Long-term jobless 'could face compulsory manual labour'

[Leadeye]

I agree with the idea in principle but the details are where you find the real answer.

What will "manual labor" mean? Will the people need a medical exam before starting work? How many people will supervise with how many layers of administration to push the paper around. What "quality standard" for completion will be applied to the job and how many consultants will need to be hired to come up with this. Will the labor have an an impact on existing jobs, if so more consultants and lawyers to argue it out. Contract it out or use existing bureaucracy? Retraining of supervising bureaucrats by more consultants, or develope a bidding process for the contractors. Meetings,meetings, and more meetings.

This is how government really works.

 

[Bunnykid68]

Headline should have read "Chronically unemployed offered jobs"

I couldnt have said it any better

 

[rambone]

It doesn't even necessarily have to be referring to your average welfare here. We're talking about Unemployment benefits that presumably many of these people having been paying into for years. I'd rather see the program privatized before encouraging some kind of authoritarian work camp, for people who's normal jobs were destroyed by the Government in the first place.

The way things are looking, I can see a lot of "long term jobless" being created by this worldwide depression. Just sayin. Now people are happy to see the origins of the Soviet-style slavery.

See you in the cotton fields, comrades.

 

[Expat]

Employees don't pay into the unemployment fund, employers do. So it isn't your money that you have been putting away for a rainy day. And at this point all those funds are long gone. We are paying out what the .gov has given to the States now.

 

[SemperFiUSMC]

Employees don't pay into the unemployment fund, employers do. So it isn't your money that you have been putting away for a rainy day. And at this point all those funds are long gone. We are paying out what the .gov has given to the States now.

+1

You don't earn or accrue unemployment rights. It is a scheme for government to tax business in the name of social justice.

I think any unemployment benefits received should be repaid dollar for dollar as soon as you start working again. Payroll deduction would be acceptable. That way there is some skin in the game to get a job quickly, because you know you are going to have to restorethe temporary loan the government gave you.

It's the difference between a hand up and a hand out.

 

[rambone]

I'm sure the Soviets had an appealing reason for their compulsory service too.

 

[pudly]

I'm sure the Soviets had an appealing reason for their compulsory service too.

Oh, that's just too funny. Requiring work before giving someone money is equivalent to forced relocation, shootings, and the gulags. I understand your point now rambone, anything short of welfare for everyone is evil.

 

[dross]

Employees don't pay into the unemployment fund, employers do. So it isn't your money that you have been putting away for a rainy day. And at this point all those funds are long gone. We are paying out what the .gov has given to the States now.

Incorrect.

I sell my labor to an employer.

My cost = My pay + my benefits + regulatory employment costs + the cost to my employer for my government-required umemployment insurance + the taxes my employer pays on my behalf.

The cost of unemployment insurance is part of the total cost of employing me, therefore it comes out of my pay, even though I dont' see it and it doesn't show on my pay stub.

My employer just pays it on my behalf.

 

[SemperFiUSMC]

Incorrect.

I sell my labor to an employer.

My cost = My pay + my benefits + regulatory employment costs + the cost to my employer for my government-required umemployment insurance + the taxes my employer pays on my behalf.

The cost of unemployment insurance is part of the total cost of employing me, therefore it comes out of my pay, even though I dont' see it and it doesn't show on my pay stub.

My employer just pays it on my behalf.

Actually you're both wrong.

I as a customer am paying for your unemployment insurance. It's added to the cost of the product or service provided. It's not a benefit you receive because it is a hidden tax on the consumer. It's money collected by government to do with as it pleases. Yes, they call it an unemployment trust fund, but that's like me calling the cookie jar a cookie trust fund. I can still rob it whenever I want to for any purpose I choose.

The taxpayer gets the double wammy. First we pay the unemployment insurance. Then we borrow money to pay the unemployment benefits.

 

[Principal Skinr]

I'd love to see this for a friend who has been on unemployment for nearly a year, and who hasn't lifted a finger to find a job. It is disgusting. If he had to work for it, he'd be looking pretty hard for a job.

 

[rambone]

Oh, that's just too funny. Requiring work before giving someone money is equivalent to forced relocation, shootings, and the gulags. I understand your point now rambone, anything short of welfare for everyone is evil.

Oh you're going to make me into a socialist, because - and I quote, "compulsory manual labour" - sounds to me like a recipe for disaster? I think that welfare should be abolished and the unemployment benefit program should be turned into private insurance. I stated that you can't undo socialism by instituting fascism.

In no way do I think welfare should be given out by the government. Welfare is theft. Adding "compulsory manual labor" to the equation doesn't make redistribution of wealth sound any better to me. If mass employment of civilians by government was a good idea - which it isn't - then they should abolish welfare and start taking job applications. Again, not a good idea, but it would reach the Big Government ends that statists seek without introducing anything known as "compulsory manual labour."

