Comment on ‘We have to bring the benefits bill down’: Healey signals return to welfare reform
cman6@lemmy.world 15 hours ago
To be fair, having read the article, it seems reasonable to not have a bigger welfare bill, presumably bugger than previous years.
“And the best thing, especially for young people who at the moment are too often locked out of any future, the best thing we can offer is not a benefits payment, but a first job with a wage and with a future.”
It sounds to me like the proposal is to help cut the welfare bill by providing ways for people to gain jobs, which seems completely reasonable.
Doesn’t that seem fair, to provide skills and training instead of just money?
One of the problems with this is that a large number of those claiming universal credit are in work, and the benefit acts as a subsidy for employers who don’t have to pay their employees enough to actually get by.
It also doesn’t affect PIP, which is not means tested. The only way to reduce PIP claimants without harming disabled people is to fix the absolutely humongous issues with the NHS that are leaving more people without treatment or even a diagnosis for far longer than it should.
Yeah, i agree. You can cut the benefits bill by reducing payments and making lives worse, or you lift people up so they no longer need them. This seems like an attempt at the latter and I hope it works.
Creating jobs and helping people onto them is the solution, but actually doing that is very difficult. It’s a complicated and multi-faceted issue that needs a real strategy to solve, and I haven’t seen much signalling that is really being worked on.
What we have seen too many times in the past though is a few ineffective token programs being put out as an excuse to gut welfare provisions, leaving people high and dry.
Armand1@lemmy.world 9 hours ago
Trying to make it easier to get jobs is good and all, we definitely need more and better entry-level jobs, but there are some people who cannot work because they are carers, parents or disabled.
This administration has continued to talk about cutting support for disabilities, after doing exactly that under Starmer. What that does is make disabled people homeless as they have to choose between housing and medicine or food. They are unable to make it out fo the house anymore, so they can’t work. Its way more expensive than just giving people support.
People with mental health issues, the ones most targetted, have their help taken away or denied, preventing them from being able to recover and hold a job.
If the administration really wanted people to get back to work, they would vastly increase the funding and availability of mental health services and the NHS. They would make easier to get benefits and housing so you don’t get stuck in a beurocratic spiral instead of getting better.
A healthy public is a productive one.