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”
LB
Bollocks. You were the one who claimed debts were 1.2 trillion.
Here’s your quote
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Public sector net debt was £1,231.7 billion at the end of November 2013, equivalent to 76.6% of GDP
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That debt is just borrowing. You can check that out by going to the DMO website and totalling up the Gilts in issuance. http://www.dmo.gov.uk/
There are other debts. Debts or liabilities, its a synonym is defined by the accounting rules, GAAP and FRS17. The state tears them up, and says, weren’t not going to put those debts on the books because we won’t/can’t’ pay them. The are contingent, but they won’t state what are the conditions under which the pensions won’t be paid.
So are people owed a pension for their past contributions?
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SO the point is the borrowing that occured was not a result of left wing values. It was a global scam that all governments were duped into.
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The 7.1 trillion pension debt is a left wing scam. It’s the liabilties of the welfare state, and there are no assets.
Be proud, you’ve made people destitute.
Felix Lanzalaco
you really just dont do much reading about do you. Just spoon fed and grab the first figure then think its true. you didnt even read what that graph you posted was about. Did you actually notice the year it finished at was 2016 ! and was plotted in 2010 ! Did you read what the author said, the rise in employment is BETWEEN RECESSIONS ! i.e. lets make this very simple. when there is a recession employment FALLS !
Now as to the governments so called figures do some more reading. YOU do the reading, you are wasting my time. Spreading goverment disinformation, or just making up your own. You dont even seem to be aware you are doing it. Posting that graph and not even knowing what it was. What do we call that in academia ? We call it “intellectual laziness”. Its the tories that are lazy and feckless. They just take any stats which they like. You know why universal credit system messed up. The tories create a climate where only those who report positive results they want to hear get promoted or keep their jobs. i.e. Tories create a climate of disinformation. Now read the truth behind the so called rise in employment.
PASC demands that Government stats are presented with “the whole truth”
http://www.parliament.uk/business/committees/committees-a-z/commons-select/public-administration-select-committee/news/publication-of-communicating-statistics-report/
HERE IS HOW THE UK GOVT HID 1 MILLION JOBLESS FROM OFFICIAL UNEMPLOYMENT FIGURES
http://worldobserveronline.com/2014/01/22/uk-govt-hid-1-million-jobless-todays-unemployment-figures/
Employment figures: how the unpaid get counted
http://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2013/jan/15/employment-figures-how-unpaid-get-counted
Decoding the unemployment figures exposes the truth behind the coalition’s spin
http://www.newstatesman.com/economics/employment/2013/02/decoding-unemployment-figures-exposes-truth-behind-coalitions-spin
Felix Lanzalaco
well and so what ? what are we expected to do, just let the elderly starve or kill them off ? of course we have to pay for them. That life, thats REALITY ! Whats your solution to the problem, starve them or let them die of neglect ?
One of my last jobs was in research regarding this whole elderly outcome issue. i.e. changes in their cognition as they age. Why do they lose the will to acquire new skills. Well I will save you the results as its complicated. Something you appear to have a problem dealing with. because unfortunately we couldnt find a result beyond many might be able to work in call centers.
Felix Lanzalaco
people across all classes are now living longer. Thats not a left wing construct. The pension funding is part of the imported financial crisis from american finance. Do some more reading please. Not just cherry picking to blame labour
Read this, how much of US debt (under their right wing) was pension underwriting ? Why, pension underwriting is an effective way for banks to blackmail governments into borrowing.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/realspin/2014/01/17/you-think-the-deficit-is-bad-federal-unfunded-liabilities-exceed-127-trillion/
Or back to UK and EU
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financialcrisis/10548104/IMF-paper-warns-of-savings-tax-and-mass-write-offs-as-Wests-debt-hits-200-year-high.html
Financial repression can take many forms, including capital controls, interest rate caps or the force-feeding of government debt to captive pension funds and insurance companies. Some of these methods are already in use but not yet on the scale seen in the late 1940s and early 1950s as countries resorted to every trick to tackle their war debts.
Felix Lanzalaco
LB you are either daft or a timewaster. You just pick the first big headline stat out the air to suit your agenda and dont bother to go dig around for the big picture. Im not going to do it for you. If you cant see from what I posted in reply that you are just posting tabloid style figures and there is no real intellectual depth thats your problem. I think however you are just being willfully ignorant. In that case I take it back about the intellectual aspect. because willful ignorance usually requires some intelligence and i notice such types can be perfectly intelligent when it comes to their own selfish needs. Not the right kind of intelligence unfortunately, because it takes us back to square one. If all agents in a free unregulated market (i.e. what conservatives promote) follow their own interest we get inequality. i.e. back to square one. So in reality we cant have everybody saving enough for pensions when the free market drives down wages. SO given that this is reality whats your solution ? Kill of the elderly from neglect ?