UK: Unemployment is now a punishable offence

[Flying Pig]

Today the British Work and Pensions Secretary outlined his plans to force the long-term jobless to do compulsory community service. From the BBC:

Long-term benefit claimants could be forced to do manual labour under proposals to be outlined by Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith.


He is due to outline plans for four-week placements doing jobs like gardening and litter clearing.


He said the message would be: "Play ball or it's going to be difficult."



But the Archbishop of Canterbury warned that the planned welfare changes could drive people "into a downward spiral of uncertainty, even despair".


Under the plan, claimants thought to need "experience of the habits and routines of working life" could be put on 30-hour-a-week placements.



Anyone refusing to take part or failing to turn up on time to work could have their £65 Jobseekers' Allowance stopped for at least three months.


The Work Activity scheme is said to be designed to flush out claimants who have opted for a life on benefits or are doing undeclared jobs on the side.


Deputy Labour leader Harriet Harman told the Andrew Marr Show she would have to wait to see the full details of the proposals on Thursday before giving her verdict.


But she said the government needed to understand that to get people back into work, there had to be jobs for them to go to. She added that Labour would be voting in the Commons on Tuesday against plans to cut Housing Benefit.

Article cut but you can find the full version here.

Now as much as I'm totally against anybody who thinks they can use the welfare state as a means of living a life away from work, I can't help feeling this is a massive step backwards. Towards the turn of the last century this country had very similar ideas about the unemployed, and the workhouses were very much in full swing to force the jobless to do something to earn their keep. About this time, the Liberal reformers studied the causes of poverty and came to the conclusion that actually the primary causes were death or sickness of the father (who was at the time probably the only wage earner) or an excessively large family (in the days before widely available family planning) - and so over the next few decades the government instituted state pensions, council houses, the NHS and other measures which are now cornerstones of our system and were based fundamentally on the principle that it was not the poor man's fault that he was poor, but it was the state's job to help him out.

Is the government now turning its back on this great British tradition?

Apologies for the provocative thread title but I thought it would attract attention

 

[AL_DA_GREAT]

Well it is better that they do some time of work than nothing. I think just the fact that they are doing something is good for them. Being unemployed is not healthy.

 

[dosed150]

sort of seems fair enough, if the governments giving you money, maybe you should do something for it, also i would think staying in the habit of a working day would be helpful, if your sitting round doing nothing its probably quite hard to suddenly get back to working a full day

 

[Cutlass]

Workfare proposals have come and gone in recent decades. No one has been willing to follow through and create one. There is very much a mindset over here that the welfare recipients are just useless and lazy, so there is a large lack of sympathy for them. But workfare has failed for other reasons, mainly that it would cost the government a lot while reducing unemployment. Both factors that the type of people who oppose welfare also oppose.

 

[useless]

Workhouses Workhouses

 

[classical_hero]

Australia introduced a work for the dole program it worked great, since it is useful since it allows those who are not "working" to work on community projects and allow them to gain skills for future employment.

 

[SerriaFox]

I had thought people receiving welfare or unemployment should be required to volunteer for some community program which has been certified by an elected official to be a benefit to his community. I know its a low bar to pass but it save on paperwork.

 

[DinoDoc]

But the Archbishop of Canterbury warned that the planned welfare changes could drive people "into a downward spiral of uncertainty, even despair".

Really? Working for your money make you feel bad?

 

[Formaldehyde]

Is the government now turning its back on this great British tradition?

I don't think you are going far enough back into your nation's history. You should bring back debtors' prisons and forced immigration to other coutries. I'm sure Australia won't mind one bit.

 

[Bill3000]

mmm, broken glass fallacy, delicious

 

[Flying Pig]

Really? Working for your money make you feel bad?

More like making them feel second-class and as if they're working for no reason isn't great for their self-image, morale and thus ability to contribute to society.

 

[Mise]

Really...? Make-work schemes? IDS, I am disappoint. This will cost the government a crapload of money without actually reducing unemployment.

 

[DinoDoc]

More like making them feel second-class and as if they're working for no reason isn't great for their self-image, morale and thus ability to contribute to society.

Yet money for nothing makes them feel great and helps them to contribute to society faster?

 

[useless]

Yeah the poor are totally not marginalised and looked down on!

 

[Mise]

Another thing that makes this a stupid idea is that one of the conditions for claiming Job Seeker's Allowance is that you're not allowed to do voluntary work for charities for more than 16 hours a week. Yet IDS is now forcing people to do voluntary work for 30 hours a week, if you claim it for too long. Not really sure what he's thinking, here.

 

[Cutlass]

Why won't they allow you to volunteer?

 

[useless]

Really...? Make-work schemes? IDS, I am disappoint. This will cost the government a crapload of money without actually reducing unemployment.

At the same time they want to cut public sector jobs...

 

[Mise]

Why won't they allow you to volunteer?

On the basis that, if you are volunteering for more than 16 hours a week, it doesn't leave you enough time to find a paid job (or that you've chosen to work in the voluntary sector, and therefore aren't "unemployed").

 

[DinoDoc]

Yeah the poor are totally not marginalized and looked down on!

That's not really an answer.

Food for thought: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=425572

 

[Mise]

More food for thought: http://www.economist.com/node/17249486

(tl;dr - unemployment benefits have to last long enough for an unemployed person not merely to find any old job, but to find a job that adequately matches his skills and experience. Unemployment benefits that don't last long enough force people to take whatever job they can find, instead of finding a job that matches with their skills and experiences. This leads to a suboptimal allocation of resources -- in otherwords, a market failure.)