tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20795273701769446302024-03-13T10:39:22.225-07:00Knowledge is porridgeThoughts on social policy and the welfare stateDaniel Sagehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00418218236950133656noreply@blogger.comBlogger93125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2079527370176944630.post-1186047605133986212015-04-13T06:39:00.000-07:002015-04-13T06:39:07.380-07:00Welfare manifesto watch: LabourDuring this week, when most of the major UK parties are releasing their general election manifestos, I'll be taking a look at what each party is offering on welfare. Despite being usurped by immigration and the health service during the past year, for the best part of the Coalition's time in government social security has been a major policy issue. For their part, the Conservatives believed they were on the public's side when it came to tough reforms. Meanwhile <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2013/oct/12/labour-benefits-tories-labour-rachel-reeves-welfare">Labour has spent much of its time</a> in opposition struggling to <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/society/2015/mar/17/labour-vows-to-reduce-reliance-on-food-banks-if-it-comes-to-power">think about its response to the Coalition's welfare reforms.</a><div>
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Understandably then, Labour has not made social security a major theme of its pitch to govern. It's not a platform the party believes it can win on, deducing that its reputation on welfare is so toxic that it will sacrifice less political capital through muffled whispering compared to any serious attempt to build a new welfare policy.</div>
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<i style="font-weight: bold;">Continuity </i>then<i style="font-weight: bold;">, </i>in the sense of <i>further cuts</i> or - at best - <i>maintenance </i>of existing support, is the first major theme of Labour's welfare proposals. There are some policies here I suspect we'll see from either or both of the two governing parties. These include:</div>
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<ul>
<li>Capping Child Benefit for two years</li>
<li>Means-testing the winter fuel payment</li>
<li>'Targeting' support at 18-21 year-olds and making it dependent on training.</li>
<li>Supporting the household benefit cap and, in a measure that will worry the Left of the party, consulting on the regionalisation of the cap.</li>
<li>'Devolving' the Work Programme to a more 'local level'. </li>
<li>No changes to tax credits, TV licences or bus passes.</li>
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These policies will mostly fail to please Labour supporters and activists. But I think there are two further, albeit smaller, themes in Labour's welfare plans. The first is <i style="font-weight: bold;">stronger intervention in the labour market. </i>This fits comfortably with Miliband's broader approach of 'changing capitalism'. The Coalition scrapped the similarly interventionist Future Jobs Fund: not out of the view it didn't work (it did) but because it contradicted their broader labour market strategy of private sector job creation. </div>
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Instead, Labour is advocating a job guarantee for all long-term unemployed people: confirmation of a now familiar Labour policy crafted in opposition. The guarantee will apply to all young people unemployed for a year and everyone else unemployed for two years. It will be criticised by the Left for being 'compulsory' in the sense benefits will stop for those who refuse. But it is still a bold measure: effectively abolishing very long-term unemployment. </div>
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The third and final theme is <i style="font-weight: bold;">contribution. </i>A more contributory welfare system is something Labour have flirted with for several years now, largely because of the argument that declining support for welfare has something to do with ever-increased means-testing: <i>nothing for something. </i>In its manifesto, Labour pledges a higher-rate of JSA for those with sufficient contributions records. We'll see how far Labour goes with this (<i>we're unlikely to see European-style benefits with very high replacement rates) </i>but it remains a potentially important shift in direction. Especially given the Conservatives are suggesting they will further means-test JSA.</div>
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Finally, there is one glaring omission from Labour's manifesto: sanctioning. In the aftermath of Cameron's death-by-Paxman last month, Labour has made a big issue of food banks and the need to reduce dependence on them. One key part of the strategy for doing so, as argued for by <a href="http://labourlist.org/2015/03/whats-in-labours-five-point-plan-for-reducing-food-bank-dependency/">Reeves in March</a>, is to reform the present sanctioning regime. But there is not one mention of this in the Labour manifesto. Why has it been excluded from the manifesto? Because the policy has been scrapped or because it was deemed politically unwise to draw attention to it? This seems to me a question Labour needs to answer.</div>
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Daniel Sagehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00418218236950133656noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2079527370176944630.post-80470305684475697122014-09-29T03:17:00.000-07:002014-09-29T03:17:52.166-07:00Labour is ahead on welfare - what's going on?Some findings from an opinion poll caught my attention in yesterday's Sunday Times, with the graphic below showing who the public trusts on specific policy areas. As we might expect, David Cameron and the Tories are more trusted than Ed Miliband and Labour on the traditional Conservative issues of the economy, law and order and defence. Labour, meanwhile, romps home on its own traditional ground of health and education.<br />
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The figure that caught my eye however was the one for welfare benefits, with Miliband enjoying a five-point lead over Cameron. This seems bizarre. And is counter to the conventional media narrative that Coalition reforms are extremely popular. Only last night on BBC Five Live, the right-wing commentator Tim Montgomerie was extolling tough welfare reforms as a sure-fire election winner.<br />
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So what is going on? Why are Labour more trusted on the welfare state, contrary to anything you might read in the media about social security?<br />
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I would posit that three things might be happening. The first is that enough people are feeling the negative effects of benefit cuts - particularly ones related to tax credits and Child Benefit. Further, under a majority Tory government with Cameron as PM, there would be more to come: for younger (removing entitlement to JSA) and older voters (means-testing of some universal benefits).<br />
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The second is that the Tories are finally going toxic on welfare. I've wondered <a href="http://knowledge-is-porridge.blogspot.co.uk/2012/01/welfare-reform-20-where-will-coalition.html">in the past</a> how far the Conservatives might go with welfare reform - and the party has often given the confident impression that they can go as far as they like without losing public support. However, it might be the case that they are moving too quickly - beyond where public opinion lies. In policy terms, I'm mainly thinking about removing benefits for young people - which seems counter-productive and, in plain terms, cruel.<br />
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Finally, it might be that attitudes to the welfare state are softening as part of the naturally occurring attitudinal cycle. In other words, welfare attitudes - just like GDP - go up and down over time. This certainly seemed the case in the latest British Social Attitudes survey, which reported a <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2013/sep/10/changing-british-attitudes-support-benefits">significant shift</a> in public opinion.<br />
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It is still too early to say whether we are witnessing a major shift in welfare attitudes. Yet the signs are that we just might be. And for Labour, this could have major policy implications - giving the party much more room to far, far bolder.Daniel Sagehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00418218236950133656noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2079527370176944630.post-3998769497298751142014-09-25T07:04:00.000-07:002014-09-25T07:04:33.163-07:00Unemployment and well-being<a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/brits-happier-than-theyve-been-in-years-claims-ons-9753557.html">Well-being is rising in the UK</a> - and analysts argue that this is due to falling unemployment. This is an easy link to make, given that unemployment is so damaging to well-being (as well as to other indicators of health). <br />
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That unemployment is falling is good news - for well-being and for the economy. But what can we do for those who remain unemployed? How can their well-being be protected?<br />
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There are broadly three options available to governments (assuming that governments care about the unemployed's well-being, which is not altogether obvious). <br />
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One option is to implement a jobs guarantee scheme, as originally proposed by <a href="http://cep.lse.ac.uk/pubs/download/cp308.pdf">Richard Layard</a> and now supported by the Labour Party. Depending on its form, a jobs guarantee scheme could essentially abolish long-term unemployment. Which would be, presumably, beneficial for people's health.<br />
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A second option, explored by <a href="http://www.springer.com/gp/about-springer/media/springer-select/training-schemes-help-jobless-men-feel-better-about-themselves/30918">me</a>, is to reform training programmes for the unemployed. If programmes were more personalised, with more focus on work experience/skills and treated people with dignity, then they could be effective ways to reduce the mental health costs of unemployment.<br />
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A third option is more radical - and linked to the limitation of the previous two approaches. That is: what if these approaches simply reinforce the social norms attached to paid work? This could be problematic, as it is arguably these norms that are responsible for unemployment's negative effects on well-being. In other words, would a jobs guarantee scheme reinforce <i>the ideology of work</i>: the notion that Work is Good and, correspondingly, Unemployment is Bad?<br />
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The argument here then is that to truly deal with the negative impact of unemployment, you have to change the nature and status of unemployment itself. And this would require a far larger economic and social reorganisation than that implied by a jobs guarantee scheme or better labour market training programmes. It might require, for example, a strategy of reducing the number of hours we all work. Or, even more radically, introducing a basic income scheme. <br />
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In both of these strategies, a plausible outcome would be a blurring of the line between work and non-work: between employment and unemployment. Being 'unemployed' would mean less in a society where 'working' meant something altogether different.<br />
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Changing what it means to be unemployed is, however, a large undertaking. Yet we should be careful of supporting policies that might well aim to deal with unemployment's negative effects yet, in doing so, strengthen its (dangerous) hold on society.Daniel Sagehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00418218236950133656noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2079527370176944630.post-91089417547019182042014-09-24T02:12:00.001-07:002014-09-24T02:12:29.909-07:00Things can only get flatter. Why are Labour miserable at the prospect of power?A common observation from an assorted range of journalists is that the Labour conference this week in Manchester has all been a bit <i>flat</i>. Something largely confirmed by Ed Miliband's disappointing speech yesterday. On my own part, I've been milling around the conference since Sunday, attending various fringe events in which I've also been observing the mood of the party's MPs and activists. <br />
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The journalists, I think, are completely correct in their assessments. Of the events I've attended, MPs seem completely underwhelmed and unexcited by the prospect of power. This <i>should</i> be unusual. They are, after all, talking in genuinely probable terms about how they will plan to change the country in a matter of months.<br />
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So, what is going on? Why is the Labour Party - from its leader to its activists - so unenthused about governing again? All in all, there are seemingly three things going on.<br />
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The first is that, as everyone is now aware, <i>Labour's ability to exercise power will be severely hampered </i>by the fiscal restraints of the next parliament. In accepting the challenge to eliminate the deficit without significant tax increases, Labour has committed itself to severe spending cuts. The choice it can thus offer the electorate is a limited one: Labour will shift around the priorities of government but will not, and cannot, significantly shift spending plans.<br />
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The second is that, although Labour is close to power, <i>this will be - at best - limp power</i>. Based upon polling trends, the best case scenario seems to be a tiny majority for Miliband. A more probable scenario however is a hung parliament, with Labour in coalition with the Liberal Democrats. Personally, I think there might be benefits to working with the Lib Dems - but there is a strong, systematic aversion to a Lib-Lab coalition from many corners of the Labour Party. <br />
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Finally, there is the issue of whether Labour is<i> psychologically ready for power</i>. Political parties are just not used to regaining power so soon after losing it. Plus, the scale of Labour's general election defeat - and its context, set amidst the death of the economic model the party worked within and advocated for 13 years - means that five years is a short time to complete such a monumental political inquest. <br />
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Ed Miliband however has arguably done an impressive job in conducting this inquest - relatively peacefully and quickly. Yet, it remains unclear what Miliband's Labour stands for. It accepts the economic terms set by the Conservatives yet aspires to build a new form of capitalism. It talks of cutting Child Benefit but of a "big offer" on childcare. Labour finds itself in a position where power is unexpectedly, and perhaps prematurely, within reach. The question is, does the party really want to grasp it just yet?Daniel Sagehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00418218236950133656noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2079527370176944630.post-33687814822765652352014-08-11T00:53:00.000-07:002014-08-11T00:53:54.367-07:00Training programmes can improve the well-being of unemployed people - but there are hugely important caveats<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">For
the past three years, I have been exploring whether there is much we can do to
counter one of society’s most devastating ills.
