Would You Work For Minimum Wage Or Claim Benefits?

[mickd1961]

There is a massive financial difference between working and claiming benefits though. A quick google tells me you get about £77 per week JSA. Maybe you get more on Universal Credit and other benefits. But lets say by claiming you get £500 per month for arguments sake.

If you got a job working for £9 per hour for 38 hours per week, you'd take home £1368 pre tax. And you wouldn't be paying much tax on that as the first £12k per year is tax free. Lets say £100 tax, it means you would be better off by about £750 per month roughly working full time compared to claiming benefits. Your household is £1500+ better off if you are with a partner who is also working.

But if I got the same claiming benefits than what I took home now, then yes I'd absolutely do that. Why work if you don't have to? The truth is though, I can't see how anyone can think its financially beneficial not to work in this country - although some probably do.

“The why work if you don’t have to” is the wrong way of looking at this in my opinion.

In my younger days I could’ve had the same in benefits as I did at my first job but quite rightly, that scenario wasn’t tolerated in our household.

I’m in the last stretch of my working life now and winding down, it might seem perverse to many but I’m finding it hard doing less.

I have feelings of guilt about it and I have a regular dream that I’m 23 again and back at the busiest and most stressful job I ever had.

Once I do completely finish and sell my business off I will have to find something else to do, probably voluntary work of some type.

I don’t get how people can sit on their a r s e for the whole of their lives doing nothing.

[Dubbag]

I don’t get how people can sit on their a r s e for the whole of their lives doing nothing.

Well I can tell you they do!!
If you don't understand then consider yourself a conscious and responsible individual who happily contributes to civilization and community life in your society.
I see too many scum bags out there who know their way around the corrupt system to make it impossible to take a job even offering about €500 a week.
Working is great for the soul. Colleague of mine works 40 hour week and does about the same again in voluntary work......
Another distant friend works full time voluntary work who is also on the dole. He just gets so much satisfaction from helping others....

[baggieal]

People who work for the pleasure of it are a dream for employers and a means to pay minimum wage. They probably also treat them like peasants.
Two people by us are 71 and 68.
She still works in a care home for minimum wage, he says they treat her like s hit but she loves her job.
He was a car mechanic, he retired through ill health, because of his job, he has arthritic hands, one eye, and a bad chest due to asbestos in the brake linings.
He said he would go back to his job in a heartbeat as he idolised work.🤔 He spends his days now waiting for his lawn to grow so he can cut it, he said it kills him but you have to do something.
I have never claimed benefits but if they paid me as much to have a life of leisure and the same to go to work it would be a no brainer.

“The why work if you don’t have to” is the wrong way of looking at this in my opinion.

In my younger days I could’ve had the same in benefits as I did at my first job but quite rightly, that scenario wasn’t tolerated in our household.

I’m in the last stretch of my working life now and winding down, it might seem perverse to many but I’m finding it hard doing less.

I have feelings of guilt about it and I have a regular dream that I’m 23 again and back at the busiest and most stressful job I ever had.

Once I do completely finish and sell my business off I will have to find something else to do, probably voluntary work of some type.

I don’t get how people can sit on their a r s e for the whole of their lives doing nothing.

There’s a balance to working and being a family. At 28 I could have been on really silly money but travelling from country to country contracting hotels. I turned the job down as two days at home in 7 ( if lucky ) was no life.

I get not doing nothing in later life but already I am winding down and want to enjoy even more holidays and time with my kids. Mr Hays Travel was plain stupid carrying on when loaded and now he’s in a box. My kids had a great education so now in top jobs and the youngest still at school will go far so they are not financially reliant on me and should not be reliant on anything left when I am in a box. As I said to my late mother - spend every single penny and enjoy your life as I don’t want to be left anything, Yes I was left quite a lot but gave it away!

Enjoy life as you are a long time dead. I admire Des because you can tell on his social media he’s loving life. I do know a few people in their late 50’s who are financially comfortable but they still want to make more money but it’s just greed - they hardly see their kids and wives look miserable! All fool them.

