That is true and its a truth that the propaganda machine don't want you to realise as the target for the public ire is supposed to be the shirkers, those idle, lazy good-for-nothing, haven't worked in three generations (another lie for which they were reprimanded), benefits claimants who are earning the equivalent of £36k EASILY without actually having to get out of bed all day.

The claim was that in the test area 8000 people have moved from unemployment into work as a result of having their benefits capped at £500, the obvious implication being that when you strangle the benefits to these horrible shirking people then this and this alone is what gets them off their idle s to find a job that will pay them more than £500 a week net.

And then when the head of one of the councils in the test area mentions actual stats that show nothing of the sorts we are told that they are lies perpetrated by someone with an agenda against the coalition cuts and in any case if IDS thinks that it is so then it must be, no arguments.

And didn't Boy George recently state that you now have to wait a week before being able to sign back on?
So Vic Meldrew offers 2 weeks work to the recently signed off applicant.
He then has to support himself for a week with no dosh.
Then when signed on how many more weeks before he actually gets his first payment again?
Not worth a w@nk really is it?

They also never counted weekend work (civil servants were all Monday to Friday wallahs), so a semi-pro RL player could sign on Monday to Friday, play the weekend and pocket the match (hopefully winning) pay without penalty

[urlhttp://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/chris-godfrey/benefits-welfare-statistics_b_3603923.html[/url

OK so its a blog post on an internet news media site, its a personal opinion, but it raises some good points which most would recognise, mainly that the British public are led, with a ring through their noses, willingly by news reportage that is far from neutral, increasingly does not even report the truth or at the least will manipulate the truth to point the story in a different direction, and that the likes of the Daily Mail news reporting web site is at best hypocritical in its approach to females, (condescending doesn't actually describe their attitude enough).

[url=http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/bedroom-tax-protesters-deliver-letters-2057883#.UeY61wQ5t5I.twitter1852 letters from disabled people worried about the bedroom tax delivered to Downing Street[/url

No doubt IDS will simply "beleive they are untrue" and magically, they will be

The poll was a stupid poll asking people to guess numbers about things which they will know next to nothing about.

The fact that the numbers were spectacularly wrong is all the fault of The Sun, The Mail and the Tories, obviously.

I'm just glad The Sin Bin is free from media sensationalism and bias.

These type of articles are just desperate. A narrow band of left wingers know that they are in a minority on issues such as welfare reform so they point to things like this and say 'the public are too dumb to understand', implying that they are right and the whole rest of the population is wrong. It really is see through.

You stole that quote from Ian Duncan Smith - he used those exact words on Monday when describing statistics that showed that his "Squeezing welfare gets people off their s and back to work" numbers were a figment of his imagination (he certainly didn't reference any official stats whereas the contradictory stats were referenced).

Keep swallowing the hype, The Sun is counting on you in 2015.

Unless they change their support again.

40 x 10 = £400 - his deductions, that we all pay tax and NI.

It's not half his wages at all, read what you are writing before posting.

Fair enough I'd miss read it and didn't realise it was an estimate.

Now come on, Jerry, you know perfectly well that, if you say: 'Well, I believe it,' a lie ceases to become a lie.

A simple question requiring a simple answer, are you in favour of welfare reform?

You can't phrase the question like that though, in this newly enlightened era of media driven government you would have to phrase the question as follows ...

"Do you favour welfare reform in order to expunge the country of shirkers, third generation unemployed, faked disablility claimants, and foreigners coming here for an easy life?" Tick Yes or No, calls may be charged after the poll has ended but thats tough, we could probably not charge for calls after a fixed end time but why the hell should we if you are stupid enough not t read the T&C.

[url=http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-23340165UK unempolyment falls[/url. Yay!

However: "the number of long-term jobless rose."

"About 915,000 people have been out of work for more than a year, an increase of 32,000 and the highest total since 1996.

"Just over 460,000 people have been jobless for more than two years, the highest figure since 1997."

And ... "The number of people classed as economically inactive also increased in the latest quarter, up by 87,000 to 9.04 million."

So, perhaps the bubbly goes back on hold.

Further:



[my emphasis So no comment on how many people are in work, yet need in-work benefits because the pay is too low or because they cannot get enough hours? It's a very good illustration of why using the figure of those who are registered as 100% unemployed does not properly reflect the situation – and also of what confused some economists for a time a year or so ago, when unemployment – by that same definition – was not rising quite as expected, but the benefits bill was. The elephant in the room is underemployment, but that doesn't count for political purposes. So someone may be on a zero hours contract, and getting nothing in a week, but they don't get counted as unemployed.



It shows nothing of the sort. At it's most simplistic (in keeping, therefore, with the nature of thew figures and the way they're used) there are 2.51 million people registered as out of work and there are "over half a million vacancies". In other words, there are not enough jobs for the number of unemployed.

Suggesting that it's the fault of those who don't get those vacancies is typical nastiness.

The headline figures also does not reveal whether those jobs are full-time, part-time, zero-hours contracts etc.

Only last week, it was revealed that [url=http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/jobs/9798981/Graduates-face-toughest-job-market-since-depths-of-recession.htmlthings are getting tougher for graduates[/url – yet presumably, by Hoban's measure, any who don't get a job will only have themselves to blame.

You should have just written it correctly in the first place.

I'd worked out what you meant to write after I later read your post about the site manager being ripped off. But what you meant to write wasn't what you wrote.

Aren't the government in the middle of a push to kick off tens of thousands of people from the disability benefits and "into work". When they don't get jobs aren't the govt going to have a problem massaging their unemployment figures?

