Ideas@TheCentre
Mead: Dutiful but defeated
Whenever anyone suggests tightening up welfare eligibility rules, the welfare lobby invariably attacks the idea as unnecessary and mean-spirited. People on benefits would much prefer to be working, they tell us. Life on benefits is hard, and nobody would voluntarily choose that over employment. There is therefore no need to tighten eligibility rules, for if jobs were available, benefit recipients would surely take them.
Statistics released last week suggest that, in the UK at any rate, this argument is wrong.
One set of figures relates to people claiming the Incapacity Benefit (the equivalent of Australia’s Disability Support Pension). There are 1.5 million people on this benefit in Britain, and it costs the taxpayers £13 billion every year to support them. Some of us have long suspected that a significant proportion of these claimants are perfectly capable of working, and so it has been proven now.
All existing incapacity benefit claimants are being reassessed in Britain, and those found capable of working are being transferred to the (less generous) unemployment allowance, where they are expected to look for a job. In the 18 months to February 2012, 431,100 claimants were re-assessed, and 145,000 of them were found to be fit for work. Almost 40,000 of these claimants had been claiming Incapacity Benefit for more than 10 years.
Many of those assessed as 'fit for work' appeal against the decision, and 9% of assessments are eventually reversed, but this still means almost one-third of claimants have been using the Incapacity Benefit to avoid looking for a job.
A second set of figures relates to unemployment benefit (the equivalent of Australia’s Newstart Allowance). A scheme was introduced in May last year under which unemployed claimants deemed lacking the ‘personal skills’ necessary to find and keep a job (i.e. those thought to be work-shy) are required to undertake a one-month work placement. If they refuse, or fail to complete the placement, they can lose their benefit for three months; repeated failures trigger longer sanctions.
In the first 15 months of the scheme, 90,000 claimants were referred to a work placement – but only 33,000 turned up. The rest either found themselves jobs, or simply stopped claiming (some undoubtedly already had jobs in the ‘black economy’ so they couldn’t fulfil the work placement as well).
Welfare analyst Lawrence Mead suggests that most people on welfare say they would prefer to work, but when it comes to the crunch, many fail to accept the employment opportunities on offer. Mead says they are ‘dutiful but defeated’ – they know they should be working, but they have given up.
These latest UK figures strongly support Mead’s analysis. The welfare lobby’s assertion that the vast majority of people on benefits would prefer to be working reflects what welfare claimants say but not what they do. To get welfare numbers down, it’s not enough to help claimants find jobs. You also have to hassle them into taking them. And that is the compelling case for tightening eligibility rules.
Professor Peter Saunders is a Senior Fellow at The Centre for Independent Studies.
