Mortgages for people on UC. Is it the stupidest idea ever?

The point is that those who accuse people on benefits of being lazy scroungers never ever qualify it by giving a percentage.
So they are labelling everybody on benefits as scroungers.
Do you want a system that makes those in genuine need suffer?
because that’s what the current system does.
Let's face it, the benefits thing is a very difficult area to strike a balance with if you're responsible for policy.

If, on average, folk genuinely aren't getting enough to live on there can be real world issues e.g. heat or eat. If folk are getting enough to live quite comfortably on (and perhaps a bit more), the incentive to work for some (not all) will decrease.

No one can assert all those on benefits are scroungers. Some will be, some won't be, like anything else in life.
 
But when you break in to the numbers there seems to be a large bunch who got used to furlough and now don't want to go back to work. These are quite happy getting by

A lot of people decided to re evaluate their life and either stopped working, reduced hours, changed to a less stressful career or retired.

Thats why the unemployed levels have dropped.
it has nothing to do with any success of the govt in any way

coupled with the loss of EU workers the UK has a massive worker shortage which is damaging the economy
 
On percentages... I read some stats which gave a figure around 3.5-4%, but it amalgamated errors by DWP and fraud. I'm sure that many people think the fraud element is waaay bigger than all of that! It cannot be more than 3.9%!
 
Let's face it, the benefits thing is a very difficult area to strike a balance with if you're responsible for policy.

If, on average, folk genuinely aren't getting enough to live on there can be real world issues e.g. heat or eat. If folk are getting enough to live quite comfortably on (and perhaps a bit more), the incentive to work for some (not all) will decrease.

No one can assert all those on benefits are scroungers. Some will be, some won't be, like anything else in life.
It is very difficult.

all the time we have right wing media fermenting hatred of people on benefits we can’t have a grown up discussion about how to minimise the ability for those who want to use the system whilst ensuring those in need get the help they require.
 
A lot of people decided to re evaluate their life and either stopped working, reduced hours, changed to a less stressful career or retired.

Thats why the unemployed levels have dropped.
it has nothing to do with any success of the govt in any way

coupled with the loss of EU workers the UK has a massive worker shortage which is damaging the economy
I would challenge you to be more open minded and a little more socialist regarding "damaging the economy".

It might well hit economic growth, but its probably the best tool to raise living wages for those in work and seeking work. It only damages the economy from a uk citizen perspective, when global employers choose to base functions elsewhere due to lack of available skilled workers and that directly causes unemployment.

We don't see too many firms doing a P&O due to rising UK labour costs.
 
It is very difficult.

all the time we have right wing media fermenting hatred of people on benefits we can’t have a grown up discussion about how to minimise the ability for those who want to use the system whilst ensuring those in need get the help they require.
The Mendacity Society was formed to eradicate begging during the 19th century, and they seem to be the kind of people who nowadays read the Daily Express and wonder how to deal with such scroungers. A woman aged 60 was apprehended in 1840 and sent to prison, her savings of £25 from a lifetime of begging were confiscated.
Women would regularly take a child on the street to increase their chances of successfully claiming a coin from sympathetic passers-by and Ann Lee, in 1817, went so far as to kidnap someone's child to help her beg; some would even use babies and prick them with a pin to make them cry to gain attention.
On the other hand, a former sailor from the Napoleonic Wars, sang a ballad called 'The Storm' on the streets of London, wearing a finely carved model of a ship upon his head. Everyone knew him and would give him a coin or two.
You could infer our perception of these unfortunate people is tainted by those who stand around with their hand out, waiting for a handout, and those who perform some kind of service, however small, for remuneration.
These days we're still more likely to walk past someone with a begging bowl and stop to give a busker a pound for his trouble.
Nothing has really changed, has it?
Maybe Andy11 is right when he claims this country needs a revolution - but not the kind of 'to the barricades' insurrection that is always violently quashed by the government of the day, but a change in attitudes towards the way society works to maintain the people it purports to serve.
 
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Get up to Burnley where there are some lovely properties for as little as £12,000.

 
People on UVC still have to pay somebody rent - that money doesn't just disappear, they just don't actually get their hands on it. That rent might be more than a mortgage in some parts of the country. Why are they expected to afford rent, but not a mortgage payment?
 
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