Illegal immigrants

[scotview]

To put things into perspective; a few folkies strawberry picking aint nothing to this year's 1 million new comers (that's a small city) or the potential several million a year of future climate change migrants (if such a thing exists).

All the current debate is just noise.

[Lootman]

To put things into perspective; a few folkies strawberry picking aint nothing to this year's 1 million new comers (that's a small city) or the potential several million a year of future climate change migrants (if such a thing exists).

All the current debate is just noise.

Should we not at least feel a bit smug that we live in a country that is so desirable for foreigners? Perhaps only the US is more popular as a desired destination. Many of these people are already in EU countries like France and yet it is the UK they want to live and work in. I take that as a compliment.

And longer-term it should boost the value of UK housing. So if it gets too crowded here, just cash out your primary home tax-free and emigrate to one of the warmer countries that now have fewer people in them because they have all moved here!

[scotview]

So if it gets too crowded here, just cash out your primary home tax-free and emigrate to one of the warmer countries that now have fewer people in them because they have all moved here!

Great example of typical, waffly, "noise"

[Dod101]

To put things into perspective; a few folkies strawberry picking aint nothing to this year's 1 million new comers (that's a small city) or the potential several million a year of future climate change migrants (if such a thing exists).

All the current debate is just noise.

You are I am afraid missing my point. I do not really care about the illegal immigrants but I was suggesting the use of them to provide some much needed labour for the fruit growers and farmers. I am always a bit p****'d off when people do not appear to read what is posted before they respond.

Nor has this got anything to do with beneficiaries of our welfare state.

I just see headlines from time to time about the cost of accommodating all those illegals who cross the Channel. We should be using some imagination to put at least some of them to work to meet an urgent labour shortage. Think about our own people first, for a change.

Dod

[scotview]

To put things into perspective; a few folkies strawberry picking aint nothing to this year's 1 million new comers (that's a small city) or the potential several million a year of future climate change migrants (if such a thing exists).

All the current debate is just noise.

You are I am afraid missing my point.

Dod

I don't think so Dod. There are two issues here.

1 The fruit picking jobs, and the like, should be done by some of the 5 million currently on benefits, it's called work.
2 Immigration, illegal or otherwise, is potentially a catastrophic problem that is not being addressed and no strategy is being developed. It could destroy the UK.

With respect, you a looking through the wrong end of the telescope.

[Lootman]

That's the "poverty trap" created by our benefits system. The encouragement the government should offer is a system where the claimant gets a net financial benefit from working, even where that work is short-term and low-paid. Failing that, at least take away the risk of a net loss!

You and I both agree that the problem is the lack of motivation to work when work pays little or nothing more than being on the dole. I suspect we disagree on the solution however.

The market rate for farm labour is what it is, save for any effect of the minimum wage anyway. It cannot reasonably be at a higher level than the market will bear.

The level of welfare handouts, on the other hand, is merely a matter for parliament. Those payouts could be frozen or even reduced, thereby increasing the "motivation" to work by increasing the pay gap between being economically active and frittering away the day at a Wetherspoons.

On another note whatever happened to Blair's idea of taking Bill Clinton's "Workfare" approach to welfare, and getting claimants to do community service in return for benefits?

[Dod101]

You are I am afraid missing my point.

Dod

I don't think so Dod. There are two issues here.

1 The fruit picking jobs, and the like, should be done by some of the 5 million currently on benefits, it's called work.
2 Immigration, illegal or otherwise, is potentially a catastrophic problem that is not being addressed and no strategy is being developed. It could destroy the UK.

With respect, you a looking through the wrong end of the telescope.

Therein lies our difference. People are on benefits for all sorts of reasons and the authorities have tried many means to get them back to work, most failing. We also have an enormous pool of illegals and it would surely be much easier to use them for our urgent unskilled labour needs.

That is the only reason I am looking at them. Of course theirs is an enormous and serious problem but that is not what I am writing about, one issue and one issue only. Maybe the thread has the wrong title.