Yes.

But the good news is that those shirkers will no longer be drawing £36k a year (equivalent) in benefits, so although the unemployed figures will go up the benefits bill will drop dramatically - and so will the second hand price of Range Rovers when all of those shirkers are now on just £70 a week JSA and can no longer afford them.

Also,

In the short term those former shirkers will only just have appeared on the unemployed figures and as the propaganda Ministers seem keen to just focus on the 12 and 24 month unemployed, we won't get to hear about them for at least another year, which, given the fact that most of them were very ill anyway, might mean they have died in the meantime (if not through their illness then through starvation, hopefully).


Disclaimer : some or all of the above may be sarcasm.

Quote ="Lord God Jose Mourinho"Aren't the government in the middle of a push to kick off tens of thousands of people from the disability benefits and "into work". When they don't get jobs aren't the govt going to have a problem massaging their unemployment figures?'" Don't worry, they've already thought of that. If you are no longer "eligable" for ESA you can apply for JSA but the DWP and job centre will tell you you can't apply for JobSeekers as you are too ill to work and can't sign to say you are actively seeking work and are capable of 40 hours a week. So you are left with nothing, hanging in limbo not even a benefit statistic. I don't care what the likes of IDS and Ajw say, this is really happening, to real people. www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/fo ... -help-me!!!

Quote ="Lord God Jose Mourinho"Aren't the government in the middle of a push to kick off tens of thousands of people from the disability benefits and "into work". When they don't get jobs aren't the govt going to have a problem massaging their unemployment figures?'" Don't worry, they've already thought of that. If you are no longer "eligable" for ESA you can apply for JSA but the DWP and job centre will tell you you can't apply for JobSeekers as you are too ill to work and can't sign to say you are actively seeking work and are capable of 40 hours a week. So you are left with nothing, hanging in limbo not even a benefit statistic. I don't care what the likes of IDS and Ajw say, this is really happening, to real people. www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/fo ... -help-me!!!

Everyone knows that people can get a job if they really want one, the very fact that there are a quarter of a million jobs going unfilled tells you that the 2.5 million who aren't applying for them are just plain lazy and are costing us all money that could be better used in protecting our country from illegal asylum seekers coming in via the Common Market.

Quote ="Hull White Star"Don't worry, they've already thought of that. If you are no longer "eligable" for ESA you can apply for JSA but the DWP and job centre will tell you you can't apply for JobSeekers as you are too ill to work and can't sign to say you are actively seeking work and are capable of 40 hours a week. So you are left with nothing, hanging in limbo not even a benefit statistic. I don't care what the likes of IDS and Ajw say, this is really happening, to real people. www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/fo ... -help-me!!!'" There you are then - the perfect storm. This actually happened once before in history you know, a time when a class of people were defined as being undesirable and not required in a society where only perfect striving people need apply, the population as a whole acquiesced and so the government rounded them all up and ... well we know what happened next.

Quote ="Hull White Star"Don't worry, they've already thought of that. If you are no longer "eligable" for ESA you can apply for JSA but the DWP and job centre will tell you you can't apply for JobSeekers as you are too ill to work and can't sign to say you are actively seeking work and are capable of 40 hours a week. So you are left with nothing, hanging in limbo not even a benefit statistic. I don't care what the likes of IDS and Ajw say, this is really happening, to real people. www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/fo ... -help-me!!!'" There you are then - the perfect storm. This actually happened once before in history you know, a time when a class of people were defined as being undesirable and not required in a society where only perfect striving people need apply, the population as a whole acquiesced and so the government rounded them all up and ... well we know what happened next.

Everyone should be a favour of welfare reform - the system should provide the best available option for the monies available. Welfare reform should be ongoing activity so as to reflect the needs of those benefitting from the system.

I think the question has to be "are you in favour of [ifair[/i welfare reform."? Because we all know at the moment it isn't. In 2013 food banks shouldn't exist (of be few and far between), disabled people should get all the help they need without having to jump through hoops and have their Doctors/Consultants listened to instead of a tick box excersise, under 25's should be able to live independently and claim housing benefit if they need it (yes in 2013 under 25's [ido[/i get ill and [iare [/imade redundant), the recently unemployed shouldn't have to wait a week without any money. (I know their mortgage company, supermarket or utility company wouldn't!) I could go on and on.

And as for the bit in bold, the system should provide the best option for all those who need it without putting unfair sanctions on people, for example how is it fair that a 24 year old who lives independently becomes redundant and won't get any housing benefit and has to be "supported" by parents (thats if they have any, some people have no one), yet the just turned 26 year old in the same block of flats who worked at the same place and was made redundant the same time gets to keep their flat because they can claim housing benefit. Again I could go on and on.

I think I'm one of those who would be much better off on JSA benefits than in work. I'm currently in PT employment, 24-hours per week on minimum wage but my employer requires me to have a car insured for business purposes.

I'm reasonably young (mid-20s) with zero no claims so the cost of insurance is short of £1,000. Then there's tax and MOT to think of, plus petrol which I don't get paid for commuting, but I may be required to travel for work purposes on short notice.

When everything adds up including rent and living, I'm just breaking even and cannot afford to pay for my insurance when the renewal comes (even with a standing order for an affordable amount of money into a savings account to pay for it), hence I'm fearing for my job when I tell my employer I no longer have a car.

Annoyingly I don't think I qualify for income support as I work too much!

The 5 Giants of the Welfare State:

Want, Disease, Ignorance, Squalor and Idleness

How are these being met in modern society?

Do you not recieve a car allowance from your employer?