Cutting benefits for under-25s

[x-punk]

David Cameron suggests cutting benefits for under-25s

David Cameron has suggested benefits paid to people under the age of 25 could be cut in an effort to reduce long-term worklessness.


In his speech to the Conservative conference, the prime minister promised to "nag and push and guide" young people away from a life on the dole.
It was later confirmed that the government is reviewing policies for 16-to-25-year-olds.

But unions said cutting benefits would drive more young people into poverty.

The latest figures (http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/lms/young-people-not-in-education--employment-or-training--neets-/august-2013/index.html) from the Department of Work and Pensions showed 1.09 million people between the ages of 16 and 24 were not in work, education or training.

The problem has proved stubbornly hard to tackle across Europe, with rates of youth unemployment soaring above 50% in Spain.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-24369514

Here goes yet another attack on young people in the UK. They are already cutting housing benefit for under 25's, now they plan to stop their means of subsistence. Unemployment is high and there are sparse few jobs out there so how the hell is stopping their dole money gonna push them into a job that isnt there.

Talking of which, Osbourne has come up with yet another great idea called the 'Help to Work' programme. If it wasnt bad enough with benefit cuts and the idiotic 'workfare' programme we now get this. It just never ends for the young, poor and unemployed.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/george-osbornes-welfare-war-work-for-your-benefits--or-attend-jobcentre-daily-8847851.html

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

This isn't about getting people into work, that's just an ideologically-correct smokescreen. The real objective is to strangle the welfare state to death by degrees, the "skivers vs strivers" rhetoric is merely a device to distract from that.

[Creative Destruction]

How is cutting benefits going to help "worklessness" if there are no jobs to work?

[Mather]

To top it all off, Cameron has presented this bullshit (along with more attacks on the disabled) as preparing young people for the "global race in which Britain can succeed by becoming a land of opportunity".

You really can't make it up, fucking unbelievable!

[piet11111]

How is cutting benefits going to help "worklessness" if there are no jobs to work?

Well first the unemployed die off then people will have to be hired to pick up their corpses creating a whole new social demand for our young entrepreneurial minded youths to fill in with a solid business plan consisting of purchasing a wheelbarrow and a shovel.

[Red Commissar]

To top it all off, Cameron has presented this bullshit (along with more attacks on the disabled) as preparing young people for the "global race in which Britain can succeed by becoming a land of opportunity".

You really can't make it up, fucking unbelievable!

It's always a common theme among these types thinking that if they remove these networks, it'll make people less "dependent" and force them to work. It's coming off a very idiotic assumption that they're in that state because they don't apply themselves, one that is reinforced through relentless attacks from both tabloid and major media when they focus on some random individual perceived as abusing the welfare system and applying that to everyone else in their condition. It helps to pigeonhole the poor into being attacked, I'm just surprised other people in similar circumstances join in on these attacks.

I mean here in Texas one of the several reasons the (conservative) pundits here apparently attribute the state's ability to have been insulated from the economic doldrums is that our welfare system is less "generous" than other states. Ergo, the way out of the economic crisis is to force people off the teat of the state and be productive! This is, of course, ignoring that Texas also has relatively similar rates of aid that other large states do and has the benefit of an oil industry to serve as a buffer...

[brigadista]

with all the benefits sanctioning and obstacle course to now get benefit[Kafkaesque to say the least] this is an attempt to force youth in particular to work for nothing or on the zero hours contracts in order to force a final abandonment of any enforcement of dwindlng employment rights or organisation -or legal challenge [no more legal aid for it]

im spitting here i despise this gov so much - no doubt the other tories will not do anything to change things

any youth organising at this time gets my support - tough tough time to be young in Britland :cursing::cursing::cursing:

[Regicollis]

The problem experienced by the working class is unemployment.

In response the bourgeoisie conspire to solve a problem of laziness.

Utterly disgusting.

