Reply #15: the kids 18-25 are even worse off than normal

[TheBaldyMan]

their benefit levels are scandalous. 16 and 17 year olds are not entitled to benefits at all. IIRC Legislation introduced in 1984 set lower benefit levels and 18-25 year olds have had to live with poverty ever since. Employers have been known to hire youths at lower wages than they would have to pay other adults. I have personal experience of this legislation when it was first introduced (my personal 'sideline' was theft) and found out the hard way what I'd do given the choice of going hungry or stealing.

The bottom line is, if you are on benefits you must have a sideline or you will not be able to pay your bills. This can take the form of working on the side or taking payment in kind.

In my experience no-one in their right mind stays on the dole voluntarily. Sadly young people today don't know that there was a time when 18 year olds were considered adults, generations continue to be sacrificed on the altar of Yuppie tax cuts.

Somethings don't add up. A welfare state needs to be paid for out of progressive taxation regime. This benefits everybody including the richest. A fairer society overall is a much more pleasant enviroment to live. All the societies that have a closer gap between rich and poor tend to have, amongst other indices of social well being, lower crime rates, healthier populations and higher records of educational achievement.

The Thatcher era ushered in a time where it is smart to be stupid, where your bank balance is the only real measure of your worth and to hell with anyone that thinks otherwise. Blair continues this divisive and destructive policy to this day, even worse he had a parliamentary majority that the tories could only dream about. Britain has woken up to the fact that he is a wolf in sheeps' clothing.

Poor? - it's your own fault, Unhealthy? - well I've got private health insurance and look after myself. Unemployed? - you obviously don't want to work, there's loads of jobs out there. These fallacies are expressed as fact in the media, pursued vigourously as a matter of policy by a deluded government. This path is followed because it is the line of least resistance and doesn't tackle any of the issues that are really at the root of a series of thorny problems. It may be dressed up as welfare reform but ignores the fundamental causes.

Are you really suggesting that miners and steelworkers in Britain were unemployed through choice? Their poverty and social alienation are a result of truculence on their part?