Benefit levels 'do not promote laziness', study suggests

[muriel_volestrangler]

Source: BBC

High levels of benefits for the unemployed do not lead to a lack of motivation to find work, a Europe-wide study has found.
...
Report author Dr Jan Eichhorn, from the University of Edinburgh's School of Social and Political Science, said: "Those who claim that greater unemployment benefits lead to less motivation for people to seek employment should think again.

"For most people, it is not the degree of state provisions that determines how they personally feel about the experience of being unemployed.

"Unemployment does not just result in a loss of income, but also a change in social position - that is perceived differently in different societies."

Read more: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-24974745

[grilled onions]

1. Good Thing For Congress

Considering their lack of ambition plus the fact their benefits never cease it's good to know there is hope for them yet! Seriously if only they wold look at those who truly want to work but also need to survive and understand where the unemployed are coming from. They get hit from so many angles. Their pride,their feeling of unworthiness at times,their desire to feed their family,have a roof over their head,educate or reeducate themselves at a time when so many condemn them as losers,lazy and drainers of society and it's millions. Politicians--so many who have never seen bottom,hit bottom or even know where bottom is cannot fathom how bad it can be yet they make the rules for those who can't find a job or have lost a job. This is the great disconnect.

[groundloop]

4. You absolutely nailed it. I was an unemployed chemical engineer in the '80s

I was a young chemical engineer during those 'wonderful' RayGun years, the company I worked for went out of business (I suppose it was all my fault for choosing the wrong employer) and I lost everything I had. I lived through everything you mentioned, thank God I was able to live on my grandparents farm for the low low cost of helping out. I eventually went back to school and got a 2nd degree, but during that time I went through everything you mentioned. It was also during that time that I started realizing that the right wing was so wrong about everything.

[LiberalEsto]

5. Members of Congress should get to experience unemployment personally

Let's make sure all the repuke members become unemployed next November.

[randome]

2. The tiny percentage of people who ARE lazy...

...won't have much to contribute anyways so leave them be.

The vast majority of people prefer to move forward.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]You should never stop having childhood dreams.[/center][/font][hr]

[rickford66]

9. right

I always thought that for the few who would drag down the economy, it's better to consider this a bribe to keep them out of the work force. At least they help the economy by spending all they receive.

[IrishAyes]

3. Thank you. That's fodder for my next letter to the newspaper.

I don't copy, of course, merely cite reliable sources and tell the story in my own words. But where would I be w/o research? Can't pretend to know everything in the world entirely on my own. Some people may not realize the importance of letters in the newspaper, but that remains one of the most highly read sections, appealing to both sexes.

Locally most people don't delve into politics too much except for the editor who loves to quote what I consider deplorable sources, such as the Heritage Foundation to which he's a subscriber. Then there's the guy I think of as The Screamer who sometimes answers my letters with junk like "LYING HEYENAS OF SOCIALISM!" screeds. Really shameful. But I figure he's off his meds or something.

The main thing to me is that our side gets printed and read. Sometimes people actually compliment me though only after a quick check over their shoulder to make sure no one else will hear them. I've received several congratulatory letters which were still unsigned because people are terrified of exposure. To me that makes my public work even more critical.

[randome]

6. Don't stop what you're doing, then!

[hr][font color="blue"][center]You should never stop having childhood dreams.[/center][/font][hr]

[Spitfire of ATJ]

7. Funny how the right in every country makes the same claim....

They say the poor need less money to motivate them to work and the rich need more money to motivate them to work.

[hunter]

8. People are social animals and don't like to be idle.

"Lazy" is a label that either blames the victim for various sorts of mental health issues (including addictions), or blames the victim for the failure of a society to provide adequate resources and opportunities for its people by discrimination based in racism, homophobia, sexism, rejection of the disabled, etc.

It takes a fairly good income to create a truly lazy person. Most truly lazy people will be found among the offspring of the wealthy.

George W. Bush seems to be a person like that; incurious, venal, intellectually lazy, a person who "failed his way to the top" by family wealth and political connections. He's a very "dim bulb" compared to Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, or Barak Obama. Bush may be "intelligent" but it seems he's never exercised his brains much on anything but the navigation of the Bush family's Byzantine power structures; as if he didn't want to contaminate his "beautiful mind" (in the words of his mother) with anything else.

People who are unemployed and not fearing for their lives are often the source of great innovation. J.K. Rowling would be an example of a person who created billions of dollars of economic activity because she was not otherwise occupied living on the streets, eating out of dumpsters, and dodging dangerous human predators.

Progress in our society would greatly accelerate if everyone had a safe place to live, plenty of good food to eat, appropriate health care, and ample educational and employment opportunities.

[Mojorabbit]

10. + a gazillion. nt