Presumably you like the second article better Don?

But what she says in the second does not actually contradict the sentiment of the first. She is not saying that claimants should be allowed to languish on benefits forever but that the monolithic benefits system is not capable of the necessary flexibility to respond to modern types of work. In fact the current system acts as a disincentive to people taking work.

Presumably this startling revelation is the result of “some proper research and reporting the opinions of people who work day-to-day to help unemployed people.”

(I could have told her if she had bothered to ask me).

What she doesn’t get to in her article is the solution.

Which is a Citizens Basic Income.

Indeed, sure she seems to have refined her view somewhat, but it is fundamentally the same. We need more flexible benefits to allow for more flexible working arrangements.

Hi guys,

The difference is that in the first article, she takes on lefties who apparently ‘have been blind to the dependency culture’, then she goes and meets these lefties to find out what they actually think, and all of a sudden she finds that she agrees with them.

As for Citizens Basic Income – I like the idea, but it either turns out to be very expensive (if you combine it with housing, disability and child benefits) or to involve slashing benefits for some poor people (if it replaces all benefits).

A ‘dependency culture that deters adults from flexible work and damages their chlidren’ and ‘being forced to take huge risks with their security when they move into the world of low-paid labour’ are basicly restatements of the same thing: that getting off benefits and into work is immensely difficult.

She isn’t saying that it’s an insurmountable task so leave them on sickness benefits, or whatever, which seems to be the prefered alternative for many here.

If it’s easier for someone to remain dependant on the State than for them to get into employment, for whatever reason, that’s a ‘dependancy culture’. They may not WANT to be dependant, but they ARE.

Are we going to discuss practical ways of helping people into work, or just dismiss anyone who thinks the current system isn’t fit for purpose as a Big Meanie?

Hi Don

There is no paradox in saying that the dependency culture is harmful but that the benefits system is not well designed to help people escape from it.

As for CBI, slashing benefits for some people is an essential element, I’m afraid.

You know. Incentivising people to work? Ending the dependency culture?

As for Citizens Basic Income – I like the idea, but it either turns out to be very expensive (if you combine it with housing, disability and child benefits) or to involve slashing benefits for some poor people (if it replaces all benefits).

Do you have some figures on it? (I’m not being sarcastic or anything, I’m genuinely interested.)

“involve slashing benefits for some poor people (if it replaces all benefits)”

I don’t want to sound like a mean Tory, but is that so wrong? Under the current system there are no doubt people who are not receiving enough income support for their circumstances, and there are also people receiving far more than they ought to be. If you reduce to a simple system you simply shuffle around the winners and the losers (If absolutely necessary you can have a child support bolt-on to it), but the important point to note is how much you reduce waste by (think of the army of 3,000 benefit fraud officers advertised that wouldn’t be needed under a simple system). That level of saving would likely provide enough room to fully compensate all but the most hard hit.

“As for CBI, slashing benefits for some people is an essential element, I’m afraid.

You know. Incentivising people to work? Ending the dependency culture?”

Ending the dependency culture, and starting a starvation culture. Incentivising people to work, by holding a gun to their head.

None of these will work.

Why?

There are currently fewer job vacancies that there are unemployed people. Not only that, a large % of jobs available are low paid, insecure, and have terrible working conditions. Why would people take these jobs?

How about guaranteeing the right to a decent job for everyone as a way to end the dependency culture?

@8

And how exactly do you guarantee a decent job for everyone? Force businesses to employ more people?

Anyway, you end the dependency culture by removing the ludicrous marginal tax rates that are the benefits trap. Many people on benefits are reluctant to work because our benefits system is so complicated that it is practically impossible to work out whether you will be better off working. Given a choice of staying on benefits at a known income or taking a job and potentially seeing no more money, is it any wonder people choose the former?

Governments have prioritised full employment before, they can do it again.

I agree with you that people won’t work if they can get by better on benefits – perhaps low wages are the problem, however, and not high (or, even, complicated) benefits.

Governments have prioritised full employment before, they can do it again.

