The Dole

Pecker31 · 05-08-2016 10:15AM #1

Does anyone else think that people who are on the dole for a certain period of time should have to perform community service in order to qualify?

Take for example people who've been on it for months without much effort towards getting a job should be made to do some hours of community service every week (ie street cleaning, road works, building cleaners etc etc, pending qualifications obviously) so that at least the government getting something done for the money they're giving them.

I couldn't agree more, I come from a small town and see the same old people getting the dole every week, I would say 20% of them can't work due to disability or otherwise and the others are useless s**ts who want to do nothing but screw taxpayers.

They should be made work maybe 1/2 days a week for the council or whoever to make amends for the free money they are getting. It would be no harm and might stop a lot of the leeching.

**Rant Over** Phew!

JustTheOne · 05-08-2016 10:22AM

In certain cases yes.

Idle hands make the devils work.

People need to keep their minds occupied and have a purpose.

Speedwell · 05-08-2016 10:33AM

If I was on the dole, I would be absolutely no use doing physical labor. Sorry, folks; my body is just not up to the task.

I would be a lot of use to the community if I could use the skills I built up over a lifetime of experience in publishing, training, and IT. But, then again, that would be a job.

Wanderer78 · 05-08-2016 10:45AM

Unemployment is a complicated one, particularly long-term. You'll find most long-term unemployed have complicated issues that may not be diagnosed. These issues require a lot of money and resources in order the deal with and treat but unfortunately not enough are available. Yes all citizens should contribute to society but when you have complicated issues, this can be hard

K-9 · 05-08-2016 01:21PM

I moved the newer posts over to a new thread as some may want to discuss it here.

Speedwell · 05-08-2016 01:29PM

If the job needs to be done, it is a real job worth a monetary value, and the community needs to pay someone its value (job creation), or they are taking real work out of the hands of real workers who need real jobs. That means that if you are requiring someone on the dole to do that work, you are employing them. If you assign a job to someone regardless of whether they can do the job or want to, that is a bad HR practice. If the job doesn't need to be done, then you don't need to yank someone off the dole to do it.

El_Duderino 09 · 05-08-2016 01:35PM

Speedwell wrote:

If the job needs to be done, it is a real job worth a monetary value, and the community needs to pay someone its value (job creation), or they are taking real work out of the hands of real workers who need real jobs. That means that if you are requiring someone on the dole to do that work, you are employing them. If you assign a job to someone regardless of whether they can do the job or want to, that is a bad hiring practice. If the job doesn't need to be done, then you don't need to yank someone off the dole to do it.

Things like street weeping and general aesthetic maintenance are always needed and it's not like you'd be undercutting the people who have trained for those jobs. Then there's the voluntarily sector which could use some labour.

There are possibilities and ways to do it without putting anyone out of business. You would need to hire supervisors but that's a worthwhile job.

Speedwell · 05-08-2016 01:39PM

El_Duderino 09 wrote: »

Things like street weeping and general aesthetic maintenance are always needed and it's not like you'd be undercutting the people who have trained for those jobs. Then there's the voluntarily sector which could use some labour.

There are possibilities and ways to do it without putting anyone out of business. You would need to hire supervisors but that's a worthwhile job.

Things like database design and development of new vaccinations are also always needed, and I am sure there are out-of-work IT and medical professionals on the dole, but somehow those types of jobs never get mentioned when people start talking about jobs that those on the dole can do for free. The perception that people on the dole are always uneducated manual labourers glad to dumbly do any job assigned to them like a plow horse that doesn't care what field it plows has got to go.

rachaelf750 · 05-08-2016 01:45PM

Job creating should not be diminished by people receiving the dole, what should happen is the longer your on it the less you receive. 1 year full rate 2 years 75% rate 3 years 60% rate and so on , thiswoyld encourage the unemployed to take up employment. Now if only the government would introduce it.

Speedwell · 05-08-2016 01:46PM

rachaelf750 wrote: »

Job creating should not be diminished by people receiving the dole, what should happen is the longer your on it the less you receive. 1 year full rate 2 years 75% rate 3 years 60% rate and so on , thiswoyld encourage the unemployed to take up employment. Now if only the government would introduce it.

If the only thing keeping people from getting and keeping a decent job was that they refused to reach out their hand and take it, your argument might make some limited sense.

