Could you live on £53 a week?

That is the challenge for many people who are unable to find work in this recession. £53 is nothing really when you have to pay the b ills for gas, water and electricity not mentioning feeding yourself and heating your home. There is simply no way you can live on this alone. Yet Iain Duncan Smith is telling those who can’t find jobs that £53 a week is a cushty lifestyle and they should be grateful for even this. Putting it into perspective at how generous this really is JSA in the UK is 18% of average wage, compared to Germany's 35%, France's 47% & Sweden's 68% This is simply not a lifestyle you would choose if you had the choice. An incredibly fast growing petition has been set up by someone who thought they’d challenge IDS to live on £53 a week the link to this is below http://www.change.org/en-GB/petitions/iain-duncan-smith-iain-duncan-smith-to-live-on-53-a-week Those who are on JSA take it as a way of getting by and getting by is all it gives you an existence not a life. You cannot live the life of luxury like the Tories seem to think. But then when you’re so disengaged from reality of life in poverty and have never had to struggle in your life then no wonder you’d think benefits are generous. It is a clear out and out contempt for the poor. This is blatant class warfare where we need the labour movement to answer this in a robust fashion drawing the links and common ground between that in work and out of work. Over 60% of those on benefits are actually in work according to the DWP taking tax credits to top up crap pay. We wouldn’t need working tax credits if we all had a proper decent lovable wage not just a living wage of a tiny bit more than minimum wage. But IDS people will not take this laying down the uptake in this petition now touching quarter of a million signatures shows the strength of feeling against the Tories and their attacks on the poor. Let’s not just call for IDS to try living on £53 a week let’s get rid of him and his government of millionaires once and for all!