George Osborne has said a further £25bn spending cut will be coming after the next election, much of which will hit disabled people
Over the past five years, we have been forced to watch the systematic slashing of our welfare state. The coalition says ‘we are all in this together.’ The reality has been an austerity agenda where the disabled, the lowest-wage earners, and the chronically ill have taken the biggest hits.
Policy after policy has put the burden on the people who can least afford it. Cuts to council tax support have seen what’s effectively a new poll tax on millions of the poorest working households. The abolition of Disability Living Allowance and the Independent Living Fund are seeing basic dignity dubbed as too costly. Employment and Support Allowance has been riddled with conditionality, delays and outright failing, as thousands die after private companies find them ‘fit for work’. The bedroom tax has pushed thousands of the poorest people into rent arrears, penalising the disabled for needing a box room to store oxygen cylinders.
Worse, a climate has been built that says this is entirely right. The coalition has orchestrated a demonisation of need, where someone struggling on Jobseeker’s Allowance (JSA) has been recast as the feckless workshy and a person too sick to work is a scrounger worthy of suspicion.
Right-wing media and ‘poverty porn’ television have simply fed a fear that our own government has started. Benefit fraud is less than one per cent. The biggest part of social security spending – 53 per cent – actually goes to pensioners. Listen to Ian Duncan Smith and you would think the disabled were living in gold houses and the unemployed bathing in diamonds.
The sanction regime is characteristic of the distortion of a compassionate, fair safety-net. Jobcentre staff report being given targets for stopping people’s benefits, whether that’s a claimant who’s five minutes late for an appointment or someone with chronic illness who’s too sick to get out of bed. Meanwhile, workfare schemes force people on JSA to work for free or be sanctioned. This is not only about removing benefits but the principle behind them. Social security as a universal entitlement is being attacked.
A major tool in this has been the stigmatisation of people needing benefits – part of a wider attempt to make the public see things in terms of workers versus claimants. But the facts show this is an entirely false division. A job market characterised by unstable hours and low wages has pushed working people towards benefits. Housing benefit figures alone show the number of people in work needing help to pay the rent has increased by almost 60 per cent under the coalition.
Britain is getting poorer. This government’s choices – both benefit cuts and tax changes – have made more workers, more children, more disabled people struggle. 13 million people now live in poverty in this country.
It is charity that has been left to pick up the pieces. Half a million people have had to go to food banks to feed themselves over the past six months – most because of benefit delays and sanctions, others due to low wages. This is part of a disturbing retreat of the state, where private companies and local volunteers fill the gaps left by failing government.
Taking back the welfare state is a fundamental issue of this election. The stakes could not be higher: the right to a life without poverty and a system where we help each other. As Class set out in their election guide, we must restore social security as a permanent, humane part of British society.
Judgement and punishment must be cast out for solidarity and compassion. Workfare, low wages, a gender pay gap, and propped up high rents, need to be replaced by a living wage, stable jobs, gender equality, and affordable homes. The people unable to work due to ill health or disability, currently enduring nominal income and arbitrary testing, must get bespoke assessment and support to live comfortably.
We know what’s already been done in the name of austerity is just the beginning. George Osborne has said a further £25bn spending cuts – much of it from the welfare budget – will be coming after the next election. If the Conservatives keep hold of power, Britain will find itself halfway through a near-decade of cuts. The disabled, people struggling to find work or living hand-to-mouth on low wages are easy targets. The welfare state cannot afford another five years of this.
Frances Ryan writes for the Guardian and New Statesman, covering austerity, disability and feminism. Follow her on Twitter
49 Responses to “The coalition has stigmatised welfare users – we need a return to compassion and solidarity”
Dave Stewart
We live in one of the wealthiest countries on the planet ( I think it’s 7th but it may have moved since the last time I checked). Simply put as a nation we can afford to ensure every single person has enough to live a basic but decent life and still have plenty left over.
We have a choice as a society. We can choose to sacrifice some of our personal wealth to create a social safety net so that should something unforseen/unlucky happen to somebody that they don’t fall into destitution but are able to not just survive but have as I said a basic but decent living. We do this in the knowledge that yes some lazy people will cheat the system so they do not have to work, however the good that we do in providing this net for people who need it far outweighs the selfish actions of the tiny and please remember it is truly a tiny minority (also no one says we shouldn’t be actively seeking to catch and punish those who do cheat the system but the way we approach it needs to be the assumption of innocence).
Or we can choose to all be selfish and do away with the social safety net so we can keep our contribution to ourselves and when something unexpected and unfortunate happens to those not in a position to afford their own personal safety net (or indeed your or someone you love) we can sit back and watch them suffer and ultimately die……..in the 7th richest country on the planet.
I certainly know which of those I prefer to choose and I know for a fact that this is likely the choice that your grandparents (or possibly great grandparents depending on your age) made at the end of the second world war.
What sort of society do you wish to live in?
Guest
I very much doubt he moves in your circles, as you “resent” the 99% – those evil “bludgers and whingers” who are so evil for wanting food and shelter.
Your whining about the low tax burden in this country – one of the lowest in the EU and falling – is notable. Go ahead and move, the evidence from the Nordics is you won’t move your businesses and if they’re properly taxed all you’ll do is whine.
sarntcrip
I Agree with Frances and robertlabour strategy of out nastying the nasty bastards sorry party is doomed to failno party i’ve seen have yet talked about care and compassion of undoing the wrongs done since2010 of which there are many
ForeignRedTory
‘ Basic Income’
FOR!
‘ committed to the cap’
The cap has things to be said for it – however!
It should be applied forALL income not out of work. Lets face some facts:that way, 99% of the pain of the cap will fall on the richest 1%.
ForeignRedTory
Because people are NOT individual islands, but simply component parts of one single system.
All solutions must start with that in mind.
That includes the problem of the non-engaging cog in the sytem just as much as it includes the problem of contribution-based JSA or the problem of permanent disability.
There is no such thing as property of any nature other than by consent and direction of Society in general. Of course, the same goes for wellfare rights.
‘In the end, there is no reason why such people should be given other people’s money is there?’
For the 2 reasons ,I do not agree with your assesment.
And I repeat from another thread:the sum total of weight to be pulled will not measure up to output or income.