Tuesday 6 December 2011

Solution to social cohesiveness/breakdown... "workfare"..!? Shameless Britain | The Sunday Times

Shameless Britain | The Sunday Times:

Make sense.. but sadly no politician brave enough to do anything about it!

must read.


"So we’re back to perverse incentives. When Beveridge wrote his report in the 1940s he saw a nation in which there were vast numbers of people who were desperate to work if only they could get a job. Now there are many who have no incentive to get one because they are better off on benefits. The Centre for Social Justice, which was set up by Iain Duncan Smith, the welfare secretary, calculates that the number of households in which no one works has doubled over the past 15 years."

"What happens in a rich country when the government decides the benefits system is too generous? When Bill Clinton was president of the United States he said what no British politician would dare to say: America would “end welfare as we know it”. He declared a revolution. Instead of welfare, Americans would have “workfare”. Instead of the state paying its citizens to be idle, the citizen would have to find work. If not, the state would find something for them to do. And if they didn’t like what was on offer — sweeping up leaves, perhaps — then that’s just too bad. No work, no welfare."

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