El_Duderino 09 · 05-08-2016 01:51PM

Speedwell wrote:

Things like database design and development of new vaccinations are also always needed, and I am sure there are out-of-work IT and medical professionals on the dole, but somehow those types of jobs never get mentioned when people start talking about jobs that those on the dole can do for free. The perception that people on the dole are always uneducated manual labourers glad to dumbly do any job assigned to them like a plow horse that doesn't care what field it plows has got to go.

No you're missing the point I was making. If you dump people into the market for free then you depress the price of labour. If you trained as a database designer you'd be annoyed when the employers aren't hiring because they can get the labour for free (job bridge).

That's why i suggested unskilled jobs which always need to be done anyway. It provides meaningful occupation for the person on the dole ensures they don't get free money for sitting on their arse and doesn't present the problems associated with job bridge.

Speedwell · 05-08-2016 02:02PM

El_Duderino 09 wrote: »

No you're missing the point I was making. If you dump people into the market for free then you depress the price of labour. If you trained as a database designer you'd be annoyed when the employers aren't hiring because they can get the labour for free (job bridge).

That's why i suggested unskilled jobs which always need to be done anyway. It provides meaningful occupation for the person on the dole ensures they don't get free money for sitting on their arse and doesn't present the problems associated with job bridge.

OK, I see what you mean. I might agree, but I think you are possibly incorrect about it preventing problems associated with schemes like JobBridge. If I understand it correctly, JobBridge is supposed to provide people who have no work skills with basic experience in an undemanding job in a real workplace so they can get better jobs for themselves once their subsidised term ends, in that workplace or another. People who are on the dole because they had adequate jobs and subsequently lost them are clearly not the target clients for such a scheme.

If I were to go on the dole tomorrow and if such a scheme were in place, I would be a very poor choice for a job involving significant manual labor (because of my health I would be bad at the job itself). I would be a much better choice for a task like organising an effort to digitise and cross-reference all of the medical records in country GP practices so that GPs could send medical records to hospitals (and vice versa) at the click of a mouse. What would be the odds that a social worker would assign me to sit at a bench assembling widgets instead? I think pretty high.

professore · 05-08-2016 02:04PM

Speedwell wrote: »

El_Duderino 09 wrote: »

Things like street weeping and general aesthetic maintenance are always needed and it's not like you'd be undercutting the people who have trained for those jobs. Then there's the voluntarily sector which could use some labour.

There are possibilities and ways to do it without putting anyone out of business. You would need to hire supervisors but that's a worthwhile job.

Things like database design and development of new vaccinations are also always needed, and I am sure there are out-of-work IT and medical professionals on the dole, but somehow those types of jobs never get mentioned when people start talking about jobs that those on the dole can do for free. The perception that people on the dole are always uneducated manual labourers glad to dumbly do any job assigned to them like a plow horse that doesn't care what field it plows has got to go.

The it or medical professionals should also have to do this if unemployed.

Speedwell · 05-08-2016 02:09PM

professore wrote: »

The it or medical professionals should also have to do this if unemployed.

I would do it as volunteer work; it badly needs done! But if you are proposing to use it to offset the dole, then clearly that sort of job has a higher market value. To be fair, the offset should be set at the market rate for the job. And then what would be the difference between "a job offered because you are on the dole" and just a job offer? That's what I can't understand. If you are offering a job to the unemployed, why do they still need the dole at all? Why not just employ them?

El_Duderino 09 · 05-08-2016 02:15PM

professore wrote:

The it or medical professionals should also have to do this if unemployed.

The OP was about long term unemployed getting free money without having to do anything in return. There would need to be a grace period.

If a brick layer last worked in 2007, is he an unemployed brick layer or an unemployed person or does it matter?

El_Duderino 09 · 05-08-2016 02:16PM

Speedwell wrote:

If I were to go on the dole tomorrow and if such a scheme were in place, I would be a very poor choice for a job involving significant manual labor (because of my health I would be bad at the job itself). I would be a much better choice for a task like organising an effort to digitise and cross-reference all of the medical records in country GP practices so that GPs could send medical records to hospitals (and vice versa) at the click of a mouse. What would be the odds that a social worker would assign me to sit at a bench assembling widgets instead? I think pretty high.

As above the OP was about long term unemployed. Surely there would be a voluntary organisation that could use your skills if you were out of work for a prolonged spell?

Speedwell · 05-08-2016 02:19PM

El_Duderino 09 wrote: »

The OP was about long term unemployed getting free money without having to do anything in return. There would need to be a grace period.

If a brick layer last worked in 2007, is he an unemployed brick layer or an unemployed person or does it matter?

