A Labour government will introduce a Basic Skills Test to assess all new claimants for Job Seekers Allowance within six weeks of claiming benefits. Those who dont have the skills they need for a job will have to take up training alongside their jobsearch or lose their benefits Continue reading
The U.K. is to stop immigrants from receiving payments to cover housing costs unless they have jobs, as political parties seek to show voters they’re tough on welfare. “No longer can people come here from abroad and expect to get something for nothing,” Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith and Home Secretary Theresa May … Continue reading
As part of the 28-nation European Union, Polish citizens have most of the same welfare rights here as Britons, under a European Union policy designed to foster European integration and create a vibrant economic market with mobile workers. Instead, it seems to be driving Europeans apart. At a time when some governments’ austerity policies have … Continue reading
Over the past decade, politicians and the press alike have claimed that welfare reform works. Despite these claims, many researchers question the success of welfare reform. Since 1996, and until the recent recession, many welfare participants in the United States have found some type of employment after leaving welfare. It is not clear how much … Continue reading
The EU says Germany profits from immigration and has nothing to whine about Continue reading
Welfare currently pays more than a minimum-wage job in 35 states, even after accounting for the Earned Income Tax Credit, and in 13 states it pays more than $15 per hour Continue reading
US – Food stamps skyrocket as unemployment rates remain flat while disability recipients hit record for 192nd straight month Continue reading
Our welfare system today is politically toxic and the public debate about it has become untethered from evidence or a semblance of rational discussion. Beneath the hyperbole, the government’s welfare reform agenda offers no solution to this deep crisis of legitimacy. For three decades, successive governments have pursued broadly similar strategies that have had mixed … Continue reading
Germany’s low unemployment rate is the envy of much of Europe. Yet it masks the difficulties many working Germans have in making ends meet and their reliance on welfare benefits. The issue could become important as the election campaign heats up. Despite Germany’s low unemployment rate, a growing number of the working poor in the … Continue reading
Europe will have to “work very hard” to maintain the most generous welfare system in the world and remain globally competitive, said Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, in an interview with the Financial Times. The key to Europe’s ability to survive the challenge of globalisation is to spend more on research and education and overhaul … Continue reading
President Obama is the chief executive, obligated by the Constitution to “take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed.” Obama, however, seems to have — by executive order — altered that to read “take Care that the Laws [which he likes or wished Congress had passed] be faithfully executed. The list of laws he won’t … Continue reading
On January 8, 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson delivered a State of the Union address to Congress in which he declared an “unconditional war on poverty in America.” At the time, the poverty rate in America was around 19 percent and falling rapidly. This year, it is reported that the poverty rate is expected to … Continue reading
Making employment supports available to all job-seekers would level the playing field and help the province’s neediest escape poverty, says Ontario’s social services review commission, headed by Frances Lankin and Munir Sheikh. The commission’s final report, to be released in June, will also include recommendations on how to improve the administration of the province’s two … Continue reading
Perhaps no law in the past generation has drawn more praise than the drive to “end welfare as we know it,” which joined the late-’90s economic boom to send caseloads plunging, employment rates rising and officials of both parties hailing the virtues of tough love. But the distress of the last four years has added … Continue reading
Ann Marie Gray and Goretti Horgan “outline issues relating to the implementation and impact of the most recent Welfare to Work policy in Northern Ireland.” in Welfare to Work published by ARK, ACCESS RESEARCH KNOWLEDGE, Northern Ireland. “The focus on work as the route out of poverty is reflected in the policies and measures introduced since 1997.” … Continue reading