Of course, unemployment is currently about 6 million.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/6044530/Six-million-British-adults-on-benefits.html

I think looking beyond the semantics of it all, it is sad that we cannot move on from the orignal thatcher trick of shifting people onto disability to conceal the scale of unemplyment. By all means shout from the rooftops that the evil tories will increase unemployment to 4m if it makes you happy, but it’s an improvement in the government’s statistical honesty, and their relationship with those unable to find work through, which I, for one, am pleased with.

You seem to be quite happy to continue this disingenious approach. I think maybe the electorate deserve more respect. It would be preferable to see a proper debate around (and maybe repudiation of ) the tories welfare policies – not cheap and misleading soundbites!

If the current number on benefits is, as Policy Exchange, calculates, 6 million then surely the consevative proposals are a step…in the right direction?

Our benefits bill is up £100bn since 1997 (£193bn this year from £93bn). Policy Exchange says there are 6 million unemployed. By my maths, that equates to over £32,000 per person. But of course they don’t see anywhere near that amount of money. That is a consequence of our complicated benefits system, and of policing it (we’ve all heard the advert about the 3,000 benefit fraud officers clamping down on cheats – how much do they cost to employ?).

Reform is absolutely needed and if that means reclassifying people so that official unemployement goes over 4 million then so be it. Labour accuses Thatcher of hiding people on IB and other benefits but then does exactly the same thing.

Personally I’d want a negative income tax, with perhaps one extra payment mechanism to help those who need some extra. Yes, the NIT doesn’t cater to individual circumstances the way our system is designed to, but the mass reduction of waste means that most people will find themselves far better off and the benefits trap effect is completely removed giving people the incentive to find work.

The Sunday Times reported that one consequence of the Tory welfare plans is that if they win power, unemployment will rise to over 4 million.

Blimey that’s disingenuous. They’re already unemployed. The Tories plan on reclassifying precisely what sort of unemployment benefit they should be receiving.

Congratulations, this is the most useless (and dishonest) article I’ve seen in a long while.

I’m stunned at the level of ignorance about the benefits system in this country.

“Our benefits bill is up £100bn since 1997 (£193bn this year from £93bn). Policy Exchange says there are 6 million unemployed. By my maths, that equates to over £32,000 per person.”

That means ignoring the millions of pensioners who get things like housing benefit, and a great many disabled people who get disabled livign allowance, and of course child benefit for children.

welfare is not just for the unemployed.

—-

“Of course, unemployment is currently about 6 million”

No it isn’t. ILO unemployment is pretty clear cut. everyone who can work and wants to is included. We grant people a legal right not to want to if they are old (pensionable age) single parents of young children (lone parents) learning (students) and so on.

Counting up lots of those people to add to unemployment is ridiculous.

Good Morning everyone. Just quickly:

- That 6 million figure from Policy Exchange includes people who are sick and unable to work (and carers) – so not comparable to the 4 million figure in this article. It’s not that the Tories are planning to reduce the number who are out of work by 2 million within a year.

- These proposals aren’t about ‘improving statistical honesty’, they are about benefit cuts for 1.5 million people.

- I’d love a debate about the Tory welfare policies – they involve putting their trust in a City banker who knows nothing about welfare and whose ideas have been shown not to work – and are based on completely fantastical spending assumptions. I’ve put a link to the report of how he and Theresa May contradicted each other about how their reforms will work, for more background also worth reading this one:

http://tinyurl.com/qu4tll

Also worth reading this one – http://blogs.ft.com/westminster/2009/02/the-tests-for-freud/

By chance, I came across this old news report from pre-credit crunch times in January 2006:

“Work and Pensions Secretary John Hutton has unveiled plans to get one million incapacity benefit claimants back into work, saving £7bn a year.”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/4641588.stm

Wow, what a disingenuous piece of hackery this post is.

what’s disingenuous about it?

