>>214

Im on it.. While I search for a new job. Most of the people I have seen at the time I sign on are "respectable" looking, maybe the chavs sign on, on a different day.. idk.

>>215

I noticed that. I went into the jobcentre a couple of days ago and, contrary to what the media would have you believe, the majority of people in there were respectable looking, well spoken individuals. In fact, the "customers" seemed far better presented and generally more whole people than the people they seem to employ there.

>>216
>>215

On the other hand, they might just have the oiks all in on one day, once they've put tarpaulins over the furniture and locked everything nickable away.

I've only ever signed on for a short period during my twenties. I was made redundant from my job and I had redundancy insurance which paid my mortgage/credit-cards for a good few months. The condition of the insurance was that I had to sign-on, which I did, but didn't accept any of their money - pure pride. I suggest that some of the "respectable looking" people at the jobcentre are doing much the same.

>>215

The day you sign on depends on the last digit of your NI number.

The class of claimants depends on the area, try Bury on any day to see chavs in dirty tracksuits shouting and swearing.

>>214

As a "job" center though they are pretty hopeless... And there always seems to be to be loads of job center "advisors" just milling around looking important and doing fuck all...

Why do people linger around outside? Are they waiting to sign on? The appointments are fairly precise - do they run late, so people can't leave the area in case they're called upon? Explain this, somebody!

>>221 If you're unemployed you should sign on, if only to get your NI paid (pension). I found this out years later to my cost. Too proud to sign on.

I have a wonderful and idle friend who managed twenty heroic years on JSA and its predecessors, with occasional interludes on the sick for a 'bad back' - he never had any intention of finding a job.

I don't find that sort of behaviour something to condemn out of hand. If people are looking for wastes of public funds they can find far more outrageous examples in the form of quangoes, council mismanagement, corporate tax dodging...and the fact that DWP fraud investigation teams cost the taxpayer more than they save by a hefty margin is also worthy of note.

Ha ha ha, it's like the OP has just discovered the dole and considers it an astonishing concept.

You always should sign on if you're not in employment or education, if nothing else than to explain any holes in your employment status, and keep with your NI payments.

Also; you've got no idea how long your current unemployment phase is going to last, it could be days, it could be months.

I do sign on, I lost my job on Christmas Eve and haven't had any luck getting a new one so far. Most of the people in the job centre are professional chavs. A few of the people in there don't even wear shoes.

>>226

Oh don't be a tit.
If the DWP wasn't there, so many more people would decide to swindle the system.
It's a deterrent. At present, there may be say 10 people swindling, and they catch 1 of those 10. If they weren't there, there would be 20 swindling with nobody getting caught.

>>235

It's a tiny, tiny fraction of the cost that tax dodging takes out of this country, the only reason benefit fraud is targeted is because only poor people do it.

>>236

You're not understanding that the DWP saves money just by being there.

Imagine that they're the police. We have criminals who commit crimes despite the police being around, but usually they're maladjusted scum anyway. Same goes for benefit thieves. Without a police force, the average guy is a lot more likely to think "wow, I can get away with nicking this can of coke, since nobody will bother trying to stop me." Without the DWP, the average guy is a lot more likely to think "fuck it, I may as well cheat the gub'mint, there's absolutely no system in place to stop me."

John Doe doesn't know the the DWP is full of ineffectual fucks.

So, if they're saving money just by being there, surely they'd save much, much more money if they focused on corporate tax evaders? They wouldn't even have to catch them, they'd just have to put some adverts on the TV.

I don't honestly believe that purely by existing the DWP saves more money than it costs.

>>238

It might not, but a preventative measure has to be in place, even if it's not effective, or the bureaucrats would look like idiots.

>>239

I've tried explaining this. Twice.

>>240

Explain your opinions better then! Exasperated surrender has no place in what might otherwise be an interesting debate between you both. Carry on, gentlemen!

>>241
This thread was interesting, now I will be hiding it.

>>240

It wasn't convincing either time. You've never signed on, have you?

>>243

No. Is this a bad thing?

Got paid £50.95 today.

>>245

Well, if you think it is a 'bad thing' to base generalisations on conjecture then yes.

For example, 'John Doe' (you surely mean Joe Bloggs) has plenty of experience of the incompetence of DWP employees by virtue of recieving their services every other week.

To take one other point, 'benefit thieves' seem to be a necessary category in your mind. Some people are maliciously gaming the system, but a significant number are working cash in hand (for example) because the rate of benefit (£7-£9 per day) is too low to live on.

The sensational example of the 'benefit thief' can obscure the reality of cyclical and multiple deprivation which informs benefit dependency. It is also meet to realise that benefit fraud is reportedly at its lowest recorded level - whilst others estimate that £80 billion annually is 'lost' due to tacitly sanctioned corporate tax avoidance.

Finally, here is one remark from a chappie who works as an expert witness in benefit fraud cases. His point is that many cases are exaggerated and based on flawed or no evidence.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2008/dec/05/letters-welfarehttp

>>256
Excuse me dear boy, but your link appears to be borked

>>256

The phrase "benefit thief" has been created in order to make the perpetrators look like villains, rather than hard up and sometimes desperate individuals. Rather than being a "cheat" or even a "fraud", they're "thieves", because this sounds far more evil.

The reality of dole payments is that they're woefully small in the real world, and that there's no way anybody can live on £7.27 a day for any length of time, especially if they ever want to escape the dole cycle. Demonising people who try to make their lives a little less state-dependent is counter intuitive, and the paradoxical ramblings of uninformed tardsters who hate both benefit scroungers and people who supplement their benefits with paid labour aren't worth listening to.

