Welfare Myths and Misconceptions
by Claudia Deans and Lloyd Burton
A recent study by the Trades Union Congress (TUC) has highlighted misconceptions which are being propagated by the government, leading to the creation of so called ‘media myths’ regarding Social Security claimants, in advance of the run up to the now approved Welfare Benefits Uprating Bill [1] .
The TUC poll revealed the publics misconceptions of the welfare state, and more specifically, the proportion of the welfare budget which is spent on Job Seekers Allowance, the benefit received by the unemployed. It emerged in the poll that there was a misconception of 41% being the welfare budget expenditure figure received by the unemployed, when in reality, it is a mere 3% - the remainder being spent on those incapable of work, their carers and the retired.
Similarly, it is also falsely believed that some 27% of welfare expenditure is claimed fraudulently, when in fact, the figure is 0.7%. There are also misconceptions about the amount of benefit which families receive. When polled as to how much Job Seekers Allowance a couple with two school age children would receive weekly, respondents cited a median figure of £147.00, some 30% higher than the £111.45, that they would actually receive.
The Welfare Benefits Uprating Bill was approved on the 8 th January, capping rises to most Social Security benefits to 1% over the next three years, in the wake of war cries from Conservative politicians that the UK was awash with “scroungers” and “shirkers”, and after the party had posted an online advert which asked the electorate whether the government should support “hard working families or people who won’t work” [2].
However, the grim reality and implications of capping social security payments are that working families will be disproportionately affected, due to the cap including Child Benefit and Tax Credit payments. For example, the 1% cap will cost a lone parent nurse with two children £424 a year, and a junior army NCO with three children, earning £470 a week, losing a total of £552 annually [3] .
Indeed, a further analysis by the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) on the implications of increasing benefits by less than inflation concludes that seven million families - half of Britain’s working households - will now be worse off by an average of £165 per year [4].
With such drastic reductions affecting families of working households, it is difficult to comprehend quite how it is that Grant Shapps, the Conservative Party Chairman, could convincingly write in Monday’s ‘I’ newspaper that “We need to make sure that people are progressively better off in work, than they would be on welfare. In short, we need fairness. Our welfare reforms are a stepping-stone to a fairer society” [5].
The truth of the matter is that the Welfare Benefits Uprating Bill’s title was as misleading as it was inaccurately misrepresented to the public. The so called ‘Striver’s Tax’ is arguably an attempt by the Coalition Government to pay for a welfare bill that is currently £13bn more than was originally planned.
An overspend which has prompted the Shadow Work and Pensions Secretary, Liam Byrne, to suggest has been prompted by governmental policies which have given rise to a flat-lining economy, and rising long term unemployment [6] .
But for once, perhaps it is not only politicians who are at fault in the Strivers Tax debacle. Myths and misconceptions about the welfare state, whether propagated by the government, the media (or both), regarding whom in society are actually receiving benefits, are rife amidst the general public.
It is therefore somewhat ironic that subjective judgements about our social security system are contributing to reductions in the household incomes of working families, who are neither scroungers, nor indeed, shirkers.
In any event the stepping stones to an allegedly ‘fairer society’ have now been firmly embedded in the river, but it is unlikely that the elderly, infirm or the disabled will be able to leap-frog between them.
Let us hope that society’s able bodied employees are still better placed to make that jump – as should they slip, they might very well discover that the fast evaporating under current of social justice, has now all but deserted them…
REFERENCES
[1] Grice, A (2013) “Ministers are using dirty tricks to turn public against claimants”, ‘I’ Newspaper, 04.01.13.
[2] Grice, A (2013) “Top Tories fear a return to ‘nasty party’ image”, ‘I’ Newspaper, 08.01.13.
[3] Cassidy, S and Duggan, O (2013) “Welfare groups says children will suffer as parents struggle with cuts”, ‘I’ Newspaper, 07.01.13.
[4] Chu, B and Morris, N (2013) “Benefits cut ‘will hurt seven million families’”, ‘I’ Newspaper, 08.01.13.
[5] Shapps, G “Welfare reform means work will always pay”, ‘I’ Newspaper, 07.01.13.
[6] Chu, B and Morris, N (2013) “Benefits cut ‘will hurt seven million families’”, ‘I’ Newspaper, 08.01.13.