It is associated with a wide range of problems: <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0001879109000037">including poor mental health, social isolation and
even suicide</a>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is not a disease in the typical sense
but it certainly carries the characteristics of a ‘social disease’.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is, of course, unemployment.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The
best way to counter unemployment is to of course promote or provide
employment.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But in an economic system
like capitalism, there will always be a ‘rump’ of unemployed people: no matter
how fair or equal a society is.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
question then turns to what we can do to help those who find themselves
suffering from job loss.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">There
are lots of things governments can do.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>They can, for example, provide social benefits to ease the economic
costs of unemployment.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Over the past
twenty years or so however, one particular intervention has expanded in the UK
and beyond: training programmes designed to move unemployed people closer to
the labour market.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Training
programmes for the unemployed are a diverse range of interventions. And this is
a crucial point.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>People most often
associate such schemes with welfare-to-work interventions like the Work
Programme.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Yet, whilst the Work
Programme is the largest such intervention, there are a huge range of other
programmes: skills training, education, work experience or, more simply,
‘keeping people busy’.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">My
main research question is whether such programmes mitigate some of the
psychological, health and social costs of being unemployed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But why might this be the case?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One argument is that being unemployed and on
a programme is very different to being unemployed and not on a programme.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It involves more daily structure and
activity, social interaction and – if they are of sufficient quality – optimism
for the future.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Some
of my findings have just been published in <a href="http://download.springer.com/static/pdf/664/art%3A10.1007%2Fs10902-014-9549-9.pdf?auth66=1407655840_e3bc0ffdd394bbb9fbe5fdfd44a751fb&ext=.pdf">the Journal of Happiness Studies</a> and the results are fairly consistent: training
programmes are associated with higher well-being amongst the unemployed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Looking at data from the large-scale Annual
Population Survey, I found that unemployed participants had higher life
satisfaction, life worth and feelings of happiness compared to unemployed
non-participants.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">This
is largely in line with the small number of studies from other countries – such
as the <a href="http://www.isr.umich.edu/src/seh/mprc/PDFs/vinokur6.pdf">US</a>, <a href="http://isr.umich.edu/src/seh/mprc/PDFs/The%20Tyohon%20Job%20Search.pdf">Finland</a>,
<a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/(SICI)1099-1379(199911)20:6%3C963::AID-JOB916%3E3.0.CO;2-D/abstract?deniedAccessCustomisedMessage=&userIsAuthenticated=false">Australia</a>,
<a href="http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPage=online&aid=73585&fileId=S0047279400006176">Sweden</a>
and <a href="http://ser.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2011/03/09/ser.mwr006.short">Germany</a>
– that also show a positive well-being impact of training programmes for the
unemployed.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Yet,
it is not quite as simple as this.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There
are, at least, three important caveats for future policy-making.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">First,
the effect of training programmes is relatively small.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Whilst it is a statistically significant
effect, it is not comparable to the well-being effect of paid work.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In terms of happiness at least, training
programmes are certainly no substitute for a real job.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Further, there is no effect of programmes on
reducing the anxiety of the unemployed.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Second,
there are only well-being effects for certain types of participants.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Women benefit less, as do older unemployed
people and the more highly qualified.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Training programmes are not a well-being panacea for all types of
unemployed people and we need to explore why they are ineffective for large
numbers of participants.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Thirdly,
and perhaps most importantly from a policy perspective, specific types of
programmes are more effective than others.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>In particular, there is a crucial dichotomy at work.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>On the one hand, programmes that focus on
skills, training and work experience – many of which are <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">voluntary </i>– have apparently high well-being effects.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>On the other hand, programmes that focus on
intensified advice – most of which are <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">mandatory</i>
– are completely ineffective.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Vitally,
this includes the main welfare-to-work scheme the Work Programme, which I find
to be exactly the same as ‘open unemployment’ in terms of well-being.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">So,
what is going on and why do some types of programmes have observable well-being
effects?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One idea is that such
programmes mimic the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marie_Jahoda">‘latent functions’</a> of paid work.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>This the theory that work is good for well-being for a wide variety of
non-economic reasons: time structure, daily activity, social contacts,
collective purpose and social status.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>By
mimicking these functions, training programmes can improve well-being.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">A
second idea, which has emerged from qualitative research I conducted in Greater
Manchester, is far simpler.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is that
the better quality and voluntary schemes might simply treat people with
dignity, respect and care.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Unemployed
people often feel stigmatised and ashamed by their status.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When they enrol on a programme where advisers
treat them with dignity - and give them the time and space to develop – such
feelings of stigma and shame can be challenged.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Sadly however, this is far from the case in the Work Programme, which
invoke in many people feelings of antipathy and hostility.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The
conclusion then is that training programmes can promote the well-being of the
unemployed. But only in specific
training contexts, for certain types of unemployed people and if they promote
the right type of values. On these terms
then, the Work Programme is certainly not the cure for the psychological impact
of unemployment. </span><span style="font-family: Georgia;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
Daniel Sagehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00418218236950133656noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2079527370176944630.post-43252533222220616852014-06-19T00:27:00.001-07:002014-06-19T00:27:44.198-07:00Labour's plans could destroy the welfare state, not save itFor some years now, social democrats have faced a 'crisis of the welfare state'. This is the dilemma of how to defend and protect social security when public confidence in the system is drained. So far, little progress has been made. The Tories are rampant: just like the NHS is natural Labour terrain, the welfare state has become a conservative issue.<div>
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Under Ed Miliband, there have been relatively few concrete proposals aimed to address the criss of the welfare state. The most important has been a job guarantee for long-term and young unemployed people: an offer that says 'we will provide you with work, otherwise you will lose your benefits'.</div>
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Today however marks a significant shift in Labour's welfare offer to voters. <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/jun/18/labour-welfare-plan-benefits-means-testing-training-ed-miliband">According to the Guardian,</a> Ed Miliband will announce two key changes in a speech today. First, Jobseeker's Allowance (JSA) will be abolished for the 70 per cent of unemployed 18-21 year-olds who are currently low-skilled. Instead, it will be replaced by a much more targeted (and seemingly less generous) benefit that is tied to training. Second, more people will be subjected to means-tested JSA as eligibility for insurance-based JSA rises to five-years of National Insurance contributions from two years.</div>
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Purportedly, Labour's proposals are designed to mollify public distrust towards the welfare state and its perceived lack of fairness and reciprocity. However, many people have long been studying the causes of increasingly hostile attitudes towards welfare in the UK. And within these findings, two ideas have emerged that suggest Labour's proposals could have the opposite effect.</div>
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The first is that distrust of welfare is linked to the decline of the contributory principle. After decades of increased means-testing and targeting, many people feel they get little from the state in return for their contributions. <a href="http://shiftinggrounds.org/2012/03/welfare-should-reward-contribution-2/">This is the problem of getting 'nothing-for-something', not 'something-for-nothing</a>'<u>.</u> Bizarrely, the spin from Labour appears to suggest that further shrinking the pool of people eligible for insurance-based JSA is a strengthening of the contributory principle. This is a strange and misguided logic: the contributory principle would be strengthened by an expansion, not contraction, of its practical application.</div>
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The second determinant of transformed attitudes is the changing views of young people. In a recent article, <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-young-people-are-losing-faith-in-the-welfare-state-24920">I argued that the most dramatic demographic shifts in welfare attitudes had occurred amongst the young</a>. Twenty years ago, young people were the most 'pro-welfare' group by age, now they are the most 'anti-welfare'. The causes are complex and disputed - but it is highly unlikely that further restricting young people's access to out-of-work benefits will renew the bonds between Generation Y and the welfare state.</div>
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A good start for Labour would have been to <i>expand the contributory principle</i>, not further target it, whilst explicitly focusing on <i>supporting young people</i>, rather than restricting access to social security. If the causes of such deep, attitudinal change in the UK are indeed linked to the decline of the contributory principle and the changing views of young people, today's proposals by Labour could end up having the complete opposite effect. They could end up further destroying Britain's welfare state, not saving it.</div>
Daniel Sagehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00418218236950133656noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2079527370176944630.post-8054793179659766542014-06-06T07:19:00.000-07:002014-06-06T07:19:00.561-07:00There are better ways of helping long-term unemployed than punitive Help to Work<div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #383838; font-size: 17px; line-height: 26.399999618530273px; margin-bottom: 18px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<i><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Originally published on The Conversation and written with Adam Coutts</span></i></div>
<div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #383838; font-size: 17px; line-height: 26.399999618530273px; margin-bottom: 18px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: 17px;">There is now another slide in the UK towards American-style “workfare” programmes aimed at </span><a href="http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/apr/28/help-to-work-programme-long-term-unemployed" style="color: #557585; font-size: 17px; font-weight: bold; outline: none; text-decoration: none; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;">getting the unemployed back to work</a><span style="font-size: 17px;"> </span><span style="font-size: 17px;">as quickly as possible. The evidence showing that workfare programmes actually work is</span><span style="font-size: 17px;"> </span><a href="http://www.geog.cam.ac.uk/research/projects/workfare/" style="color: #557585; font-size: 17px; font-weight: bold; outline: none; text-decoration: none; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;">mixed to say the least</a><span style="font-size: 17px;">.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Under new rules, the long-term unemployed will face one of three options: daily meetings with Jobcentre advisers, six months' unpaid “voluntary” work or more rigorous training and support. There is of course a fourth option, one that explains why the reforms are so controversial: benefit sanctions.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The introduction of yet another layer of sanctions has reignited fierce debates about welfare reform. Is it fair to threaten people with destitution to get them into work? Do workfare placements take jobs out of the real labour market? And are there now similarities in the way we treat the unemployed and the way we treat criminals?</span></div>
<h2 style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #383838; font-size: 1.4em; line-height: 1.4; margin: 1em 0px 12px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The evidence</span></h2>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">But another key question is whether or not such programmes actually achieve what they set out to do. Fortunately for those interested in evidence-based policy, the DWP has conducted a large-scale pilot evaluation of Help to Work.</span></div>
