- There are certain things that all humans need in order to survive: food, access to clean water, shelter, and clothes.
- In Britain, when people are out of work, these means of living are provided by the state in the form of benefits and council housing.
- Benefits currently stand at the minimum needed to provide these core necessities: Jobseekers’ allowance for an 18-24 year-old (£2779.40 per year) is a ninth of the median working wage, less than a third of the national minimum wage for a 21+ working 30 hours a week, and less than half of the personal tax-free allowance.
- People who live in council houses have nowhere else to live. If they are evicted they become homeless, and may well have to sleep rough on the streets.
- The removal of benefits from people who have been involved in the recent disturbances that is currently being suggested by the conservative government will lead to thousands of people not having access to the most basic means of existence.
- Benefits are already not there to give people a life: they are to stop people dying.
- Benefit claimants are often blamed for being out of work, but there are currently 5.4 people unemployed for every vacancy. There are simply not enough jobs for everyone.
Over 200,000 people have signed a petition to the government asking that those involved in the disturbances have their benefits removed. The government and local councils are taking this seriously, and looking at means of instituting these procedures.
Many of the liberal commentators have criticized the plans of the government and local councils to remove benefits and evict tenants on the basis that it will “not help them get back on track” or will “increase crime rates”. They ought to be more concerned about many thousands of people dying of malnutrition, having no shelter, and no access to clean water. There has, so far, been no practical proposal from government on how these people are expected to live.
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