A British entrepreneur has said Brits are “choosing not to go to work” and warned that the gap between the minimum wage and the take home pay from benefits is too small.
Mike Greene, founder of the Association of Retail Newsagents and former Brexit Party by-election candidate called for a rise in the minimum wage and a cut in benefits payments.
Speaking on GB News, Mike Greene said: “They're certainly not choosing to go to work, are they? They're taking the benefit of such an easy lacklustre lazy system that makes it easy for them to stay at home.
“The gap between benefits and the lower income earners is too small. We are not paying a liveable wage to the people at the bottom end of income. And because of that, you've got people who put in a 40-hour week, maybe even do some overtime and they're still sofa-surfing. They cannot afford to live: it cannot be right that they're only marginally above people on benefits.
“We should be paying more to those that are willing to work and paying even less to those that want to sit at home and do nothing.
“It makes my blood boil. I mentor between 50 and 60 businesses at any point in time and I've mentored thousands of businesses, I've run my own businesses. Do you know the average single person self-employed business is earning less than some people on benefits.
"It is about time we made it tougher for these people who don't want to do it.
“And I also hear from the same people that they are struggling to get people to work. Why? It is too easy for them to be at home.
“There are jobs. They might not enjoy that job, but if not, learn some more things, get better, do a better job. Get off your butt and don't expect the government to look after you.”
“I didn't go to university but in getting out to work we had to then learn from life.
“And you know what, I didn't want to do some of the jobs I had to do, but getting in them I earned some money; I felt what it was like to earn my own money, to be able to go out for a drink knowing that I bought that drink, not more pressure on my mum to pay for that drink. And then I wanted to get better and do better.
“And we haven't instilled the work ethic in people and we're actually demonising apprenticeships and lower level jobs by basically making people feel a failure if they don't go to university.”
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