Famous, Rich and Jobless
Post Categories: Action 4 Employment • a4e • emma harrison • unemployment
Tags: bbc, celebrity tourism, Famous Rich and Jobless
Unlike Benefit Busters, we didn’t decide to roll with this programme… there was no real point to be made from it. We weren’t going to help with their promotions prior to the broadcast of the “Famous, Rich and Jobless” programme.
I will leave it up to the blog viewers and contributors to give their opinions and discuss this programme.
A summary of my concerns were:
- £39 for 4 days (why not the full £64 for 7 days?)
- A4e Emma Harrison in first 3 minutes… she sounded very posh I thought, dropped off towards end of programme
- How did they get the house? (yes, you could claim Housing Allowance/Housing Benefit however this doesn’t take into account the requirement of a deposit before moving in initially – not applicable to those with a home prior to unemployment; also no filling in of applications for Housing Allowance/Housing Benefit)
- Assuming they were claiming Jobseekers Allowance… wouldn’t the public want to know about how they get on with filling in the forms to claim benefit (or the telephone call) its a big document!
- Despite the recession etc. an alcoholic got a job at a pub… I am not saying they would be worse at the job but I doubt most pubs would take one on – its a disability in certain respects (or perhaps I am getting confused between people)
- One got a casual job on a market stall, how much money do they make? Casual “cash-in-hand” work does exist and you would associate this with a market. The stall copes everyday without a third pair of hands (?) however they were absolutely willing to pay someone (I assume) at National Minimum Wage for a day… thats a big dent to your profits… (the stallholders being self-employed so high taxes) very unlikely in a boom, let alone in a recession (or just coming out of one)
- Stemmed scenarios – I couldn’t help think it was all staged… the Larry Lamb etc. scenes (i.e. on the beach) seemed completely faked IMO
- BENEFIT FRAUD – No documentary exist (even with celebrities involved) on unemployment without the mandatory “some jobseekers will be dishonest and work on the side” bullshit. I couldn’t help feel that this show gave the implications that most Jobseekers work casually and get paid cash-in-hand etc. while draining taxpayers’ money.
- The Social Worker (?) was an absolutely wanker who fancied himself
- Let’s dress up in second hand clothes…Not exactly going to change your appearance, your voice and your name, is it?
- Celebrities are guaranteed jobs – why employ a real person when you can get a celebrity which people will recognise for the same price? It also descends from there… son, daughter, cousins etc. of anyone rich or famous normally have their lives set out for them (mind you I heard of Larry Lamb, EPB (although I thought she was dead); and 2 others I haven’t ever heard of, assumed they didn’t exist)
- Celebrity Profiles – I couldn’t give a damn about how their life began. How someone was “so poor” they had to fly (before budget airlines were around) back to another country… thats not poor, its “I would be better off over there”. Theres a difference between scrapping by and finding it hard to make ends meet *and* actually we aren’t much in the green, if i lost my job we would lose the house within a couple of months.
- Emma Harrison on JSA… You are actually only required to take 3 steps to look for work a week – this takes the piss to us jobseekers who do atleast 10 times that. This means jobseekers can actually have a life, of walking the beach for a day or whatever. So she was wrong.
- CAMERA! Take into account what I said about the pointless change of clothes exercise (I understand the flawed concept though) when clearly filmed with a camera-person (huge camera) and probably a sound-person too everywhere you go – you are obviously of greater importance. The job interview, market stall, shopping etc. should have been done via hidden camera (obviously tell people afterwards before broadcast)
Please feel free to leave your feedback, comments etc.
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8 Responses to “Famous, Rich and Jobless”
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these programs are a waste of time and are just to appeal to an evening audience,benefit busters was a little more fly on the wall insight,however there were indications that this was rehearsed at times.
This program was oviously staged and used the same one liners as A4e’s coarses, It also missed out that any money earnt you can only keep the first £5 but then its deducted £ for £ from your benefits, This program is a publicity stunt because of the many complaints about new deal and now flexible new deal, And it didnt show whats realy going on in the real world.
