[Apologies in advance if this particular post appears somewhat disjointed, it's a rant that was desperate to escape my head yet was hastily written whilst refereeing three disgruntled and rather manic children]

There is often so much emphasis on the figures relating to how many people are claiming unemployment benefits with very little attention to the glaringly obvious fact that there is simply not enough jobs to match that figure whilst the government try and exacerbate this issue by attempting to force even more people into the already over saturated job seeking pool such as stay at home parents, the sick and the disabled.  It doesn't take a mathematical genius to realise that if we have x people actively seeking employment with a vast deficit in available jobs, forcing more people to seek employment which doesn't exist will simply equal a rise in those seeking unemployment/job seeking benefits.  Lets not forget the abomination that is Workfare which essentially allows the Government to temporarily alter statistics giving the false picture that unemployment is going down. Ditto with unfair sanctions and those that are appealing work capability assessments all temporarily leave 'gaps' in the unemployment benefit claimants numbers giving the illusion the numbers are reducing.

Yet perhaps the questions that should be asked is not how many people are unemployed and claiming benefits but how many people who are employed yet still in the benefit trap.  For you see, that is exactly what it is, a trap.  Even when employed, many families are still reliant on benefits of the tax credit variety.  Remove these benefits and rent/mortgages won't get paid, homes won't be heated and bellies won't be filled., despite people working hard day in and day out in paid employment. In 2010-2012 alone, 90 percent of new claims for housing benefit were made by people in employment*.  

You can trace a direct link from this to two things:

* The National Minimum Wage

* 0 Hour Contracts

Simply put, the minimum wage alone, isn't sufficient to support an adequate basic standard of living.  So, why don't the government raise the national minimum wage or indeed introduce a much needed 'living wage'?  Good question. The getting down to basics answer is control or more aptly the loss of it.  The most effective way to control someone is financially.  People need money to survive.  Control their finances and you have control which you can assert over them in order to gain obedience.  The government want people to be dependent on them, they're banking on it.  Literally.  So long as we're dependent on working tax credits and child tax credits they can dictate to us.  They can tell us when to work, how much we must work, who should work etc.  They eliminate the fundamental right of choice.  You can't choose to be a stay at home parent and live on one wage at a basic 'bread line' standard of living because that wage isn't enough.  The choice here is to be unable to survive or to bow down, accept government financial dependency and then be granted enough money to survive whilst being controlled and dictated to.  You need tax credits.  Yet to become eligible for tax credits, after a certain point, both parents must work x hours and earn y amount.  If you fail to do this Big Brother can step in and insist you work more or even push you to seek alternative or in some cases additional employment, just to be eligible for the tax credits that you need to live.  They will control you. 

Employment should bring freedom, especially financial freedom yet for the millions of working class people in unskilled or low skilled employment all it achieves is another struggle, another layer of misery as it becomes painfully obvious that they're not enough. 

What exactly is wrong with these jobs?  Could society function or even exist without them?  Not everyone aspires to a career. Some people just want a job.  They want to go to work, do their jobs to earn their money and go home and enjoy the life they have.  They don't want prospects, competitiveness, stress, responsibility and authority that come with many well paid middle class careers.  They may see their job as a means to an end and quite frankly, why bloody not? Why shouldn't they?  Why can't they clock on at 9, off at five and not have work infiltrate their life until the next morning in exchange for a living wage? Yet why should they be punished for this through an inadequate minimum wage? Why should they be subject to the merry dance they have to participate in to be eligible for enough government benefits to live on?  Surely working full time should be enough to sustain a decent basic standard of life?

