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<title> Youths need motivation </title>
I would like to discuss a problem that is relevant to many young people in Sweden today. Many youths that after graduating from upper secondary school can't get a job and don't live with their parents might get income support from the welfare office. This system with income support is good, but it has some disadvantages when it is combined with a trainee post, which many of these youths get. I will here give you an example, which I think shows what I mean. A year ago a friend of mine was unemployed and received income support, and then he was assigned a trainee post. Since the municipality paid the wages they were very low, almost symbolic. Therefore he received income support to be able to pay rent and food. The welfare office had determined how much money he required during a month and they always gave him what was missing up to this amount. Because of this it didn't matter for him if he went to work or not, he got the money he needed anyway. In fact he saved money if he stayed home, since then he didn't waste it on bus fares. This makes it very tempting to take advantage of the system, which shouldn't be possible and therefore I think the system should be improved.
I think the system should be changed so it is profitable to go to work and unprofitable to stay at home and not the other way around. I can see two possible ways of improving this system. One is that they receive more money if they go to work. It only has to be a symbolic sum for motivation. The other is that they get less money if they stay at home, like with a regular employment. However, you can't expect them to live under subsistence level if they have to stay at home because of illness, for example. My opinion is that it is important that the system changes in one way or another so the youths become more motivated to go to their trainee posts. 
First of all I think it would be good for their health if it was profitable for these youths to go to their trainee posts. Because if they went to work they would meet new people and they would be doing something. This would probably make them feel useful and needed, which would lead to a better self-esteem. This is very good for their health both mentally and physically, since a problem for unemployed might be that the self-esteem gets lower and lower which leads to a feeling of uselessness and maybe even to depression.
Second of all I think it is good for moral reasons, because a person who lets other people work and pay taxes to support him (it could also be "her") I would call immoral. That is if he is capable of working and has a job to go to, but refuses only because of laziness. I strongly believe it is wrong to do so. I don't think there is anyone who wants to work and pay a big part of his income as taxes that are used to support someone else who instead of doing his work takes advantage of the system. And I think that these youths that are taking advantage of the system would understand that if they went to work, but as it is now they need motivation. 
Finally I think that if they took their trainee posts seriously they would get the work experience they need to get a real employment. An argument against trainee posts is that they are only temporary work with meaningless tasks and that there is no time left of the days to search for a real job. But I think it has to be seen from another angle. First of all there are trainee posts with meaningful tasks and the trainees are allowed to search other employment during working hours. And second of all then the youths would get the required work experience and, also, they are still on the work market, which makes it easier to get an employment. Employers often prefer someone who has recently been working instead of someone who has been unemployed and done nothing for a longer period. 
What I have been trying to say here is that it is very easy to take advantage of the system of income support. I mean it is very easy to think, "why work if I don't have to". Therefore I think that a change is needed to motivate the youths. A possible way of changing the system is to give the trainees a symbolic sum if they go to their trainee posts and there do what is required of them. Such a change might be possible, even though it costs the society, since there are gains to be made. The youths' mental and physical health would be better, their moral might improve and it would make it easier for them to get a real employment. As I see it, these gains are worth the money it costs.
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