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It's dads, not mums, we should push to work
Sure Start. Childcare tax credit. Working Families Tax Credit... billions have gone into pushing mothers into work. This costly project -- so dear to Labour's feminists -- was wrong-headed not only because it went against the wishes of most mothers, who preferred part-time employment, but also because it drew from funds we now discover we didn't have. Also, just as bad, it distracted us from a huge and growing problem: fathers who didn't work.Frank Field, in his new role as Cameron's poverty guru, urgently wants to address the issue. He aims to stamp out the mentality that sees benefits, not hard work, as the means to survive. The coalition's new Work Programme, he predicts, will force millions of these young men to find a job or risk losing their benefits. Not, as now, "for up to six months", but for up to three years. Field is right to target benefits. The only way to wean these young fathers off the addictive lifestyle of being paid for doing nothing is cold turkey. For many of these young fathers, the threat of no more benefits is, literally, unheard of: their fathers, and their fathers before them, have milked the system for years, never getting a job. "Industry" is a foreign concept.
Posted by: lotp 2010-06-30 |
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| http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=299948 |