Being a house wife or a stay at home parent used to be a choice.  You willingly sacrificed a better lifestyle (financially) to be one.  It may have meant missing out on luxuries, tightening the belt and a bit of financial juggling but it was do-able.  It was a choice you could make and was neither frowned upon nor seen as a privilege.  It was respected and accepted equally as the choice many make to work. These days a housewife isn't a woman who chooses to run the household and family full time, working bloody hard to do so, it's now a privilege, a label....a choice only worthy of those who can afford it.  Often so called housewives are from affluent families many of which do very little housework nor hands on parenting instead utilising nannies and cleaners.  Yet the real housewives, the real stay at home parents who tirelessly work full time in the family home are now considered scroungers, lazy, unwilling to work and unnecessary.  Perhaps this could be adding to the dissolution of family life and maybe even a result of a hungry disposable society (where nappies are thrown away, clothes are replaced not mended and ready meals make up the so-called healthy diet) Where is the time to live? To enjoy the so-called fruits of your labour? Depression and stress related illness' are on the rise, family time is being eaten away, latch-key generations are being born.  The governments answer?  Rather then make it easier for families to choose whether both parents work or how much they should work ( I have full respect for families who's parents both choose to work in order to gain a better standard or living or even to save sanity but the pivotal point here is choice.  They however should not both have to work, just to sustain a basic standard of living, unless they're willingly living beyond their means) the government work harder at removing the choice, do we really believe introducing free child care from age two to low income families is to help the child or parent?  Or is it merely the first step to push mums into work earlier?  Do we really believe their preposterous and potentially harmful suggestions of longer school days is to help children and families or yet another step to increase mandatory conditionality for the much needed tax credits thus once again forcing both parents into longer working days too and denying the basic human right to a family life.  Whatever next?  Mandatory full time boarding nursery from six weeks of age for all children who are a product of families earning under 22k a year?  

Working should be for financial freedom, a necessity to sustain or elevate your quality of life.  It should not be to conform to eligibility requirements and conditionality so that you still require financial assistance from the government just to be able to financially survive and be under their control.  

They want you to need them.  They are depending on you falling into their benefit trap.  They want to control you and your family.

The real issue isn't unemployment benefits at all.  It's the ridiculous necessity of benefits for those already working.

* http://www.insidehousing.co.uk/tenancies/majority-of-new-housing-benefit-claimants-in-work/6521183.article

Stay at home parents...

If you're a parent you've probably seen the phrase that being a stay at home parent is a 'lifestyle' choice being touted around from the deplorable government as they target stay at home parents into returning to work under the hideous conditionality clauses of the infamous Universal Credit.  In case you've been hibernating (to which end I'm hideously jealous) In order to make sanctioning more vile they're condensing benefits and tax credits into one, so not only can they sanction away your benefits but your credits too.  Charming.  Whereas under the current system of tax credits, so long as one part of a couple or both combined make up to 24 hours of work a week they will be entitled to tax credits which gives families an iota of choice and flexibility, they can choose how they balance it based on hours not income. Under universal credit one partner must work full time and upon the youngest child turning five the named primary carer must also look for work or face being sanctioned.  It doesn't stop there, if you are deemed to not be earning enough or working long enough hours you can also be pulled into the job centre and wait for it.....forced to apply for another job if you can't increase your hours and wage at your current job under the threat of being sanctioned.  Bloody brilliant.  Genius idea.  Thinking of working from home to have the best of both worlds?  To be blunt, under the Universal Credit, you're essentially fucked.

For you see, I don't see being a stay at home parent as a lifestyle choice I see it as a responsibility.  Before I go on I'd like to state from the start that I personally have absolutely nothing against mothers who choose to work, the emphasis here being on choice whether it's to sustain the lifestyle to which they're accustomed to or to achieve a better lifestyle than that which they already have, to further a career they're passionate about or even if they just need to work for sanity sake.  However, I do find it utterly ridiculous that should a family choose to sacrifice lifestyle in order for one parent to stay at home that they should be penalised for this.  If one partner is prepared to work full time at minimum wage to support his/her family, is it their fault that minimum wage isn't enough to provide even the most basic lifestyle/existence when they're already on the basic lifestyle so perhaps can't downgrade in house size, they're already living in an undesirable area, they have no holidays or even short breaks, no car which are all sacrifices families of a higher income could make to enable one parent to stay at home should they so desire.

Many families in the past were brought up on the breadline so to speak to enable one parent to stay at home, yet then even low wages could support this at a stretch.  Sometimes the primary carer would undertake evening work occasionally to top up the pot so to speak be it for birthdays, Christmas or even an annual family holiday but again this would be for extras not for survival.  

