Quote of the day:
The small steps from welfare to work are easily derided, especially by those in politics who have never worked for such wages. But every jobs market needs a ladder and, at present, the bottom rungs of that ladder have been sawn off by a welfare state that has trapped the people it was designed to help. The waste of taxpayers’ money is as nothing compared to the waste of human potential. Fraser Nelson
If you’re on a benefit and will earn little if any more in work it would be easy to say why bother?
You’d have to believe that those who can work should, that you have to start somewhere and any job is more likely to lead to a better job than no job and it’s better to be contributing to the public purse than living off it.
But that requires taking the longer and more selfless view.
If you’re poor, lacking in education and work skills it might be hard to see that and work out how you can climb the ladder when its lower rungs have been cut off.
(The quote comes from The Telegraph story on Germany’s radical approach to increasing employment on which I posted last Monday)
