20 Reasons It Really Sucks To Be Poor Right Now

3. The Unemployed Are Expected To Work For Free

File photo dated 16/09/14 of a Poundland shop in Glasgow, as the discount retailer, which faces a probe into its takeover of rival 99p Stores, said its annual sales topped £1 billion for the first time.
Danny Lawson/PA Wire

In January 2012, Cait Reilly, an unemployed former geology student, began a legal challenge against the coalition government’s Get Britain Working initiative, which expected her to give up her voluntary position in a museum to stack shelves in Poundland for free.

Though sneered at by the Daily Mail (“I’m A Graduate, Get Me Out Of Here!”), Ms Reilly successfully argued that the sole beneficiary of the situation was Poundland, where she would receive neither the training nor experience necessary to aid her in her ambition to work in museums. 

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Ian Watson is the author of 'Midnight Movie Madness', a 600+ page guide to "bad" movies from 'Reefer Madness' to 'Poultrygeist: Night of the Chicken Dead.'