UK 1949 Benefit system

Maura74

There is a very revealing channel 4 documentary on TV at present about the 1949, whcih is very revealing, I think it was better than to what it is now. They seem to take care in finding people work and looking after the people that are not working but there are some very wrong aspects then as well.

Not sure if the link works but here goes

http://www.channel4.com/programmes/benefits-britain-1949

antoobrien

Maura74 wrote: »

There is a very revealing channel 4 documentary on TV at present about the 1949, whcih is very revealing, I think it was better than to what it is now. They seem to take care in finding people work and looking after the people that are not working but there are some very wrong aspects then as well.

Not sure if the link works but here goes

http://www.channel4.com/programmes/benefits-britain-1949

I saw one last week (I think) comparing the first disability system to the current one. It took three people who have been deemed unfit for work (all volunteers) and applied the original rules to their benefits.

One person, who under the current system is not fit to work (confined to a wheelchair) was found a job in a callcenter. He was offered and accepted the job after a work placement.

The second case was borderline, the woman who had pain in her limbs was offered work as a dressmaker but did not take it up. I saw borderline because the person doping her orientation looked like she had lost several fingers. I can't remember what the final outcome of her case was.

The third person was a widower. He had trouble making ends meet under the original rules and, after exhausting all the possibilities (help from family, neighbours) was place din a home, where his situation improved markedly. In the end when he reverted to the current rules, he ended up visiting the people he lived with in the home.

I'm not going to comment on the rights or wrongs of each case, but it appears that there could be benefits to applying some of the old rules to modern cases.

The trouble with it will be how to do it in a fair way without being seen as being totalitarian.

touts

The show I saw was really about people claiming some form of disability rather than someone on the dole. The message I took from it is those who can work should work. Someone with a genuine handicap or disability will be taken care of but that care may come via helping them find a job or getting support from family/friends. I would not agree with taking someone out of their house and shoving them in a home as one poor guy was. He had worked all his life and deserved better. In contrast someone with mysterious pains or other hard to prove "illnesses" will be treated with suspicion and subject to a high level of scrutiny. The taxpayer should be the safety net of last resort (after job, savings & family) but has become a soft touch to keep some lazy people in a lifestyle they are more than happy to remain in.

I think there has to be a mid point between the system we have now where people can opt to be on welfare and turn down job offers because the benefits pay too much and a system where someone can be kept below the poverty line and starved back into work or a nursing home.

There are many options for achieving that (capping welfare as they are starting to do in the UK, paying welfare in vouchers, tax incentives, or even quotas as in 1949, for employers to take on people with disabilities or who have been long termed unemployed). Unfortunately we have a Minister for Social Protection who is a bleeding heart liberal who falls for every sob story she hears and does not have the backbone to take hard decisions.