<div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #383838; font-size: 17px; line-height: 26.399999618530273px; margin-bottom: 18px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">In fact, the evaluation was a randomised control trial: the “<a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/62529/TLA-1906126.pdf" style="color: #557585; font-weight: bold; outline: none; text-decoration: none; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;">gold standard</a>” in evidence-based policy. The first set of outcomes the DWP was interested in was the effect of Help to Work on employment trajectories and benefit receipt. In the <a href="http://www.natcen.ac.uk/media/26249/evaluation-support-very-long-term.pdf" style="color: #557585; font-weight: bold; outline: none; text-decoration: none; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;">initial report on the scheme</a>, the researchers found no evidence of a statistically significant impact of Help to Work on re-employment.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The latest report – which had the advantage of a longer tracking period of two years – was <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/265931/svltu-dec-13-adhoc.pdf" style="color: #557585; font-weight: bold; outline: none; text-decoration: none; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;">barely more positive</a>.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">As Jonathan Portes <a href="http://niesr.ac.uk/blog/help-work-pilots-success-failure-or-somewhere-between#.U2Dj9a20_9S" style="color: #557585; font-weight: bold; outline: none; text-decoration: none; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;">has explained</a>, there continues to be no effect of Help-to-Work on re-employment, although participants did spend less time on benefits over the two years compared to the control group. These are, to put it generously, modest achievements.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Health and welfare</span></h2>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">As well as looking at labour market outcomes, the Help to Work pilot also examined the impact on participants’ well-being. In what has been a controversial and much debated agenda, the incorporation of <a href="http://www.li.com/programmes/the-commission-on-wellbeing-and-policy" style="color: #557585; font-weight: bold; outline: none; text-decoration: none; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;">well-being into policy</a> has been significantly advanced by the current coalition government.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Health and well-being are hugely important factors in the context of unemployment and the transition to work. <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15641890" style="color: #557585; font-weight: bold; outline: none; text-decoration: none; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;">Decades of research</a> has shown the deleterious impact that being unemployed has on mental health and happiness as well as affecting how long someone remains unemployed.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">In recent years, we have argued that labour market programmes can improve the <a href="http://www.emeraldinsight.com/journals.htm?articleid=17078298" style="color: #557585; font-weight: bold; outline: none; text-decoration: none; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;">health and well-being of unemployed people</a>. This is because they act as a <a href="http://www.instituteofhealthequity.org/Content/FileManager/pdf/economic-active-labour-market-full-report.pdf" style="color: #557585; font-weight: bold; outline: none; text-decoration: none; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;">supportive step</a> in which unemployed people gain access to some of the benefits of paid work such as daily structure, social contact and a sense of purpose.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The <a href="http://www.adamcoutts.com/uploads/1/3/2/6/13265243/almps_and_health_coutts_et_al.docx" style="color: #557585; font-weight: bold; outline: none; text-decoration: none; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;">evidence suggests</a> that programmes which provide a supportive training environment, constructive work experience and tackle the wider problems that people have such as mental health issues, participants may gain a stronger sense of hope and self-efficacy: the belief that they themselves can get a job. Participation in these programmes have also been linked to <a href="http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(09)61124-7/abstract" style="color: #557585; font-weight: bold; outline: none; text-decoration: none; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;">reduced levels of depression and suicide rates</a>.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">In the initial evaluation of Help to Work, the researchers tested whether receiving intensified advice or participating on community projects raised the well-being of participants. Importantly, they found evidence of a barely minimal impact. Compared to the usual system of support, participants were no more likely to report higher life satisfaction, life worth or feelings of happiness, although participants on the community projects reported feeling less anxious.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Unfortunately, this evidence appears to have been ignored and consideration of health and well-being as important outcomes of policy has been abandoned.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">A hard balance to strike</span></h2>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Should we be surprised that Help-to-Work will have little effect? Perhaps not. The international evidence on “active labour market programmes” – summarised by the DWP – shows they are hard to get right. There is little evidence, for example, that compulsory work activities are effective in boosting employment returns. Perhaps most importantly for Help-to-Work, this is especially the case for the most disadvantaged out-of-work groups.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">But this does not mean that back-to-work schemes are always ineffective. The Future Jobs Fund – before being scrapped by the current government – was a <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/223120/impacts_costs_benefits_fjf.pdf" style="color: #557585; font-weight: bold; outline: none; text-decoration: none; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;">surprising success story</a>. The message is that training schemes must appropriately “fit” those they are trying to help, as well as being designed with particular local labour market conditions in mind. It is very hard to get a job where there are no jobs in the local labour market.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The question we must ask is whether the exceptionally modest effects of Help-to-Work programme justifies its expansion. And this is not just in economic costs, but in well-being ones as well. The use of pure and punitive workfare measures and sanctions may well increase instances of debt, food bank use, depression and ill health among those it is intended to help.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">We need to seriously consider whether there are more effective – and less dehumanising and stigmatising – ways of helping the long-term unemployed. In areas where there are no jobs to go into could government policies such as back to work programmes be used to protect and promote the wellbeing of unemployed people during difficult economic times rather than make it worse?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">We also have to look elsewhere for examples of how labour market programmes can be designed such as Scandinavia and Europe rather than continuously following the US work-first approach. Finland’s <a href="http://isr.umich.edu/src/seh/mprc/PDFs/The%20Tyohon%20Job%20Search.pdf" style="color: #557585; font-weight: bold; outline: none; text-decoration: none; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;">Työhön Job Search Training Programme</a> is such an example which has been found to have both positive effects for the labour market and programme participants.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Finally is long-term unemployment really a problem because claimants see an adviser just once a fortnight? Or, alternatively, is long-term unemployment linked to more structural issues of <a href="http://extra.shu.ac.uk/ppp-online/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/welfare-work-isnt-working.pdf" style="color: #557585; font-weight: bold; outline: none; text-decoration: none; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;">labour demand, regional inequalities and ill health</a>? Programmes such as Help-to-Work should be based on robust evidence about how to move people into the labour market: and, perhaps more importantly, on the reality of why people remain out of work.</span></div>
Daniel Sagehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00418218236950133656noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2079527370176944630.post-12183388879966153112014-03-11T08:15:00.000-07:002014-03-11T08:15:29.775-07:00Take part in my PhD projectAs part of my PhD research, I'm keen to hear from people who have experience of - or are currently participating on - a welfare-to-work programme. In particular, I'd really like to speak to people on the government's <u><b>Work Programme:</b></u> their flagship welfare-to-work scheme.<br />
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-_WdZ5a1KBR4/Ux3FMCTNp2I/AAAAAAAAAMA/Qn4UDPnIVOU/s1600/dwp.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-_WdZ5a1KBR4/Ux3FMCTNp2I/AAAAAAAAAMA/Qn4UDPnIVOU/s1600/dwp.jpeg" /></a></div>
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<br />
If you are on or have been on the Work Programme - and would be happy to speak to me - please do get in touch on the e-mail address below. I'm particularly keen to hear from people in the North-West: so Greater Manchester, Merseyside, Lancashire and Cheshire.<br />
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All the interviews I am conducting are <b>completely anonymous and confidential</b>. To get in touch, either send me an e-mail on the below address or fill in the form at the bottom of the page. <br />
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E-mail: <i><a href="mailto:daniel.sage@stir.ac.uk">daniel.sage@stir.ac.uk</a></i><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Thank you!</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<iframe frameborder="0" height="500" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" src="https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1UdHN9gavi9gxGc3QUDIafIv44gzo8hWtMFcHm6XAq8I/viewform?embedded=true" width="560">Loading...</iframe>Daniel Sagehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00418218236950133656noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2079527370176944630.post-38937136820363315162014-02-13T05:36:00.001-08:002014-02-13T06:24:52.061-08:00The politics of income tax (part 1): are the rich digging their own grave?This is the first of two posts I'll be writing on the politics of income tax. This is an area I think has been underdeveloped in political and policy debates over the course of the Coalition's first term. This is probably for several reasons. Other issues (economic growth, immigration, welfare) have dominated and perhaps the government's most important tax reform - increasing the personal tax allowance - is ordinarily seen as a universal Good Thing.<br />
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In next week's post I'll be looking at the politics of raising the tax threshold (something I've briefly written about <a href="http://shiftinggrounds.org/2012/05/tax-reform-principle-contribution/">before</a>). But this week I want to look at the politics of the top rate of tax, which has come down under the current government from 50p to 45p.<br />
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In justification of the top rate tax cut, conservatives tend to argue (or boast) about how much the very richest pay as a proportion of the total tax take. In their defence, this is true: the top 1 per cent pay around 30 per cent of all income tax revenues. It is an astonishingly high proportion - and an astonishing example of how reliant our tax system is on the very rich.<br />
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Implicitly, the people who use this defence of the rich hint towards the moral vigour of the richest and the value of their contribution to society. But there is also another, probably more accurate and certainly more popular, view: all this signifies is how much the rich are paid relative to the rest of society. In other advanced countries the rich do not pay such a high share: this is because (a) they earn relatively less and (b) the middle earns relatively more.<br />
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This can be easily illustrated. Imagine two societies (A and B) where population earnings both total £1m per year. In both societies, everyone who pays income tax pays the same rate on everything they earn: 20 per cent. This means that both societies have exactly the same tax revenue: £200,000.<br />
<br />
However, the richest 20% in Society A earn £750,000 of the total £1m. In Society B, they take a much smaller, but still significant, amount: £400,000. This means that although the tax take for both societies is the same, there is a massive gap in the reliance on the rich. In Society A, the richest 20% pay £150,000 of the total tax take (75%), whilst in Society B they only pay £80,000 (40%). In other words, Society B imposes a smaller tax burden on the rich via a more equal distribution of incomes in the first place.<br />
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-QdbW2j05n9U/UvzKEQ6sN8I/AAAAAAAAALo/CMHlig_E9xE/s1600/incometaxA.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-QdbW2j05n9U/UvzKEQ6sN8I/AAAAAAAAALo/CMHlig_E9xE/s1600/incometaxA.png" height="216" width="400" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i>How equality reduces tax reliance on the rich</i></div>
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Thus, by emphasising the disproportionate contribution of the very richest, conservatives unwillingly draw attention to the enormous inequality in pay across Britain. And in doing so, they also point to the solution. If you really want a smaller tax burden on the rich, support policies that result in a much fairer distribution of incomes in the first place.Daniel Sagehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00418218236950133656noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2079527370176944630.post-72721149976327679722014-01-20T01:04:00.000-08:002014-01-20T01:04:49.148-08:00Labour's compulsory skills training for the unemployed - would it work?Labour's big announcement on welfare today is the proposed <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/jan/19/labour-jobseekers-allowance-jsa-benefit-english-maths-basic-skills">introduction of new skills courses</a> in English and maths for people at risk of long-term unemployment. The idea is that around 10 per cent of new unemployed people (and even more who are long-term unemployed) have extremely poor basic numeracy and literacy skills. If the Government intervenes at an earlier stage, then unemployment will be brought down.<br />
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Putting aside debates about the conditionality of the policy (which will no doubt dominate many discussions within Labour today) would the policy work? Or is it just a policy gimmick, designed to make Labour look supportive - but tough- towards the unemployed?<br />
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In general, there are two main question marks surrounding the potential success of the policy. The first is the extent to which poor basic skills are actually the main barrier towards re-employment. Steve Fothergill, an expert on welfare-to-work at Sheffield Hallam, argues that <a href="http://extra.shu.ac.uk/ppp-online/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/welfare-work-isnt-working.pdf">poor skills are only part of the problem when it comes to unemployment</a>. There are other important barriers too: such as poor health amongst many unemployed people and, in particular, the weak - and in some instances non-existent - demand for labour in certain parts of the UK.<br />