It has always been a puzzle to me how the disregard (£5.00) is below National Minimum Wage (£5.80).
I think its time they uprated the disregard to £5.80 (or even £6) allowing anyone to work for an hour a week without losing any benefit.
I think it is rather sad how, say you only worked an hour in a week, that you are set to lose over 80p of the first hour.
Jobseekers Allowance is indeed an unemployment benefit but you can work up to 16 hours a week while having an active claim: I think it is time the Government encouraged short term part time work as an initiative by the jobseeker for staying in touch with the labour market and they can make a start by reducing the penalties awarded for those out there who think 5 or so hours a week (subsidised by Jobseekers Allowance to make up for the difference between the actual wages and the amount of their benefit) is a proactive way of keeping with the work ethic, narrowing gaps of unemployment (really overlooked factor!) and remaining active within the labour market (i.e. a job with more hours could come out of it as you have a foot-in-the-door).
The disgusting comparison is under Flexible New Deal and workfare they are expecting people to work fulltime for their benefit (Training Allowance). The concept of the Mandatory Work Related Activity period on Flexible New Deal might be good natured in intention but in order to take advantage of the MWRA period you must have been unemployed for 8-23 months: both ends of that scale are offputting to an employer.
This is not to mention even if you took on a voluntary or unpaid role (i.e. receive no financial payment) you are restricted on the hours you can do etc. to remain “Available for Work” (although you can immediately stop such work if you were offered a job). This is rather silly as even if you were working almost fulltime hours you can remain “Actively Seeking Employment” by reorganising when you look for work:- internet job websites (including Jobcentre Plus) are 24/7 for example. If you couldn’t access a telephone during office hours mon-fri that could be hindering your chances but wouldn’t matter if you still carried out enough steps per week to satisfy the conditions of Jobseekers Allowance.
Most people on Flexible New Deal (not Stage 4 the provider-led stage) were offered an optional module of volunteering by their Adviser. This however having no benefits for their employability yet would to an extent restrict their ability to “actively seek employment” (ASE).
The Government has no clue to solve unemployment.
.-= *** Flexible New Deal Providers set to defraud Government *** =-.
I agree with a lot of your comments, but I think what it did highlight was the fact that a man who has provided for his family and worked hard along with his wife to get the things he has and instil in his son the importance of working and providing for his family,is demoralised depressed and desperate for a job to give him back not only the standard of living, but the pride that would bring. At the other end of the scale you have a family of 2 adults who are unemployed and have no intention of being employed in the future, 6 children and another on the way who have no discipline or likely to have any. None of them will know the meaning of the word pride or bread winner, they get over £500 a week just to stay at home and have kids, and their kids will end up the same way, that to me was the real eye opener and I don’t blame the celebrity who left the house in the night because I would have done, but probably after telling them a few home truths.
The reason he is “demoralised, depressed and desperate for a job” is that he has been made to feel that way by ignorant people who do not know any better.
The “pride” you describe is that of being accepted by the brain-washed majority.
“None of them will know the meaning of the word pride or bread winner” – none of them will know the meaning of being somebody’s slave until the day they drop dead.
I saw a documentary a few years ago about DWP Benefit Fraud Investigations on the BBC. Can’t remember the title, but it’s defintely been done
.-= *** *** =-.
We watched the two Famous Rich and Jobless programmes last night and what struck us was the lack of any social commentary on the reasons people were unemployed or sick. In the second programme Diarmuid Gavin stayed with a family in Bury with 5 young kids and started off by asking Eddie and Christina how much they got in benefits. How much does Diarmuid earn from his gardening activities ? It’s not usual to ask someones’s income when you meet them and most people would tell you to mind your own business. Diarmuid obviously assumed because they were claiming benefits, they could be treated differently. Considering Diarmuids poorish background and failed gardening business’s you would have thought he would have more understanding. Maybe it was too close to home. Eddie then revealed that he was very upset by the death of his chid. Diarmuid then became more sympathetic. The death of a child is one of the most upsetting things for a parent to experience and we felt it was extremely insensitive and intrusive to allow this to be broadcast in a programme which was only concerned with whether someone was working, regardless of their personal, private and in this case very painful emotional circumstances. This is tasteless TV. Stay out of peoples’s personal problems. There are more important things than Work.