I’d love a debate about the Tory welfare policies – they involve putting their trust in a City banker who knows nothing about welfare and whose ideas have been shown not to work

Change Tory to Labour and you could say the same. New Labour held Freud close first. How soon we forget.

donpaskini – “These proposals aren’t about ‘improving statistical honesty’, they are about benefit cuts for 1.5 million people”

They are about benefits cuts for people who are getting more than they should be doing. This isn’t ‘evil Tories want to cut benefits for the needy’. This is about sorting the system that Labour have allowed to be abused for so long because we could find the money to pay for it.

don, i think the disingenuousness of all this is in the fact that you posit the existance of four million umemployed to be IN ITSELF a failure for the Tories, mainly because it sounds like they have someone contrived to kick a further 1 million people out of work than are currently. But if all they are doing is shifting 1m from sickness to JSA, then no more people are unemployed than they were before. Because of this, lines such as “the Tory plans for welfare are to increase unemployment to 4 million by 2011″ are disingenuous (because the implication is that the very existence of the number 4 million is in itself the problem, rather than the fact that some sick people might be recieving less money, which is what you actually mean).

Now, you can say that giving less money to people who might be sick is a bit harsh if you want… but that’s not what you say in your article.

BTW – you seem to think that the public won’t like this sort of thing. Are you aware that most of the public are in favour of lowering benefits and reducing the numbers of those on disability allowance? Perhaps not among the readers of Lib Con, but the country as a whole is very much behind the Tories on this one. I know that public opinion isn’t the be all and end all, but as you seem to think that these plans becoming public would be a PR disaster… I’m not so sure

“I think the disingenuousness of all this is in the fact that you posit the existance of four million umemployed to be IN ITSELF a failure for the Tories”

where do I do that? I’ve linked to the Sunday Times article, and quoted a Tory adviser saying that it will seem like they’ve lost control of the economy, but it is simply a statement of fact to say that the Tories are planning to increase unemployment to 4 million.

I think the main failure of the Tories is that they appear to be totally reliant on a discredited adviser who doesn’t know anything about welfare policy, and whose ideas have failed. One of the symptoms of that failure will be spending billions of pounds on corporate welfare to transfer people onto lower benefits – a policy which won’t do anything to create new jobs.

“BTW – you seem to think that the public won’t like this sort of thing. Are you aware that most of the public are in favour of lowering benefits and reducing the numbers of those on disability allowance?”

Since you and others have interpreted an article reporting the fact that the Tories plan to raise the number of people on unemployment benefits to 4 million as a disingenuous attack, I’m not so sure that this is going to be so popular.

But if it’s going to be so popular, then the Tories should be shouting about their plans, right?

Don, it’s useless pretending that this is an exclusively Tory policy line, to reclassify the sick and infirm, thereby reducing their benefits, and then to systematically demonise all of the unemployed. It’s a core New labour policy too.
Actually, New lab’s workhouse/workfare policy has aspects that the Tories hadn’t countenanced (but will most likely adopt).
Factor is some spectacular fuckwittery:this http://www.benefitsandwork.co.uk/disability-living-allowance-%28dla%29/dla-aa-cuts , regarding the green paper on social care. there’s a suggestion/suspicion that carers’ attendance allowance and the care element of DLA be got rid of, partly I’d say to fund the ‘new’ personalisation agenda. So, that’s the removal of a very direct payment (giving the buggers the cash, straight) to part-fund a less-direct form of payment to the same people. (and doubtless this ill-conceived move or ‘transformation’ will itself have huge cost overheads…).

(Oh, and just wait for the almighty shit-storm when the @Benefit Bustres’ C4 programme goes out on Thursday. Besides being an extended advert for New Lab’s favoured for-profit welfare firm A4e, all of the unemployed are shown as feckless wasters. Propaganda.)

it is simply a statement of fact to say that the Tories are planning to increase unemployment to 4 million.

But it isn’t. What would be a statement of fact would be ‘Tories are planning to shift 1.5 million of the unemployed from incapacity benefit to jobseekers allowance.’ Unemployment itself is not increased by this.

The OP seems disingenuous because it plays on the difference between the common understanding of the word “unemployed” and the official definition of the word “unemployed” (and, by extension, “economically inactive”).