<br />
Raising the basic skills of some unemployed people is thus a good move; but it might be relatively ineffective if it is unaccompanied by other policies as well. This is why <a href="http://www.labour.org.uk/labours-compulsory-jobs-guarantee,2013-01-04">Labour's job guarantee</a> - a demand-boosting measure - is so important. But there should be other policies as well, designed to deal with the poor physical and mental health outcomes of many unemployed people.<br />
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The second question mark is implied by Rachel Reeves herself in her article <a href="http://labourlist.org/2014/01/why-labour-is-the-party-of-work/">for Labour List today</a>. This is that unemployment is experienced by a far broader social demographic than those with low skills: such as managers, professionals, graduates and the high skilled. Reeves is right to say that the benefits system should do more to offer economic security to such groups - but what about offering more support to get back into work? Many people with long experience and high skills will find work anyway. But for others it will be more difficult to find a job. Basic skills courses for these people are irrelevant and there is nothing in the way of support proposed for them.<br />
<br />
Poor basic skills are an undoubted barrier to work for many people - but they are not the only problem. The fact that in some areas there are just too few jobs to go around is a much bigger - and far more complex - barrier for governments to deal with. Many unemployed people also suffer from poor physical and mental health; and basic training courses offer nothing to those with higher skills. <br />
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Along with the job guarantee policy, this is a good start for Labour. But it must be accompanied by a wider range of measures to move people from welfare to work: ones that understand the reality of why people are unemployed.Daniel Sagehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00418218236950133656noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2079527370176944630.post-58817287980881848122014-01-14T00:28:00.000-08:002014-01-14T00:29:46.713-08:00What is Ed Miliband offering the middle-class on the welfare state?As the general election approaches next year, Labour faces two key challenges. The first is trying to revive some form of support for the welfare state. The second is attracting the kind of voters - i.e. middle-class ones, especially in parts of the south - that won Labour three majorities between 1997 and 2005.<br />
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In an intriguing article in today's <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/ed-miliband/10568830/Ed-Miliband-only-Labour-can-rebuild-our-middle-class.html"><i>Telegraph</i></a>, Ed Miliband appears to be trying to kill these two very difficult birds with one stone. In the piece, Miliband argues that the fate of the middle-class is tied to the future of the welfare state. Whereas the typical sales pitch to <i>Telegraph </i>readers is usually centred around tax cuts, Miliband makes an explicit argument that middle-class prosperity can only be revived by an expansion of the welfare state. There are few concrete policies but Miliband highlights further/higher education, pensions and housebuilding as areas ripe for state intervention.<br />
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This is - as Miliband says himself in the article - a long way from New Labour's focus on "aspirational self-confidence". It is a much more (small-c) conservative vision of intervention than Blair's vision of the "active" or "enabling" state: one which seems to have far stronger emphasis on people's social and economic security than, for example, spreading opportunity or offering a safety net.<br />
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It is also a much more traditionally social democratic proposal, in which a larger, more intervening state plays a central role in how people's lives are shaped. It will probably annoy many liberal or conservative commentators but I doubt that matters much to Ed Miliband. The only thing that matters to him is whether his vision of a larger state appeals to the kind of people who read the <i>Telegraph. </i>Daniel Sagehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00418218236950133656noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2079527370176944630.post-58643004442990750182014-01-03T03:58:00.000-08:002014-01-03T03:58:14.378-08:00Is welfare conditionality justified?<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Conditionality is at the
centre of welfare reform. It underpins
everything that the Coalition – and before it New Labour – have done. Nothing is given away for free in the land of
social security: everything is tied up with conditions and consequences. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">The major break with the
past came during the New Labour years.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>This was when benefits for the unemployed and other ‘economically
inactive’ groups - like lone parents and the disabled - became increasingly conditional
upon certain behaviour, such as looking for work or participating on
welfare-to-work schemes.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">The logic of
conditionality is twofold.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>First,
conditionality will improve employment outcomes: use a bit more stick and soon
people will be on their bikes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Unemployed
people need more ‘incentives’ to find paid work.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Second, it is only fair
that in return for income support, people should have to fulfil certain duties
and obligations to the rest of society.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>This is the argument for rights and responsibilities: people have the
right to help but the responsibility to look for employment.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>No one has the right to a ‘life on benefits’
if they are capable of work.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Whilst the first argument
is more of an empirical one, the second is moral.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Is it right to ask people to behave in a certain
way in return for social security?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Or,
alternatively, is income support a social right that the Government should be unable
to remove?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Advocates argue that it is
fair to expect the able to seek work and that benefits must be conditional on
doing so.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Expecting people to give
something back in return for help is a basic tenet of reciprocity; if people share
in the benefits of society, then they have a duty to contribute something
back.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If we fail to impose these
requirements, we risk violating reciprocity and undermining social trust and
common bonds.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">There are strengths to
this argument: unconditional benefits would allow people to live indefinitely
at the expense of others.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Whilst the
common retort is that the number of potential ‘free-riders’ would be
negligible, ‘unconditionality’ would nevertheless endorse free-riding as
socially legitimate. To many people this is both economically dangerous and morally
untenable.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Most of us go through life
carrying the responsibility to work: if a person is able, it is unfair that the
option to evade such responsibilities is made available.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">However, the major problem
with this argument - and of much of the rhetoric surrounding welfare
conditionality - is the disproportionate attention given to benefit claimants.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If welfare support is a contract there is by
definition another party involved: the state.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Yet in practice we hear
very little about what the responsibility of the state is.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is crucial: it is blindingly clear that
the responsibility to take a job does not exist irrespective of what is being
offered to people.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The most extreme
example, proposed by the theorist Stuart White, is of a slave society.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Few of us think that in such a society there
is a moral duty to work: to do so would be to cooperate in “our own
exploitation”.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">What the responsibilities
of the Government should be are up for debate.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>People from the Right tend to consider a job – any job – will do, but
many people rightfully expect more.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It
is not just about providing any kind of work but the right kind of work: work
that can be meaningful, can match a person’s hopes and ambitions and can be
married with other aspects of life, such as home and childcare.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">So in one sense the
Government is right: social security for people who can work should be conditional
upon taking up opportunities.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>However,
it is the nature and environment of these opportunities, and whether they are
even available, that is the deal breaker for justifying conditionality.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Does a person with social anxiety have the
responsibility to take a job in a busy pub?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Does a lone parent have the duty to work evenings in a call centre? <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Does a medicine graduate have the obligation
to stack shelves? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Or rather, do people have
the right to a labour market that can provide them with fair, appropriate and
decently paid work?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If this requirement
is satisfied, then it seems there is a strong case for conditionality.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If not, as it actually appears, the case for
conditionality is weakened.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The danger
then is of a government that exploits conditionality to coerce and to
stigmatise.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And of a situation in which
people are enforced to oblige in their own exploitation.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">This article was originally written for <a href="http://london-student.net/">London Student</a></span></i></div>
Daniel Sagehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00418218236950133656noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2079527370176944630.post-55449896066575302132013-10-16T07:11:00.000-07:002013-10-16T07:13:00.581-07:00Can the unemployed be 'nudged' back into work?<b>Nudging the unemployed</b><br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.izajolp.com/content/1/1/2">This is an interesting paper </a>about the implications of behavioural economics for labour market policy. Behavioural economists argue that conventional economists are wrong in their assumptions about how people behave and make decisions, ideas that are broadly linked to notions of people as rationally driven and self-interested individuals.<br />
<br />
In policy terms, this is worrying: the standard economic view has had a profound influence across many areas of public policy. Take welfare-to-work for example. The assumption is that after making a rational cost-benefit analysis of his or her situation, the unemployed person then makes a decision about whether to work or not. Given this decision-making strategy, it is the role of the state to alter the incentives involved: make benefits less generous, threaten people with sanctions and so on.<br />
<br />
Babock et al, the authors of the above paper, argue that behavioural economics shows that people often don't behave so rationally. People 'make systematic errors, (are) put off by complexity, they procrastinate and (they) hold non-standard preferences and non-standard beliefs'. <br />
<br />
As a result, they argue that such findings about human behaviour have implications for how policies are designed. Applied to the labour market, they argue that welfare-to-work policies should control for the ways in which humans <i>actually </i>behave, rather than how economists have previously <i>thought</i> they do. Policy proposals include radically simplifying employment support and training, as well as managing 'loss aversion' in relation to taking a new job.<br />
<br />
<b>Would it work?</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
Policies that are designed for how people actually behave are preferable to ones that aren't. Many of the assumptions underlying welfare-to-work schemes have been based upon interpretations of jobseekers as rational agents, weighing up the costs and benefits of returning to the labour market. In reality, whether or not a person finds a job is determined by a far larger, more complex set of determinants. <br />
<br />
In this sense then, incorporating findings from behavioural economics into new welfare policies is likely to bring about better results. However, there may be some limits to how far such changes can go: what if, for example, the whole basis of welfare-to-work was wrong in the first place?<br />
<br />
<a href="http://extra.shu.ac.uk/ppp-online/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/welfare-work-isnt-working.pdf">This is the argument of Steve Fothergill </a>from Sheffield Hallam, who says that the premise of welfare-to-work policy is based on an idea of the labour market that doesn't exist. In post-crisis Britain, the 'work-first' supply-side approach of the boom New Labour years is horribly unsuited to the many parts of the country: places where the demand for labour is the real issue, as well as obstacles of poor skills and ill health.<br />
<br />
If Fothergill is right, then there is only so far that welfare-to-work - based on behavioural economics or otherwise - can achieve. Ultimately, all welfare-to-work (whether nudging or shoving) is based around increasing the ready supply of labour for employers. In the current situation, in which many parts of the country suffer from a sharp lack of demand for labour, this approach isn't likely to be too successful.<br />
<br />
Unemployed people would be better served by welfare policies that take into account evidence about the reality of human behaviour. However, they would be much, <i>much </i>better served by policies that take into account evidence about the reality of the labour market. For many unemployed people, this will involve a much different and broader system of support: something that I doubt the current government will be budged, or even nudged, into moving on.Daniel Sagehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00418218236950133656noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2079527370176944630.post-55655524187567982082013-10-14T01:52:00.002-07:002013-10-14T01:52:40.587-07:00Labour, Rachel Reeves and welfare reform: the beginning of the end for reviving the contributory principle?With Liam Byrne sacked as shadow DWP minister last week and replaced with Rachel Reeves, some people sensed this might be the start of a shift in Labour's welfare strategy. Out with the old remnants of Blairism and in with Ed Miliband's new social democracy.<br />
