Leftie dimwits claim the U.K. government’s Work Programme involves “unpaid” work.

The Guardian is always a rich source of loony left nonsense in the U.K. And always keen to side with the downtrodden workers in their unequal struggle with wicked exploitative capitalistic employers, numerous Guardian articles have recently claimed that the UK government’s Work Programme involves “unpaid work”. E.g. see here, here and here.

Well, people on this scheme are not “unpaid”: they continue to get benfits.

Of course there is an argument to be had as to what the hourly rate of pay and/or weekly pay should be in schemes of this sort. But to say that the work is “unpaid” is just nonsense.

Moreover, benefits for many people in the UK are often at such a level that there is little difference between what they get living on benefits and doing a minimum wage job. So it can’t even be claimed that the pay on this scheme for some of those involved is much different to what they’d get on minimum wage work.


What about the “unpaid” work done by taxpayers?

A further piont which is a mile above the heads of the aforesaid leftie dimwits is thus. If one person sits around doing nothing while claiming benefits and consuming food, fuel, etc then someone else has to do some work to produce and market said food, fuel and so on.

That is – and this really is the revelation of the century – food, fuel and so on do not float down from heaven or appear from nowhere.

In short, where one person is allowed to live on benefits, someone else has to do “unpaid” work to produce said food, fuel, etc.

But lefties for some reason see fit to foam at the mouth in realtion to the “unpaid” work done by Work Experience people, but seem totally unconcerned about the “unpaid” work done by those funding people living on benefits.


Research . . . evidence?

As for any awareness of the vast amount of research done since WWII into the effect of schemes of this sort, Guardian journalists appear to be blissfully ignorant. But then the job of journalists has always been primarily to sit at their desks and make it up as they go along.

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