Starmer says benefit claimants should have to look for work

[Retro]

This sounds alright at first glance and I don't like freeloaders either, but there are significant caveats to this.

Firstly, there are people who simply can't work due to disability or injury and will never be able to. Don't try to railroad them into work like the tories did. I hope Labour do the right thing here and continue supporting them properly.

Secondly, there's the so-called "benefit trap", where working brings in less money than remaining on benefits, which already don't pay all that much. This is understandably a massive disinsentive to find work and I don't blame the benefit claimant for this. After all, it's not likely that they'll find a well paying job that earns significantly more than their benefits, is it? No, they'll start at the very bottom, be a lot poorer than before, likely not able to pay their bills, and may never be able to lift themselves out of that poverty. I don't blame anyone for being reluctant to find work in such a situation and no government for the last 40 years or more has ever addressed this issue.

I noticed that neither of these critical issues were mentioned in the article.

There will be other pros and cons to this and they can be debated in this thread.

Keir Starmer has said he believes that benefit claimants should be expected to look for work.

He added that there would be "hard cases" and that the government and businesses should help those who may feel anxious about re-entering the workplace, but that the "basic proposition that you should look for work is right".

The prime minister was speaking to the BBC's Today programme, following his party conference speech in which he said he wanted to "level" with the country about the "trade-offs" people would face.

Benefit claimants should have to look for jobs, says Keir Starmer

The prime minister has said the public will have to make "trade-offs" if the country is to improve.

www.bbc.co.uk