I reckon
If instead of giving out money, the Benefits Agency instead gave out books of tokens containing vouchers which will give a person the means to live in a moderate level of comfort, but will encourage people who scrounge from the system to find work to pay for the luxuries such as Plasma TVs and Sky.

May be a little extreme, but a friend of mine who studies Economics said that this idea would save taxpayers' money, and hopefuly have the added benefit of getting the scroungers into work as they suddenly find they cannot afford the things that they enjoyed previously.
(General_Manchego, Sat 29 May 2010, 14:21, 2 replies)

I like this idea
The only issue I can see with it is that suddenly you'll have that standard of living/quality of life argument appearing again. People will claim that they need certain luxuries for their mental well being, and so on. Also, there'd be nothing stopping them from claiming t'internet for "job research" purposes and then just sitting on that all day, watching online TV.
(Sivvus trolley collision in the fruit aisle led to a jam, Sat 29 May 2010, 14:30, closed)

The Internet is free in libraries
So that argument does not wash
(EssY, Sat 29 May 2010, 14:40, closed)

Its not the internet connection I object to,
as we all know having teh internet is most definitely not a human right, its the money being spent on booze, fags, designer trackies and Sky rather than decent food and clothes for their kids. Vouchers mean you can't do that. Of course some would sell their vouchers to get the above, but I can't see anyone giving that much cash for being able to buy kids clothes even at a £1 voucher:£1 rate.

The issue is that they need to work out the average spare cash that someone on minimum wage has after they've paid their rent and council tax and then pay a percentage of that as benefits as if you get your rent and council tax paid, everything else left after fuel and food is discretionary spending, a luxury that many workers don't have much of.

If people working on low wages struggle on to support their families with what little they have left after paying the essentials, doleites shouldn't be getting more than them, regardless of their circumstances. It just insults anyone who grafts hard in shitty minimum wage jobs through possession of pride and a work ethic to have it otherwise.

You'd see the teenage pregnancy rate drop like a stone when they realised that having another mouth to feed makes life harder instead of easier, just like working people have to.
(The man with the flan swashed his buckle on, Sat 29 May 2010, 22:24, closed)

Yeah
I've always thought something similar to that, but they get their benefits on some sort of card, and they are restricted to what they can buy with it, so no fags or booze, and thus less of a stress on the NHS, and not luxuries, so there is an incentive to work. It means people who need it get fed and clothed, but no one would want to live on it for long.

It might effect the economy a little, but giving tax money to scroungers to give to businesses probably isn't a an efficient use of taxes anyway.
(stubbledchin, Tue 1 Jun 2010, 13:07, closed)