Targeting the Vulnerable: Who is Really Benefiting?


It seems that there are no other groups the government like to single out more than the jobless and low-income earners. This works because it is a proven publicity generator that pulls results. The problem is that much of the information reported in the news is just so much flim-flam and a classic case of misdirection and sleight-of-hand from the masters of illusion and deception, otherwise known as your elected officials.

The unbelievable hype that is getting believed

If you are a regular reader of our law blog – as indeed you should be if you want to stay up to date on the latest developments in UK law – you will recall that a few weeks ago we reported on some crazy survey results published by YouGov and reported on CallCredit.

We pointed out how ludicrous this type of spin actually is. Prior to that we also featured an article that discussed at length how the government is scapegoating the poor, to the benefit of the rich.

The government also uses a few other tactics that can’t be fairly described as dishonest, but at least fit the necessary criteria to be regarded as sneaky. For example, lumping working tax credit and child tax credit together as a single statistic, not counting people with severe long-term disabilities as unemployed, and labelling people with less severe disabilities as malingerers or layabouts.

When the government is not doing much or is mostly doing things that most people don’t agree with, it will very often be tempted to stir up yet another media frenzy directed at the unemployed or those who depend on working tax credits in order to survive.

The media and the government paint a picture of scores of lazy, unmotivated people who are draining the economy because they refuse to improve. No, they are not talking about themselves!

But take a look at this chart that shows beyond a shadow of a doubt that Jobseeker’s Allowance payments and tax credits are not a significant portion of total welfare payments.

jobseekers allowance payments and tax credits

That tiny yellow sliver represents the number of people on JSA, which is completely dwarfed by all the other categories. It is clear that even when some people do avoid working and are happy to get by on hand-outs, they are hardly a major problem in the overall picture. They are, in fact, a minority within a minority.

They serve a useful purpose, however, which is to provide a way for the government to distract us from its own inactivity by drawing our attention to the inactivity of others. In showbiz this is known as misdirection, and regardless of which political party happens to be in power at any given time, they’ve all become really good at it.

Another thing that must be considered is whether the money paid out in tax credits and JSA is really a burden on society in the way it is portrayed. The following chart shows how much money is lost due to fraud and error for each type of welfare payment.

money lost due to fraud and error

Again, you can see that yellow slice is pretty small, and less than half of these losses are incurred due to fraud, as this chart shows:

losses incurred due to fraud

So this evidence, sourced from the government’s own published data, clearly shows that all the hype is just that – hype! It is designed to make you worry about something that is not important so you will not notice something else that really should worry you.

Will cuts fix the problems?

If history is any guide, we can expect the opposite. In every case where the government has made cutbacks we are seeing greater “knock on” expenses emerge as a result of those cuts, and in fact it becomes a much greater burden on society than whatever problem the cuts are supposed to be trying to fix.

For example:

  • the NHS cutbacks have resulted in much higher expenses to the NHS which are forcing the scheme to the brink of ruin
  • cutbacks to higher education are causing many public and private sector employers to have to recruit skilled professionals from overseas (increasing domestic unemployment and massively increasing the cost to the employers), and
  • the Legal Aid cutbacks have caused numerous problems in the court system, as we reported last week.

It seems logical to expect that the plan to make welfare cuts will backfire in a similar way. While the objective is supposed to be to force people into work, that is based on a flawed premise that most people without jobs are in that situation because they don’t want to work. That simply is not the true state of the situation.

Welfare payments are barely enough to meet basic needs, so very few people are happy to be languishing on them. The catch is that the longer somebody is on benefits, the more difficult it can be to get off them. This is not because those on benefits have no desire to work, but because the competitive job market places so much emphasis on experience and especially recent experience. Combine that with the government already cutting back on education and training, and it becomes quite understandable.

Another related problem is that there are many people who ought to be on disability payments but, for one reason or another, they find it difficult to quality. For these people, it can be especially difficult to find work as they can be limited in the types of work that they may be able to do, and it can be more difficult to get access to jobs for some people in this category.

Despite anti-discrimination laws that are supposed to make the job market more fair, discrimination does still happen and it is an unavoidable reality unless more is done to provide assistance to all jobseekers, and especially those with disabilities. That would mean providing incentives for employers to provide opportunities to the long-term unemployed, rather than the currently planned move to make the “incentive” a motivation to the jobseeker that if they don’t get a job they will be made suffer.

Our conclusion is that further welfare cuts will not result in significantly more people entering the workforce. What will be far more likely to result is:

  • additional strain on charities, which are already stretched well beyond their limits
  • increased crime rates, as people are driven by desperation to provide for their families, which leads to:
  • extra strain on the court system and Legal Aid
  • more overcrowding of our prisons, and worsening conditions inside them, which leads to rioting and deaths in custody
  • increased suicide rates as people give in to despair, or are simply unable to cope with the fact that they are unable to provide for their families

The government seems to have set in place a series of political dominoes that once tipped far enough will collapse each system in turn, and throw the nation into chaos.

The hardships caused by the cuts may increase fraudulent claims

The intention may be to crack down on fraud and reduce the welfare burden on the state, but in effect the hardships that will be created are actually likely to increase incidences of fraud.

Needing extra money to make ends meet, many more people may be tempted to claim more than they should, in the belief that things will improve soon enough that they can pay back the excess before it becomes a problem. Of course, that does not always work out well for those involved.

If you have been caught in that particular trap, all is not lost. Hylton-Potts has successfully helped thousands of people out of similar situations in the past. All you need to do is call us on 020 7381 8111 or send an email to [email protected] and we’ll help you work out the next step.

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