Dod

[UncleEbenezer]

That's the "poverty trap" created by our benefits system. The encouragement the government should offer is a system where the claimant gets a net financial benefit from working, even where that work is short-term and low-paid. Failing that, at least take away the risk of a net loss!

You and I both agree that the problem is the lack of motivation to work when work pays little or nothing more than being on the dole. I suspect we disagree on the solution however.

The market rate for farm labour is what it is, save for any effect of the minimum wage anyway. It cannot reasonably be at a higher level than the market will bear.

The level of welfare handouts, on the other hand, is merely a matter for parliament. Those payouts could be frozen or even reduced, thereby increasing the "motivation" to work by increasing the pay gap between being economically active and frittering away the day at a Wetherspoons.

The fundamental problem isn't a level of pay nor a level of benefits. It's the loss of benefits that comes with doing any work. Even voluntary work!

My own situation in my worst year (2003) was that every pound I earned cost me about £2.70 in benefits (being mostly housing benefit) compared to sitting at home on my backside. I'm not up-to-date with the system and I *think* universal credit has fixed the rule that b*****ed me, but I understand nasty anomalies still happen!

I'd apply the principle that loss of benefits as you start to earn should never exceed the basic rate of income tax. Let alone exceed your entire income!

[edit to add] Universal credit hasn't fixed the general rule of cascading benefits: "if you're on [basic benefit]' then you qualify for [other benefits]". What I believe has changed is the magnitude of the cascading benefits.

[didds]

1 The fruit picking jobs, and the like, should be done by some of the 5 million currently on benefits, it's called work.

The problems with that thought process are amongst others...

such work is seasonal, lasting at best a very few weeks until ending - leaving one unemployed at that moment.

signing off, then signing on again, leads to several weeks before the new claim (signing on) is agreed and paid albeit in arrears at that moment. Thus once signed on that money earned just previously now has to last all that time to pay rent, energy, food etc etc etc. So the system actually discourages anybody signing off for such short term work.

And of course the fruit picking isnt necessarily where the benefit claimants live. So such workers would then have to fund travel and accommodation costs in order to go where the work was for those very few weeks/days at a time. take those costs out of what may be little higher than a NMW and there's another disincentive to do so.

Its not as simple as "just work instead"

[didds]

The level of welfare handouts, on the other hand, is merely a matter for parliament. Those payouts could be frozen or even reduced, thereby increasing the "motivation" to work by increasing the pay gap between being economically active and frittering away the day at a Wetherspoons.
?

see my post above.

its not just the levels of benefit - its the lag in returning to benefits received once signed off and on again to accommodate such work. that's in governments hands also, and has been the case for years/over a decade. but they don't seem very interested in overcoming that issue.

[scotview]

1 The fruit picking jobs, and the like, should be done by some of the 5 million currently on benefits, it's called work.

The problems with that thought process are amongst others...

OK, I give up, you win.

[didds]

OK - so you'd sign off benefits, work 3 weeks for NMW+ a little, then sign back on and wait 6 weeks for any more money?

Just checking.

[Lootman]

OK - so you'd sign off benefits, work 3 weeks for NMW+ a little, then sign back on and wait 6 weeks for any more money?

Just checking.

A simple way around that, for a temporary job, would be to keep them on benefits the whole time, but then deduct the cost of 3 weeks benefits from their pay for the work.

I would expand it to much more than just fruit picking. Surely there are many community service jobs that could be done in the area where the welfare claimant lives. How about 40 hours picking up litter in order to continue to get welfare, and with some pay on top?

[scotview]

OK - so you'd sign off benefits, work 3 weeks for NMW+ a little, then sign back on and wait 6 weeks for any more money?

Just checking.

A simple way around that, for a temporary job, would be to keep them on benefits the whole time, but then deduct the cost of 3 weeks benefits from their pay for the work.

