Long-term unemployed
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Around six million people live in homes where no one is working, according to new figures.
The statistics, from the Office for National Statistics, reveal that 4.3m adults and 1.77m children reside in welfare-dependent homes. The number of homes in which no one works has risen by 43,000 since 2003.
James Clappison, a Tory welfare reform spokesman, told the Daily Mail: “If nearly 1.8m children are growing up in households with no one in work, they are potentially being condemned to a cycle of low achievement and unemployment.”
Debbie Scott, chief executive at Tomorrow’s People, an independent charity that helps the long-term unemployed back into work, told Recruiter: “We are acutely aware that there are unacceptable numbers of households with people that have never worked. We need to work with the whole family in getting them back to work. We are about to commission a research project this to identify some strategies to look into this problem.”
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Readers' comments (1)
Tom Atkinson | Thu, 28 Aug 2008 1:51 pm
We need safety nets but we are giving out hammocks.
Having 6 million people - close to a tenth of the population - living in homes where no one is working is disastrous for our economy and necessitates high taxes. It also contributes to many of our social troubles.
Like all caring people, I believe we should have a "safety net" for the less fortunate in our society but we are in danger of giving out "hammocks".
Just a few days ago I met with a lovely lady from a low income area in Wolverhampton, who had worked her way to a directorship in her recruitment business. She was absolutely fed up with having to deal with the determinedly unemployed who are being pushed through the system, at our cost, to get a "tick" in a box to say that they had turned up at an employment agency about a job (having made it perfectly clear to her that they had no intention of working but simply needed her "tick" to carry on getting benefits). I guess that many of your readers will have had a similar experience.
There are leeks rotting in fields with no one to pick them. There are vacancies for skilled individuals but too few skilled. There is a need for "chewing gum removers" and "graffiti cleaners" but all we seem to employ centrally are "outreach workers" and other "non proper job" doers.
No guesses who the benefit grabbers and the non jobbers are likely to vote for and no guesses as to who will have pay for them both directly through taxes and indirectly through the cost in the degradation of our society.
For those who cannot work or cannot find work then we must have a "safety net"; but over 4 million adults do not fall into those narrow categories.
Of course we need more jobs (and our government tells us that lots of new jobs have been created in the last decade) but I firmly believe that part of the solution should be to consider taking away the "hammocks".
Bill Clinton did it in the USA. Who will be brave enough to do it here?
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