I've known this all along ...

[fiat_knox]

I don't think this guy gets the point ...

Value of jobless benefits falls

Thursday, September 3 12:14 am
Press Assoc.

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The value of unemployment-related benefits compared to earnings has fallen steadily since 1970, with workers receiving just a tenth of their pay if they lose their job and claim jobseeker's allowance, a new study has revealed. Skip related content
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Value of jobless benefits falls
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Research by the TUC showed that unemployment benefit rates were 17% of average earnings during the 1980s recession, falling to 14% in the 1990s downturn and a record low of 10% now.

The union organisation said the £64.30 a week allowance for unemployed people in the UK was one of the lowest out-of-work benefit rates compared to wages in the developed world.

The figures proved the need for an increase in the jobseeker's allowance (JSA) to £75 a week to provide more of a "cushion" for people losing their job, said the TUC.

General secretary Brendan Barber said: "Losing your job is always a massive blow, but successive governments have failed to increase unemployment benefits in line with earnings. The result is that people losing their jobs today face a bigger loss in their income than in previous recessions.

"Of course the real challenge is to get people back into work again and the Government is doing much, both through stimulating the economy and through initiatives like the Future Jobs Fund.

"Many people are going to spend a long time on benefits, and £64.30 a week is not enough to get through the week. Increasing JSA by as little as £10 a week would make a real difference to millions of families.

"The view that we need low benefits to encourage people into work makes no sense in a recession. The vast majority of the unemployed are desperate for jobs, and need no encouragement."

The thing is, this is actually a deliberate policy. I don't know who thought of the idea - possibly some Tory during Thatcher's era (and I suspect we're looking at Norman Tebbit here) - but this has the hallmarks of a very long-term policy. And the policy is this:-

"He Who Would Not Work,
Neither Shall He Eat"

(the motto inscribed above the entrance to the Victorian Workhouse), or perhaps ...

"Work Shall Make You Free"

(a rather more chilling entrance motto in the original German ...)

The idea is, "If they won't work, starve them into work!"

Problem is, the jobless' motto has always been

"We're broke. We ain't never gonna be rich. So no matter how bad things get, we must adapt."

And we do. We adapt quicker than a barefoot Borg walking along Dogshit Alley.

For all their fancy talk in Westminster, they are never gonna learn - we get along regardless of their interventions.

Hell, we get along despite their interventions.