welfare reform
Clegg’s dubious jobs claim
Nick Clegg writes in today's Guardian about welfare reform. But his claims on jobs, incentives for work, the welfare bill, and poverty do not stack up.
Shelter: Housing benefit cuts will “change London for decades”
Independent research commissioned by the housing charity Shelter from the University of Cambridge today shows that the number of London neighbourhoods that will be affordable to people claiming local housing allowance will halve by 2016 as a result of government cuts.
Housing benefit cuts: Just how desperate is the secretive DWP?
When government ministers resort to briefing what purports to be new statistical evidence on important policy issues to selected lobby journalists rather than making it available to the public, it is clear indication that they are unsure of their ground. The Department for Work and Pensions has been a hotbed of this sort of quasi-official briefing for several months, as has been pointed out here and by FullFact.
Conjuring Cameron’s cap trick
David Cameron has pulled the wool over the media's eyes with his housing benefit cap. The real danger comes from the rest of the £2bn package.
Who will be affected by the housing benefit cuts?
Welfare systems need to address two different types of situation faced by working age households. They need to provide short-to-medium term support for living costs in response to labour market fluctuations and frictional unemployment; and longer term support for those who are without a market income for extended periods (in practice many households are located on a continuum between these two poles).
The truth about Britain’s “bloated welfare” system
Britain does not have a "bloated welfare" system despite George Osborne's rhetoric. The truth is that welfare spending is lower than at any time from 1979 to 1997.