My understanding is that the Tories seek to shift a number of the economically inactive into the category of (officially) unemployed. Therefore unemployment would have been increased by the official definition but not by the commonly understood definition.

“What would be a statement of fact would be ‘Tories are planning to shift 1.5 million of the unemployed from incapacity benefit to jobseekers allowance.’ Unemployment itself is not increased by this.”

There are lots of definitions of unemployment – but see margin4error’s point at 7.

There is a big difference between ‘not able to work for health reasons’ and ‘able to work but not working’. The headline unemployment figures, quite reasonably, measure the latter rather than tallying up all people who aren’t working. And those figures are going to rise to about 4 million if the Tories win power and carry out their policies.

National Statistics has a good definition of different ways of measuring unemployment:

http://www.statistics.gov.uk/CCI/nugget.asp?ID=165

ukliberty – what’s your ‘commonly understood’ definition of unemployment?

Alisdair Cameron

(Oh, and just wait for the almighty shit-storm when the @Benefit Bustres’ C4 programme goes out on Thursday. Besides being an extended advert for New Lab’s favoured for-profit welfare firm A4e, all of the unemployed are shown as feckless wasters. Propaganda.)

True – but having seen the trailers, I can’t help but think of The League of Gentlemen. Maybe Purnell, his Tory oppo and Freud all thought it was a documentary.

Wasn’t there a blog on here about churnalism the other day? BY THE SAME AUTHOR. Buy him a new irony detector, quickly.

Love the policy idea – produce incorrect figures and pay out too much benefit. That’s definitely the more moral solution.

Don, the ONS’s definitions of employed, unemployed, and economically inactive, are the ‘official’ definitions to which I referred: unemployment, for example, “is a count of jobless people who want to work, are available to work, and are actively seeking employment”.

The economically inactive are “defined as people who are not in employment or unemployed”. A significant proportion of the economically inactive are not merely looking after the home, retired, students, or long term sick/disabled, but doing something else (nothing).

ukliberty – what’s your ‘commonly understood’ definition of unemployment?

Broadly speaking, not in employment (i.e. all of the above). Although I imagine housewives and carers etc wouldn’t pop into someone’s head on seeing the word.

Those on incapacity benefit are not ‘unemployed’ in so far that they are ‘actively seeking work’. There is little point in ‘actively seeking work’ if no employer is likely to employ you.

The startlingly obvious point that both The Labour and the Conservative Parties have missed is there is a labour surplus. In fact, you could present a case that unemployment is an integral part of the economy. I have heard no one with the levers of power at their fingertips state with conviction that full employment is either achievable or particularly desirable.

If anything, the Tories have openly stated in the past that unemployment is a price worth paying, in order to keep inflation down. Labour ministers have implied the same stating that immigrant labour keeps inflation down too.

It stands to reason that the people with the least skills, abilities or worse attributes are the most likely to find themselves unemployed and, perhaps just as importantly, unemployable. Who in their right mind would employ someone with obvious disabilities when there is a line of people, both locally and from Eastern Europe willing to do the job? Who would need the hassle of employing someone who could suffer a fit at a time when unemployment is about to reach 3 million?

One of the fallacies put forward by the ‘Right’ is the ‘flip a burger’ test. If you can ‘flip a burger’, you can work. McDonalds et al do not employ people to ‘flip a burger’, the employ people to do a number of tasks, but no one flips ‘A’ burger then goes home. You are expected to work for eight hours a day five days a week, fifty weeks of the year. You cannot judge someone on a single afternoon, you need to know the ability of that person on a wide spectrum of days and weeks. No employer wants an employee who cannot work on some days because their condition has flared up.

Why waste time and money trying to get unemployable people back into work when we could be spending that time getting those who would have a fighting chance of returning to the labour market?

24 – so your ‘commonly understood’ definition of unemployed includes students and pensioners?

25 – all excellent points.

26 – no.

This same article seems to pop up here on a fortnightly basis because donpaskini just doesn’t seem to get it.

The Left have been arguing for DECADES that successive governments were hiding the true extent of unemployment by shuffling people off JSA and onto sickness benefits, but as soon as anyone – Labour or Tory – suggests remedying this, they’re accused of cruelty to the sick.

