Well, the government are having a go at those on benefits. Saying how people should work, how those on benefits are getting increase in payments greater than wage rises. I think that they are wrong about this. When it comes to wage rises not keeping up with benefit payments, the answer is simple, people are not being paid enough. At the moment, the benefit system is working to allow employers to keep wages down. Many argue that people should be paid not the minimum wage, but instead a living wage. There are arguments about finding ways to get people to work, arguments about how much people should be paid and arguments about if those on benefits deserve them or not.
Me, I have a view on this, one based on my own background. When younger, my mother was working and at times, I would need to be going to school on free school meals. We were a single parent family and that was due to domestic violence. So when those on the right have a go at those on benefits as well as issues to do with marriage breakups and family values, I get annoyed. In my work, I see loads of people working and working hard and still are needing benefits. I do see some who play the system, but they are few and far between. My mother was one of those who worked hard, made sacrifices to bring up me and my siblings, one who provided for her family and worked to help others. And she is not alone in this. And with regards to what the Tories have planned, these changes WILL hurt those in work, hurting those who are not well off and will cause hardship to so many people. HMRC who have lost jobs (thanks to cuts) and now are not able to tell loads of people that they will not be eligible for child benefit. In 2004 overpayments were made and had to be paid back. That affected too many people, and this is worse as more will be affected and this could have been avoided in so many ways.
Thanks to the sacrifices my mother made and thanks to the grace of God, I am smart and have gained from an education, the education she worked for me to have. Not everyone is as lucky as I am to have been able to get a degree, or to have the genes that make someone smarter. (Being smarter is not better, just different, like being taller, slimmer, fitter etc.) And that means that when I work harder, I earn more. Not everyone is that lucky. I remember seeing Lowestoft, with its high unemployment rates, and the local use of immigrant labour for low paid seasonal work. People there would literally find it not worth the money to work as they would lose out more. Instead employers would bring in workers from abroad to work instead. So if there are to be changes to make things easier for those in work to work, then I am in favour of a very controversial policy. A citizens income. That way, people can work as hard as they like to earn money, i.e. those working will earm more than those who are not working. Employers can keep wages competitive in a global economy and hard work and effort is rewarded.
