#Shaming #Benefit #Claimants wont get them off #Welfare - The Search for #Dignity and #Respectability in the UK #Politicians abuse of the #weakest in #society is a cheap policy option – research shows it doesnt work It is almost 30 years since the Conservatives Norman Fowler, then secretary of state for social security, announcing the flagship #WelfareReform of Margaret Thatchers era, declared that the social security system had lost its way and needed to be reformed to tackle genuine need. #Welfare has since become a term of abuse, and the long-term unemployed are deemed by politicians left and right to be part of a something-for-nothing culture. Policies have hardened. Today the secretary of state for the Department for Work and Pensions - DWP, Iain Duncan Smith, among others, says the receipt of benefits is a lifestyle choice that breeds intergenerational #poverty, imposes a burden on the taxpayer and constitutes a national crisis. Politicians know that this kind of language appeals to voters, but the denigration of people in poverty has downsides, as the last few weeks have demonstrated. In setting a cap on welfare expenditure, and with the introduction of employment and support allowance, ministers believed they could weed out fraudulent claims. It does not seem to have happened. Instead, politicians are surprised that recipients of incapacity benefit actually are quite #ill or very #disabled. Similarly, Labours headline message, that the young jobless must train or be stripped of benefits, could carry equal dangers since it assumes young people want neither to learn nor to #work. The reality is very different from the rhetoric. Rather than being #shameless, new research reported in my forthcoming book, The Shame of Poverty, indicates that people in poverty feel #humiliation on a daily basis. Adam Smith recognised 250 years ago that anyone would be ashamed to appear in public without a linen shirt and leather shoes. In Britain today, people have to make hard choices in their search for #dignity and #respectability. One lone father in our study spoke of needing to choose between furniture polish and a haircut. This search for #respect in the face of societys refusal to offer it to those in poverty is a soul-sapping frustration not only in Britain but also, our research suggests, in countries as different as India and Norway, China and Uganda, South Korea and Pakistan. Families in poverty everywhere aspire to a better life: they are invariably ashamed that they cannot fulfil those aspirations and live up to societys expectations; that they cannot afford to be better parents, relatives and friends.
Posted on: Mon, 30 Jun 2014 12:06:23 +0000
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