‘Why waste time and money trying to get unemployable people back into work when we could be spending that time getting those who would have a fighting chance of returning to the labour market?’

Its called ‘equality of oportunity’. The moment the State decides to concentrate it’s efforts on people perfectly capable of helping themselves is the moment we should close the Jobcentres entirely.

“it is simply a statement of fact to say that the Tories are planning to increase unemployment to 4 million.”

Again, it’s not unemployment they are increasing, it is the unemployment figure.

It’s the opposite of the episode of Yes, Minister where Hacker asks Sir Humprey to reduce the number of administators and Sir Humphrey reclassifies various staff so as to achieve the reduction (“You asked us to reduce the figures so we reduced the figures”).

’24 – so your ‘commonly understood’ definition of unemployed includes students and pensioners?

25 – all excellent points.’

You REALLY agree with that last point?

There is also the issue that the Tories’ approach of panic cutting government investment, increasing taxes on the poor and middle income (VAT to 20% etc), whilst decreasing taxes on the very rich (abolishing inheritance tax etc) will have the effect of reducing the amount of cash circulating in the economy, thus pushing up unemployment and increasing the number of people on the dole who aren’t disabled/otherwise unable to work (of which only a small proportion are the addicts/feckless).

“The Left have been arguing for DECADES that successive governments were hiding the true extent of unemployment by shuffling people off JSA and onto sickness benefits, but as soon as anyone – Labour or Tory – suggests remedying this, they’re accused of cruelty to the sick.”

It is the nature of the remedy – paying private companies to carry out ‘work capability assessments’ and lowering the benefits of people who are deemed ‘capable to work’ – which is being criticised. Because it is (a) cruel and (b) doesn’t work.

‘Those on incapacity benefit are not ‘unemployed’ in so far that they are ‘actively seeking work’. There is little point in ‘actively seeking work’ if no employer is likely to employ you.’

You should look up the Jobcentre definition of ‘actively seeking work’ as it doesn’t mean what you think it means.

It doesn’t, for instance, mean ‘seeking work’, ‘actively’ or otherwise.

Currently around 2.6million people claim incapacity benefit, which being about 9% of the labour force does not seem completely plausible.

I have a hunch that IB has masked an ongoing problem of mass unemployment that never really went away, but that is not as simple as people getting themselves on IB because they cannot find a job or be bothered to work.

Some time ago I read an article by an economic historian seeking to explain the persistence of long term unemployment even through the relatively vigorous recovery of the 1930s. Amongst other things, his work suggested that years and years of long term unemployment had created a hardcore of people whose capacity to work had been destroyed. Such people were not incapacitated in the strictly technical sense of the term. But neither were they just layabouts.

It is plausible that a similar situation afflicts the period in whcih labour has governed For years on end, under the tories, unemployment was counted in the millions. Many many people suffered long term unemployment. It is possible then that Labour inherited a society in which there were many people who couldnt just be found jobs or thrown into the workplace once jobs were created, and perhaps the govt. deemed it expedient to keep such people on IB.

The point is that even if the IB roll contains people who do not lack the capacity to work in the strict technical sense, such people may well be victims rather than lazy perpetrators. And simply pushing them onto lower unemployment benefits may get nowwhere near solving the problem at hand.

‘It is the nature of the remedy – paying private companies to carry out ‘work capability assessments’ and lowering the benefits of people who are deemed ‘capable to work’ – which is being criticised. Because it is (a) cruel and (b) doesn’t work.’

That’s not the thrust of either your article or your tabloid-style header.

“Its called ‘equality of oportunity’. The moment the State decides to concentrate it’s efforts on people perfectly capable of helping themselves is the moment we should close the Jobcentres entirely.”

I think Jim’s point, however unwelcome, is broadly correct – the way to reduce overall unemployment is to pursue economic policies which aim for full employment and increase the supply of jobs. The employment support policies don’t increase the overall number of jobs available.

