Benefits aren’t just for the out of work
Gordon and Scott (MetroTalk, Fri) make the usual error that all Universal Credit goes to the unemployed. In fact, millions of those receiving UC are in employment.
The scandal is not the unemployed ‘laying about eating takeaways’, but that millions of jobs are with employers who pay so little that the government (and the taxpayer) has to top up their wages.
Be angry at UC by all means but be angry at the many, many employers who pay so poorly that we need to subsidise them each year.
Stubags, Essex
I’m baffled by Scott’s assumption that those claiming UC ‘lay about eating takeaways’. The price of that takeaway you seem to take for granted is all some have for their entire weekly shop.
Sarah, Manchester
I wish commentators such as TV football pundit Gary Neville would get the facts right (Metro, Thu). The government is not proposing any cuts to UC payments. As a response to the pandemic, they provided an extra £20 a week for those in most need.
This was done along with a number of other measures to help those that were losing income as a result of lockdown and the restrictions imposed, which included very generous furlough arrangements. It was never intended – and it was made clear at the time – that this was a temporary measure.
But perhaps instead of cancelling it abruptly, the additional £20 should be phased out.
However, while people should never go hungry there are those that will take whatever handouts are on offer and choose not to work.
Nick, Herts
UC is being cut by £20 a week because there are job opportunities out there but what they forget to mention is that once you have found a job, all your benefits are cut depending on how much you get paid and you end up being in debt because you can’t afford to pay for everything.
Nya, East London
The answer to Walter’s question of why, with the savings made from the £68billion furlough scheme ending, chancellor Rishi Sunak cannot continue the £20 a week uplift in UC to help cold and hungry children (MetroTalk, Thu) is just as the furlough scheme was funded by borrowing, the same applied to the UC uplift. There is no ‘saving’.
The question we should be getting the answer to is why the existing UC payment was inadequate for the needs of a number of beneficiaries and how individuals can be encouraged to improve their skills and pay to end their reliance on welfare.
Alan Finlay, London