How much would a full time nanny cost? a full time house keeper? Nurse? Book keeper?  Personal shopper? Child minder? What if they were on 'duty' 24/7?  The government are willing to subsidise paying someone else to look after your children so they can tax them and then tax the parent for returning to work however, to actually stay at home and bring up your own child yourself is somehow absurdly considered a privilege as opposed to a duty or responsibility.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with using childcare, but it should be a choice not a necessity.  

It would appear that the government is diabolically anti-family what with suggestions to extend the school day, shorten the holidays and to implement free/subsidised childcare from an earlier age.  Now don't be fooled into thinking the latter is to help those already in work, it's merely a move to enable them to bully stay at home parents into work sooner, as they seem intent on separating children from parental influence and deposit them into the system as soon as possible.  This is in addition to the early age to which our children are expected to enter full time education despite other countries starting several years later and out performing ours academically.

Yet what about when they're at school, do they suddenly cease to need a parent?  My mother stayed at home and the security of knowing she  was there was enormous.  She was there when I left for school, there when I came home, there should I have an accident or become ill, there for all assemblies, plays and sports days, there for all holidays.  To a child, it matters. 

We all know how vulnerable and subject to external influences teenagers are, and yet the government expect stay at home parents to work full time once their child is in high school creating essentially a latchkey generation.  

Childhood is so short and so utterly precious and parenting full time is a job, it's a job that determines how the world will be as we nourish the future generation, the future leaders, nursers, lawyers, builders, teachers.....as we essentially build a future society.

Whatever next, mandatory nursery from birth? If an animal is separated from their mother too soon they fail to thrive mentally, emotionally and socially, what are we if not animals?

Bring back family.

Give us a living wage and allow families the choice to have two working parents or one stay at home instead of a ridiculously high increase in living costs and a far too low minimum wage that essentially cripples low income families making them dependent on the tax credit crutch and victims to ruthless conditionality.  Wages wouldn't need topping up and supporting if we had a living wage.  The fact so many families depend on tax credits is testament to the fact that wages are simply too low.  Stay at home parents aren't asking nor expecting to be paid, they're just asking not to be penalised.

The country is in a recession.  There aren't enough jobs for those already desperately seeking employment yet the government seem to think it a jolly good idea to add more people, by force, to the pool of job seekers.  Once again, utter genius. Eradicate financial dependency on the state, introduce a living wage and give people back control on how to live their lives.

Choice is freedom and we all know that is the very last thing our government wish us to have for they fear it will dilute their control over us.

Living wage

The papers are rife with Welfare Reform, with The Government bleating and waxing lyrical about how it pays to work and they want to encourage more people into living without benefits.  However, we need to ask ourselves, do they really?  I think not.  They want it so we're working yet still to some extent dependent on welfare for the easiest route to controlling people is financially, making them financially dependent on you gives you ultimate control over them.

To have financial independence from them would deplete their control over us so they're being tactical, having us believe they're offering us freedom yet what it really is is just conditional independence riddled with threats and implications.

If they truly wanted people to have financial independence and be able to sustain a quality of life through work alone there are two main things they could implement:

1. Introduce a living wage.  The minimum wage in the current economic climate with the ever increasing rise in cost of basic living simply fails to sustain a person or family.  However it does qualify them to claim working tax credits to top up a wage to enable a person/family to be able to sustain a quality of life.  Through ensuring the minimum wage alone isn't enough, they're taxing you for working on one hand yet giving you money with another to keep you dependent on them and under their control and subject to their ever increasing rigid conditionalities.  Sneaky bastards.

2. Scrap the abhorrent slight to Human Rights that is WorkFare.  If there is a job available, employ somebody to do it and give them the appropriate wage which they can then be taxed on and spent thus helping to renew the economy and move off of benefits.  Yet the government would rather give companies cash incentives to take on workfare staff to do a job for free thus exploiting the unemployed whilst offering them no real benefit let alone an actual job at the end of it. If you're going to mandate people into temporary work, temporarily pay them the actual wage!

Obviously there are many more things that could be added to his list, perhaps I'll bore you with them some other time.  I try and keep clear of politics on here but sometimes....things just need to be said.