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”
robertcp
The reason that nonsense like this is believed is that it has not been challenged by the Labour Party for about twenty years. All we have heard from Labour is waffle about so-called welfare dependency and reform. To be fair, Rachel Reeves does seem to be gradually moving Labour back towards something vaguely intelligent.
robertcp
Have you ever been unemployed or claimed a benefit in your life?
Felix Lanzalaco
you would think there were lots of jobs lol. In reality there is massive competition by the overqualified even for the most menial work nowadays. I know I do some of the recruitment !
So what is the solution if there is no work or nobody wants to employ them ?
Felix Lanzalaco
so anyway in reality it turns out that its more like 30% on benefits there. How did channel 4 arrive at their 90% figure. its that statistic which has caused the problem. Do you think it would be the same big deal if the program started, with “Almost a third of the residents on James turner Street claim benefits”
LB
I’ve no doubt there is competition.
That’s a direct result of lots of low skilled migrants.
However, there are jobs. See the job adverts for birmingham.
http://www.indeed.co.uk/jobs-in-Birmingham
Jobs 1 to 10 of 53,734
So your argument on no work is irrelevant, there is lots of work.
Now for the question of no one wanting to employ them. Lets go back to the program and go through them in a case by case way.
Fungi? Difficult. I doubt many will want to employ him because he’s too damaged.
Mr 50p? Yep – lots and people have even gone to the effort of tracking him down to offer him work.
The Polish couple? Nope. No one will. The solution here is to deport them for committing their fraud. The solution is not to pay them benefits.
The Romanians. Get them tickets back to Romania. The solution is not to pay them benefits.
So far 16 solved, 1 not solved.
White Dee? The solution is to give her an ultimatum. 6 months and then you lose all benefits. She will have to get low paid work. I just hope it doesn’t involve vulernerable people’s money. She stole 13,000 last time.
The couple with 2 kids. Difficult. There’s no easy solution. They are completely disfunctional. It’s the kids that will have problems. What’s your solution and how much will it cost?
Take the last example. The state’s spent trillions on its war on poverty. What’s the evidence that the money has worked? Surely if you spend trillions you want results. I see no evidence that it has worked or achieved much.
So from the examples above there is a relatively easy solution to 16 out of 22 people.
That’s why benefit’s street is interesting. It shows just how mad the state has become. It’s also dangerous for the left. It’s real, and that’s why lots on the left are so apoplectic about it. The public who pay are angry about the waste. and the response is it should be kept secret.