That said, some of the employment support that the State funds is very good at helping people who are far from the labour market to get new skills, confidence and in some cases a job, and I agree with shatterface that the State shouldn’t give up on doing this.

“That’s not the thrust of either your article or your tabloid-style header.”

It’s hardly the first article I’ve written on the subject, as you noted!

34 – Hi Reuben,

Good points all. It’s also the case that the government deliberately didn’t aim for a policy of full employment, which would have required confronting some powerful vested interests.

Shatterface

I have taken the liberty of checking the Jobcentre’s definition here:

http://www.jobcentreplus.gov.uk/JCP/Customers/WorkingAgeBenefits/Dev_015272.xml.html

Seems pretty straightforward.

The ‘good’ news of course, is you are entitled to help the following ways:

· access to specialist help for things like writing a CV, preparation for interviews, confidence building and work skills
· help to look for work if you haven’t had experience of looking for a job for some time
· help if you are seeking professional or executive jobs
· help with your reading, with maths or with your English
· information about how to get help with improving your skills, linked to local job opportunities
· help with one-off expenses that might help you get back to work quickly, for example, the cost of buying formal clothes for an interview or basic tools such as paintbrushes needed to take up a job where an employer will not provide these items
All of which will cost money and manpower. Most of which will be completely wasted on people who have no hope of either getting or holding down a job. Why bother buying a million and a half formal suits for people, most of who are only being interviewed to fill a Government inspired target? Why spend time and money giving people ‘specialist help’ writing a CV on a sheet of A4, which is essentially padded with a list of pointless hobbies and pastimes? No employer is going to be impressed by a blank sheet of paper (no job since 1994) with ‘playing bingo’ and watching DVDs etc.

These people are also going to clog up the ‘back to work’ interviews, thus depriving people with a fighting chance of returning to the labour market.

Why spend, say half an hour, trying to get someone with no skills and no prospect of ever working again, when that half an hour could be spent with someone who could possibly get back to work with the right help?

Hi Jim,

“Why spend, say half an hour, trying to get someone with no skills and no prospect of ever working again, when that half an hour could be spent with someone who could possibly get back to work with the right help?”

Because some of the people who haven’t worked before, or who have been out of the labour market for a long time, find the help really useful and go on to get jobs, or to volunteer.

Shatterface @28

Its called ‘equality of opportunity’. The moment the State decides to concentrate it’s efforts on people perfectly capable of helping themselves is the moment we should close the Jobcentres entirely.

We have to be realistic though, don’t we? The Government does not have a secret stash of jobs that they can dole out to those it feels deserves them, do they? On the other hand, the Government are not going to ‘force’ employers to create jobs either or impose employees onto private companies?

Our ‘employment laws’ (such as they are) are geared to ‘flexibility’ and a ‘modernised’ (i.e. Victorian) labour market. This means that employers can and will choose employees on criteria they see fit and woe betide the Government that tries to interfere in that mechanism beyond a few modest safeguards.

Here is an example. Given that ‘we’ now own the banks, could we force those banks to repatriate their call centres back to this Country? If memory serves me, there are 300,000 thousand people in call centres in India. We could use those jobs here, but try and force those banks and insurance companies to reopen here, far less impose the long term unemployed and incapacity claimants onto them and see how far you get.

I can see no point in throwing people who have little chance of impressing an employer in the current labour market onto that labour market. Adding a few duffers onto the labour market will do nothing except clog up an already clogged up system.

Don @ 40

Because some of the people who haven’t worked before, or who have been out of the labour market for a long time, find the help really useful and go on to get jobs, or to volunteer.

I agree that ‘some’ of them will, but most will not. All they will do is float around the system for years, moving from one scheme and initiative to another, that will cost the taxpayer more money propping up a system and allowing those with a fighting chance of getting a job fall through the cracks.

I am all for people been given training and help to get back to a level of fitness that potentially can get them into an employable state, however that is not the Job centres job., that is the job of the NHS, social services, the voluntary sector. I am all for taking people onto courses to make paper hats or some such and giving them a purpose.

