Why should my hard earned money go to those less fortunate?

[Pat Mustard]

One thing I never understood about the benefits system at least where I live and I'm assuming it's the same over the UK.

At first people on benefits got stuff purely for free because they couldn't find a job.  But surely there's always something to do.  If it's street sweeping cleaning, making the area look better in general.

Then it went in the other direction and people on benefits had to work for free as part of some scheme. It wasn't exactly free but I'm pretty sure it was way below minum wage. So again it goes back to, the government has the money that they're going to be paid anyway, there are jobs to be done.  Just pay them the wage and get them working.  Rather than have them work for near enough free which is close to slavery, or give them stuff for free which is just forcing other people to pay for their things.

It's like someone has skipped a really nice middle ground between giving things away free to people or put them into slavery.

I'm probably over looking some complication I'm not aware of here but that's been my thoughts on it when I worked with people at my old work place who had to be there for hours to earn their benefits which wasn't as much as I'm being paid.
Also my thoughts when I've known people who didn't mind being on benefits and wanted to claim more by pretending to be mentally depressed or whatever their scheme was.

What you're overlooking is since 78 the DSP (or whatever they call the department in charge of welfare these days) has been steadily transitioning from being a provider of social welfare to a provider of corporate welfare. Workfare schemes have two goals, to punish those who are currently unable to get a job, and depress wages and worker protections so that employers have it easier. Sanctions are there to force people into activities which are unsuitable in the long run (remember the history graduate a few years back who was forced to give up volunteering at museums to go stack shelves at Poundland in order to keep her £55 a week?) and keep the corporate welfare going.