Seem to remember it was achieved in the USSR in the 1950′s.

I agree with you that people won’t work if they can get by better on benefits – perhaps low wages are the problem, however, and not high (or, even, complicated) benefits.

The point about a Citizen’s Basic Income is that every pound earned from employment is an addition to the basic entitlement and therefore acts as an incentive to work.

Simples.

Yes, pagar is right. And now we are actually starting to see basic income schemes actually being tried in practice now – there was a very successful trial in Namibia recently, there’s an article on der Spiegel about it, which I can’t look up on my dodgy net connection right now.

I also highly recommend the Real Utopias book on basic income and stakeholder grants. Very readable introduction to a great idea.

@11

“therefore acts as an incentive to work” – I would actually say that it DOESN’T act as a DISincentive to work. The two aren’t quite equivalent statements. The best any system can do is not discourage work. You can’t incentivise people who flat-out refuse to work. All you can do is not give them another reason to say no.

I am a fan of either citizen’s basic income or a Friedman Negative Income Tax as a review of ONS figures shows that the net effect of our tax and benefits system is in effect an NIT, albeit one that doesn’t give the bottom 10% as much as they would otherwise get.

“Seem to remember it was achieved in the USSR in the 1950’s.”

I was thinking closer to home, the post-war consensus in Britain prioritised minimising unemployment through a variety of means. Obviously it was a very flawed system, but it shows that governments can, and have, taken measures to prioritise fighting unemployment.

Frankly, whoever thought that £5 was a reasonable amount for part time workers to keep needs a kick in the kidneys.

At the moment, if you do an hours work and get £5 for it you keep it; if you do two hours work and earn £10, £5 of that is taken from your benefit. Work ten hours and £45 is snatched back.

That’s no way to ease people with disabilities or responsibilities back into work. Let the reward reflect the effort and you’ll get people to make more of an effort.

Why is it when ever this debate comes up, this the second such debate in as many days, the Right always start with the premise that it is merely a question of ‘incentivising’ people and they will skip into work either willingly or unwillingly?

However, those same people in the Right wing of whichever party (including the Labour Party) are keen on telling us, we have to respect and understand the power market.

As one of the architects and poster woman of New Labour said as recently as the mid eighties ‘You cannot buck the market’.

On every other debate, it is ‘free market this’ and ‘free market that’ and ‘free market the next thing’, but suddenly when it comes to unemployment and more specifically, the unemployed, all that goes out the window?

Think about this for about a few seconds. At the top of the economy, there was about 28 million people ‘working’ (however broadly we define it) and the labour force is circa 35 million. We could quibble with the figures, but no matter what figures we use and how we define it, (see last debate for ideas on definitions) there is a surplus of labour. That surplus (depending on what numbers you use) is anywhere between four and seven million.

The free market has spoken, emphatically in some cases, and delivered a strong verdict. The free market does not need, or want these people. It does not really matter if these could, should or would work. The rather obvious conclusion from the free market is ‘Thanks but no thanks’.

No matter how much we want single mothers to work, had the free markets wanted them to work, there would be crèches in every workplace in the Country and capital would be (metaphorically) sword fencing in the street to attract them into the work place. However, there are few crèches and no sword fights (metaphorical or otherwise sadly) because the market is quite content with the situation as it stands.

Again we can quibble of the numbers, but no matter how you look at it, there is a massive oversupply of labour in this Country.

All the Government schemes in the World, all the cutting of benefits to provide ‘incentives’, all the ‘back to work’ interviews are worse than useless, because not one of which will directly create 4-7 million jobs. Sure a few people will get jobs running courses to teach the unemployed interview techniques and now doubt ASDA and Tesco will also generate some jobs when the Government are buying suits for one and a half million incapacity benefit receivers. That will not address the trunk swaying, ear flapping, trumpeting, cannon ball crapping elephant in the room that there are simply not enough jobs in the economy to support the people out of work.

