Should The Unemployed Be 'Starved' Back Into Work?

Telegraph.co.uk ^ | April 26th, 2010 | Ed West

[fight_truth_decay]

As an election slogan it would certainly have some appeal:

“We should cut all your benefits and starve you into going back to work.”

Those are the words of Lord (Digby) Jones, a former Labour trade minister, on a television programme in which two middle-class youngsters said there was no point looking for work because they got £12,000 a year in benefits.

Surprisingly, when he uttered words to such effect to the Labour cabinet in 2008, “They all just said, ‘What? What are you talking about? You can’t say that’.”

I wonder why? “We’ll starve you back to work” – not quite what Keir Hardie had in mind, is it?

But he has a point. The main problem with the unemployment system is that it does not differentiate enough between young and old. People who’ve worked their whole lives and find themselves out of work because their industry is dying – ie coalminers, carmakers, welders, and, er, journalists – shouldn’t be forced to scrub toilets, pick up litter or do anything else that might heap further humiliation upon them.

On the other hand it’s perverse that a million young people aged 16-24 are not in education, employment or training, and that they’re allowed to waste their lives. These are formative years in which people’s characters are fixed. If they spend their entire early twenties at home smoking a bong while mummy and uncle Government pick up the tab, what hope for their future?

It’s even more perverse that this was allowed to happen while the British economy was desperate for cheap labour, and had to import hundreds of thousands to do the jobs the “Brits wouldn’t do” (including working on the Olympic village, an utter scandal).....

[fight_truth_decay]

Lord Digby Jones (right) meets two out of work young men: Ben Gillett (left) and Tim Cruise

"Any claimant who turned down three job offers should lose their benefits and be put in hostels, relying on 'subsistence rations' of food and water," he said.

Lord Jones made the suggestions in a television documentary after meeting two young unemployed middle class men on benefits who claimed that there was no point in them looking for work because they were raking in £12,000 a year in state benefits. He told the youngsters, Ben Gillett and Tim Cruise: 'If I was watching this I'd throw something at the TV and say, "Get off your backsides and work" and we should cut all your benefits and starve you into going back to work.'

One of the pair, along with his girlfriend, was receiving the equivalent of a £16,000 a year wage in jobseekers' allowance and housing benefits.

Lord Jones said he told the Government about his ideas when he was trade minister between 2007 and 2008 but his suggestions triggered horror and disapproval.

'I told them, "We are creating a victim society of people who think they have no responsibility". 'They all just said, "What? What are you talking about? You can't say that". I might as well have admitted I had mugged my granny.'

The Panorama documentary about the young unemployed is on BBC1 tonight

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1268744/Labour-peer-Digby-Jones-says-cut-benefits-young-people.html#ixzz0mCupK4FQ

Most of us all know someone or another's acquaintance waiting for just the right job to come along...or one I know is trying something out part time to see if she really really likes it. No hurry.

[screaminsunshine]

They should do the jobs illegal aliens are now doing for a start.

[Dem Guard]

Yeah, Start with Pelosi!

[MrEdd]

Are there jobs in the UK, or has government regulation driven them overseas?

Often bread and circuses are required to prevent corrupt governments from being removed violently by the populace.
Thus, in the end the foolish welfare projects remain the priority while essential infrastructure decays.

[Ghost of Philip Marlowe]

Without reading the article, the headline presents a straw-man argument employing the classically fallacious either/or option.

No one is suggesting “starving” people back into work.

There are millions who have abused the safety net society was good and charitable enough to create and have converted that net into a hammock.

What we are suggesting is that we 1. end the luxurious lifestyle, 2. encourage and even demand some sort of work for their handouts and 3. return “shame” to being a bum.

[reaganaut1]

People who’ve worked their whole lives and find themselves out of work because their industry is dying – ie coalminers, carmakers, welders, and, er, journalists – shouldn’t be forced to scrub toilets, pick up litter or do anything else that might heap further humiliation upon them.