<br />
That optimism lasted until Sunday, when Reeves'<a href="http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2013/oct/12/labour-benefits-tories-labour-rachel-reeves-welfare"> first interview in the job</a> was spun to the press as '<a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2457344/Labour-claims-crack-Britains-welfare-bill.html">Labour will be tougher than the Tories on welfare</a>'. Little seems to have changed then: the policy is still the same (a guaranteed job for the long-term unemployed), as is the message (tough but fair).<br />
<br />
I suspect that many on the left exasperate at the sales pitch on welfare, rather than what's actually on offer. Providing paid work for all long-term unemployed people is a solidly social democratic welfare policy of the type <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/society/2012/nov/23/back-to-work-scheme-gain">the Tories don't like</a>. And realistically, Labour couldn't offer these jobs without some conditionality. This is a fact of the landscape of political attitudes in Britain. A majority of the public might welcome left-wing moves on the cost of living, but are simultaneously, resolutely small-c conservative on welfare.<br />
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However, perhaps the most interesting point to note was Reeves' language on the contributory principle: a revived idea that's been floating around the centre-left for a few years now. For some, the contributory principle is the mechanism by which Labour can revive support for the welfare state, yet Reeves' language was unforthcoming: '<i>we are not in an environment where there is more money around'. </i><br />
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In all likelihood, this shift probably reflects Labour's weariness of introducing huge reforms to social security. From the experience of Universal Credit, politicians know that changing the benefits system is far from straightforward. A pledge to revive the contributory principle would soak up a lot of Labour's time, money and political capital. There is also the (mistaken) mindset that public attitudes are inert and that it is beyond Labour's power to shift opinion on the welfare state.<br />
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So for now, Ed Miliband is playing it safe with welfare: his strategy is one of largely accepting the Coalition's position whilst highlighting small differences in what Labour would do. Reeves' inteview seems to signal the end of Labour's flirtation with the contributory principle: the most radical centre-left suggestion of the past few years. This is damage limitation but,<a href="http://labourlist.org/2013/10/5-things-we-learned-from-the-huntreeves-interviews-today/"> as Mark Ferguson says at Labour List</a>, it is a dangerous strategy: accepting and entering an '<i>arms race</i>' on welfare will, in the end, blow up in Labour's face.Daniel Sagehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00418218236950133656noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2079527370176944630.post-13161489087207346772013-10-03T07:23:00.002-07:002013-10-03T07:23:42.449-07:00The hidden costs of welfare reform<div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 20px; word-wrap: break-word;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Both the left and right in British politics are obsessed with economic outcomes. The impact of a policy – whether it is a tax cut, tax rise, welfare reform or a <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-24132416" style="color: #4d8b97; text-decoration: none; word-wrap: break-word;"><i style="word-wrap: break-word;">free school meal</i></a> – is almost exclusively evaluated and argued over in terms of its economic effect. Will it make people better off? Who are the winners and losers?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">We often seem to forget that policies have other effects too. Extending free school meals, for example, will not just give parents more income, but more time. In schools, it might give a stronger sense of togetherness amongst pupils (less <i style="word-wrap: break-word;">us versus them</i>). For policy-makers, it will make it easier to improve children’s nutrition.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">The same is true of welfare reform. The research that more or often than not makes the headlines is that which prices up the impact of a new policy. <a href="http://www.ifs.org.uk/publications/6586" style="color: #4d8b97; text-decoration: none; word-wrap: break-word;">The IFS are masters at this.</a> A policy is judged as a success if it happens to put an extra fiver in someone’s wallet.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Yet we cannot understand the true impact of a policy without considering a broader range of outcomes. And this is the case most poignantly in the area of welfare, where the most disadvantaged and vulnerable people in society have been subjected the most powerful policy changes. Welfare reforms have made many people poorer, that’s true. But the wider costs go way beyond tightened purse strings.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">We got a sense of these costs this week, with <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-24123677" style="color: #4d8b97; text-decoration: none; word-wrap: break-word;">new research in the BMJ</a> showing a rise in suicide associated with the global recession. <a href="http://www.academia.edu/1789940/Activation_Health_and_Well-Being_Neglected_Dimensions" style="color: #4d8b97; text-decoration: none; word-wrap: break-word;">My own research focuses on the health and well-being impact of unemployment</a> and the ways in which welfare reforms alter the nature of experienced worklessness.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">My findings are somewhat complex to untangle. In some instances, <a href="http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/politicsandpolicy/archives/36165" style="color: #4d8b97; text-decoration: none; word-wrap: break-word;">moving people to welfare-to-work schemes appears to improve well-being. </a> But there are many caveats here: this only appears to hold for younger people and for people on specific types of programmes. Unsurprisingly, there is no well-being benefit to the Work Programme.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">However, there is one solid finding I encounter time and time again: people who are put on welfare-to-work schemes have significantly higher anxiety than other unemployed people. The graph below (<a href="http://discover.ukdataservice.ac.uk/series/?sn=200002http://discover.ukdataservice.ac.uk/series/?sn=200002" style="color: #4d8b97; text-decoration: none; word-wrap: break-word;">using data from the Annual Population Survey</a>) shows that unemployed people have an anxiety score of 6.42 (the higher the score, the lower anxiety). This, as we would expect, is lower than those in work, students or the retired. However, people on welfare-to-work schemes have much higher anxiety than the unemployed (6.25).</span></div>
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<a href="http://realfare.files.wordpress.com/2013/09/anxietyds.png" style="color: #4d8b97; text-decoration: none; word-wrap: break-word;"><img alt="AnxietyDS" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-1362" height="353" src="http://realfare.files.wordpress.com/2013/09/anxietyds.png?w=580&h=353" style="-webkit-transition: opacity 0.25s ease-in-out; border: 0px; display: block; float: none; height: auto; margin-bottom: 20px; margin-left: auto !important; margin-right: auto !important; margin-top: 0px; max-width: 100%; opacity: 1; transition: opacity 0.25s ease-in-out; vertical-align: middle; word-wrap: break-word;" width="580" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Further, this relationship holds even when we look at different types of welfare-to-work participants. The evidence shows that the kind of welfare-to-work participant who benefits most from these schemes tend to be young, male, poorly educated and enrolled on a scheme that gives demonstrable training or work experience, as opposed to the Work Programme. However, even these types of participants have similar levels of anxiety to the unemployed.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">This evidence leads to a worrying conclusion – welfare-to-work (and potentially welfare reform in general) – leads to an increase in anxiety amongst the unemployed. Why this might be is an avenue for future research. The evidence on welfare-to-work is mixed – for certain types of people, and for certain types of wellbeing, some kinds of welfare-to-work programmes appear to be positive.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">However, for most participants – regardless of age, qualification level and gender – welfare-to-work appears to increase anxiety. This is a potent reminder that the costs of welfare reform cannot – and should not – be measured in economic terms. They go way beyond what can be counted in pounds sterling.</span></div>
Daniel Sagehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00418218236950133656noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2079527370176944630.post-29351849799125818982013-10-03T00:36:00.001-07:002013-10-03T00:36:40.369-07:00Where to go next with welfare reform?Over 18 months ago I wrote a post about '<a href="http://knowledge-is-porridge.blogspot.co.uk/2012/01/welfare-reform-20-where-will-coalition.html"><i>welfare reform 2.0</i></a>'. It argued that the Coalition would not stop with present reforms, driven by the belief that social security must be radically changed and (most importantly) that the public want to see this.<br />
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Then, I made five predictions about where the Coalition would go next. These were:<br />
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<li>Intensified workfare</li>
<li>Time-limited benefits</li>
<li>Abolishing contributions-based benefits</li>
<li>Regionalised benefits</li>
<li>Limiting Child Benefit</li>
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Since I published that piece, only 1.5 of my predictions have come true. The Government will intensify workfare (announced this week but piloted for the past year) and they have limited Child Benefit, but only to richer families. They haven't, yet, limited the amount of children that Child Benefit is payable to.</div>
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There are numerous reasons why new reforms have been relatively scarce during the past year and a half. One reason is that the Government has been preoccupied by the introduction of Universal Credit and its other reforms, such as the benefit cap. There simply hasn't been the time to focus on new reforms.</div>
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Secondly, the politics of the Coalition prevents the introduction of even more punitive welfare reforms. The Lib Dems like to boast that they have tamed the Tories from their wilder instincts. As the Coalition has already gone pretty far, new reforms will be within an exclusively Conservative sphere.</div>
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The third is more strategic. The Conservatives are already way ahead on welfare; there isn't, as yet, the political incentive for them to go too much further. This means that as the election in 2015 approaches, we'll probably see more and more policy proposals on welfare.</div>
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Finanlly, I could just be bad at making predictions. We'll see. But the big announcement yesterday - that benefits may be stopped for young people - suggests that, far from it, the Tories aren't finished yet.</div>
Daniel Sagehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00418218236950133656noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2079527370176944630.post-76350697925399108362013-09-12T01:43:00.001-07:002013-09-12T01:43:33.216-07:00Does welfare-to-work boost well-being?<div id="pn1" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21.59375px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">As ‘gizza job’ became one of the iconic catchphrases of the 1980s, the character synonymous with it – Yosser Hughes from Alan Bleasdale’s Boys from the Blackstuff – became one of the most devastating fictional representations of the psychological harm caused by unemployment. Made redundant, Yosser’s life soon disintegrates: he loses his savings, his children are taken into care and he becomes homeless. Driven to desperation, Yosser tries to commit suicide by walking into a lake. Bleasdale’s message was clear and is, simultaneously, one of the most robust findings in social science research: unemployment hurts the mind.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">The evidence on worklessness leads to the argument that governments should try to protect people against the harmful mental health effects of unemployment. For the Right though, it is questionable whether we even should try to do this. Shouldn’t unemployment be difficult, the argument goes, so there is an incentive to find work? For the Left, typical solutions revolve around full employment schemes and higher benefits. But both of these positions are on shaky ground. Against the conservative stance, it far more likely that happier people will be more motivated to find a job than those driven to despair. The traditional centre-left response meanwhile would require significant increases in public expenditure; whilst this is not impossible it is, for the moment, politically untenable.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">My research focuses on the potential that welfare-to-work programmes have for improving well-being outcomes for unemployed people. It is based on the idea that participating on a welfare-to-work scheme brings about a change in environment and status that is potentially, compared to ‘open unemployment’, more psychologically favourable.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">The evidence from other countries is tentatively positive. Research from <a href="http://ser.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2011/03/09/ser.mwr006.full.pdf" style="background-color: transparent; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; border: 0px; color: red; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">Germany</a>, <a href="http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPage=online&aid=73585" style="background-color: transparent; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; border: 0px; color: red; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">Sweden</a> and the <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10658883" style="background-color: transparent; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; border: 0px; color: red; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">United States</a> has shown that jobs programmes are apparently associated with improvements in subjective well-being. And the evidence from the UK appears to show the same. In analysing two large British social surveys – the cross-sectional <a href="http://discover.ukdataservice.ac.uk/series/?sn=200002" style="background-color: transparent; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; border: 0px; color: red; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">Annual Population Survey</a> and the longitudinal <a href="https://www.iser.essex.ac.uk/bhps" style="background-color: transparent; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; border: 0px; color: red; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">British Household Panel Survey</a> – I find the results from both surveys are the same: compared to unemployed people, participants on welfare-to-work schemes have significantly higher well-being. The effect is not large (it isn’t comparable, for example, to the effect of actually being in paid work) but it does seem real.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">So, does this mean we should start supporting big welfare-to-work schemes, like the Government’s Work Programme, as a means to improving the well-being of the unemployed? Whilst the straightforward answer seems to be ‘yes’, there are some important caveats to be found in the data.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">The first is that welfare-to-work schemes appear to improve well-being, but only for certain types of participants. Take a look at figure 1 below, which shows the average happiness scores (ranging from 0 to 10) of unemployed people and welfare-to-work participants. The scores are broken down for three key socio-demographic variables: gender, age and highest qualification level.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">The scores demonstrate that welfare-to-work appears to make some people happier compared to unemployment, but not others. For example, male welfare-to-work participants are much happier than other unemployed men; but the same cannot be said for women, where the relationship works the other way around. In addition, people on welfare-to-work schemes who are aged up to 49 appear happier than the unemployed, but this is not true for older participants (aged 50-65). Finally, the most explicit differences are found when we split the scores by highest qualification. For those who are highly educated (up to degree or A-Level), unemployment appears a brighter prospect than welfare-to-work. However, for those with lower levels of qualifications – especially those with none – there are apparently large gains to be had from active labour market programmes.</span></div>