I would expand it to much more than just fruit picking. Surely there are many community service jobs that could be done in the area where the welfare claimant lives. How about 40 hours picking up litter in order to continue to get welfare, and with some pay on top?

Apparently Switzerland has a system whereby you come off benefits after 18 months and you need to attend 12 job interviews a month to qualify for any benefit payments. But now we're digressing from the OP concerning illegal immigrants, sorry Dod.

[1nvest]

Enter/break-in to the UK illegally and be imprisoned. Try and claim asylum from there, but if you've passed through multiple safe countries be unlikely to be successful. Ignore international law that defines otherwise, many countries ignore such international laws when it conflicts with domestic circumstances.

Prisoners should work, such as in fields picking fruit, cheap labour. And after a illegal completes their prison term, they're extradited, returned to the point of entry, and barred from ever returning under risk of perpetual imprisonment.

What you might expect from a government, not the incompetent put them up in 4 star hotels such that those exploiting them even publicise what you can look forward to if you let them help you break-in to the UK.

[doolally]

How about 40 hours picking up litter in order to continue to get welfare, and with some pay on top?

And pay a team of people to monitor them to ensure that they are actually doing the job? And the "litter" they collect is not just scavenged from a bin?

Nice idea, but not so easy to implement in practice. Sadly!
doolally

[Lootman]

How about 40 hours picking up litter in order to continue to get welfare, and with some pay on top?

And pay a team of people to monitor them to ensure that they are actually doing the job? And the "litter" they collect is not just scavenged from a bin?

Nice idea, but not so easy to implement in practice. Sadly!

Don't we do something like this now with certain "trusted" prison inmates who are close to the end of their sentence? They go out and clean roads etc. I feel sure I have seen them out doing that.

And if you don't tell them where they are going to be cleaning beforehand, and video before and after, it should be possible to see if they worked or not. No work = no benefit for that day!

[Itsallaguess]

‎
As always, Matt's got us worked out....




Source - https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/0/matt-cartoons-may-2023/

Cheers,

Itsallaguess

[servodude]

1 The fruit picking jobs, and the like, should be done by some of the 5 million currently on benefits, it's called work.

The problems with that thought process are amongst others...

such work is seasonal, lasting at best a very few weeks until ending - leaving one unemployed at that moment.

signing off, then signing on again, leads to several weeks before the new claim (signing on) is agreed and paid albeit in arrears at that moment. Thus once signed on that money earned just previously now has to last all that time to pay rent, energy, food etc etc etc. So the system actually discourages anybody signing off for such short term work.

And of course the fruit picking isnt necessarily where the benefit claimants live. So such workers would then have to fund travel and accommodation costs in order to go where the work was for those very few weeks/days at a time. take those costs out of what may be little higher than a NMW and there's another disincentive to do so.

Its not as simple as "just work instead"

Not uncommon to have "board" provided in fruit picking, minimum wage (or cash in hand) seasonal labouring jobs.

If a government were to want to utilise the efforts of those they've deemed illegal, or idolent, or not otherwise contributing to their idea of a society, there's nothing stopping them setting up accommodation for them where needed.
I'm pretty sure that they could sell the idea of work camps quite easily - which would just leave them looking for a solution for what to do with the human resource (or whatever you call people who are employed without remuneration these days) once the picking season were over.

-sd

[gryffron]

signing off, then signing on again, leads to several weeks before the new claim (signing on) is agreed and paid albeit in arrears at that moment. Thus once signed on that money earned just previously now has to last all that time to pay rent, energy, food etc etc etc. So the system actually discourages anybody signing off for such short term work.

Universal Credit TRIES to fix that. The same system is used for out-of-work and in-work benefits. So it should be possible for people to work short term or flexible hours and their income simply being topped up at the end of the week without submitting a new claim. UC isn’t perfect, but it is a huge improvement over the previous system, which DID exhibit the total disincentive to work that you describe. Labour have committed to scrap UC, though they haven’t said whether they’ll revert to the (even more) useless system we had before, or take decades to invent something even more complicated.

Gryff