No private employer sees his job as rehabilitating the sick or the unemployable back to health. You are expected to be a productive member of staff from day one. Employers do not understand that your illness means you cannot make it to work one day a fortnight or need to sit down twice an hour or need to replace a colostomy bag etc.

Don paskini’s main point is about the guy they’re going to employ to get rid of the problem – Freud.

Before throwing around accusations that the article misses the point – please follow the links on Freud.

As someone who has to care for someone on incapacity benefit, it ain’t fun. They can’t work, the top medic in that field says so, note and everything.
But because of the pig-headed government attempts to get people into work, they will loose their benefits if they don’t find work.
So if you’re fit to work, you loose benefits. If you’re not fit to work, you loose your benefits. Then the political classes can clap themselves on the back for getting people off ib, the same way they did putting people on to ib in the first place.
The problem with this is targets and dogma. If people are too ill to work, they should be looked after by the state. If they can work, they should work. If there’s doubt, find out. If you still can’t be sure, leave them be.
There is a problem, but it works both ways

Jim @25,

Why waste time and money [claiming to try] to get unemployable people back into work when we could be spending that time getting those who would have a fighting chance of returning to the labour market?

I slightly reworded your question to help make a point. I think it is about votes: some of the electorate are concerned about the proportion of people who are taking advantage of the system. I suspect it is imagined that this proportion is much larger than it is: some proportion of 13.5% of the economically inactive. We don’t know what this proportion is because the questionnaires are inadequate for this purpose. The rest of the economically inactive, 86.5%, are students, retired, looking after family or home, or long term sick or disabled.

Returning to the semantics, the unemployed by a sensible definition are not merely those “jobless people who want to work, are available to work, and are actively seeking employment”, the official definition, but also the 13.5% (some of whom may have a ‘good reason’) of the economically inactive who aren’t students, retired, looking after family or home, or long term sick or disabled.

Classic bit of manipulation from LibCon. If the Tories moved yet more people from JSA to incapacity to reduce unemployment figures, you’d be in a huff over that, too, wouldn’t you?

One Tory administration tries to correct a big mistake from the last, and you throw a big hissy fit because Labour didn’t have the balls do do it (its in that Times article you link to, if you read a bit further down the page).

http://timothywallace.blogspot.com/2009/08/libcon-we-should-condemn-millions-to.html

‘These people are also going to clog up the ‘back to work’ interviews, thus depriving people with a fighting chance of returning to the labour market.’

They’re not ‘clogging’ up interviews any more than sick people are ‘blocking’ hospital beds: they’re precisely the people the service is designed for.

What you seem to be arguing for is triage. That’s fine if you want to meet arbitrary targets, less fine if you want to provide a service.

‘Seems pretty straightforward.’

Not so. If you go away from home for a couple of weeks you can choose to be treated as ‘actively seeking employment’ so long as you complete an ES674 stating that you will NOT be actively seeking employment. There are all kinds of exeptions, such as looking after children excluded from school, etc. To be treated as actively seeking employment – the criteria you have to meet for claiming JSA – is not the same as ‘looking for work’.

Hi Timothy,

You write that 1.5 million people have wrongly been placed on incapacity benefits.

Could you point me to the research which this figure is based on?

(I can help you out if you get stuck – this is just to confirm whether you have any idea at all of what you are talking about).

Tim @46

You are missing the point entirely. You do not correct the problem by simply reversing the original strategy; that is like trying to unfry an egg.

The original problem was created because the Tories were trying to hide a problem that their economic policies where not reducing unemployment, in areas of high poverty. The policies were designed to generate high prosperity to the South East. They basically postponed tackling the problem and foisted it onto the next administration(s).

The problem is not that too many people are claiming incapacity. The problem is that the labour market is too weak and deregulated to the extent that people with relatively minor ailments are effectively excluded from finding jobs.

The problem the Tories have to ‘correct’ are the policies that concentrate the wealth and economic growth in relatively small areas of the economy.

Solve that and unemployment/incapacity will solve itself.

“unemployment will rise to over 4 million.”

As already noted, unemployment itself won’t change.