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

It's always a common theme among these types thinking that if they remove these networks, it'll make people less "dependent" and force them to work. It's coming off a very idiotic assumption that they're in that state because they don't apply themselves, one that is reinforced through relentless attacks from both tabloid and major media when they focus on some random individual perceived as abusing the welfare system and applying that to everyone else in their condition. It helps to pigeonhole the poor into being attacked, I'm just surprised other people in similar circumstances join in on these attacks.

Do they really believe that, though? I'm starting to get the distinct impression that this talk of "ending welfare dependency" and "ending the something for nothing culture" (can I throw up now?) is something which they don't really believe themselves, but which is produced for the consumption of the sycophantic media for them to thoughtlessly regurgitate to the public. In other words, it's not so much that they're thinking "we need to get people off welfare and into work, and this is how we'll do it" but rather "we need to destroy the government-provided social safety net, and if we do it this way while saying these things, we can do it slowly but with a lot less resistance than doing it all in one go"

I say this because it seems to me that being a bunch of out-of-touch blue-bloods born with a silver spoon in their mouth is an insufficient hypothesis to explain their actions, which have well-publicised negative consequences. Since members of the UK government are not exactly bereft of resources which could possibly inform their actions, there must be a significant degree of mendacity (or at the very least an actively-preserved ignorance that is indistinguishable from malice) on their part in order to account for their behaviour.

To simplify my argument, I can believe that there are people who genuinely believe this kind of crap, but I doubt that many of them are in positions of genuine/significant political or economic power, they're largely useful idiots who get taken advantage of by those with the right connections and a distinct lack of empathy or basic human decency.

[synthesis]

In other words, it's not so much that they're thinking "we need to get people off welfare and into work, and this is how we'll do it" but rather "we need to destroy the government-provided social safety net, and if we do it this way while saying these things, we can do it slowly but with a lot less resistance than doing it all in one go"

I'd bet money it's both. Never underestimate the ability of assholes to delude themselves about the broader implications of their actions and agenda, especially when it's some way they can morally justify the fucked up things they do.

I guarantee you some of them really believe it because "I and/or people I know didn't get off our asses and stop doing coke and start working until my family cut off my trust fund or allowance or whatever so that's what the government needs to do to the working class."

[Mañana]

The poor on these shores are so screwed for like at least a decade or till the off chance something big happens. The last party had to go, the more moderate one, because of increasing subservience to business class ideology (that power in capitalism is entwined to), but the thing that replaced it was more than repugnant. The tory's are a disgrace to humanity, & the lib dem's rubbished all they claimed they stood for in exchange for things they failed to get, like the AV & lords reform, which btw was more about getting a system in which they could hold more power, than about democracy, which obviously the conservatives would sooner give their bentley's to their nannies than let those pass. On top of the public sphere is beyond shattered, with the excuse for media repeatedly stamping on it.

On a personal note: last week on my lunch at work a perfectly decent person expressed they views on benefits, telling a daily mail tale of a lady that bought a horse on her hand outs, wait it might have been the mirror, & instead of a horse then it couldda well then been a unicorn. After a brief exchange normative influence swayed her, especially the part where it turned out the guy sitting next to me had a severely disabled bother that had just been hit on the last volley of cuts. This is just the what happens when the workers only subsist, & others subsistence come without the labor. No shortage of printed paper for that fire!

[x-punk]

I say this because it seems to me that being a bunch of out-of-touch blue-bloods born with a silver spoon in their mouth is an insufficient hypothesis to explain their actions, which have well-publicised negative consequences. Since members of the UK government are not exactly bereft of resources which could possibly inform their actions, there must be a significant degree of mendacity (or at the very least an actively-preserved ignorance that is indistinguishable from malice) on their part in order to account for their behaviour.


I agree with this. The public get the idea that its just a bunch of Etonian toffs making typical Tory decisions to screw the poor. But the govt has huge resources which influence decision making not least the multitude of think-tanks which guide govt decisions and policy. Moreover, this assault on the unemployed began under the Labour govt which is supposedly the left wing party. It is also happening in other countries too. So to just say its the tory party doing their usual 'screw the poor' routine is not really looking at the bigger picture.