Gulags can start under innocuous pretenses. See also, "Slippery Slope Argument."

 

[EnochRoot43]

While I agree that the last thing our country needs is a massive make-work program, I will concede that in a local or state context, this could make sense as a method of allowing taxpayers to get some value from their dollar. I think of the town I grew up in and where my parents still live, Anderson. While people grovel before the trustee to get their electric or water bill paid for, the White River Boardwalk is returning to the earth as trees grow between the slates, neglected and unsafe for use. Parks are not being maintained, mowing is scaled back. Why not make public service a condition of receiving public money in this case?

The sad fact is assistance isn't going away or getting drastically smaller any time soon, so perhaps it is a better plan to attempt to extract some value from our tax dollars. Perhaps require a household that receives public money to send SOMEBODY....ANYBODY for 5 or 10 hours a week of service. These people can learn valuable skills constructing/maintaining/repairing public property that they can take to the private sector, and the government can in turn spend less money on contract labor, often times who's contracts were awarded in an unsavory fashion and overpriced.

 

[dross]

Actually you're both wrong.

I as a customer am paying for your unemployment insurance. It's added to the cost of the product or service provided. It's not a benefit you receive because it is a hidden tax on the consumer. It's money collected by government to do with as it pleases. Yes, they call it an unemployment trust fund, but that's like me calling the cookie jar a cookie trust fund. I can still rob it whenever I want to for any purpose I choose.

The taxpayer gets the double wammy. First we pay the unemployment insurance. Then we borrow money to pay the unemployment benefits.

Of course the final consumer pays all compensation. However, I'm still selling my labor to the employer, and unemployment insurance is a cost of employing me. The total cost of employing me is what my labor is worth. By law, some of what it costs to employ me can't go to me, it must go into a pool to pay unemployment benefits. Therefore, it is part of my compensation that is stolen from me.

And yes, the consumer pays it all in the end, my salary, my benefits, my taxes, and all regulatory requirements.

 

[ATOMonkey]

We've already plowed this ground.

Look up the Works Project Administration (also known as "We Piddle Around") and see what a giant catastrophe this will be.

A better solution would be to remove minimum wage.

 

[dross]

We've already plowed this ground.

Look up the Works Project Administration (also known as "We Piddle Around") and see what a giant catastrophe this will be.

A better solution would be to remove minimum wage.

I don't think removing minimum wage would have much practical effect. In most places, the market has set a higher wage than the minimum wage. I agree with abolishing it on philosophical grounds, but I don't think it would have much practical effect.

Also, unemployment benefits, welfare, and other programs actually pay better or close enough to minimum wage to further pressure any effect it might have.

 

[Bill of Rights]

It doesn't matter who calls it compulsory. It's only compulsory if people are forced to do it. The way out of it is to go get a job or be independently wealthy and not have to take funds from the .gov to support yourself. BTW: The article mentioned that the amount paid is £65/week, for which the people doing the work will be employed for 30 hours. That's a smidgen less than $105/week, for a total of just about $3.50/hr. Sounds like a fair trade to me. I see where Rambone is coming from, but this is still optional, not mandatory, like the draft. When it was in place, either you went into the service, you left the country, or you went to prison. THAT's compulsory, and while I think many people would benefit from serving, I would not support a law forcing them to do so.

Blessings,
Bill

 

[rambone]

After decades of steady destruction of liberty by the British government, perhaps this Manual Labor Camp idea will be the lone step away from statism that they've taken in living memory. But I really can't see that.

Anyone want to address the slippery-slope aspect of this? Gun control started out as something that only applied to unfavored groups of people too. Now look at it. Maybe some day this manual labor stuff will be assigned to people on the "No-Fly" list. Hmm... so many possibilities for tyranny... so little time.

 

[Liberty's Teeth]

I agree, anyone who accepts government assistance via federal unemployment should have to sing for their supper. No more free rides, period. People pay for state unemployment and that gives them time to find a new job. If you haven't found one in that time period, tough sh$t. You should work for that federal assistance. Same goes for welfare queens. I know far too many people that sit around and drink all day waiting for their "unemployment" checks to arrive. I know too many people that turn down paying jobs because they "make more" on unemployment. I also know quite a few that have cash jobs and still collect unemployment. Why TF do I work 60+ hours a week?

 

[dom1104]

Huh.

Maybe we should put them in camps, we could call them.. "Labor Camps".

Then we could put more of them in there, you know, "Concentrate" them.

I love this idea. Love it.

Heres another idea.

Just stop the welfare checks. We cant afford them.

 

[dhdoug]

Sounds just like what most conservatives have been calling for, for decades. Why the whining?

right on.. so all you 99ers.....quit leaning on that shovel and lets go.