The author may be more sensible than the average Briton, but he is still a fool. People who lose their jobs SHOULD take the work that is available if they cannot live on their savings. Scrubbing toilets is no fun, but it need not be "humiliating" unless one has developed a certain attitude toward physical labor.

[icwhatudo]

Within 5 days of his last unemployment check, my neighbor and his wife both “magically” found jobs. He was on unemployment for over 1 1/2 years.

[Blood of Tyrants]

“shouldn’t be forced to scrub toilets, pick up litter or do anything else that might heap further humiliation upon them.”

So HONEST WORK is “beneath them”?

[autumnraine]

Well, it says that they had a period where they were starved for labour and had to get immigrants in to do the work.

So in effect, socialist induced laziness caused the UK to be taken over by Sharia Law.

[autumnraine]

I think America has a different idea of “work” than those in other societies like in Europe. Many people came to America willing to wipe hineys to have the OPPORTUNITY to do well and so most average Americans (not all, but a good many) find any type of work honorable.

[MsLady]

My niece is 22. She’s lived off her parents for over a year. Claiming she can’t find work. I asked my brother-in-law why she just couldn’t work a gas station or something like that. Oh, he says, she’s picky....well la te da. If he wants to keep paying her car insurance, her gas, and everything else, no skin off my nose. But, how many kids are living off welfare because it’s beneath them to work at McD’s? I’ve heard it more than once from young adults, I won’t work there.

[cjshapi]

If those two are any indication of the average unemployed male looks like it appears there should be plenty of work for barbers.

[hampdenkid]

I think St Paul had a pretty good idea in 2 Thessalonians 3:10: For even when we were with you, this we commanded you, that if any would not work, neither should he eat.

[pointsal]

Interesting notion.... what about applying the concept to politicians?

[mountainlion]

What a heartless group these brits, starve someone that does not have a job! Britobama seems worse. I see where he got the ideas.

[concerned about politics]

On the other hand it’s perverse that a million young people aged 16-24 are not in education, employment or training, and that they’re allowed to waste their lives. These are formative years in which people’s characters are fixed. If they spend their entire early twenties at home smoking a bong while mummy and uncle Government pick up the tab, what hope for their future?

I agree. There's millions of American freeloaders living their whole lives on welfare while our families pick up the tap.
Has anyone ever noticed the food they can buy with their food stamps? My gosh. As a working family, I don't think we've ever been able to dine as well as they do - and we're the ones paying their bill.
The war on poverty is a miserable failure. It's time we surrender and bring our wages back home. It's way past time the democrat freeloaders got their own jobs.

[dblshot]

Part of the reason their are no jobs is a business would have to offer substantially higher pay than the welfare payments to get people to work. The job might not be worth that. Therefore low end, entry level jobs do not exist. Without entry level jobs, products of British and US public education systems cannot aquire job skills that will eventually earn them substantially more than welfare payments. The govenrtment itself has to pay higher wages to get employees upping the % of GDP government spends. Welfare for those unable is one thing, used to disable it is evil.

[Opinionated Blowhard]

You are right. Its amazing that much of the population in the UK and US view cutting off benefits as “starving” someone, as if the person was put in a prison cell and denied food.

And you have to love the attitude of those kids. Why should we work when we get enough money to get by on the dole? We are at a point in Western society where unemployment and welfare benefits give the lazy man enough to get by. You can sit on your arse in your apartmentment with a fridge full of food watching cable TV and collect a check that will cover it. If you get sick, the government will take care of you. More and more adults and kids are deciding that the dole gives them a life they are willing to live with rather than put effort into supporting themselves. And, of course, God forbid you try to stigmatize them as lazy bums.

[Jagdgewehr]

...it’s perverse that a million young people aged 16-24 are not in education, employment or training, and that they’re allowed to waste their lives.

Well, socialism is a perverse thing.

[Mad Dawgg]

"Should The Unemployed Be 'Starved' Back Into Work?"

In the USA that ship has already sailed. From now on Unemployment Bennies will be extended for years. It might just become permanent.