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<strong style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Figure 1: Average happiness levels for unemployed people and welfare-to-work participants, split by demographic characteristics</span></strong></div>
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<a href="http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/politicsandpolicy/files/2013/09/Sage-fig-1.jpg" style="background-color: transparent; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; border: 0px; color: red; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><img alt="Sage fig 1" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-36182" height="306" src="http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/politicsandpolicy/files/2013/09/Sage-fig-1.jpg" style="background-color: transparent; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; border: none; height: auto; margin: 0px; max-width: 100%; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" width="556" /></a></div>
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<em style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Note: Graph is based on data from the Annual Population Survey.</span></em></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">So this is the first caveat: welfare-to-work only improves well-being for certain people. The second is that not all welfare-to-work programmes have positive effects. Broadly, we can split these programmes into two types: those that involve intensified employment advice (like the Work Programme and, before it, the New Deal) and those that involve training or work experience (more work-based schemes). The graph below shows the mean scores for four indicators of well-being by the type of welfare-to-work scheme that people are on. Again, there is a clear trend. People on programmes that involve acquiring skills, qualifications or work experience have much higher well-being than those who are simply receiving more employment support. Indeed, being on the latter type of scheme is relatively similar to – and sometimes worse than– open unemployment.</span></div>
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<strong style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Figure 2: Average well-being scores, split by type of welfare-to-work scheme</span></strong></div>
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<a href="http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/politicsandpolicy/files/2013/09/Sage-fig-2.jpg" style="background-color: transparent; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; border: 0px; color: red; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><img alt="Sage fig 2" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-36183" height="283" src="http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/politicsandpolicy/files/2013/09/Sage-fig-2.jpg" style="background-color: transparent; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; border: none; height: auto; margin: 0px; max-width: 100%; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" width="460" /></a></div>
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<em style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Note: Graph is based on data from the Annual Population Survey.</span></em></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">We don’t know why welfare-to-work has this variable effect, but it’s possible to pose some ideas. Many women have to balance job-seeking activity with caring responsibilities; requiring such women to participate in back-to-work schemes may only intensify these pressures. Older people with a lifetime of paid work may find the reality of unpaid work experience more humiliating than those with little to no labour market history. Those with low qualifications may have different expectations of work than those with a degree. Gaining skills, feeling valued and working directly with employers is a lot different to seeing an adviser once a week and being told how to write a better CV or dress for an interview.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">The government is increasingly keen on thinking about how public policies can improve well-being. In this sense, unemployment should be a high priority area: it is one of the life events that is most damaging to happiness. Research shows that welfare-to-work programmes can improve well-being for those out of work, but we must be careful. The evidence suggests that in order to achieve well-being gains, such schemes must be appropriately targeted, personalised and worthwhile. Improving well-being through welfare-to-work is not straightforward. To make stronger and more widespread gains, it is likely that the government will have to try a much different approach.</span></div>
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Daniel Sagehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00418218236950133656noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2079527370176944630.post-45365271969331387962013-09-11T11:26:00.000-07:002013-09-11T12:24:29.899-07:00Is the left really in meltdown across Europe?<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Courier;">There has been a lot of
talk amongst political commentators this week about whether or not Europe (and
the developed world more broadly) is seeing a lurch towards the right and a
lurch away from the left.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This has been
sparked by two election victories in which conservative parties ousted social
democratic ones from power (Australia and Norway).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><a href="http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/9b898e84-1938-11e3-80ec-00144feab7de.html#axzz2ebrIPR1i">In the FT, Janan Ganesh says this is part of a wider context in which the left ‘called the crisis’ wrong in the eyes of voters</a>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Today, Toby Young tweeted that '<i><a href="https://twitter.com/toadmeister/status/67900652415762432">the left is in meltdown all over Europe</a></i><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">’.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier;">But how true is this?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Are voters really turning away from the left,
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">en masse?<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Courier;">Division of power in the EU<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
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<td style="border: solid windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; width: 212.9pt;" valign="top" width="213"><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier;">Centre-left<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier;">Centre-right<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier;">Austria<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; width: 212.9pt;" valign="top" width="213"><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Courier;">Czech Republic<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<tr style="mso-yfti-irow: 2;">
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<span style="font-family: Courier;">Belgium<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; width: 212.9pt;" valign="top" width="213"><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Courier;">Estonia<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<tr style="mso-yfti-irow: 3;">
<td style="border-top: none; border: solid windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; width: 212.9pt;" valign="top" width="213"><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Courier;">Bulgaria<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</td>
<td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; width: 212.9pt;" valign="top" width="213"><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Courier;">Finland<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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</tr>
<tr style="mso-yfti-irow: 4;">
<td style="border-top: none; border: solid windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; width: 212.9pt;" valign="top" width="213"><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Courier;">Croatia<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; width: 212.9pt;" valign="top" width="213"><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Courier;">Germany<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<tr style="mso-yfti-irow: 5;">
<td style="border-top: none; border: solid windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; width: 212.9pt;" valign="top" width="213"><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Courier;">Cyprus<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</td>
<td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; width: 212.9pt;" valign="top" width="213"><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Courier;">Greece<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<tr style="mso-yfti-irow: 6;">
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<span style="font-family: Courier;">Denmark<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier;">Hungary<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<tr style="mso-yfti-irow: 7;">
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<span style="font-family: Courier;">France<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; width: 212.9pt;" valign="top" width="213"><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Courier;">Ireland<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</td>
</tr>
<tr style="mso-yfti-irow: 8;">
<td style="border-top: none; border: solid windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; width: 212.9pt;" valign="top" width="213"><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Courier;">Italy<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</td>
<td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; width: 212.9pt;" valign="top" width="213"><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Courier;">Latvia<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</td>
</tr>
<tr style="mso-yfti-irow: 9;">
<td style="border-top: none; border: solid windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; width: 212.9pt;" valign="top" width="213"><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Courier;">Lithuania<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</td>
<td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; width: 212.9pt;" valign="top" width="213"><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Courier;">Luxembourg<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<tr style="mso-yfti-irow: 10;">
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<span style="font-family: Courier;">Malta<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier;">Netherlands<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier;">Slovakia<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier;">Poland<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier;">Portugal<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier;">Romania<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier;">Slovenia<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier;">Spain<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier;">Sweden<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<tr style="mso-yfti-irow: 17; mso-yfti-lastrow: yes;">
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<br /></div>
</td>
<td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; width: 212.9pt;" valign="top" width="213"><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Courier;">UK<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Courier;">All in all, the
centre-right has power (either governing alone or as the largest party in a
coalition) in six more EU countries than the centre-left.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So there is undoubtedly a momentum with
conservatives, although not as much momentum as celebratory journos might have
you believe.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Further, in places like Ireland
and the Netherlands relatively strong social democratic parties share power
with the right.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And by 2015, it is
likely that the left will regain power in Sweden and the UK.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Courier;">So why is there a general
air of defeatism amongst the left in Europe?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>And triumphalism amongst the right?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>One reason is surely the nature of where the centre-right has been
successful.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In all the countries where
the crisis hit hardest (Portugal, Spain, Ireland, Greece) voters have put their
faith in conservatives.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In Germany and
Sweden, there has been an unparalleled dominance of the centre-right in
countries with important social democratic traditions.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Courier;">So the left needn’t been
too downhearted: it is still in power across much of Europe.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Of course, the facts on who is in power tell
us only so much about the policies they are implementing and the grounds on
which elections have been won.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If the
left is in power and largely implementing centre-right economic policies as a
response to the crisis – <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financialcrisis/9999148/Francois-Hollande-faces-austerity-revolt-from-own-ministers.html">as Francois Hollande has been accused of</a> - the
conservative commentariat might, after all, have a valid point.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
