This to me is the root of the whole issue. The current costs of living, even to a relatively basic standard, are beyond much of the work available. IMO, if the govt really want to make work pay for a significant portion of the population then it is essential that the costs of living which fall within their power to assert at least some control over are regulated to some extent. It seems to me that this government spouts a lot of rhetoric regarding making work pay, to achieve this they appear to have set a course which involves making unemployment a much less comfortable place (although anyone who has been unemployed in the past might describe it as anything but comfortable). How about they do make work pay....pay for a holiday once a year, an affordable roof over your head, decent food, heating on when it is cold. Either the average wage needs to rise, or by some method the cost of living needs to fall. Controlling rents might be a useful step in a direction that would benefit what will soon be a majority of people in the UK in addition to the wider economy. This at the expense of a relatively small number of private landlords in comparison to the large hedge funds and company pension schemes who are investing for long term returns and asset value anyway.
IDS should try living on job seekers for five months, I had that experience after redundancy from a relatively well paid job, I will put money on it he will be popping the anti depressants like sweets after three months....and I wonder if he would take a job in Poundland? I wonder if anyone remembers a programme transmitted when the conservatives were still in opposition, in which IDS spent two weeks living in a flat on an estate up north I think....I am sure he never lasted the two weeks before he had to leave on 'official matters'. I find myself increasingly sceptical of his motives and the wider agenda of this government......add to this that tonight's 5 live drive time devoted a small segment to a government suggestion that the national minimum wage could be scrapped to make the economy 'more flexible'....would that idea really make work pay? It would I suppose make a part time supermarket worker become full time, albeit on 3 quid an hour.
Frustrating times!