“it will be achieved (at vast expense to the taxpayer) by moving people from sickness benefits to unemployment benefits which pay them less”

Uhm, what? While there may be short-term administrative costs, surely the long-term change from paying out less is a gain for the taxpayer?

It seems like a sensible plan so far. The article is rather short on logical arguments against it, other than “the author was a banker, horror”.

Shatterface @ 47

They’re not ‘clogging’ up interviews any more than sick people are ‘blocking’ hospital beds: they’re precisely the people the service is designed for.

Not a perfect analogy. The NHS is treating illness. The DWP is trying to keep the labour market flowing as part of a wider strategy. There are parts of Government and the private sector that are attempting to regulate the labour market with unemployment. No one is attempting to ‘cure’ unemployment.

“What you seem to be arguing for is triage.”

Yes, that is exactly what I want.

“That’s fine if you want to meet arbitrary targets, less fine if you want to provide a service.”

No, it is looking at the reality of the position. The economy can only support a given amount of people in work. Once that number rises, all sorts of mechanisms kick in and people find themselves unemployed. Those with least attractive skill sets will always find themselves unemployable, so long as there is a surplus of labour and that is regulated by government policy.

Once someone has a long term illness that is very likely to render that person unemployable. I cannot see what benefit we have in pushing that person, unaided onto a labour market that neither needs or wants him.

Hi Don,

I lazily used the article you provided in your link above – if the Tories are wrong in their figures, and so are planning to move truely incapacitated people off the relevant benefits I was sure that woud be the big story. It would, after all, be a scandal (and rightly so).

As it is, you instead attacked the proposals without questioning the validity of the figures, suggesting that the number is in fact correct, even if you think the Conservatives have chosen poor policies.

As you appear to think otherwise, could you please tell me where you would obtain more accurate figures?

“Uhm, what? While there may be short-term administrative costs, surely the long-term change from paying out less is a gain for the taxpayer?”

The short term costs run into billions, and the savings are from some of the poorest people in Britain.

“It seems like a sensible plan so far. The article is rather short on logical arguments against it, other than “the author was a banker, horror”.”

…whose ideas don’t work and waste money.

http://blogs.ft.com/westminster/2009/02/the-tests-for-freud/

Hi Timothy,

“I lazily used the article you provided in your link above – if the Tories are wrong in their figures, and so are planning to move truely incapacitated people off the relevant benefits I was sure that woud be the big story. It would, after all, be a scandal (and rightly so).”

Well, quite.

In fact, the figures are not based on any research, and were made up by David Freud on the basis that there are more people claiming sickness benefits than in the 1970s, so any increase must be made up of people who could work.

http://www.cpag.org.uk/press/020208.htm

http://www.disabilityalliance.org/freud2.htm

To be fair to the Tories, no one knows how many people currently on incapacity benefit could work – it is a difficult question and depends on things like the kind of jobs and support available etc. But there is no evidence that 1.5 million people on IB could work, and the fraud rate is 0.5%

And this is the guy who the Tories are relying on to solve massive social problems. See why I’m a bit concerned?

Don,

They’re useful articles, particularly the second one – thanks for the info. I can see, in that case, why there’s room for a measure of concern. However, I maintain that its damaging to put the able-bodied unemployed onto incapacity (as made ‘popular’ under Thatcher) and so that it is a good idea to move them back.

Bearing this in mind, I still think your angle on the story is very misleading – attack the shortcomings of David Freud by all means, but to spin it as ‘unemployment to rise under Tories’ ignores the errors of the past 30 years.

“The short term costs run into billions, and the savings are from some of the poorest people in Britain.”

We spend well over £100bn a year on social protection. Spending, say, £1-2bn to greatly reduce the amount paid out for *years to come* would undoubtedly be an overall cost saving. If you want to be against the proposed changes because of concern for the poor, that’s fine, but please don’t use TPA-style “cost to the taxpayer” nonsense.

Or we could plug tax loopholes and make tax avoidance illegal, thereby bringing in £100bn+ a year.

