I am so very tempted to wallow in schadenfreude over banking job losses in the City and New York: it’s about time the bloated parasites amongst us had a dose of the real economy most of us live in.
Hurrah, hurrah and let’s dance on the corpse of capitalism!!
No – although there’ll be a limited number of brash loadsamoneys and well-connected double-barrelled investment analysts to laugh at down the DSS (and, I fervently hope, a fair few personal fortunes wiped out) the people who did this won’t really suffer.
Unless they’re really stupidly overextended, they’ll have a cushion. All they’ll need to do is cash up what they can, buy a nice little forecliosed cottage in Cornwall or Vermont (with organic smallholding, naturally) and ride out the financial and social storm. They can finally write that novel, you know?
As always it’s the small fry who suffer, from call-centrre operators and cleaners to copier technicians and security guards to the external consultants to the sysadmins to trainee lawyers at corporate firms to the florist who comes to do the orchids in the boardroom.
This is the harsh financial reality British banking economy workers will face when their redundancy money – such as it is, Labour never changed those stingy Thatcherite rules on workers’ rights – runs out and they find it necessary to sign up for benefits:
Contribution-based Jobseeker’s Allowance
Person aged 16-17: £47.95
Person aged 18-24: £47.95
Person aged 25 or over: £60.50
Income-based Jobseeker’s AllowancePersonal allowances – single people Rate
Person aged 16-17: £47.95
Person aged 18-24: £47.95
Person aged 25 or over: £60.50Personal allowances – couple Rate
Both aged 16-17: £47.95
Both aged 16/17, one disabled: £47.95
Both aged 16/17, with responsibility for a child: £72.35
One aged 16/17, one aged 18-24: £47.95
One aged 16/17, one aged over 25: £60.50
Both aged 18 or over: £94.95Lone parents Rate
Aged 16-17: £47.95
or depending on their circumstances: £47.95
Aged 18 or over: £60.50Dependent children Rate
Payable from birth up to the day before their 20th birthday: £52.59
There’s housing benefit too, but only if you’re renting – and if you’re single and under 25 and don’t have children, then it’s paid only at the local market rate for a single room; that docklands bachelor pad’ll have to go.
If you have a mortgage, prepare to lose your house. If you’re over 45 and wondering how long it’ll take to get a new job, ask a former miner. Say goodbye to your tenuous grip on the middle-class, welcome to the underclass. Goodbye cosy Metroland, hello Morlockia.
I think the Daily Mail and its readership may be changing their tune on benefit scroungers in the very near future.