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The problem is though, that by attempting to stamp out the abuse you end up actually spending more than if you just left it untackled. We spend far more on chasing/finding and prosecuting benefits fraud than we ever save in doing so.
Mostly the 'abuse' of the system isn't people living the high life and desperately avoiding work. It's more often someone who is unable to take on a full-time/permanent job claiming benefits, with a few hours a week of undeclared work (maybe £30 or so doing a cleaning job, or a few hours a week on a marketstall) often just for a few weeks at a time.
One of the problems with benefits is that if you take on a job that doesn't work out, you've lost all your benefits (including help with rent etc) and are back at the start of the process, making fresh claims that can take weeks or months. IF you've been fired from the job, or walked out (for example if your boss makes your life hell) you can't claim benefits straight away. You can get 'hardship' payments but the whole while (several months) you are building up a backlog of unpaid rent.
For many people living at the margins of the economy, their experience of emplyment is often negative: employers who treat them with little respect, fights with overbearing supervisers etc, messed about on ovetime or shifts. I know of one employer in my town who only employs on temporary contracts and whose workers regularly get to the factory to start work and are told to go home again and try tomorrow.
I believe there should be a grace period with a new job. The people who struggle most in this area, the ones who are most profoundly stuck on benefits, are often also the people most vulnerable to bad employment practice and bullying in the workplace. I can understand why they don't want to make the leap off benefits into a workplace that might chew them up and spit them out, and then leave them high and dry with no benefits.
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