I actually don't think it matters. Someone has to have a job to offer the person who's been on the dole, or there's no point requiring the person on the dole to work. I think the proposal basically boils down to requiring employers to preferentially hire people on the dole over people who are not on the dole.

Speedwell · 05-08-2016 02:21PM

El_Duderino 09 wrote: »

As above the OP was about long term unemployed. Surely there would be a voluntary organisation that could use your skills if you were out of work for a prolonged spell?

OK, if the government is subsidising the charity with cash, and that cash was being used to pay staff, then it might be viable to provide the charity with staffers paid directly by the government, but then, again, there's little difference (and to the employee, it's just a job no matter who provides the funding).

andekwarhola · 05-08-2016 02:26PM

Ironically you'd be completely undercutting those people already in employment at stuff like street cleaning, rubbish collecting, cleaning and whatever random low skill job categories people usually pull out of their arses to service handy punition narratives.

El_Duderino 09 · 05-08-2016 02:35PM

Speedwell wrote:

I actually don't think it matters. Someone has to have a job to offer the person who's been on the dole, or there's no point requiring the person on the dole to work. I think the proposal basically boils down to requiring employers to preferentially hire people on the dole over people who are not on the dole.

Which is why I started off by suggesting that the long term unemployed could do some unskilled jobs that need to be done anyway. That way it wouldn't matter if they are an unemployed database designer or street sweeper.

El_Duderino 09 · 05-08-2016 02:37PM

Speedwell wrote:

OK, if the government is subsidising the charity with cash, and that cash was being used to pay staff, then it might be viable to provide the charity with staffers paid directly by the government, but then, again, there's little difference (and to the employee, it's just a job no matter who provides the funding).

Not really though because they are still unemployed they just have to work for their unemployment benefits. The difference to the unemployed person is the difference in pay between the following and a proper salary

Speedwell · 05-08-2016 02:44PM

El_Duderino 09 wrote: »

Which is why I started off by suggesting that the long term unemployed could do some unskilled jobs that need to be done anyway. That way it wouldn't matter if they are an unemployed database designer or street sweeper.....

Not really though because they are still unemployed they just have to work for their unemployment benefits. The difference to the unemployed person is the difference in pay between the following and a proper salary

I started off by saying that if the job needs to be done, then it is a proper job with a market rate and should be offered to a job applicant at that rate. If nobody wants the job at the offered rate, then by definition the rate offered is not the market rate.

If you have offered a job to someone at the market rate, they are employed, not unemployed. You can't be unemployed and employed at the same time. If what you mean to propose is for people who receive benefits to be hired for a job and paid only the amount of their benefits, and the amount of benefit is less than the market compensation for the job, then you are engaging in wage theft.

El_Duderino 09 · 05-08-2016 02:45PM

andekwarhola wrote:

Ironically you'd be completely undercutting those people already in employment at stuff like street cleaning, rubbish collecting, cleaning and whatever random low skill job categories people usually pull out of their arses to service handy punition narratives.

The those are unskilled low/minimum wage jobs so fix it benchmark the number of those jobs the council's have to have on the books.

If you're a career street sweeper then you're good as unemployed anyway do its better to be working for your money

People give out about government inefficiency but to be fair, it should employ the able bodied people with chronic lack of ambition in some sort of job. Meaningful occupation is very important to mental and physical health.

K-9 · 05-08-2016 02:47PM

K-9 wrote: »

I moved the newer posts over to a new thread as some may want to discuss it here.

The first 3 posts moved over got deleted from some bloody reason, so I've restored them back!

Speedwell · 05-08-2016 02:49PM

El_Duderino 09 wrote: »

The those are unskilled low/minimum wage jobs so fix it benchmark the number of those jobs the council's have to have on the books.

If you're a career street sweeper then you're good as unemployed anyway do its better to be working for your money

People give out about government inefficiency but to be fair, it should employ the able bodied people with chronic lack of ambition in some sort of job. Meaningful occupation is very important to mental and physical health.

Do you have a plan to provide a supply of such low wage/skill jobs sufficient to offer one to each recipient? People with chronic issues that make them unemployable, well, to put it bluntly, make very poor employees. Without services that make them employable, this is a bad plan.

El_Duderino 09 · 05-08-2016 02:55PM

Speedwell wrote:

I started off by saying that if the job needs to be done, then it is a proper job with a market rate and should be offered to a job applicant at that rate. If nobody wants the job at the offered rate, then by definition the rate offered is not the market rate.