You want to create ‘incentive’ and extra help to get the long term unemployed back to work? Well we could create a few ‘incentives’ by forcing the banks to return the call centres. What about saying to the manufacturing Diaspora ‘Okay , you have had your fun, but if you want to trade in the EU, you need to site in the EU’. What about tightening up the labour market, by a stronger working time directive? Longer holidays, more time of for parents and banning casual employment agencies?

Enough incentives for you?

@16, look up “lump of labour fallacy”.

4 – “She isn’t saying that it’s an insurmountable task so leave them on sickness benefits, or whatever, which seems to be the prefered alternative for many here.”

Nice straw man, but who supports that? The article from, e.g. Community Links or Oxfam is practical ways of helping people into work better than people being on benefits with no help, which is better than cutting their benefits and giving them inappropriate or counter-productive “help”.

5 – “As for CBI, slashing benefits for some people is an essential element, I’m afraid.”

I really don’t think it is. There is an obsession with the so-called “dependency culture”, but it is worth remembering that when the government raised benefits for lone parents, record numbers of them went out and got a job.

6 – “Do you have some figures on it [CBI]? (I’m not being sarcastic or anything, I’m genuinely interested.)”

Yes – citizensincome.org has lots of stuff, and for a possible revenue neutral model have a look at http://www.citizensincome.org/filelibrary/doc/Polimod%20project%20re%20revenue-neutral%20scheme.doc

7 – “I don’t want to sound like a mean Tory, but is that [some people losing benefits from a Citizen's Income] so wrong?”

The big problem is housing benefit – if you replace all benefits with a citizens income, then basically no one who is poor can afford to live in London or the South East. It also takes a lot of money away from poor familise.

It would be like the abolition of the 10p tax threshold, except that a lot of people would lose a lot more money from moving from current benefits to citizen’s income.

8, 10 – I agree. The focus needs to be on creating more jobs which people can afford to live on.

11 – “Seem to remember it [full employment] was achieved in the USSR in the 1950’s.”

And in the USA and much of Western Europe.

12 – “And now we are actually starting to see basic income schemes actually being tried in practice now – there was a very successful trial in Namibia recently, there’s an article on der Spiegel about it, which I can’t look up on my dodgy net connection right now.”

https://liberalconspiracy.org/2008/12/28/basic-income-good-in-namibia-bad-in-libertopia/

15 – “Frankly, whoever thought that £5 was a reasonable amount for part time workers to keep needs a kick in the kidneys.”

Agree. I like the Community Allowance idea – http://www.communityallowance.org/

@DonP “then basically no one who is poor can afford to live in London or the South East.”

I’m not being flippant when I say “good”. Let those who can afford it try and get through 24 hours with no-one manning their switchboards, cleaning their offices or serving their lattes, and menial job wages will go through the roof. London should by rights have overheated itself and reached this solution long ago – housing benefit protects and prolongs exploitation.

I’m not saying the transition phase wouldn’t be a leetle sticky, mind you.

#20

All you would end up with is an apartheid system where low-paid workers in London lived further outside London in ghettoes of slum-style dwellings and were effectively bussed in and out. Of course, that happens now to some extent, but it would be worse.

Absolutely, but there would come a tipping point where it would be unsustainable IF you let the property market level itself properly, without propping it up with housing benefit. You’d end up bussing everyone in from the north midlands, and that is the point at which it would be cheaper just to pay them higher wages. The further out gentrification spreads, the more miserable any London life on a low income becomes, and housing benefit, by being linked to actual mortgage/rental paid, perpetuates that situation.

21 @ 22

I am not sure the logic plays out. Housing is one (albeit important) aspect of urban life. Once people start leaving for other parts of the Country, assuming people do, then things like schools and employment become relevant too. If you up sticks and make a clean break you have to assume that the housing and labour market in the provinces can sustain such an upsurge. How ironic if people fleeing high housing costs combined with low wages end up both inflating the private rented sector and depressing the price of labour!

If we are to reform housing benefit we will need to intervine in the housing market with a building programme as least as ambitious as the post war.

Sadly of course, had the political will been there for such a bold move, then we would not be in such a mess in the first place!