homes and families and responsibilities that need a certain level of security to maintain.
So while there are flexible options that could be within our abilities, such as self-employment, freelancing, etc, they also come with a terrifying amount of insecurity in knowing that any slight blip in our conditions could take us from feeding our kids and paying our rent to not being able to do either.
What might be worth considering is changing the rules around UC and earnings for people who qualify for disability benefits, so that rather than having an earnings taper we could opt to maintain the set amount of UC and instead sacrifice the personal allowance for tax and/or pay a higher tax rate instead. This would give the security of a guaranteed minimum income while allowing disabled people to work as and when they can in a way that fits them without overburdening the welfare system.
Honestly, in an ideal society everyone would benefit from having a universal basic income, not just those with illnesses and disabilities, but I also understand that as a society we’re not there yet both in affordability and in terms of social perceptions, but putting a similar concept in place for those who want to be able to contribute towards society but are trapped in economic inactivity by a combination of bad bureaucracy and health limitations would go a long way towards fixing the current situation.
(I hope this makes sense, today is not one of my good days!)
Great – find a cure for the multiple disabilities I’m dealing rather than leaving me to rot and I’ll very happily get back to work. What’s that? You’re not going to fund the research needed to start the medical process? Quelle surprise.
This is absolutely not an attack on people with benefits, it’s a target of low wages.
I know a couple who claim UC, get 2 child benefit, £200 in disability for apparent COPD and HDHD, and then work undeclared part-time hours as a hairdresser and labourer and they’re fucking raking it in.
I can’t even be mad at them cause in today’s day & age I basically think people should get by however they can, but seems unfair when I work full time, my partner works part-time and looks after our child, we pay our taxes and work within the system and are so much worse off. Shows just how low wages are across the board and how opportunities are so slim that most times it’s often better to play the system than engage with it.