[WBA1955]

I have worked all my life, apart from a couple of years when Thatcher put me on the dole twice in five years.
I could have stayed on the dole but decided to get a job on the council, a job that others would have seen as beneath them.
When the kids were growing up I worked a full day plus gritting at night. I worked seven days a week, and have been working on Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, Boxing Day, New Years Eve and New Years Day.
If any overtime was going I would have it.
When the kids had grown up I went to five days a week. I packed in the overtime in 2009. When I had done almost 33 years on the council I went for my redundancy.
I was 31 when I started on the council having worked in engineering up until then. I enjoyed my jobs and made some good friends. But now we are comfortably off and I am enjoying life knowing that I will never have to work again.
But, if I had been well off in the beginning of my working life I wouldn't have worked at all.
Just think how much of your life is spent working for others.

[baggieal]

People who work for the pleasure of it are a dream for employers and a means to pay minimum wage. They probably also treat them like peasants.
Two people by us are 71 and 68.
She still works in a care home for minimum wage, he says they treat her like s hit but she loves her job.
He was a car mechanic, he retired through ill health, because of his job, he has arthritic hands, one eye, and a bad chest due to asbestos in the brake linings.
He said he would go back to his job in a heartbeat as he idolised work.🤔 He spends his days now waiting for his lawn to grow so he can cut it, he said it kills him but you have to do something.
I have never claimed benefits but if they paid me as much to have a life of leisure and the same to go to work it would be a no brainer.

I have worked all my life, apart from a couple of years when Thatcher put me on the dole twice in five years.
I could have stayed on the dole but decided to get a job on the council, a job that others would have seen as beneath them.
When the kids were growing up I worked a full day plus gritting at night. I worked seven days a week, and have been working on Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, Boxing Day, New Years Eve and New Years Day.
If any overtime was going I would have it.
When the kids had grown up I went to five days a week. I packed in the overtime in 2009. When I had done almost 33 years on the council I went for my redundancy.
I was 31 when I started on the council having worked in engineering up until then. I enjoyed my jobs and made some good friends. But now we are comfortably off and I am enjoying life knowing that I will never have to work again.
But, if I had been well off in the beginning of my working life I wouldn't have worked at all.
Just think how much of your life is spent working for others.

Good for you Des. Enjoying life are the key words but some want to keep the money coming in even though they are comfortably off!

God bless Mr Hayes the Travel owner - the old fool was one of them!

Pointless leaving a pot of gold too as it’s yours to enjoy whilst alive and not greedy kids/family members fighting over it.

[soulman101]

I worked an average of 70+ hours a week, a full time job with BT and 30+ hours working for myself.
I didn't need the money, but it was the buzz of pushing myself.
Only Saturday afternoons I had off was when Albion was at home.
I should have took my wife's and cut my hours down.
Ended up , burnt out and crippled with bad joints.
My twin brother never worked overtime and is fit as a fiddle.
My neighbour had a bad stroke last night, you need to cherish every day.

[westcountryvillain]

The key thing here is how you value your time in the context of life being short and as has been said already, you're a long time dead. For me there has to be some sense of purpose and having some kind of legacy. I couldn't be at peace in my own mind if I didn't have either of those things, that's just how I am.

The benefits system should be a safety net and no more, it's simply wrong to live off the taxpayer when you're fit & well enough to give your time to something and pay into the system. Unfortunately a subculture exists where work "simply isn't worth it" and until that's reversed it will stay that way - I can understand why people would think like that but there should be conditions placed on it, voluntary work for example.

[baggieal]

I worked an average of 70+ hours a week, a full time job with BT and 30+ hours working for myself.
I didn't need the money, but it was the buzz of pushing myself.
Only Saturday afternoons I had off was when Albion was at home.
I should have took my wife's and cut my hours down.
Ended up , burnt out and crippled with bad joints.
My twin brother never worked overtime and is fit as a fiddle.
My neighbour had a bad stroke last night, you need to cherish every day.

Totally agree Lloyd - cherish each day to the full. You don’t know whether tomorrow will come!

I said to my GP before an operation this year did I have to go under as it was on my mind whether you would wake up. The GP was brutal and said God give me strength - you could go to sleep tonight and not wake up. Very true!