Welfare: On the Road to
nowhere?
Ballooning benefits?
• £190billion spend on benefits
• 1/3 of all public spending
• Bigger than defence and education
But:
• £110billion on pensions
• £100billion collected in national insurance
• Benefits spend is 13% of GDP, was reducing to
2008
Welfare reform
• Overall, public spending is being reduced 08-16
by 13.5%
• More than half of this reduction is being taken
from benefits and local government
• £20Billion cut from welfare benefits/tax credits
spend by 2016
Double/triple whammy?
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£6billion through flatlining
£7.5billion Family benefits
£7Billion disability benefits
£2billion housing benefits
The “poverty premium”
Stagnating wage levels
Rising living costs
Shrinking social protection
• families with a child under five have, on average,
lost 30% more of their disposable income than
those with no children.
Hitting the poorest places
hardest
• Britain’s older industrial areas, a number of
seaside towns and some London boroughs
are hit hardest.
• Blackpool is hit worst of all UK places – an
estimated loss of more than £900 a year for
every adult of working age in the town.
• A key effect of the welfare reforms will be to
widen the gaps in prosperity between the
best and worst local economies across
Britain.
• the worst-hit local authority areas lose
around four times as much, per adult of
working age, as the authorities least affected
by the reforms.
Impacts in Lancashire
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£360M loss of income, impact on local economy
Disability Living Allowance: 7K losers
Employment Support Allowance: 14K losers
Child and family benefits: 150K losers
Examples of impact
• Young job seeker, hit by car while cycling to JC+
appointment. Benefit sanctioned.
• Pregnant woman, missed ESA appt came off of
benefit, ended up sleeping in the goods
entrance to Farmfoods.
Universal Credit
• Universal Credit. Budgeted to cost more but
issues such as:
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Direct payment of rent
Monthly payments
Tougher job-seeking rules and sanctions
Fewer “cliff edges”, better work incentives
simplification
Future changes?
• Housing Benefit abolished for U25s?
• Universal benefits, eg winter fuel payments,
means tested?
• Child Benefit.
• Pensions. Flat rate and raised retirement age.
• Employment Support Allowance/JobSeekers
Allowance scrapped?
Myth v reality
• Benefit fraud at an all time low
• Restrictions on benefits for “people from
abroad” at an all time high
• “worklessness” untypical
• ½ million families used foodbanks in past year
• Poor people pay more in tax
Jim’s manifesto
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Policy based on fact not myth
Encourage rewarding work
Encourage social cohesion
Declare war on poverty
Declare war on inequality