I watched Famous, Rich & Jobless, a repeat probably. It covered some extremes of jobless crowd – a proud professional, a single mum, an ex-conman and a father of 6.5 kids. I have been ben looking for a job for 6.5 months now, upper tier admin job, ideally team/project coordinator. I see parallels with the professional guy, I definitely feel the pride, which holds me together, not very well though, as I have become depressed and suicidal. The JobCentre Plus conveyor belt is one of the worst things to face when one is genuinely jobless and genuinely looking for job. I came across ignorant, even illiterate individuals, who somehow managed to get this job and felt they are in a position to judge, patronise and even damn right insult me. Even relatively event-less sign-up trip there leaves me in tears, humiliated and worthless, and each time it takes me ages to recover.
To add to the insult, at the last job interview I was grilled by my potential employer what I’ve been doing these last 6 months? Hello? Has everyone missed the credit crunch induced unemployment? You don’t hear much the swear word ‘credit crunch’ as often as a year ago. My friend, mum of 1, working from home (cash-in-hand, not declared), made a very spot-on observation: those in employment hide their heads in the proverbial sand and pretend it’s not happening. You walk in Jobcentre, and you are met by the casualness and aloofness of people ticking boxes on your job search process – as if it were good old times, as if little has changed, as if all jobless, including me, are somewhat lazy and awkward. Show me the jobs!!!
I have been sent by Jobcentre Plus to 2 seminars on the latest tricks in recruitment, how to write job-winning CV etc etc. Bonus of each seminar was that the host would re-write and send back you the your re-written job-winning CV. I didn’t get the latter on either occasion; despite promises the communication ceased as soon as we left the the room where the seminar was held; I just heard from the organisers of the 2nd seminar asking for a feedback – will definitely give them peace of my mind. Despite having attended these 2 seminars, I’m still unemployed. There is much more to finding the job, especially in current economic climate, than meets the eye. Recruitment sector is awash with ‘inside secrets’, from deals between employers and agencies, and how the agencies score and earn their ‘bread and butter’.
Jobcentres and those responsible for creating and implementing new policies, are light years apart from reality on how to include invisible headings or text in white font colour with repeated titles of jobs you are after and other little tricks. One can follow the tricks, have wonderful CV, yet the jobs don’t come. In my case I’m bound to fall victim to ageism. Although it’s against the law to discriminate on age, the law however does not prevent employers asking your age. That’s it. On paper, as 46 year old, I may look pretty old and even haggard to some 23 year old HR fresh face, who is rsponsible for the initial filtering of all the applicants…
JobCentre Plus do not take into accounts neither economic slump, nor lack of REAL jobs on the market, nor cut-throat reality out there. The documentary touched on this only slightly. Other than a perfect marketing stint for A4E, the documentary has a positive undertone though – at least it’s being done, discussed, put out there for public to see, and most importantly – thought provoking. I would love to see more such documentaries. For example, 1) the reality of Jobcentres conveyor belts and 2) the recruitment sector from insider’s point of view. I’m glad it was reflected in the documentary – the absurdity and even power abuse in Jobcentres (Megan’s and the ex-conman’s experience). Both done with hidden cameras. I don’t know about other places; my JC has more security than I have ever seen.
It’s not JC staff, yet they rule the roost big time. They would take your book, with air of importance and grandeur place it in a consultant’s box and tut-tut and question you if you were 10 min late; nevermind that you have to wait for half an hour afterwords to be seen… Then they talk to their colleague on the first floor through walkie-taslkie as they let you with swipe card into staircase or lift, and upstairs you greeted by another little ‘gestapo’, who, upon reciving you (as some inmate), reports back.
God!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Give me job asap, so I don’t have to visit this theatre of absurdity (and its ‘actors’ who have power to decide if I deserve the benefit) anymore…