There needs to be a system whereby Job Seekers Allowance, and indeed other benefits, "top up" an income. JSA should be able to supplement a very low paid income, rather than there being an either-or decision. Without "cheating" the system, there's no incentive for somebody on JSA to do a day of paid work a week, because they'd get less money than on JSA and they'd forfeit the free money they get from the jobcentre.

>>257

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2008/dec/05/letters-welfare

Sorry.

Signed on again today, ironically having won £50 on a scratchcard moments earlier in Asda. I essentially earned £100.95 today, which isn't bad at all.

>>264

>won money on a scratchcard
>earned

Yeah, okay mate.

Also,
>buying a scratchcard
Please don't make me post reactionimage.jpg

>>258
Just because it's public funds you're stealing from it doesn't make you any less of a thief.

I take your point about people supplementing their JSA with cash-in-hand being desperate. But there are reasons why it's illegal, and it's to do with accountibility. No tax, no protection.

And if someone is doing this, it means they are willing to work and able to find work - so what's stopping them from applying for one of the hundreds of jobs plastered on the walls of the job centre they walk through every week? Even doing two hours a day on the minimum wage will get you more than the dole.

>>266

I think you have misunderstood the point above: the phrase 'benefit thief' was criticised for having been crafted as a deliberately inflammatory label to replace another. I don't think the argument was that funds being public preclude stealing.

I don't understand what you mean about tax and protection.

As for the last bit, many jobs simply don't pay enough to live on. It would be very difficult to raise a deposit, a month in advance and bills, rent, council taxt, food and transport from a minimum wage job. The 10p band of tax has been gone for a long time, which used to help.

I'm not saying everyone on the dole wants to work, but many seem to want to get away from the subsistence-level existence of benefit dependency and are unable to do so. It is a very miserable life if you are alone in it, as well.

One chap I did know managed to - he now works in the dole office.

>>267

Agreed, I'd only criticised the cynical terminology and sort of forced euphemism. I agree that claiming money for which you don't qualify is wrong in many senses, but I take issue with how the perpetrators are demonised.

>>265

What's wrong with buying a scratchcard every now and then?

>>264

>>267
I meant legal protection - you forfeit your rights as an employee if you're working illegally.

You seem to be steering this train of thought towards an 'is it wrong to steal a loaf of bread if you are starving' conclusion.

>>284

Oh, I see. Well, you're right about that. I doubt it's very important to the kind of person needful of cash-in-hand work.

I don't mean to steer in this case.It isn't sufficient to denounce crimes without considering the law. In this case I suspect a decision has been made which foresees supplementary work (or at least accepts it as a likely outcome of the low levels of benefit).

Here I would like to steer: if the principle is that of unfair privilege regarding the public treasury then why do we not concern ourselves with the tax evasion of the rich at least as energetically as we pursue the poorest?

>>286
You'd have to ask the politicians that, not us, but since when did they do anything logical that wasn't out of self-interest?

Signed off the dole today. Feels good man.

I've been on it. It was a miserable experience, I felt like I was at the absolute rock bottom of society. This might just have been because of the amount of scumbags queuing up with me, or the way the staff managed to look both apathetic or disdainful, and never managed to actually find you a suitable job. Or maybe it was just my own predilections about the place.

I did see plenty of people there who were obviously looking for jobs rather than money, and mothers trying to support their children and so on. I don't think I could ever condemn a system that ostensibly provides those services, even if it does fund a few scumbags' cider collections.

>>310

I can only imagine. What sort of job did you get?

>>325

I drive one of these around a safari park, pointing out all the exotic creatures to the twenty or so people sitting in the back.

>>326

It sounds like your job is mint. Well done. Be sure to slow down when the baboons are at it.

>>327

They're in an enclosure by themselves, its the ostriches I need to worry about. An ostrich brain is about the same size as that of a pheasant.

>>328

I meant rather - 'Mummy, why is that baboon trying to climb on the other one?' Definitely a first gear moment.

>>330

Good shout. Some of the species try to interbreed - there are a couple of hybrid deer out there, and a red lechwe died as a result of a horny wildebeest's affections.

Zebra penises can be over a metre long.

My mates been on it for about 7 months on his supposed 'gap year' and doesn't see it as problem. I see it as problem cos he smokes all my weed

Have been on it since November 2008. Fuck all work roud here thats noteither agency or part time. No jobs that will earn me enough to pay my Rent & Ct which Iget paid in Benefit. I can not work and live, or Work and starve and be evicted.

This is whats wrong with the system and it's a pain in the backside. I WANT to work, I dont wantto waste mylife but thers no way out ofthe rut.

>>394

Considering there's about ten times as many people as jobs available, if you're very lucky, you're pretty much fucked until the recovery is in full swing. Sorry, friend.

>>395

TO build on this, thanks to our glorious leader mr brown (invalidate on Thursday), you won't be able to get a job for a good decade or so :)

>>396

Yes, it has nothing to do with capitalism. Get rid of this one man and justice will be served, as it is all his fault.

Next geopolitical crisis, please!

>>397

It has everything to do with our broken and corrupt version of capitalism though.

>>399

Well, get rid of Gordon and the bankers are still in charge.

>>400

Not if you do it anarchyfag style.

>>402

Well, in an ideal world, of course. We may yet live to see the day, chaps. Next Greece, anyone?

>>403
We aren't next in line. Spain, Ireland and Portugal are next. then maybe Italy and whatever other nation loses all its work.