ConDem’s brutal attack on the poorest

The latest Government attack on welfare claimants is an attack on the poorest and most vulnerable sections of society. Yet again the unemployed are being made scapegoats for a crisis of capitalism caused by the banks and big business. With an ever growing number of unemployed people trapped in poverty and competing for fewer jobs, the Government’s 1% cap on benefits means an even tighter squeeze on the poverty stricken who are already struggling to make ends meet.

Due to housing benefit cuts many people claiming Jobseekers’ Allowance already have to pay part of their £71 per week on rent, and with council tax and growing electricity bills also to pay, a JSA claimant will often be left with about £6 per day to live on after bills.

It’s no wonder such a chasm exists in life expectancy between the rich and poor because it’s virtually impossible to maintain a healthy and nutritious diet or participate in sporting activities when struggling to exist on such a meagre daily budget.

skip meals

The Government could claim they encourage exercise by putting grossly overpriced public transport out of the budget of benefit claimants.

With a return ticket on a local bus often costing just under half of your daily budget benefit claimants become used to having to pound the pavements whenever they need to go anywhere. If you need to get new warm clothes for winter you’ll likely need to skip a few meals in order to afford to do so.

In reality 1% cap on JSA means a worsening of these already chronically poor living conditions. We’ll have less food, less electricity, less living as we would expect a dignified life to be like.

Food inflation is already rising above the general inflation rate and the numbers of people being caught shop lifting for food and other essential items is rising rapidly with benefit claimants being forced into criminality in order to survive.

To compound this misery, the Government’s new internet based Universal Credit system is ending the opportunity for the unemployed to look for work in their local Jobcentres, transferring all job searching online. Many thousands of Jobseekers have been placed on emergency computer skills classes in a desperate and vain attempt to prevent this system sliding into chaos. Through this system the DWP wish to keep a Big Brother eye on every job a claimant applies for through the Jobcentre.

sanctions

At the same time sanctions are being increased with the regulations being changed making it easier for the DWP to deny a claimant their JSA for either 3 or 6 month periods. The new chaotic universal job match system being forced upon the unemployed can be a bit of a minefield for regular internet users.

It is inevitable that this will be used as an excuse to sanction people for failing to apply for jobs when in reality it is not laziness, but a lack of computer skills that are preventing people from trying to find work.

Elderly claimants are being particularly hampered and it is becoming far more common to see public libraries filling up with unemployed people on the computers desperately trying to grapple with the system in order to apply for jobs.

As well as trying to save money by cutting benefits and implementing more sanctions, the DWP are also planning for the Universal Credit to make it easier for them to cut jobs and close Jobcentres.

It’s more important than ever for those in work and the unemployed to unite together to combat the brutal assaults of the ConDems. We must oppose their attempts to divide the working class into ‘strivers and shirkers’.

All working class people are striving for a better standard of living, and it’s the politicians, bankers and big business fat cats who’ve often never done a proper hard days work that are shirking the responsibility for creating this financial crisis, which they are making the working class pay for.