Minimum wage and benefits

All this week I have been watching 18 Doughty Street which is an online tv station. Unfortunately I have missed the week it started and have been catching up by watching the archives.

I think 18 Doughty Street is excellent and is far better than what is on TV.

I just finished watching their film on minimum wage and was astonished to find what people on benefits could get so I have decided to write what I would do to change the benefits system. I will also be doing blog entries on other things they mention in other shows.

Minimum wage has something to do with it and by now my readers will probably know what my policy on minimum wage is but you can read it here. Basically there would be a variable minimum wage in each city as the cost of living is different in each city.

One of the hosts was from Australia. He also had a good idea which Australia already does. The minimum wage is different for each profession. While this is a good idea I think my idea is best and the Australia way is second best because I think that system would be far too complicated to figure out and it doesn’t really calculate in the cost of living in different parts of the country.

The next bit of the programme was on benefits. Firstly unemployment benefit and the fact that many people are far better off on these benefits. This has to end. I once believed that there should be a limit on the amount of time you could claim benefit for. Infact that is what one of the presenters argued for. I no longer believe that, instead we should strengthen the financial position of the lower paid.

At the moment the unemployed get their rent and council tax paid for while the low paid who don’t earn much more than those on benefits have to pay this. People who work and are low paid should get subsidised rent. They should still have to pay rent but there rent should be 50% less than those that are paid a lot. Something should be done about council tax too. I think council tax should be made into a flat tax and anyone earning below a certain level should not have to pay. The limit would need to be variable just like the minimum wage.

The unemployed also use their benefit to buy things that are luxuries like cigarettes and alcohol. This has to stop. Benefit money should only be used so you can survive. Instead of money being given to the unemployed they should receive tokens instead that can be redeemed for food, clothes, electricity, gas, water and other thing that may be needed. Tokens would be given costing a certain amount and would not be redeemable for things like alcohol and cigarettes. If you want them get a job.

This would get the unemployed out looking for work as no one wants to just ‘live’. They want to enjoy themselves. Tokens would stop people enjoying themselves on taxpayers’ money. They would not be able to go anywhere because they wouldn’t even have money for the bus unless the government deemed it necessary for them to have a bus pass so they could look for work.

The next bit of the 30 minute film focused on disability benefit. 10% of workers are now on disability benefit because apparently they can earn up to £40,000 per year including an allowance for their car. If they are on disability we should not be paying for their car. They don’t need it.

Those on disability should be split into three groups. Those in group 1 would be the most disabled. They are born disabled and cannot work at all. Those in group 2 would be those that have lost limbs or had serious illnesses that stop them from working like heart attacks and strokes. Those in group 3 are those that claim that they have injured themselves or cannot work for whatever reason like those alcoholics alcoholics and drugs addicts on incapacity benefit.

Those in group 1 would be given all that they need in cash and home help because they need it.

Those in group 2 would be given tokens and cash. 60% would be in cash and the rest in tokens. These would be helped back into part time employment if it is possible.

Those in group 3 would be given 90% tokens and 10% cash. Most of these are probably false anyway. In benefits they would get 20% less than they would get if they were working.

If we were going to do this we would obviously have to get rid of all the immigrants so wages weren’t driven down so people would feel that it was worth it to work.