52 per cent of the people in the areas where Benefits Street was filmed are in employment.
There are two pervasive myths about welfare in the UK which are routinely retailed by politicians and the media.
The first is the myth of the family where ‘nobody has worked for generations’. The second is the myth of the area where ‘nobody works around here’.
By ‘myths’ I don’t just mean widely believed falsehoods, but statements which embody a mythological mode of thinking which has no relation to facts whatsoever.
The point about these myths is that they refer to things taking place elsewhere involving other people. It is the sense of otherness they convey rather than the factual inaccuracies they involve, which tells us we’re dealing with myths.
So to James Turner Street, the supposed subject of Channel 4’s documentary series Benefits Street, which seems to have given the struggling Iain Duncan Smith a new lease of political life. Press coverage of the series has repeatedly claimed that the great majority of residents on the street are receiving out of work benefits.
For example:
The Express: Benefits Street exposed: The street where 9 out of 10 households are on welfare
The Mail, (this Tuesday): The series … follows the lives of people on James Turner Street – where 90 per cent of residents are on benefits
Today the Mail has toned down its claim: it seems only 75 per cent ‘are said to be on benefits’, which may indicate a tentative recognition on the Mail’s part that its previous claims don’t stand up to scrutiny.
What are the real employment figures for ‘Benefits Street’?
I’ve matched the postcodes for James Turner Street to Census Output Areas, the finest grained geography at which official statistics are normally published, using ONS’s postcode/output area lookup file. These are very small areas indeed, with about 175 households in total. James Turner Street straddles two of these areas. Data on employment and economic activity is available from the 2011 Census via Nomis.
If we want to know what employment looks like on James Turner Street, this is where to start.
In these output areas, 43 per cent and 38 per cent of people aged 16-74 were in employment on Census day 2011. However this includes pensioners and students in the denominator. Focussing just on the non-retired, non-student population, 52 per cent in both areas were in employment. About a third were ‘other inactive’, meaning they were neither working nor seeking work, and 16/15 per cent were unemployed.
If the production company for Benefits Street managed to find an area within these output areas where 90 per cent or 75 per cent of adults were out of work, they would have to have been very selective indeed.
It’s also useful to look at the household level, as many non-working people are living in households where someone else is working, and most benefits are awarded on the basis of household income. Focussing on non-retired and non-student households, 62 per cent and 65 per cent of households had someone in employment.
These figures should not come as a surprise. The areas where ‘nobody works around here’, like the ‘families where nobody’s worked for generations’ belong to mythological thinking.
Moving up a geographical notch to the level of Census Super Output Areas (average 670 households), in only 0.16 per cent of areas are 50 per cent or more of working age non-student households without employment. The great majority of people who are out of work live in areas where the majority of people (other than pensioners or students) are in work. This is true even in very deprived areas, of which James Turner Street is an example.
There is more information on the James Turner Street area available at ONS’s Neighbourhood Statistics site (using the larger Super Output Area geography). This shows that out of work benefit receipt among people of working age is 30 per cent rather than the 90 per cent of myth.
On a range of deprivation indicators, this area is clearly struggling. But among the wealth of largely depressing statistics on the site is a detail we haven’t heard about in the frenzy of hand-wringing about Benefits Street. Educational achievement at GCSE level is well above the average for both England and Birmingham with 71 per cent achieving 5 or more A*- C passes compared to a national average of 59 per cent.
Perhaps that detail might encourage people to junk the mythological thinking surrounding this unfairly maligned area. When it comes to GCSE attainment, the James Turner Street area seems to be bucking the expectations of the media, the government and the general public. That should be something to celebrate.
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50 Responses to “James Turner Street exists: Benefits Street doesn’t”
Felix Lanzalaco
so what is your solution to the welfare state then ? starve people ?
If we create work programs which recruit the unemployed (because there arent enough real jobs) into new industries it takes us back to square one. All such people still require food, shelter and living. All such new industries require infrastructure, management and create free market competition. i.e. Its back to square one, because those are are then wages and costs and so manufactures industries are no different from any other job. We see this in the voluntary sector which is hardly different from the private sector now. In fact worse, because these sectors financial model now become dependent on government support.
You have been up here spreading disinformation, and promoting the idea of demonizing the poor. This is really to hide the reality of todays world and the lack of ideas the governments have to deal with it beyond distract us by turning society against each other.
Well there are new ideas. If we invest in new form of technology for food production and large scale automation through nano-tech, Ai and robotics, this will actually increase un-employment. But overall it generates new forms of abundance because production itself becomes exponentially more efficient (globally). i.e. Remaining work conditions actually improve. As long as populations dont increase, which is something we might soon be able to achieve without damaging peoples health, we are on to something. These are actual ideas and there are many more if you start reading about. Its far better to actually find solutions to this new world than demonizing the bottom minority in society who really reflect the fallout of these problems.
LB
Welfare state.
Assets zero
Liabilities 7,100 bn for the pensions.
Numbers from the ONS, the government.
Annual rate of increase. 734 bn from the ONS again.
Total taxes – 600 bn.
The state’s bankrupt.
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PASC demands that Government stats are presented with “the whole truth”
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So Ed’s going to balance the books. Is that the whole truth or is it just the items that he wants on the books, and the pensions are excluded?
Yep, its not the whole truth is it.
Ed Balls is lying
Felix Lanzalaco
maybe he is or just incompetent. If so we should hire somebody competent. So in summary, we get old and its expensive and we cant afford it. Especially when there is a recession.
So that clearly defines the big problem here and also elsewhere. US and EU has the same problem as do other nations. And of course rising unemployment, despite all the erroneous data you think is true.
SO its a bit of an improvement to actually define the problem than construct false data then dig out and scapegoat problems with a minority in society don’t you think ? Yet that is current conservative policy. Sure there was a problem there with unconditional benefits. but its not our biggest current problem yet is being used as a cover for the fact there isnt many ideas for the big problems.
Why face up to the real problem ? Obvious, there may actually be intelligent and workable solutions, but we cant get there if everybody is in a panic and on mob mentality witch-hunt mode barking up the wrong tree now can we ? Not only do we not identify the real problems, mob witch hunts also encourages mindlessness which impairs the creativity require to come up with solutions.
guest
Thanks Felix Lanzalaco for that spirited response to LB sparkey and swantan
SQIAR BI
it’s just wasting time please check the link http://www.sqiar.com