Is work working?

Call me old fashioned - and you would perhaps be right in many ways. But then nostalgia is not what it used to be. And it never was really.

You see I always thought that work was work - an ability to earn money, stand on your own two feet; pay for what you and your family needs and out of that income a small amount is taken in the form of tax by the government in order to pay for services that require a bigger scale of funding, like the machinery of government, defence of the realm or the NHS; as well as to provide a safety net for those who are unfortunate enough not to have any work (ideally for a short period) or who cannot work for other reasons such as disability.

I also thought that welfare or 'benefits' were provided as I have described, as a safety net for people who are unemployed or disabled and therefore need a helping hand from their fellow citizens in our civilised society. And to declare my interests in this subject, I am currently unemployed but not claiming benefits and have a (registered) disabled daughter.

To 'old fashioned' me, the above seems to be a fair and equitable approach to creating a system that rewards work - so that those who do work are better off than those who don't, but ensures that those who can't find work are looked after and can live relatively comfortably in terms of food and shelter and dignity, albeit - and importantly - without being able to enjoy some of the 'luxuries' that going out to work allows. In this way people who are out of work are encouraged to find work and better themselves in a way which is good for their families, the wider community, the country at large, and perhaps most importantly, for the unemployed individuals themselves.

Having a purpose in life, a reason to get up, get out, earn money and 'get on' is a difficult thing to measure accurately, but in terms of mental well-being, self esteem, motivation, purpose and simply, as a positive role model, encouraging your kids to have a positive work ethic, it must be a better thing than encouraging people 'not to bother', to retreat from society and the world.

If you fundamentally disagree with any of the above, thanks for getting this far. And goodbye and good luck.

Because, once, as a society, you get to the stage where most people who go out to work (but on on low incomes) are also receiving 'benefits' because they don't have a 'living wage', you have fundamentally lost the plot. And once you get to the stage where many (if not 'most' and I think it is getting very close to 'most') people on benefits who don't work would be worse off if they got a job, then you're in a downward spiral of absolute disaster if you want to be a successful, thriving, achieving, successful economy.

And that is where we are right now.

Subsidising private sector companies' wage bills because they don't pay a living wage is a socialist approach but it is just lining the pockets of the stingy employer by reducing his costs and increasing his profits. Are you sure that's a good socialist thing to be doing?

And making benefits an 'entitlement' something that people have a 'right' to get, as opposed to being grateful for the safety net afforded to them by people who do work and pay their taxes, is certain to create resentment, particularly if those who don't work seem to be as well off as those who do. That simply cannot be right in a fair society.

Current benefit levels are trapping people and families into years, decades, generations of worklessness. Where there is simply no incentive for them to go out and find work (I'm not saying finding work is easy by the way), because they would lose out financially if they got a job. That is just madness.

I know of some young people (teenage girls mainly) in my part of the world who view 'starting a family' as a career move. As a genuine alternative to staying at school, going on to college (university is a different world to them), or getting a job. Because it allows them to leave home at 15 or 16, get their own place and have a livable level of benefits income. And while you might view this as me being critical of them, I'm not. I'm on their side and I am horrified that this short-term trap, which looks very attractive to someone living in a difficult home environment and who wants to be 'grown up', but which effectively wastes them and their talents and efforts, probably forever.

We are, as a society, doing this to people in order to be as kind to them as we can. We're killing these young people with kindness. And we feel smug about it. We think we're doing the right thing. We're so not.

These kids have kids of their own and get a lifestyle, a home, an 'income', from which they will never emerge to achieve their potential, to better themselves or to make a contribution to society. And we seem to think that this is a good thing? In order to be better off, they would have to be earning more than £300 a week (net), just to have a couple of quid more in their pockets. And they don't need that extra couple of quid so why bother? And how many 15 year olds with no qualifications and a kid (at least one) in tow, do you know who are earning £20 grand a year?

So that's a massive issue in my opinion for our society to try to address and whilst IDS is tinkering and moving somewhat in the right direction, it's nowhere near enough to address the fundamental problem.

But even more important it seems to me, is the current madness of 'topping up' the wages of people who are working full-time, in the private sector. What is the point of having a minimum wage if it is not enough to live on? And what is enough to live on? Who decides? Does it include fags? Nights out? Holidays? Are these fundamentals of life or 'pleasures' that make working worth doing? People were outraged earlier this year when the figure of £53 a week to live on became a public issue. But that figure was after housing and energy and other living costs had been accounted for. It was effectively £53 a week for food. I don't want to detract from my overall point here, but I can, and often do, feed three people, healthily and well for £53 a week. More here.

And how does this play with people who go out to work? When they know that what they're doing is not enough for them to earn a living wage? Of course they will take the extra money thank you very much, but it must diminish their sense of worth, of value, of purpose. If you go out to work for 40-odd hours a week and need to be subsidised by the state, that's not really standing on your own two feet is it? And whilst this situation is probably not front and centre of their thinking on a day-to-day basis, these people who are working but being subsidised, are not making any net contribution to society. So what's the point? They're just surviving.

And what does this state subsidy really achieve? Does it redistribute wealth or just leave many (most?) people trapped in relative poverty? Does it incentivise endeavour, achievement, effort? Or undermine those values upon which our nation has been founded? Does 'topping up' wages really help the employee or the inefficient, perhaps insolvent employer in the long-term?

Is it a likely plan for making Britain 'Great' again on the world stage or more likely to see us meandering slowly but inexorably downhill towards a meaningless, desperate, state-funded, uncompetitive realm?

If working doesn't pay you enough to live on, it's not really work. It's 'benefits but with a little extra something to do along the way'. If someone employs you to do a job and that job does not give you enough to live on, it's not really a job. If an employer can get away with paying you so little that you need state benefits to make ends meet, his business is not viable. Or, perhaps more likely, he's taking the piss out of you, the tax-payer, the government and this crazy system.

This subsidy is just propping up crap businesses, propping up ridiculously high rents and house-prices. And the people who suffer - or perhaps 'pay' is a better term - are those who make enough from their jobs (lucky bastards you might suggest) to pay 40% of their incomes to subsidise these greedy, inefficient, otherwise bankrupt employers.

Figures are largely meaningless in terms of the amounts of money involved but we paid almost £42billion in 'in-work' benefits to people in 2011-12. That's eight times what we paid in unemployment benefits. Source here.

To prop up crap employers and perpetuate this 'client' or 'nanny' state. Are we completely mad?

I'm beginning to think that we are.

Thanks for reading.