I dont know exactly the reason the govt is doing this but I would imagine its just for social control. Forcing the unemployed to be pawns which the govt can control in return for subsistence. The 'Help to Work' programme forces them to work 30 hours per week plus 10 hours of looking for a job for only the £70 per week unemployment benefit. Moreover, it puts the frighteners up those currently working, pushing them to work harder for less which drives down wages.

Unfortunately, many working people in this country seem to agree with this assault on the unemployed. The media has conditioned them to thinking that the unemployed are lazy, greedy people who screw them out of their tax money to live some sort of privileged life on benefits. For years now there has been a media barrage propagating this idea. For example, in yesterdays paper, conveniently not far from the story about the govt cutting benefits, there was this story. Take a look at the comments section below the article if you really want something to make your blood boil:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2441291/Arrogance-jobless-Kent-mother-27k-year-benefits-believes-working-mugs-game.html

[Dennis the 'Bloody Peasant']

I bet the Daily Mail readers were wetting their Union Jack knickers with delight when they heard about these policies. Same old Tory nonsense about how the free market will solve all our problems...like it hasn't done at all up until now.
Thatcher / Blair and all their ilk live on in the hearts and minds of the maintream political class; going to take a lot to turn this shit around.

Depressed now :(

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

Unfortunately, many working people in this country seem to agree with this assault on the unemployed. The media has conditioned them to thinking that the unemployed are lazy, greedy people who screw them out of their tax money to live some sort of privileged life on benefits. For years now there has been a media barrage propagating this idea. For example, in yesterdays paper, conveniently not far from the story about the govt cutting benefits, there was this story. Take a look at the comments section below the article if you really want something to make your blood boil:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2441291/Arrogance-jobless-Kent-mother-27k-year-benefits-believes-working-mugs-game.html

The Daily Mail comments section is a wretched hive of scum and villainy, but I rather doubt that it is majorly representative of the public's general opinion. Firstly because if it was then I think society would be a much worse place than it currently is, secondly because the sample is self-selecting (the Daily Mail is well-known to be a sensationalist right-wing rag, so guess what kind of person would go there to comment?) and lastly because not everyone who reads will make a comment.

It definitely feels like there has been an increase in hateful rhetoric, but I wonder how much of it is being generated by a vocal minority with media backing. Don't forget that a lot of the Daily Mail's reading public (aspirational workers who consider themselves "middle class") will have been hit by the cuts, and I doubt that many of them would be thrilled at the prospect of having their grown-up children move back in with them, which is a distinct possibility if benefits for the under-25s were slashed as described in the OP.

My hunch is that what contributes to the Daily Mail's ability to get away with what it does is largely down to apathy and political disengagement on the part of the British public. Hard data would be better than any hunch, but I'm not sure how one would go about acquiring it.

[x-punk]

My hunch is that what contributes to the Daily Mail's ability to get away with what it does is largely down to apathy and political disengagement on the part of the British public. Hard data would be better than any hunch, but I'm not sure how one would go about acquiring it.

I know the Daily Mail is bad but I couldnt help posting the article mostly because it was near the main article about the benefit cuts. It seemed like a nasty little piece of propaganda to influence readers thinking.

It is hard to say what the majority of peoples views are on the subject but from just personal experience I hear more and more people slamming the unemployed. Certainly the vehemence and anger towards them seems to have increased dramatically from a few decades ago.

[TruProl]

They raise fee's to 9 K yet have the audacity to complain about people not going into higher education. The truth is that these measures are yet another example of the continued attack of English working class over the past thirty years which has been pretty much destroyed and disgusts me.

If they even cut even ten per cent of military spending then we would have enough to cover thousands of nurses for five years and maintain benefits to those who need them the most.

The reasons the cuts really rile me is that they are increasing spending on things the British don't want yet are cutting them on things we do want. Cut the military-industrial complex first then start telling us that it's the NHS and services which really matter have to bear the brunt due to their imperialistic and fascistic notions. And this applies to all three main parties, especially Labour