DOLE by nick-e melville

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I should also point out that I have lost four jobs since the economic crisis began, due
to funding cuts in my work sector: community education. It is now extremely difficult
to find sustainable work within this area, as there are fewer jobs and more people out
of work looking for employment in that field. Not to mention the rise of precarious
working conditions: contract work and zero-hour contracts. Struggling by with parttime
work, while receiving housing benefit, is the only way I can keep my hand in this
area. In other words, if I changed sectors, just to get off JSA, I might preclude myself
from ever working in the area I have worked in for the last eight years. For the record
it is an area in which I love working.
My last issue concerns what happens when you are working and suddenly have to
start signing on, with the massive drop in income that this incurs? Affordable things
such as mobile phones, cars, internet and so on, will suddenly seem financially out
of reach and once one has these things they cannot easily be given up. The claim
made by yourself that you would be able to live on weekly JSA is wholly disingenuous,
especially given the massive gap between your salary per week and JSA. It is a
preposterous claim. Surely a fairer system should be introduced whereby one’s
contribution to working and paying tax, in the period preceding signing on, would be
reflected in the amount of benefit received when first claiming JSA? This in itself, I feel,
would be more of an incentive to working, than the draconian ‘incentives’ currently on
offer. Insurance – a cushion – should one lose one’s job.
In France, for instance, if you are under 50 years old and have been working full time
for over four months, you are entitled to 57.4% of your last salary, after tax, through the
L’allocation d’aide au retour scheme (JSA equivalent). Couple this with other benefits,
housing benefit, and you could receive 70% of your last salary. This percentage
decreases gradually over time, but it’s a much fairer way to introduce people, who
have been working, to a severe change in income, than the significant income drop
which occurs in the UK. Similar schemes are in place in Denmark and other European
countries – I had the benefit of a French friend to find this information, but lacked a
Danish friend, or other European, to locate similar information.