I agree with your first point, but for your second, how low would you set the bar - if we assume a family of two adults and two school age children (say, in their teens) but both parents out of work although seeking work - what should the benefits office pay the family ?

Kicking off with housing benefit, if we assume that they are in rented accomodation should their benefits pay all fo their rent or just some of it ?

Should their council tax be subsidised or waivered ?

How about a car, is it reasonable that they should be able to run a modest five year old car ?

Food ?

Clothing ?

Where should we set the bar ?

In my extended family there are 9 who could work but would rather claim the benefit because it easier and they will make more money when you add all the different benefits they can claim. All have children none appear to be married not sure how that helps but it must.

2 have been convicted of dealing drugs - this is a matter of public record - yet still claim the benefit despite being able to afford £40k worth of ganga plants and £10k of cash that they extracted in the raid, he was also renting two houses not bad on benefits.

The benefits should cover the essentials, a car is not essential, food yes but there needs to be a way of ensuring that is where the money goes same for clothing which should only cover the children. What we should not see is the unemployed abusing the situation. There should a relationship between the minimum wage and benefits, no one should be better off not working than working.

so because your family is ripping the p**s out of the system the everyone on benefits are doing the same. You thought of shopping any of them or are you as suspected, all mouth?

So, if you are unemployed and "on benefits" you should not be able to own anything that would assist you in getting a job? No car means a genuine struggle to attend interviews, sometimes an impossibility, I know because it's happened to me in the past.

I agree that those unfortunate enough to find themselves unemployed should not receive more in benefits than if they were working. That may be the message Camoron and his cronies are spouting but reality is very different. The problems lie in the poor wages paid by many employers, so poor that the taxpayer has to top them up with housing benefit and tax credits. However much we penalise the non-working poor, that does nothing to encourage better wages for the working poor: they will still need taxpayer support. That is the real tragedy in paying benefits: why should employers be able to get away with paying their employees so poorly that they need state handouts to top up their wages, or housing benefits to be able to keep a roof over their heads?

The non-working, benefit recipients are a small percentage of the benefit bill (the largest portion goes on pensions) and those abusing the system are an even smaller percentage of that. The demonising of the non-working poor is scandalous and is purely driven by typical tory ideology.

Now is not the time to crack down on benefits, that should be saved for when we are near full employment (should we ever get there again), only then will there be no excuse to "sit at home with the curtains drawn"

He'd previously 'fessed up to only one family member but from his latest post, it appears there may be something approaching a systemic abuse in the greater family Paradise

You know I was once accused of being a benefits cheat, two idiots locally complained that I had Sky TV, a car, decent clothes, I came back from shopping with full bags, out on a weekend, beer and rugby, all while laying in bed all day.

You know they were right I did have all those things, and I did lay in bed all day. I worked nights...

Judging people who you don't know is fraught with all sorts of dangers.

Really I can't find anything anywhere to back this up care to share you evidence?
Or was you being silly..............Oh wait I should have looked at who posted it first.

oh bless, you think that little slogan actually means something. you feel dead proud when each time you wheel it out. just who is my team? now, tread carefully.

Unfortunately, in the real world, access to your own transport is both desirable and in some cases absolutely necessary for job seeking, from experience I know very well that the first time you sign on at a Job Centre your declaration to actively seek work while on JSA is to seek work within a ten mile radius, which, when you don't find any, is quickly uprated to twenty, often thirty mile radius, thirty miles being considered to be a not too far radius in which an employee would commute each day.

There have even been press reports of job seekers being encouraged to apply for jobs 100 miles away, from memory one woman in Manchester was told to apply for a job on Teeside in the full expectation that she would travel to and from that job each working day.

Taking the extremes away though, even a ten mile radius is tricky on public transport, hence the need for your own means of delivery to an interview.

And as for clothing - believe it or not, that is one of the things that JSA is for, every idiot and his dog know that if you turn up for an interview looking like a tramp in old disheveled clothes then you aren't going to get the job, unless its for a position as a tramp, there are very cheap outlets for half decent suits, shirts etc these days and the JSA is intended to provide for this - you can't go to interviews wearing your kids school uniform.

The idea of a benefits system is to help people back into work, not keep them barely alive but unclothed and unsuitable for re-employment, that attitude is self defeating.

Well going by the way you assume anyone against the current government is a card carrying member of the labour party then I'd say you were a UKIP'er.

Which benefits do these 9 people receive?
Do you know of any more or is it just these 9 that warrant a nationwide real terms cut for millions of people both in and out of work?

Without treading carefully I can confidently state that I haven't the slightest interest in which political party you support, but thanks for continuing to promote the issue of football supporter politics - you just don't get it do you ?

I agree re low wages not sure what the solution is - minimum wages at £10 an hour? then you really would have serious levels of unemployment.

My point about increases is simple - as most people who work are seeing zero wage inflation by increasing benefits you are actually increasing the attractiveness of not working and increasing the burden on those that work to support those that don't.

If the minimum wage increases by 1% then benefits should not increase by 5%

Maybe you are right maybe these are only 9 in the whole of the UK, sadly we both know you are wrong.

There are plenty of people who manage to find and maintain employment without the need for a car - to say it is essential is not true. Look at the people who come from Eastern Europe not many have a car when they get here, the first thing they find out is not where the nearest car dealer is but where the nearest employment agencies are.

On clothing - most people who were in employment will have suitable clothing - do their previous work clothes suddenly fall apart through lack of use.

What does it take for you to grasp the point that the trigger for the recession was the banking crisis?
The year you mention (200icon_cool.gif was the very year that the banking crisis hit.

Now Cameron is saying that they are "paying down the debt" when government stats show exactly the opposite.

Is he thick or just a brazen liar?

Your example of immigrants arriving here to find employment is not really what is being considered, if you or I decided to relocate to a European city to find employment today then we'd both be pretty stupid if on arrival we decided to find somewhere to live that wasn't within a public transport ride of our intended place of work, given the freedom to decide where to live on your "new start" isn't something that the vast majority of UK residents have when they find themselves out of work.

And I'm sure we don't need to start on how public transport doesn't really fulfill its brief in this country, but if you want just one example, when my wife was out of work the Job Centre that she was told to sign on at does not have a direct public transport link from anywhere near where we live - and yet that Job Centre is only five miles away from our house, half the distance that they insist is your starter point for a commute to work.

Most? What about builders? Or plumbers? Or cleaners? What about people who worked in shops where uniform was provided? Should they all attend interviews in their old work clothes?

They probably outgrow them?
Sat at home all day, the idle b@stards, filling their faces with buns, slurping down tinnies, and watching SkY TV, all on their £71 a week JSA.

Thrifty bunch aren't they?

So how many are there? And how many would it take to warrant implementing a real terms cut for millions of people both in and out of work?

And which benefits are those 9 of your family receiving?

My point about cutting benefits isn't to highlight abusers it is to ensure that the differential between the minimum wage and the benefits available doesn't continue - you should never be in a position where not working is more lucrative than working.

You obviously think the opposite - in the company I work for there have been no salary increases for 4.5 years during that time benefits have risen significantly - the firm I work for will not be an isolated case. So if benefits continue to rise quicker than wages will the incentive to work increase or decrease?

Idle - at last

Only in your real world, where you consider people claiming JSA (£71-00 a wk, I believe) are sat at home, living it up, enjoying a life of riley.

Delusional.

I think we both agree on this, the way we go about it is where we differ, people working should be paid a living wage meaning that once all bills are paid they are better off working, you'd cut benefits so hard you'd force them into a low paid job and in work benefits.