Post by Ian JacksonPost by JudithIt would seem that Lord Freud (The Welfare Reform Minister) told a fringe
meeting at the recent Tory conference that some disabled people are "not worth"
the minimum wage.
He suggested that some disabled people could be paid as low as £2 an hour.
They really are a very, very Nasty party.
On the face of it, this does seem a very cold-hearted thing to say.
It does! But always there are two sides to every tale. Of course H.M.
Loyal Opposition will show indignation and false anger even if privately
they are pleased. Parliament has nothing to do with giving a fair
hearing to an alternative point of view. It's all about tribalism and
spinning the facts so as to promote the electoral prospects of their tribe.
There's nothing in party politics for the honest man.
Post by Ian JacksonHowever, follow-up explanations are that he was simply concerned with
the fact that some disabled people are not really capable of
economically doing the minimum wage's worth of work. Unless an employer
is prepared to act as a charity, this means that the chances of some
disabled being employed are be minimal.
What he was then suggesting was that a solution could be that the
disabled person might be employed, but get paid less than the minimum
wage by the employer (which would be illegal at the moment), and the
rest topped up as a state benefit. The disabled worker would then be
able to benefit from social interaction and job satisfaction in the
workplace. In principle, this seems worthy of further discussion.
You aren't going to get Milliband to acknowledge that. He's not going to
miss his chance to have a cup of tea and a Hob Nob with H.M over mere
detail.
Those of us with knowledge in this area though know from everyday
experience that some disabled people can and do work and successfully.
There are others who would be disgusted by the idea and would prefer
these people be stood around as totems to the success of our everywhere
envied nowhere copied welfare state.
Good sense dictates that any person is better off through the dignity of
working. Of course there are some who can't work they are different
cases that are worthy of support.
There are others somewhere in between. It may be the case that they "are
not worth" the same remuneration as an equivalent able bodied worker.
Where this is the case, that same good sense dictates that an employer
should pay them what they are worth and the state make up the
difference. It's a far better value for our welfare budget than paying
them for sitting around doing nothing.
That same good sense should tell us that our firms and businesses exist
to make money as profit rather then serve as an adjunct to the welfare
state. Of course the root of the problem lies in the fact that there
exists a minimum wage. There are some able bodied people who are simply
not worth the money they are said to earn.
Let the market decide who's worth what!