By Abi Pollock
The Government’s leaner-meaner, one-payment-for-all benefit reform has received huge press attention this summer and glossy infomercials in the Metro newspaper. The principles of Universal Credit (UC) were devised under New Labour, announced under the Tory-ConDem coalition and rolled out under the Conservatives. But after nearly 20 years of job centre restructuring, isn’t it time to admit that UC is a free market fiasco based on dodgy economics and a fundamentally
flawed view of work in the 21st Century?
In 1911 the Poor Laws were swept away to create the first unemployment benefit a payment or outdoor relief away from the parish workhouse. These benefits became allowances under Beveridge and “credits” under Tony Blair. For the over 25s UC is £317.25 per month, coming out at £3,807 a year. For couples over 25 on £498.89pm it equates to £6,000 a year.
In particular, it is important to appreciate how UC has been used to pension-off Housing Benefit, a system that ring-fenced rents and protected vulnerable tenants. A single person under 35 will now receive one monthly UC payment which includes Local Housing Allowance payment for shared accommodation only. In London £105pw leaves the long-term unemployed the task of living in Hackney, Haringey or Islington on sums of between £7-10,000pa. Housing Officers fear that, UC is a stark choice between eating adequately or accumulating rent arrears. It creates a deliberate deficit for claimants with the aim of forcing them into irregular employment, or onto the credit cards.
UC is the final act in a 25-year move to shift responsibility for social welfare from the state to the individual, legislation predicated on the view that unemployment has no economic component. This critical break with the Keynsian consensus on full employment forced my generation onto Jobseekers Allowance and the New Deal. Iain Duncan Smith’s Centre for Social Justice merely fine-tuned this sanctions-orientated approach, unveiling a manifesto for benefit-busting, 21st Century Welfare in 2010.
By the time the Welfare Act came to Parliament in 2012, 80% of Labour MPs supported the Bill, allowing Cameron to claim in 2013 that UC and Personal Independence Payments (PIP) for the disabled/incapacitated would be fully operable by December 2017. So with why has the DWP missed its deadline?
Facebook advert gives 169 responses in 72 hours
In a nutshell, it would seem that the Government simply overestimated the British public’s capacity for work and the economy’s ability to provide it. To assess the degree to which the reform has been bungled, I conducted a random survey of the working public. To do this I brought myself a virtual pint in the virtual public-house that is a FaceBook advert for a mere £3.99. I asked people to share their UC experiences, culling 169 responses in 72 hours and one very vociferous “get a job” troll called Terry.
It became immediately apparent that although unemployment has moved on since the days of the “Giz a job” anti-hero, Yosser Hughes, the issue of worklessness still disproportionately affects the working male from up North. Although there is a carer’s element and a child element, worth £231.67pm for up to 2 children, I heard very little from families.
One of the first people to respond was Gary, a self-employed kitchen fitter, and from the evidence on his FB page somewhat of an artisan. He started by stating “there is work for anyone who wants it, the Left makes us lazy” before divulging that he resorted to UC to “tide him over when his tools were nicked and….due to the statutory 6-week processing period and other delays a simple application for some subsistence costs has left me lumbered with a complicated repayment plan and some huge debts”
Pete was another interesting contributor, who spent 10 years working at a Job Centre in Manchester, “my job unexpectedly ended, it takes so long to get the money I had to apply for an upfront emergency payment. I got a job before my first payment but now I’m paying it back. I’m never unemployed for long but it’s bad compared to JSA – when I used to give it out”.
The next few comments were from the long-term unemployed, people who previously would have received Incapacity Benefit. Justin, a rare Londoner, optimistically told me he is still on Employment Support Allowance and that he was happy with the way he was being transferred to UC. He commented “I applied in November 2018 and received my first payment in 2018”. But when probed he admitted “when I had my assessment I was placed on it until I recover. I have an application in for a Personal Independence Payment that has been outstanding for a year”.
“I spoke fluently and my hair was brushed, so I was turned down for everything”
He spoke effusively of how kind the Work Capability Assessors where in coming to his home. So, naturally I was deflated to receive a post two days later which said “I stand corrected: shortly after replying I received a letter which says that I spoke fluently and my hair was brushed so they have turned me down for everything”.
This raised the issue of how work capability assessments have been used to force people into work when they are manifestly disabled. A long debate then ensued about why Disability Living Allowance should be retained. The issue of the deserving poor, namely the genuinely disabled aside, the ordinary Brits on my post felt that the problem with UC is that it promises to be flexible, and allow people to move in and out of temporary employment drawing down credit until their finances stabilise, whilst actually being far more rigid than the 6 benefits it replaces.
For David, the reality was “I did 2 weeks work in February for which I earned £600, I wasn’t entitled to anything for the whole of March and my next payment was April so I had £600 to pay 8 weeks rent and 12 weeks food”.
Much of UC’s negative press has focused on the terminally ill and life-limited. In January
Amber Rudd was forced to answer questions on DWP’s own figures which show that 17,000 sick and disabled people have died while waiting for PIP claims since 2013, or 9 a day.
However, my vox-pop was a heart-felt attempt to go beyond the sensational to capture the more mundane suffering of able-bodied men, often in construction or the gig-economy just trying to find some social and economic security.
For Gary, losing his tools was unsettling, and it raised the question – if you temporarily bust your ankle or, worse, lose a leg, will the state be there to help you get back on your feet?
In the words of Jamie, another one of Thatcher’s children “it’s bullshit, the amount of shit I’m in because of it is unbelievable, one of the worst things is making you and your partner’s money into one, so your independence goes, paid every two weeks in arrears instead of in advance so as soon as you swap you are missing a month”.
For a system with credit in its name this is the dispiriting irony, as Jamie continues “[it] ruined my life, my relationship, nearly made me homeless twice in the space of a month, would you credit it?
July 22, 2019
Abi Pollock is a working mum in her 40s who worries what will happen to her if she gets ill. She is an active member of an East London Labour Party and a teacher in Essex, she has worked as a Housing Officer and caseworker for an East London MP.
