fags=cigarettes BTW. Just in case you get the wrong impression of Irish shops.
What would a homosexual want with butter anyway?
To put on his toast?
The main stigma attatched to living on the dole is hinted at in Steve Wright’s post.
He mentions that it is very difficult to live on the dole, and this is true of certain parts of the country, in Castleford, which is a very economically depressed region with little money about, you can amke a passable stab at life, if you don’t have too many aspirations.
The stigma comes from the fact that nowadays a lot of folk have had recourse to state benefits, and know that it is not desirable in the longer term as a sole means of income.
The reasoning is that if you have spent a long time on the dole(as opposed to other benefits like disability) then you must be cheating the sytsem by using one of the methods described by Steve
Most folk think they are overworked and underpaid, and overtaxed, and the idea of benefits cheats sucking hard earned taxes out of the system is not an attractive one.
It is a stereotype, but unfortunately there are whole estates(council estates - inevitably) where a significant portion of residents fit the form exactly, right down to wearing the horrid shell suits for men and dreadful figure hugging knitted warmup bottoms for their womenfolk.(I have refrained significantly from going further into those stereotypes as I just know the offenderati would just love to jump around)
I recall the butter being given away to the armed forces(no wonder they called it “intervention butter”), then to charities like hospices, then to elderly folks homes and finally to pensioners who had the uncertain pleasure of queueing up for the stuff in a local village hall or the like for a couple of hours on unsteady and aged limbs.
They did the same with beef too.
Excellent neologism, casdave. I’ll try to use this at least once a week IRL, at least for the next few weeks…
I dunno. Why don’t we Ask The Gay Guy?
AFAIK everybody signs on for those few weeks/months between leaving uni and going into gainful employment.
irishfella’s sister was on the dole in the summer between her 2 PhDs…
i doubt the stigma is that bad.
First, this is one of the more informative threads that I have read in a while. Second, what it the EU wine lake, and can I vacation there?
I certainly did. And had to again when, after failing for two years to land a permanent position, the temp jobs dried up too. I wasn’t proud of it, but I wasn’t ashamed either. Most people I know were in or had been in the same position, and we were all graduates who wanted to work.
I think the responses fromCadDave and from **S Steve Wright[/b[ (whose name scares me, : although I am sure our Steve Wright is a good guy, wasn’t that the name of some Radio One person? Eeek!!!). 
are quite on the ball. Or is even that only one of our funny U.K. phrases?
To wit: there are **some ** people who, by dint of actually working whilst claiming state benefit, get on ok Some.!. There are always some who will work out how to cheat any system: this is no good at all for , or representative of, the majority.
For others, the question, what does one do on it?" is answered by "eat carefully and cheaply and worry a lot about the cost of fuel for hot water, heating etc.. Learn a lot about potato and cabbage, or, if you prefer the less healthy option, Ramen noodles…well…you get the idea, I trust.
As for “civil servants” - we only call them that to show how witty we are, I think. Hmm - I would not even go for that theory myself. A bunch of self-important lliterate creatrues of less sense than the average toadstool might describe some of them better, but, that is far too polite.
Still, I’d welcome more info. about USA and Canadian systems(and others).
For instance, after 20 weeks do you simply go and starve to death? Or what?
I wonder whether there is here some diffeerence in terminology regarding “Unemployment” and the perhaps more stigmatising “Welfare”?
I really do not know: a mere request for more info. here . Sorry, that does rather turn the OP on its head.
<odd thought>
Eeek - Celyn ended up by accident making the OP do the Humpty Dumpty thing . Oh woe!!! Did not mean it - but poor question - now, what wlll its chances of health care be?
</odd thought>
teWrightwright
Celyn, have you been at the Special Brew? 
grrrrrrrrrrr - OH!!! I did not mean it when I typed this new name “CadDave”! No offence meant , Sir!
If you’re on the dole, are there any requirements for you to prove your trying to find work (even if it’s not in your field of expertise)? If you’re an accountant, but can only find work as a manual laborer, do you have to take the job? Does the gov’t agency try to help? My only exposure to all this is the Britcom Shelley, in which the character is over-qualified for just about every job he is sent to interview for.
:smack:
YOU (freakin apostrophe) RE and not YOUR (NO freakin apostrophe).