Daniel Sagehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00418218236950133656noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2079527370176944630.post-6239075754865232662013-08-15T01:36:00.000-07:002013-08-15T01:37:06.084-07:00Do people really 'get used to a life on benefits'?The cornerstone of the Coalitions' welfare reform agenda is the idea of 'welfare dependency'. That people, as they remain reliant on the social security system, acclimatise to being unemployed: they no longer want to work, they adapt to a life without work and they get used to a life on benefits.<br />
<br />
If people get used to a life on benefits, then the rationale follows that they need stronger incentives to move into work. This logic is the justification for most of the Coalition's welfare reforms: the Universal Credit, the benefit cap, stronger sanctioning and welfare-to-work programmes.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/49554000/jpg/_49554779_prof_ids_easterhouse_getty81940305.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/49554000/jpg/_49554779_prof_ids_easterhouse_getty81940305.jpg" /></a></div>
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But how valid this is this assumption? Do people get used to a life on benefits? <br />
<br />
One way to find out is by tracking individuals who remain unemployed over a prolonged period of time. If people get used to benefits, then we would expect these individuals - the longer unemployment goes on - to become happier and more content. In the subjective well-being literature, this phenomenon is called <i><a href="http://faculty.chicagobooth.edu/wilhelm.hofmann/publications/Luhmann%20Hofmann%20Eid%20Lucas%20(2012)%20SWB%20and%20life%20events%20meta-analysis_JPSP.pdf">adaptation. </a> </i><br />
<br />
In short, when people suffer a shock to their normal life (divorce, widowhood, childbirth), they tend to experience a quick change in their life satisfaction. But over time, their life satisfaction 'resets' itself to its pre-shock level. People <i>adapt </i>to their new life circumstance. This is essentially the argument of the Coalition in relation to the unemployed. After so long, people adapt to unemployment: it becomes their normal way of life.<br />
<br />
Data from the <a href="https://www.iser.essex.ac.uk/bhps">BHPS</a> however suggest this is not the case. In the course of some other work I'm doing on the long-term effects of welfare-to-work programmes, I took a look at the effects of long-term unemployment on well-being. The main question I wanted to check was whether people do <i>adapt </i>to unemployment the longer it goes on. To do this, I split unemployed people into five groups: those who had been unemployed for 1 year, for 2 years and so on, up to 5 years of continuous unemployment.<br />
<br />
If people adapt to unemployment - or 'get used to a life on benefits' - we would expect the long-term unemployed to have significantly higher subjective well-being than those who have recently experienced the 'shock' of becoming unemployed. But this is not the case. Once we control for a whole range of background factors, we find that there is no significant difference between the long-term unemployed and the recently unemployed. They are, to put it crudely, as miserable as each other.<br />
<br />
Unemployment then is not a condition that people ever get used to. Whilst people tend to adapt to other life events - even widowhood - they do not get used to permanent exclusion from the labour market. This gives us an idea of the true extent of the social and psychological damage inflicted by unemployment. And should give politicians food for thought in the way they talk about its victims.<br />
<br />
<br />
<b><u>The long-term effects of unemployment on well-being</u></b><br />
<b><u><br /></u></b>
<br />
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-AQAmFVb1PxA/UgyR8YLJnEI/AAAAAAAAAKA/cLYGsveGX-Q/s1600/Screen+Shot+2013-08-15+at+09.31.01.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="198" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-AQAmFVb1PxA/UgyR8YLJnEI/AAAAAAAAAKA/cLYGsveGX-Q/s400/Screen+Shot+2013-08-15+at+09.31.01.png" width="400" /></a></div>
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<br />Daniel Sagehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00418218236950133656noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2079527370176944630.post-28498571191165565802013-07-31T01:45:00.002-07:002013-07-31T01:45:39.942-07:00Welfare-to-work, in perspective<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-DHhxX87ockQ/UfjNoaoye0I/AAAAAAAAAJc/Y4bmeX894so/s1600/img1.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="141" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-DHhxX87ockQ/UfjNoaoye0I/AAAAAAAAAJc/Y4bmeX894so/s400/img1.png" width="400" /></a></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 20px; word-wrap: break-word;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">The image above illustrates the large network of what policy academics call ‘active labour market policies’ (ALMPs); or what politicians refer to, in the increasingly Americanised language of social security, ‘welfare-to-work’.</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 20px; word-wrap: break-word;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">ALMPs are big business. They are in large part carried out by huge private sector providers, such as A4E and G4S, as well as a<a href="http://www.dwp.gov.uk/docs/wp-supply-chains.pdf" style="color: #4d8b97; text-decoration: none; word-wrap: break-word;" target="_blank" title="DWP - Supply Chains"> ‘supply chain’</a> that consists of hundreds, if not thousands, of smaller organisations and companies. <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-21532191" style="color: #4d8b97; text-decoration: none; word-wrap: break-word;" target="_blank" title="BBC News">According to the BBC</a>, the Work Programme alone is expected to cost up to £5bn.</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 20px; word-wrap: break-word;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">But as well as being big business, ALMPs are an integral component of the social security ‘contract’ that exists between the state, the public and benefit claimants. The contract, so it goes, is that unemployed people agree to a wide range of – often stringent – work-related conditions: this in return for (a) benefits and (b) the provision of back-to-work ALMPs.</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 20px; word-wrap: break-word;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">The state then, like the unemployed, has rights and responsibilities: the right to expect benefit claimants to take certain steps to get back into the labour market, but also the responsibility to provide good services that enable a transition back to work. So this raises an important question: how well do we actually provide for the unemployed in terms of labour market programmes?</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 20px; word-wrap: break-word;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">A simple but effective way to answer this is to look at what other countries do. <a href="http://stats.oecd.org/" style="color: #4d8b97; text-decoration: none; word-wrap: break-word;" target="_blank" title="OECD">The OECD is a useful resource here</a>, as they collect statistics on how much countries spend on ALMPs. The graph below shows how much other European countries spent in the most recent year of data collection, as a percentage of GDP.</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 20px; word-wrap: break-word;">
<b style="word-wrap: break-word;"><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Spending on ALMPs in the OECD (% GDP)</span></b></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-nVKQlSFQxcg/UfjN9oLHMjI/AAAAAAAAAJk/itTy0apPzos/s1600/img2.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="246" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-nVKQlSFQxcg/UfjN9oLHMjI/AAAAAAAAAJk/itTy0apPzos/s400/img2.png" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 20px; word-wrap: break-word;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">As is obvious, we don’t do very well: spending on ALMPs is just 0.38% of our national income. In fact, the only countries that spend less than us on ALMPs are the former communist states of Slovakia, the Czech Republic and Estonia. What’s far more normal for countries like us, in terms of GDP, is for over 1 per cent on all spending to go on welfare-to-work, such as in the Netherlands (1.2%), France (1.1%) and Belgium (1.5%). Denmark, meanwhile, spends a whopping <b style="word-wrap: break-word;">five times</b>more than the UK does on back-to-work schemes.</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 20px; word-wrap: break-word;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Our poor record on ALMPs is reflected even more intensely in what the EU calls ‘the activation rate’. This is the number of unemployed people, per 100, who are enrolled onto welfare-to-work programmes. The image below shows the pitiful coverage of UK provision: for every hundred unemployed people, just over <b style="word-wrap: break-word;">one</b> person is participating in activating schemes. This compares to rates of over a fifth in other major West European economies, such as Italy, Sweden, Spain and Belgium.</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 20px; word-wrap: break-word;">
<b style="word-wrap: break-word;"><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">The ‘activation rate’ in EU countries</span></b></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-MO-ijfou3lo/UfjORkagEcI/AAAAAAAAAJs/hiKxbEBdYYs/s1600/img3.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="298" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-MO-ijfou3lo/UfjORkagEcI/AAAAAAAAAJs/hiKxbEBdYYs/s400/img3.png" width="400" /></a></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 20px; word-wrap: break-word;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">In fact, <a href="http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/portal/page/portal/labour_market/labour_market_policy/database)" style="color: #4d8b97; text-decoration: none; word-wrap: break-word;" target="_blank" title="EU Stats">the UK is <b style="word-wrap: break-word;">bottom </b>of this league table across the entire EU</a>. This means there are a higher proportion of unemployed people on ALMPs in countries like Bulgaria, Romania and Lithuania. Even tiny Malta has a higher activation rate than the UK.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">So, whilst the state asks a lot from the unemployed, it simultaneously fails to provide them with a relatively high standard of labour market programmes. The key point here is not that it’s unfair to ask – or even compel – unemployed people to take steps back to work. Rather, it’s unfair that we ask so much of the unemployed yet do so little, compared to other countries, to help them.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-20304800" style="color: #4d8b97; text-decoration: none; word-wrap: break-word;" target="_blank" title="BBC News">David Cameron and George Osborne like to talk about the ‘Global Race’</a> that the UK is in: a race where we must compete more effectively and efficiently against our economic competitors. Yet if we really are in a ‘Global Race’, then surely a test of how where we stand is by how much our government invests in reskilling the unemployed. And on this test, we are miserably failing.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><i>This article originally appeared on the site <a href="http://realfare.wordpress.com/">RealFare</a></i></span></div>
Daniel Sagehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00418218236950133656noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2079527370176944630.post-14364846084035134202013-06-05T01:25:00.000-07:002013-06-05T01:25:34.311-07:00Have universal benefits had their day?This week, Labour has made some (potentially) significant shifts in its welfare policy. On Monday, <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/video/2013/jun/03/ed-balls-winter-fuel-allowance-video">Ed Balls announced that a future Labour government would seek to means-test the universal Winter Fuel Allowance</a>. And today, the BBC report that <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-22777735">Ed Miliband will state that Labour wouldn't reinstate the universal principle to Child Benefit</a>. These are significant shifts: suggesting that Labour is coming into line with centre-right (and perhaps public) views on universality.<br />
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The Right have never liked universal benefits: seeing them as a waste of money and unaligned with the proper purpose of social security, which is <i>need</i>. The Left have never really been able to argue against this point: many people receive benefits who don't, in the strict sense of the word, need them. Instead, the Left has supported universality as a mechanism for maintaining support for the redistributive welfare state as a whole.<br />
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<a href="http://knowledge-is-porridge.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/on-social-security-universality-and.html">I've argued this point myself</a> - and certainly think that universal benefits <i>do </i>help public support for welfare from dropping even further. <a href="http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2013/06/why-labour-would-not-reverse-coalitions-child-benefit-cuts">But this New Statesman piece makes a valid point</a>: universality doesn't just come in the form of <b><i>benefits</i></b>, but also <i style="font-weight: bold;">services</i>: the NHS, schools, Sure Start centres and public transport (at least for pensioners). And often, it's universal services - as opposed to universal benefits - that seem to command the most solid levels of public support.<br />
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So, whilst the death knell might be sounding for universal benefits, this doesn't mean it has to sound for the universal principle as a whole. More free childcare instead of universal Child Benefit; well invested active labour market programmes for all unemployed people instead of widening eligibility for JSA; means-tested winter fuel payments but more social care for the elderly. Universal services, but not benefits, could kill two birds with one stone for the centre-left: economic credibility <i>and </i>a stronger welfare state.Daniel Sagehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00418218236950133656noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2079527370176944630.post-49059301193863946992013-05-07T00:16:00.002-07:002013-05-07T00:22:20.693-07:00So what do UKIP have to say about welfare?<a href="http://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/blog/ukip-nigel-farage-labour-liberalism/">Max Wind-Cowie writes for Prospect magazine</a> that UKIP's recent electoral and polling successes can be put down to it's 'accidental post-liberalism'. By 'post-liberalism', Wind-Cowie means the idea that there are serious fallouts, losses and consequences from the hegemony of liberalism: both economic and social. By 'accidental', he means that UKIP has come to espouse this position almost by fluke; that it has found strong public support for both its policies and arguments because they speak to a post-liberal mindset.<br />
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Whisper it quietly, but I suspect that Farage and co now know that this is where their future lies. No longer will they keep up the frankly bizarre pretence of being a libertarian party, nor a simply more-right-wing-than-the-Tories party. Their recent success has been built on adopting policies and arguments that counter the dominant liberal narrative of the main three parties; and this means that policies that must appeal to both middle- and working-class voters. Hence why, quite importantly, their commitment to a flat tax was recently dropped.<br />
