London Eye - Aye

[Trinity]

I've had this idea for a while, and it normally surfaces in the pub when the talk gets round to wind farms or those who could work but don't.
I'd have a London Eye type thing in every town, and it would be linked to some sort of generator / alternator thing.
For benefits to continue, you'd have to climb a ladder to the top, step on and body weight would turn the wheel and generate electricity.
No wheel no benefit. However if you exceeded your quota a bonus would be payable.
1.green energy
2. healthy
3. nothings for nothing, incentivised payments.

No one would be exempt unless they were truly unable.

Worth a go?

[Roboframer]

Say it's a large town, how would the people get to it and what about the energy they burn climbing to the top that needs replacing.

Why not just a big wind turbine, the energy's free.

[Jonny2morsos]

Alternatively connect all the hamster wheels in the country to generators and let them power our homes and industry. Perhaps give tax breaks to hamster owners.

[easypopsgcf]

I'd give up the drink if i was you

[Trinity]

Robo, I'm not sure it would expend more energy getting to the top than many manual jobs, and of course there'd be regular breaks - on the way down. It solves unemployment fairly quick - with the wind turbine you'd still get a lot of people not willing to work and getting benefits.
As to getting there, well perhaps the hamster idea could be developed.
Good point about the drink!

[Roboframer]

Let's say a town has 1400 people claiming job seeker allowance (plus the spin offs like council tax benefit, rent rebates etc) at an average of £85 p.w. Could one human-powered turbine generate electricity to the value of £119,000 pw? Doubt it, or two, or four - they couldn't do the required RPM - these turbines would (have to be) veeeeeeeeery slow-moving things, as indeed the London Eye is, well, maybe twice as fast as that - any faster and it would actually have to stop to allow people on safely - you'd have a thing going around in short, (and not very) sharp jerks ............

Plus you could not make people work for the value of their benefits because, for most, that would work out at less than the minimum wage which is £5.93 for over 21's, so let's assume that just to keep it simple.

Forgetting management and administration; assuming an 8 hour day and the turbine running 24/7 - your weekly wages bill would be 1400x5.93x8x7 ...... in fact let's call it 1000x5.93x8x7 to account for holidays/sickness/other absenteeism and the fact that you're not going to get 100% of the unemployed population anyway.

£332,080 pw.

[prospero]

I like the hamster wheel idea. All the leisure centres and gyms that are full of people sweating their guts out trying to get slim could be turned into power stations.

[Trinity]

Good idea Prospero - true innovation.