-

If the Government, the Tories or whoever really did care about the long-term available-to-work unemployed, it would offer paid training/education courses to them allowing those unemployed to gain the skills they don’t have and therefore making them employable. But it won’t happen. Good ol’ British businessmen want a large pool of unemployed, as it increases job insecurity. Worried about losing your job? Then you’re unlikely to ask for a rise, complain about an effective/actual pay cut, demand due workplace benefits or join a union.

Entrepreneurs are psycologically near-identical to sociopaths. They should be committed, not lauded.

Entrepreneurs are psycologically near-identical to sociopaths. They shoud be committed, not lauded.

Well that ought to solve the unemployment problem…

Kentron @50

“Uhm, what? While there may be short-term administrative costs, surely the long-term change from paying out less is a gain for the taxpayer?”

1.5 million extra people singing on every fortnight is not short term, is it?

But of course the ‘taxpayer’ will end up paying more because not only will unemployment be higher, but taking money out of local economies will drive unemployment still further.

Kentron @56

We spend well over £100bn a year on social protection. Spending, say, £1-2bn to greatly reduce the amount paid out for *years to come* would undoubtedly be an overall cost saving.

Where does the £1-2bn come from?
Where does the ‘overall cost saving come from too.

Anything to back that up? Or just wishfull thinking?

Hi Timothy,

“I maintain that its damaging to put the able-bodied unemployed onto incapacity (as made ‘popular’ under Thatcher) and so that it is a good idea to move them back.”

As Jim said, the problem is that this is a bit like trying to unfry an egg.

That said, I completely agree that having a benefits system where people get more money if they are classed as ‘not fit for work’ than if they are seeking work has not proved to be a massive policy success.

But there are many ways of making the current system worse, and in my view the one supported by Freud and the Tories is one of them. Which is not to say that there aren’t plenty of welfare reforms which could help.

‘Which is not to say that there aren’t plenty of welfare reforms which could help.’

Now THAT would make an interesting article. I’ve seen dozens here against reform, hardly anything considering alternatives.

Don @ 61

I completely agree that having a benefits system where people get more money if they are classed as ‘not fit for work’ than if they are seeking work has not proved to be a massive policy success.

Has IT? Surely the failure here is having an economy that has the need for vast numbers of the population unemployed at any one time has ‘not proved to be a success’?

The larger payments are supposed to be compensation for being unable to work. Driving down wages and employment has made these higher payments attractive, not the payments themselves. No-body with the capability to earn the average wage is interested in getting on the sick. Few people would choose to live on the poverty line if there is a real viable option.

“24 – so your ‘commonly understood’ definition of unemployed includes students and pensioners?”

Actually in the case of students then yes. A student who wants some bar work to earn money during his course but can’t get it should be counted as unemployed

62 shatterface

Now THAT would make an interesting article. I’ve seen dozens here against reform, hardly anything considering alternatives.

Good point:

Here are the Government’s commitment to ‘helping’ those on incapacity finding work.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-493177/1-600-disabled-workers-jobs-axed-Remploy-closes-28-factories.html

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/northamptonshire/3384215.stm

The emphasis on work, that is paid employment, as if it’s a panacea for everyone in all circumstances is bollocks, isn’t it,and as if there are umpteen jobs out there even for the most disabled or damaged, especially those with severe and enduring mental health problems or physical conditions requiring appreciable adjustments by employers. Far better, in terms of therapeutic outcome (and hence in money terms in the long run for those fixated on the finances) to centre on meaningful activity.

I don’t quite understand what the issue is here. Whoever is in power (Labour or Tories – makes no real difference) can simply create a ‘special purpose statistic’ (SPS). Anyone who is unemployed, incapable or unwilling to work can have their records transferred into this statistic. The official unemployment figure can remain at the acceptable level of 2.5 million for example, and any surplus can be stored off-balance sheet so to speak in Jersey. The politicians will be happy as they will have solved once and for all the unemployment problem and we the populus can return to ignoring the basic rules of economics and wondering when our houses will return to being worth more than an average African country. I am sure both Labour and Tories know a few bankers who can set this up for them for a few million. What a bargain to finally nail the unemployment problem ay?