

David Cameron wants young people to work 30 hours a week for benefits - nodata
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/generalelection/david-cameron-wants-young-people-to-work-30-hours-a-week-for-benefits-in-new-tory-plan-10051342.html

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emp_zealoth
This is just pure evil. Not only this will cause a total breakdown of society
(collapse of births - no one will have a baby if they can't have any social
net, total socioeconomic isolation of a vast portion of young people - the
issue isn't their lack of will to work, but rather lack of will to hire people
on reasonable terms - temp/zero hour "contracts", utter lack of will to pay
enough for a lot of people to support themselves (i have some friends in
Englanf/Wales - some of them have STEM degrees, yet they couldn't work simply
because they would spend more money to get there than earn), zero job security
He finally is able to function somewhat on his own becauee he spent a lot of
time developing actual skills

People slaving away for 50 pounds a week will just get locked in the system
Old people will be happy to have own personal slaves they can push around A
lot of young people won't even bother (yay, we fixed unemployment!) Much rant
I just love "fuck the poor" The "training" will probably be done by one of
huge private firms, sucking up all the money that should be spent to help
those young people

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g8oz
Alternate view: being out of the workforce makes it difficult to get back into
the habits of working. Getting up getting ready, going out and doing something
keep you ready for opportunities as opposed to zombie surfing on the Internet
all the day.

Also, I understand your viewpoint but your words are overheated - "evil"?
Really? The proposal is hardly advocating for the return of the workhouse.

~~~
emp_zealoth
This is just new slave labour, except one had to provide both sustenance and
rudimentary housing. in this case all the funds will most probably be spent on
public transportation just to get to "work"

I call it evil, because the policy is not misguided or even dogmatic. Youth
unemployment in Europe is staggering. If it wasn't for the desperation of
young people it would be even higher. There is growing prevalence of "trash
contracts". No health insurance. No retirement fund. no liability to employer.
no protection. look up zero hour contracts. The problem isn't with young
people. And then Camoron goes out and basically says: "fuck you". If they got
them actual work for minimum wage, I'd call it a bad idea [0]. This is not
even wrapped in convincing bs. It's just a shameless exploitation of people
actually trying to get out of unemployment. A policy designed to skew the
numbers simply by making people not bother registering as unemployed. It's
just abandoning nontrivial portion of society. Evil.

[http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Workfare_in_the_United_Kingdo...](http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Workfare_in_the_United_Kingdom)

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crdoconnor
>“Yes, we will help them, but there is no more something for nothing. They
must give back to their community too.”

Well, unless you're a banker or a high net worth individual looking to avoid
tax, of course. Then you are under no such obligation to give back to the
community.

This is bad for you even if you _aren 't_ earning minimum wage or jobless. The
minimum wage has a ripple effect on the labor market. Raise the minimum wage
and it increases the wage of those earning just above it, and those earning
just above just above it and so on.

The effect is of course, muted the further up the wage ladder you go, but the
effects of raising the minimum wage propagate up a lot further than you'd
imagine.

Of course, if you lower the minimum wage the ripple effect works in the
opposite direction.

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MarkCole
£1.91/h or $2.95/h for you Americans, is damn near slave labour. That's not
even half the UK minimum wage. When I was 18 and on Job Seekers (around 4
years ago), the travel costs to my "local" job centre took up a non-
insignificant portion of that (IIRC somewhere between £5-8/week, which is a
lot of money when you have almost literally none). To then have to travel to
something else out of that money?

I actually think it's a good idea to get some work experience for young people
through this programme, but they definitely need a higher subsidy than £1.91/h
for it. You can literally make more per hour sitting on the street and
begging.

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stegosaurus
I am a young person who succeeded (ish; I am still poor, but on a reasonable
trajectory) in the labour market.

Many of my friends did not. They are not lazy. They are not useless. They are
simply not a good match for the desires of the capitalist machine at the
present time.

They do not deserve to be ground into dust. They have immense value to give to
the world if given half a chance.

This effective slavery will grind down their morale and turn them against
society even further.

Please, see through this 'deserving' nonsense. This is simply a way for the
capitalist class to devalue labour. They own all of the land, they own all of
the raw materials. You cannot opt out of this; your choice is to work for a
pittance (my basic household bills cost more than this), to leave your family
behind, or to die.

This isn't about being 'owed a living'. This is about taking away the means of
sustenance and renting them back to people.

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TwiztidK
I don't know the transit situation in the UK but in the areas I've lived in
the US a huge portion of their "benefits" would be eaten up by transit costs
just to get to "work".

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stuaxo
This is nuts, if there are jobs they can be employed and pay tax, at min wage
or above.

As it is, this will likely be jobs provided by cerco at el which will displace
the bottom paid jobs.

From a tax POV it makes no sense, from a jobs POV it makes no sense.

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cyphunk
Does David Cameron think that only poor kids have trouble learning the "value
of work"? And clearly this policy will only apply to poorer kids.