Jobseekers Allowance, which is what they call the dole now, requires that you provide proof every two weeks that you have been actively looking for work. You have to go down to the job centre and have a quick chat with the jobseeker man and say “I sent off my CV for this job this week, and I answered the newspaper ad for this other job as well”. If you require, they will help you polish up your CV and interview skills, and help you look for work (although, as said by Casdave and Steve, this makes them sound more helpful than they are. They generally couldn’t give a shit either way).
The jobs are supposed to be relevant to your past employment experience. However, the jobs posted at the job centre are generally bottom-of-the-rung work. Office junior, cleaner, shelf stacker, warehouse worker - that sort of thing. I think that as long as you can prove you’re trying to find work of your own accord, you don’t have to apply for these positions. They can’t make you interview for a position that;s unsuitable for you. However, if you do apply for a position they’ve helped you find and are offered it and don’t take it, questions will be asked and benefits possibly stopped.
Not that I’d want to wind up the youngsters but I remember when ….yawn ….you’d sign on for a couple of years (of course, it took that long to learn your instruments properly) and then … went to Uni for 3 or 4 years – where a nice grant (not just course fees but ‘living costs’) awaited you … then, after that, there was a bit of travelling to be done …
What’s that mean in American?
Canada sound pretty similar to the UK. If one is laid off (terminated from job for reasons not the worker’s fault) you can apply for Employment Insurance, a benefit of the federal government. The amount is based on how long you have worked and pays @ 55% of gross wage up to a max of $400-something per week. It is not income tested. You can look up specific details here.
The provincial governments offer up welfare(income assistance, relief, whatever it’s called these days) for those with no other/ really miserly incomes. Welfare is income tested. If your EI runs out and you are still out of work, you will not be eligible for welfare if you have other sources of income (or spouse with same) over what welfare pays. (I generalize here about wellie rules-there are 10 provinces, 3 territories, and I ain’t going to look them all up for y’all)
As far as I know, cheese and butter are not offered up as benefits. No Kraft Dinner vouchers with the cheque either.
Note Celyn’s location. Glaswegians are known for being incomprehensible.
There was a time when I thought that Shelley was actually a documentary about my life. Then I realized that a) Hywel Bennet is far too handsome to play me, and b) Shelley had sex once in a while, so that put paid to that idea.
As Francesca says, you have to provide proof that you’re “actively looking for work”. Job adverts that you’ve answered; if you’re lucky enough to have got a rejection letter from a prospective employer, that comes in handy too. The system does have a small amount of common sense, they will expect you to apply for jobs you’re actually qualified for. You can turn down a job offer for “good reason”, but there is a limited amount of latitude as to what “good reason” actually is. The Jobcentre in Gateshead were understanding when I decided not to proceed with an application for a job in the Republic of Georgia, on account of a civil war had just broken out. (Over-reacting, if you ask me … they could have just said “no”.)
The degree of official interest varies by region. Signing on in a depressed area like Gateshead in the early nineties was pretty much a formality, the Jobcentre had hundreds of people to process and could hardly afford to check anyone out in detail. When I was out of a job in Oxford, the “claimant advisors” took a higher level of interest. They can, actually, help, but generally you have to know what help you can ask for. The “travel to interview” scheme is a case in point; I found out that, if you’re looking for work outside your current general area (which, being in Gateshead, I was), you could get vouchers for travel expenses; when I landed an interview, I knew to ask at the Jobcentre for this. (And then had to explain to the dozy bimbo behind the counter that no, Andover wasn’t in Germany … )
I too remember the golden age of which London_Calling speaks … I think I went to Uni during the last years when it was actually possible to live on a student grant. Happy days.
Celyn, you need have no fear, I am not a balding disc jockey with a naff moustache.
Binarydrone; because of various levels of inefficiency and corruption in the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy (also known as the Why Should French Farmers Have To Work For A Living? Policy, but that’s a whole other rant), there is substantial over-production of various food items throughout Europe. Surpluses of stuff you can pile up tend to be referred to as mountains (the first one was the butter mountain, wasn’t it? If I remember aright, that far back … ), whereas fluids, such as wine, accumulate in lakes. So Europe has a wine lake. At the moment; I’m working on it, I’m doing the best I can …
Given the spelling slip, and the quote, I hope you’re not trying to tell me something.
Given that I’m a worshop instructor in a prison, hence a civil servent, it could apply.
I am fairly small, the cons say I have a big head, but I never thought I looked like a toadstool.
Francesca about that cat…you never replied, he is still here waiting.