Welfare Reform: Still stuck in old ways of thinking
March 17th, 2009 by Moussa Haddad Posted in Livelihoods
Today sees the start of the third reading of the Welfare Reform Bill. Given the rapidly deteriorating economic climate, there’s a risk that this Bill will slip under the radar, with attention turned towards the G20, and Gordon Brown’s latest attempts to save the world.
That, though, would be a mistake. It’s all-too-tempting to see today’s urgent financial and economic problems as a reason to abandon all thoughts of real long-term reform, and stick to fire fighting. Because this latest phase of welfare reform once again merely tinkers around the edges of a fundamentally flawed system. I’ve argued already that what the government’s saying about the need to keep increasing levels of advice and support, even though the recession means there are fewer and fewer jobs available, is laudable – but that the ramping up of conditionality, and threats of workfare, are not. (An extended explanation of Oxfam’s position on welfare reform is available in our submission to the green paper consultation in October 2008.)
This recession has laid bare the failings of a lot of the prevailing orthodoxy of the past thirty years. The Welfare Reform Bill belongs to that time, when the market couldn’t possibly be to blame, and people had to be battered harder to bend themselves to its whims. The recession changes all that. And while it promises to be an extremely difficult time for an awful lot of people, it also offers a once-in-a-generation opportunity to make some of the big changes that governments are prone to shy away from.
The benefits system is an area as ripe as any for a fundamental rethink. Pushing people harder and harder into work, while paying them lower and lower benefits – unemployment benefits were 20% of average earnings in 1979, but are only 10% now – is a manifestly failed approach. It’s time that government was bold enough to make the connections between entrenched unemployment, high levels of poverty, and people being forced into working cash in hand just to get by.
You’ll hear more from us in the coming weeks and months about the new modes of thinking that we need to see from government to tackle this recession. A good start would be to look at welfare reform from the perspective of people’s lived realities, and of the livelihoods they’re trying to build for themselves. The benefit system was conceived of as safety net to give people security and dignity when they fell on hard times, and as a ladder back into work. At the moment, it’s letting people down on both counts, and the Bill that’s before Parliament today threatens to make things worse.
6 Responses to “Welfare Reform: Still stuck in old ways of thinking”
By NYGEL MILLER on Mar 25, 2009
For those who do have a job, there is a minimum income – guaranteed by the Minimum Wage.
For those on Benefits, there is inequality of benefit levels – and there needs to also be a MINIMUM BENEFIT. Because Benefits are naturally lower than Wages, a MINIMUM BENEFIT is essential to avoid starvation and malnutrition – and ALL Benefit recipients must be exempt from things they can’t afford to pay for- such as the T.V. License and Council Tax. People would then not be prosecuted for failing to pay bills they shouldn’t be liable for – because there is no way they CAN pay. Also there needs to be an end to AGEISM in only helping with heating costs , (via colld weather payments) – because only people over 60 are eligible. And really, if the Government are to be deemed plausible at all in helping with fuel costs to those on fixed incomes – i.e.benefits – those people should have ALL their heating and also HOT WATER costs paid by the Government, because their inadequate Benefits leave UNABLE to pay themselves!
By Moussa Haddad on Apr 9, 2009
Hi Nygel,
You might be interested in looking into the European Anti Poverty Network’s campaign for Adequate Minimum Income schemes, to which Oxfam has signed up.
You can check it out at: http://www.eapn.eu/content/view/16/34/lang,en/
By Doubting Thomas on Apr 9, 2009
Moussa,
I have to wonder if the very fact that Oxfam has a “policy officer for sustainable livelihoods in the UK poverty programme” suggests that its mission has crept enormously from the days when it was focussed on helping the starving of Africa. It now dabbles in just about every social-policy area that enables it to advocate more state intervention, redistribution and central planning. The losers in all this have been Oxfam’s core constituency, the poor in the developing world.
To take just one quote out of your linked blog-post:
By Nygel Miller on Oct 25, 2009
I feel that there is enough resources in the world that We all should have .