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
You are either ignorant or wilfully dishonest or both. Just picking what suits you. provide sources of the debt independent from bank bailouts and industrial debt. Here is a start.
http://www.economicshelp.org/blog/334/uk-economy/uk-national-debt/
You are here: Home > Economics help blog > UK National Debt
UK National Debt
by Tejvan Pettinger on January 8, 2014 in uk economy
The UK national debt is the total amount of money the British government owes to the private sector and other purchasers of UK gilts.
Public sector net debt was £1,231.7 billion at the end of November 2013, equivalent to 76.6% of GDP
Felix Lanzalaco
OK im out of time and patience here. Some of us are actually interested in you know something called “REALITY”. Others clearly just want to avoid it and go find somebody lower down to kick,
Felix Lanzalaco
I dont think LB wants the truth. Thats why I didnt even mention this type of thing. Now he has posted up employment graphs and debt figures which appear to be a deliberate attempt to deceive as these were theoretical extrapolations. His futile attempts are pretty weak and easy to expose, its the more complicated characters in government (or their advisors) we need to keep an eye on.
There is a common factor in discussions with tories,. They just lie basically, AND they dont examine statistics if the stats suit their desire to lie in doing so creating a bubble of increased misinformation feeding back into itself.
Nev Hardwick
Yep, sorry but I cannot type quickly enough to keep up with you. Truth and statistics mean nothing if you have a feeling (IBS and his welfare reforms) and it makes 8,000 people get back to work. Even if the ONS state that there is no specific evidence at all.
Keep at it but bear in mind they have the press and stupidity on their side.
Felix Lanzalaco
Unfortunately it appears to be wilfull stupidity. So that means we are in for a lot more. If history is anything to go by I would be braced for another 5 years of this nonsense.