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For those of us interested in social security, this raises the interesting question of what UKIP will eventually say about the welfare state. If Wind-Cowie's thesis is correct (and I suspect it is) it means that UKIP will look to build a conservatively-inclined, but still post-liberal, welfare strategy. This will involve a far more complex approach than simply cutting back on social security, as the Conservatives tend to favour.<br />
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Out of all the main parties, Labour has flirted the most with post-liberalism: with a small group of academics and MPs, such as Maurice Glasman and John Cruddas, attracted to it ideas. In terms of welfare, post-liberalism has often been expressed in terms of reestablishing the contributory principle and prioritising certain groups for things like social housing. This is 'post-liberal welfare' because it couches the receipt of social security in a language devoid of the individualist rhetoric of 'social rights' or 'need'. It speaks to a wholly different line of reasoning: one based upon contribution, reciprocity, desert and the good of the community.<br />
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But Labour has yet to decide where it lies on welfare; the kind of ideas Glasman et al put forward will cost big money and involve a substantial reorientation of the welfare state. But what they do is give us some ideas of what UKIP might offer on welfare, with a conservative edge of course. This could involve emphasising contribution, and so favouring benefits for pensioners and NI contributors over (semi-) universal payments with more abstract objectives, such as Child Benefit. It could also, inevitably, mean the right to social security is removed from newly arrived immigrants.<br />
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In light of the debate last week about winter fuel payments and bus passes, these kind of dividing lines could come to be crucial. The support given my most people in defence of universal benefits for pensioners is not based on the abstract language of liberalism, but the more basic response of contribution: of paying your dues. At the moment, the Conservatives, Labour and the Liberal Democrats are all flirting with the idea of means-testing pensioner benefits. To support this would be to swim against the 'post-liberal' tide; and to play in the hands of the only party who is genuinely picking up its mantle. Daniel Sagehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00418218236950133656noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2079527370176944630.post-82737616172696325352013-04-29T15:47:00.000-07:002013-04-29T15:53:07.241-07:00On social security, universality and public support for the welfare stateAs the Government moots the idea of means-testing certain benefits for pensioners, Owen Jones writes for The Independent that <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/dont-be-fooled-iain-duncan-smiths-attack-on-pensioners-is--really-an-attack-on-all-of-us-8591518.html">universality is an integral component of a good welfare state</a>. In response, Sunny Hundal writes that <a href="http://liberalconspiracy.org/2013/04/29/do-benefits-for-rich-pensioners-preserve-universal-support-for-welfare/">universality does not automatically generate support for social security</a>.<br />
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In defence of his view, Sunny argues (quite rightly) that overall support for extra spending on benefits has dwindled since the 1990s. But to what extent does this prove his idea that universality does not increase support for social security? What Sunny's graph shows is that there is little evidence linking <i>very specific</i> introductions of universality (winter fuel payments for example) with <i>broad</i> support for the welfare state as a whole.<br />
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The picture is quite different if we break down support for specific parts of the social security system. The graph below shows the percentage of respondents from the British Social Attitudes survey by aspects of the welfare state they prioritise for extra spending.<br />
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-yyMnIaNZmt0/UX707iGDbJI/AAAAAAAAAIs/CwWKC3YcCEc/s1600/benefits.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="245" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-yyMnIaNZmt0/UX707iGDbJI/AAAAAAAAAIs/CwWKC3YcCEc/s400/benefits.png" width="400" /></a></div>
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<b><u>Percentage that prioritise specific area of social security for extra spending (British Social Attitudes)</u></b></div>
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Over the New Labour years, large amounts of extra spending was targeted at two different groups: a) pensioners and b) families with children. And as the graph above shows, over the late 1990s and 2000s increasing proportions of the public would prioritise extra spending on these 'growth' areas of the welfare state.</div>
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Alternatively, during the same years unemployment benefits became a) worth less and b) available to a decreasing pool of people. As it happens, the number of people prioritising extra spending on the unemployed dwindled to, at one point, just 2 per cent.</div>
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The UK welfare state can be thought of as a hybrid system: there are pockets of universality and pockets of means-testing. What I think the graph above shows is that where universality is dominant (for pensioners and families with children) there is strong public support. Of course, the same can be said for the NHS: the universal principle leads to widespread public backing.</div>
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But where means-testing and highly selective coverage dominates - such as for the unemployed - public support is very low. So whilst Sunny is right on one point - winter fuel payments alone won't boost support for the entire welfare state - he is wrong to misjudge the effect universality can have on specific parts of the social security system. It's difficult to imagine how the welfare state could sustain the levels of solidarity it requires <i>without </i>universal benefits; the left, at its peril, supports their demise.</div>
Daniel Sagehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00418218236950133656noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2079527370176944630.post-39017031683703718032013-04-25T08:08:00.000-07:002013-04-25T08:10:58.591-07:00Evidence shows 0% of long-term unemployed people are failing to look for workThere is a lot of debate, particularly fuelled by the political right and the tabloid press, about the extent to which unemployed people are genuinely looking for work. People on the right argue that there needs to be a tighter sanctions regime so those who are failing to look for work are encouraged to do so. People on the left claim that the problem is not lack of effort, but lack of vacancies. <br />
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To clear this debate up a bit, I thought I would share some interesting data from the<a href="http://discover.ukdataservice.ac.uk/catalogue/?sn=7091&type=Data%20catalogue#var"> Annual Population Survey</a> (APS). The APS is an exceptionally large dataset of over 300,000 people. This means that anything found in the data is quite likely to be true of the wider population.<br />
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The APS asks a simple question to all its respondents: '<i>Have you looked for paid work in the past 4 weeks?'. </i>If the right are correct, we might expect a decent proportion of unemployed respondents to answer 'no'. If the left are correct, we'd be expect a very low figure to answer 'no'.<br />
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<b>The number of unemployed not looking for work is tiny - 2%</b><br />
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In total, 11480 unemployed people answered this question. Of this group, 98% (11,428) said they had looked for work and just 2% (232) said they hadn't. This suggests 'idleness' amongst the unemployed is a relatively small problem: just 1 in 50 of the total out of work.<br />
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Nevertheless, this is a slightly misleading - and exaggerating - number. Much of the time, the right is generally focused on people who have been out of work for a decent period of time: those who have, in the jargon, been 'parked on benefits'. <br />
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<b>So what about the long-term unemployed?</b><br />
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Thus a better way to assess whether we have a 'scrounger' problem is to look exclusively at the job-seeking efforts of the relatively long-term unemployed, say those who have been out of work for 6 months or more. Reducing the sample in this way gives us 6148 long-term unemployed (54% of the total out of work).<br />
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Now, here is the interesting statistic. Out of the 6148 people who have been out of work for 6 months or more, just 15 - <i style="font-weight: bold;">yes, 15</i> - had failed to look for work over the past month. This is 0.2%: or, if you like, a small enough group of people to make 'idleness' essentially non-existent amongst the unemployed.<br />
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-6upo-3DAJSc/UXlD8AoWpSI/AAAAAAAAAIc/vLCULCqVxco/s1600/longte343.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="192" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-6upo-3DAJSc/UXlD8AoWpSI/AAAAAAAAAIc/vLCULCqVxco/s320/longte343.png" width="320" /></a></div>
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<b><u>Per cent of long-term unemployed who have a) looked for work in past month or b) not looked for work in past month</u></b></div>
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If we extrapolate this to the wider population, this means that out of an estimated 1,400,000 (<a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10604117">54% of the total unemployed</a>) people might be long-term unemployed, just 2,800 have not recently looked for work. And it is this small minority - rather than the 1.4 million mass of long-term unemployed - that Coalition rhetoric is almost exclusively targeted towards.<br />
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<b>A non-existent problem</b><br />
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There will be obvious retorts here from right-wingers. They might say people aren't telling the truth; but they have no real incentive to lie as this is an anonymous survey. They might also say that we don't know <i>how much </i>job-seeking long-term unemployed people are doing, which is true and which could be answered with the proper data. However, what we <i>do know</i> from the APS is that nearly every long-term unemployed person is actively looking for a job. A fact that makes the current furore over the benefits system even more difficult - and infuriating - to understand.Daniel Sagehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00418218236950133656noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2079527370176944630.post-7984857169093709372013-04-23T06:06:00.000-07:002013-04-23T06:07:33.926-07:00Would higher benefits increase the wellbeing of the unemployed? Perhaps not.New research using the cross-national <i>European Social Survey </i>was released today, with a special emphasis on the relationship between the recession, the labour market and subjective wellbeing. <a href="http://www.esrc.ac.uk/impacts-and-findings/features-casestudies/features/25778/european-survey-shows-work-and-wellbeing-impact-from-recession.aspx">A key finding of the research is that in countries with welfare systems that generally provide high unemployment benefits (the Nordic countres), the unemployed tend to have higher levels of subjective wellbeing than their counterparts in countries with ungenerous benefits (like the UK).</a><br />
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This raises an important question. Would increasing the value of benefits raise the wellbeing of the unemployed? In theory, higher benefits could make unemployment more bearable by reducing poverty and alleviating anxieties about making ends meet. The ESS findings come at a useful time policy-wise. <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2013/apr/20/labour-plans-student-style-salary-loans-unemployed">At the weekend, Labour announced new plans to back an increased level of unemployment benefit.</a><br />
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Looking first at the life satisfaction levels of the whole population, we can see the kind of relationship we might expect: those with the largest incomes have higher life satisfaction, those with the smallest incomes have the lowest life satisfaction. For ease of interpretation, the results below are based upon a sample that excludes the richest 30 per cent or so of respondents; the vast majority of which are not unemployed, which makes any analysis (based upon tiny numbers) problematic.<br />
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-zuLfNhiAwFE/UXaCZ7betKI/AAAAAAAAAH8/u0EUnA81LOY/s1600/unempR2.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-zuLfNhiAwFE/UXaCZ7betKI/AAAAAAAAAH8/u0EUnA81LOY/s400/unempR2.png" width="400" /></a></div>
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<b><u>Average life satisfaction by income group, Citizenship Survey (2009/10 and 2010/2011)</u></b></div>
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So what happens when we divide this up by employment status? The results below are, in this instance, perhaps what we might <i>not</i> expect. For those within the employed group, the higher earners have the highest life satisfaction, but only just. This suggests that being in work is pretty good for life satisfaction even if you are on a relatively low income.<br />
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-m338jtjnkvM/UXaC907Q5-I/AAAAAAAAAIE/_sVx41oJfR8/s1600/unempR.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="226" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-m338jtjnkvM/UXaC907Q5-I/AAAAAAAAAIE/_sVx41oJfR8/s400/unempR.png" width="400" /></a></div>
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<b><u>Average life satisfaction by income group and employment status</u></b></div>
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Yet the question we're really interested in here is whether a higher income protects unemployed people against a loss in life satisfaction. And the answer seems to be no. The average life satisfaction for unemployed people in the highest income group is 3.6; remarkably, for the lowest income group of unemployed people it is slightly (though perhaps not significantly) higher, at 3.7.<br />
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What this suggests is that unemployment corrodes wellbeing irrespective of how much money a person has whilst they're unemployed. Yet this is not necessarily an argument against higher unemployment benefits. The argument for higher benefits is based upon a much wider range of arguments than boosting life satisfaction: reducing poverty, giving dignity to people, easing income anxieties and allowing the children of unemployed people to be adequately provided for.<br />
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But what this does mean, I think, is that we have to consider the stigma attached to unemployment and the social costs that follow as much greater problems than purely economic ones. So whilst higher benefits may solve some of the issues associated with unemployment - such as intense poverty and income insecurity - they cannot, at least alone, deal with some of the other problems of unemployment. Not least, why it makes people feel so bad.Daniel Sagehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00418218236950133656noreply@blogger.com2