And I think there are some jobs hat always need to be done even though they're not glamorous.

Speedwell wrote:

If you have offered a job to someone at the market rate, they are employed, not unemployed. You can't be unemployed and employed at the same time. If what you mean to propose is for people who receive benefits to be hired for a job and paid only the amount of their benefits, and the amount of benefit is less than the market rate for the job, then you are engaging in wage theft.

They would be getting the dole in exchange for labour rather than getting dole in exchange for simply being unemployed.

They would be working and on the live register so not in employment.

Speedwell · 05-08-2016 02:58PM

El_Duderino 09 wrote: »

And I think there are some jobs hat always need to be done even though they're not glamorous.

If the jobs need to be done, they are worth paying a market rate for. Glamour doesn't have anything to do with it.

They would be getting the dole in exchange for labour rather than getting dole in exchange for simply being unemployed.

They would be working and on the live register so not in employment.

That isn't an excuse for wage theft. A job is a job. If you employ them, they are employed, and should no longer be regarded as being on the dole (assuming they are in full employment). Pay in exchange for work is a wage, not a social welfare payment.

Speedwell · 05-08-2016 03:10PM

I just wanted to say that I understand the feeling that makes people say, "I don't pay taxes for people to sit around watching TV all day". No, that is correct, that's not a good use of taxes. A better use of taxes would be to provide productive occupations for the people who want them. Are your taxes being applied to that?

Stop blaming the victims of bad social policy. They don't make the policy. Blame the people who make the policy and spend your tax money on things that don't promote the sort of prosperity that enables anyone who wants an occupation to have one, and also provides for those in genuine or temporary need.

KCross · 05-08-2016 03:18PM

Organising the right type of work in the right locations across the entire country just wouldnt work out. It would also hinder folks from retraining as they have to do the communnity service which will inevitably be by day as the community workers wont work out of hours.

In this twisted legal Ireland we live on we would probably also have folks suing the council for injuring them when doing the manual labour!

The simplest approach, I think, is just to provide the dole on a sliding scale based on PAYE contributions paid over the last, say, 3 years.

If you recently became unemployed(and thus full PAYE contributions each week) you get 100% and then as your contributions fall off over the next 3 years you get reduced dole down to nothing.

This also allows the person to get part time work and come on and off the dole to keep the dole payments up but not simply come off the dole for a week and then go back to 100%.

This also gives plenty time to retrain(if necessary) and find other work.

Ultimately humans need incentives to do anything and money is the incentive here. If it is getting smaller as time goes by they will be incentivised to do something.

Joe prim · 05-08-2016 03:21PM

A point often missed in the great (and interminable) "workfare" debate is that people on the dole, i.e all the forms of welfare available in a modern western state like our own, already have a job. They are consumers, boosting activity in the economy and recycling workers tax money. As a modern consumer society needs consumers to flourish and grow, they are providing a service, regardless of how annoying some members of the "productive" sector may find them, and provided they do not constitute too high a proportion of society, there is really no great need to force them to displace low-level service jobs in the paid economy.

Speedwell · 05-08-2016 03:22PM

KCross wrote: »

Organising the right type of work in the right locations across the entire country just wouldnt work out. It would also hinder folks from retraining as they have to do the communnity service which will inevitably be by day as the community workers wont work out of hours.

In this twisted legal Ireland we live on we would probably also have folks suing the council for injuring them when doing the manual labour!

The simplest approach, I think, is just to provide the dole on a sliding scale based on PAYE contributions paid over the last, say, 3 years.

If you recently became unemployed(and thus full PAYE contributions each week) you get 100% and then as your contributions fall off over the next 3 years you get reduced dole down to nothing.

This also allows the person to get part time work and come on and off the dole to keep the dole payments up but not simply come off the dole for a week and then go back to 100%.

This also gives plenty time to retrain(if necessary) and find other work.

Ultimately humans need incentives to do anything and money is the incentive here. If it is getting smaller as time goes by they will be incentivised to do something.

I think you're missing the point of why the dole is set at the rate it is. If the country thought it would be possible to set it lower and still provide adequately for the needs of someone out of work, it would already be set lower. If you lower the rate of benefit to less than the current benefit, it will create suffering, not employment. Taking away people's ability to pay the rent, the heat, the groceries, and the bus fare or car fuel will not help them get jobs. Job creation creates employment; starvation doesn't. Why not propose to cut government incentives for businesses until they create the badly needed jobs, instead?

The Dole

Comments