A guest post by Hektor Reborn
, which details how the benefit culture may have contributed to a breakdown in British society, I know that the trap is now sprung and I am on the verge of becoming stuck.
I am not sick, but I did lose my job in November. I got a reasonably generous redundancy package that was not enough to live on but with savings it was too large to qualify for benefits. That was fine. I would rather make my own way in the world than rely on the State’s handouts. All well and good, but life goes on. I had a flat that I had to pay rent on. Food to eat. People to see and some fun to have. Not having a job but having some money has the upsides of being a student and having a job: both Time and Money at the same time.
I wasn’t being stupid though. I had enough money coming in from doing odd jobs to keep afloat and I wanted to save most of the money to offset various debts (student loan, etc). However, with interest rates crashing down this seemed less and less viable. What is the point in having a full ISA if you get £8 a month?! Additionally, oddjobs dried up, so my bank balance began to creep down to the point where my savings no longer close to offseting my debts. At this point I decided to empty my savings and pay off as much of my debt as possible.
The reason for this is simple. If you have any savings then you get less dole money. But this doesn’t take debts into account. If I wanted to get my Jobseeker’s Allowance (JSA) then that is what I had to do. It was painful getting rid of everything that I had saved up and leaving myself with no financial cushion or room for manœuvre if something went wrong but it had to be done. So I called up the Department of Work and Pensions (0800 055 6688) and spent 45 minutes telling them all the tedious details that they need. They seemed more concerned with finding out which disability I might have had than actually processing my claim. It was almost as if they wanted to register me as disabled so that I didn’t count as unemployed.
I went to the JobCentre Plus in Hammersmith the next day for an interview only to find that they had put me down for contributions based rather than both contribution and income based JSA. The difference essentially being that if you haven’t paid enough NI then you can’t get contributions based and income based is limited to about £64 per week, the level that the State thinks is the minimum you can live on. Sky dishes on council blocks anyone? That’s another story….
As this was my first job since university and having been working in Zug, Switzerland my NI contributions were not enough and additionally I had to fill in a form explaining why I hadn’t been working in the UK (more money, less taxes & better services just about sums it up). Obviously I was seen as Patriotic enough and passed that test. I even managed to make it through the interview with an incredibly patronising fat woman. She didn’t seem interested in what I had done or was good at, but wanted to tell me exactly what I should be doing (reading the Guardian twice a week) and she didn’t ask for a copy of my CV. Why would she? She probably knows exactly what kind of job is right for me just by looking at me.
So, I got my money each week, but not before agreeing to certain conditions, the Jobseeker’s Agreement. This sets out that I will be looking and available for employment, make suitable efforts to find work, etc. I record everything I do in a little book but must make sure I complete three jobseeking steps per week. An example of this would be to phone the local baker to see if he has any work. So not exactly strenuous. I filled up the book and went onto another sheet of paper in my first two weeks and from listening to the other people, it is clear that you don’t actually have to do anything for them to give you the ok. Indeed you could make it all up.
There are two conditions that are important. One is that you can’t work for more than 16 hours in a week and the other is that you earn money you will get your benefit + and extra £5 – the amount you earnt. So if you earn £20 in the week you will get £64+£5-£20=£69. There is a small incentive to work if you are going to get less than your benefit amount, but not much. And if you are going to earn just more than £69 in a week, then you are going to have to do a lot of work for it when you could do nothing and get your money anyway. Also, you can’t do more than 16 hours unpaid work. The reason: you won’t have enough time to conduct your job search properly. Seriously, that is taking the piss. Weekends? Evenings? They can’t actually want anybody to be looking for work.
And now, the best part. Hammersmith & Fulham is my council. They have an eight year waiting list for council housing, but those on JSA can claim housing benefits. I would be eligible for around £150 per week renting a private flat and £15 per week council tax benefit. All of this is income dependent so if you are earning money you get less benefit. So let’s add this up. £64 JSA + £150 Housing Benefit + £15 Council Tax Benefit = £229 per week. Let’s call it £230 for simplicity. That works out at £11,960 per year. Not a bad wage (starting salary as a squaddie is around £15,000) for doing 5 minutes work per week.
So, how much would you have to earn to take home £11,960 after paying council tax at £15 per week? About £15,675 by my calculations. The State has decided that there is an income that people need to survive but they still tax you if you earn that much. How does that make sense?
So you have a choice when offered a job worth around £15,500 or less: take it, work hard, earn your own money or do nothing and get the same amount of money. What if you are offered a job for £16,000? You would be better off by £6.63 per week, not £9.61, due to tax. That’s not a lot of money for a lot more work. £17,000 makes you £19.90 better off per week instead of £28.85 because of tax.
The State seemingly doesn’t want people at the job centre to get jobs (or it would be making them do a lot more), and even if they are offered a job, unless they are offered a good wage (average in the UK is about £25,000) there is little incentive to take it.
If I decide to move into a flat on housing benefit, I will have a large incentive not to take a job unless it comes with a good. So, no bar jobs, no part time waiter work, etc. It just doesn’t pay. The same goes for the other 2.38 million people.