The cost of civil disobedience?

Some of them, yes.
Some are no doubt trying to live on less than £100 a week. Normally rent paid for.
Mothers with kids or full families, - very large sums of money. Rent also paid and this can be in real terms if all added together, much more than an average job will pay.
Rent paid = earnings in my view, given that it would have to be out of an employed persons wage.
I would genuinely be much better off if I had went the unemployed route

 

Try it and then come back.

 

Jobseekers is £73.10 for a single person, housing benefit is capped. If that's better than working then you are a useless plumber.

 

When the police officers, or a university professor, or a nuclear scientist, signs on and gets offered a lot of money to keep their house and costs of basic living for their family, why not offer them a job different to their previous profession that would contribute to the UK?

It is not something that is obnoxious to everyone that becomes unemployed - lots of people do voluntary work while on benefits and many retired elderly people do same.
Why not? Is it not shameful to do nothing while taking benefits, if you are mentally and physically capable of doing some sort of job, paid or voluntary?

 

JSA per week:
£73.10 if you’re single over 25.
£114.85 for a couple.
Housing benefit for 1 bed accommodation per week:
£216.51 in London.
£170.83 outside of London.

My rent’s £925 per month.

 

What is this "lot's of money" you keep going on about?

 

What would be the point of that?
Let’s make the Nuclear scientist pick up litter rather do something they’re qualified to do.

 

That is bare minimum example.
Bare in mind even that is guaranteed money each week and rent covered for most areas.
No dental fees etc.
Count it up and see what that works out to be covered by a wage.
And you have started at the minimum benefit level.

 

There is no higher level, universal benefit is even less and paid 5 weeks in arrears.

 

Yes, would be terrible to waste the education and abilities of a person, just so they do a menial job.
But worse if we waste money to pay any such professional benefits to do absolutely nothing.
I don’t think there should be exceptions

 

Why not bring back the workhouse, get them picking oakum for a bowl of gruel.

 

Working on the above figures, if I get this right,
A couple on benefits get approx. £5972 per year plus housing benefit if outside London of £8883.
That totals £14,855 per year in real costs they are given.
Then they also save on other benefits, dental and many others unknown. Still real money.
Remember all benefits would be after the NI contributions and taxes a comparable employed person would have to make.
And still a basic claim.

 

Is that more than you and your partner are earning?

 

Just a little help to society.
I knew a WW2 veteran who worked at voluntary jobs to help ill and elderly people when he was in his eighties.
If he could do that I don’t see why we couldn’t.

 

My partner would earn much more than 3 times that, just in her job alone.
I don’t earn much through choice, despite my job and experience.

Ironically if I had started my life on benefits, I think life would have been easier.

 

Do you do any voluntary work?

If you think that you are very, very wrong.

 

Not voluntary work in the true sense, although I do often do free work.
I am too busy to presently devote time to a voluntary job.

I know people that have been on benefits for a lot of their life and they seem to be well off.
Got all the luxuries of life.

 

Forget about the working for benefits argument, when a criminal, dealing drugs can make over£1000 per day, drive a car that many of us simply couldn't afford and live at a standard most on here couldn't afford, what motivation does he have to change ? ( apart from the remote chance of being caught) Most of the major drug dealers have money salted away, so a few years in prison seems to be accepted as an occupational hazard. Sentencing is pitiful today. Our local rag, reported a drug dealer, caught and prosecuted and sentenced to 4 yrs in prison. Only at the end of the article does it say, he will only spend half of his sentence before being released. Why doesn't 4 yrs actually mean 4 yrs ?
Also consider the amount of crime caused by his actions. The theft, robbery etc committed by his customers to fuel their habit.

 

Drug dealers? I'd euthanase them. Drug addicts? I'd chuck £500 in the pot to fund one last fatal O/D hit so that they wouldn't bother society again.

Now for some numbers - Net Tax consumer & Net Tax contributor.
The Treasury published the threshold figure whereby you moved from being a Net Tax consumer (taking more out than you pay in) to being a Net Tax contributor (paying more in than you take out). The figure given at that time (around 5 years ago - been trying to find the link) was £30.000 p/a.

Now,anyone who is a Net Tax consumer could be termed as a financial burden on the state, so how come many of the jobs (especially in the likes of the NHS where rates vary between around £11K - £18K for a typical unqualified or low qualified post) are done by immigrants, whom we are told are not a burden on the state and who contribute more than they take out?

Also, there is nothing wrong with the concept of workfare - doing something for your benefits.
At a time when cutbacks in local services mean less, then why not utilize the redundant labour sitting all over the country to get out there and do what they can for their welfare cheques? You always feel better if you have accomplished and contributed to something. Is it any wonder that many idle hands are classed as having mental health problems when all they do is sit about all day doing nothing? There is nothing shameful about helping a society which is helping you.

I helped one such individual whom I noticed spent a lot of the day on social media etc. I asked why they were not at work and they told me that they were unfit to work. I asked them what they were doing right now - sitting at a keyboard typing, and followed it up with a "Why don't you do it for a living instead?" After all, if you can type and use a pc and can communicate effectively, then why not get a job doing it?

It simply hadn't occurred to them that what they were doing actually required some kind of skill and that all they needed to do was to get a recognised qualification.

They duly did this and landed a job as a clerk. They have hardly touched social media since.