4m BLEEDING US DRY

9 in 10 on benefits fit to work, say Govt

By Jamie Lyons

NINE out of 10 people claiming benefits are fit to work, the government has sensationally admitted.

Nearly 4.5million people are claiming handouts totalling £36.4billion a year.

But a Cabinet source confessed: "We reckon FOUR MILLION of them could be in work."

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Incapacity benefit is claimed by more than 2.6million, 934,600 are on income support and 852,9002 claim jobseeker's allowance. The cheats among them rake in thousands of pounds each.

Many are given large, comfortable homes while workers—who pick up the bill through their taxes—scrimp and save to pay their mortgages.

Yet there are 660,000 vacancies notified to jobcentres alone.

Hundreds of thousands more jobs are available through private agencies and ads or taken by immigrant labour because Brits won't do them.

If they were forced to seek work that would change. Many won't take jobs because they say they wouldn't be better off.

The government blames the Tories for taking millions off the dole in the Eighties and putting them on incapacity benefit to massage jobless figures.

Now the children of many claimants think the state owes them a living too, say Cabinet sources.

Many have never seen their parents work and have no idea how to get or hold down a job.

PM Gordon Brown believes the Government's latest initiative—in which big firms including Sainsbury's and Primark will train jobless Brits—could take 250,000 off benefits.

Work and Pensions Secretary Peter Hain admitted: "A significant number of people on benefits could work."His Tory shadow Chris Grayling said the government had failed to help get people back into work.

IMMIGRANTS work longer hours than Brits, says a study for the Institute for Public Policy Research. We do an average 36.5hrs a week, while Americans do 42hrs, Poles 41.5 and Aussies 40.5.

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