The government have unleashed their latest and greatest ploy to get the unemployed back into work. It’s a simple procedure that involves the precision hacking away at the benefits of jobseekers everywhere, no matter how much you’ve worked in the past or where. This is supposed to incentivise work by showing that benefits will never pay more than employment.
Only there seems to be two problems with this. First off is the use of the word ‘incentive’, which implies an improvement somewhere, rather than just financial suffocation. This is the equivalent of taking away the oxygen tank from a diver and pointing to the surface. Second is, of course, the economic climate.
This new policy has received, seemingly, widespread support, both from the public and politicians, who see those on benefits as nothing more than a permanent drain on society. Despite the release of the ‘common misconceptions’ statistics last week, it seems no one has learnt. Politicians and the media continue to spin the numbers and now seemingly swallow them, happily and now consciously.
I already wrote a blog entry on those figures, but let’s recap – it would seem a recap is needed for those swimming around their bowls:
The perception is that capping benefits at £26,000 per household will save more money than increasing the pension age to 66 or stopping child benefit for those earning over £50,000. The reality is capping household benefits will save £290million, compared with £5billion for raising the pension age and £1.7billion for reducing child benefit.
In addition, the perception is £24 in every £100 spent on benefits is claimed fraudulently. The reality: £0.70 in every £100 spent on benefits is claimed fraudulently.
The most important set of statistics is the second one. For some reason we have and - despite information like this - continue to have an extremely warped view of those on unemployment benefits. The vast, vast majority of claimants are claiming legitimately and fairly.
People say they understand that the economy is in tatters, only sometimes it seems like their ‘understanding’ is merely the squawking of a very well trained parrot. Sort of like, ‘everyone is using that sound bite, so I will too’. But it seems even after finishing their regurgitation, they have absolutely no idea what economic crisis entails.
To most, it seems that a pay freeze or maybe a raise under inflation is what all this is about. Not the millions who are out of work because there just isn’t the work available. It’s not about the hundreds of people flooding each vacancy with hundreds and hundreds of applications. It’s not about the countless people, not just in the public sector but the private sector too, that have lost their jobs - not just the unskilled, but the highly skilled too who have been made redundant due to budget restrictions or decreased profits. It’s not about all those qualified, experienced and skilled people stagnating in part-time work. And it’s not about the Sword of Damocles that could well be swinging above almost every normal working person’s head, ready to drop when they least expect it. All this, it seems to me, is considered a myth by the majority of middle England.
I just heard an acquaintance lost their job. She was three years qualified at a top London law firm, where for all intents and purposes, she was very successful. However, due to budgetary cuts (and no doubt the partners’ reluctance to take pay cuts) she was made redundant. She was hardly one to stand up for universal benefits, but now she finds herself either at the mercy of the state or eating into the money she carefully put away for her future – a future the government seems less and less enthusiastic about supporting. This is the plight of the majority of those on jobseeker’s allowance.
But this is the real issue here. It’s not the cap at all. What the real issue is is that if the government want to incentivise work, then they have to make working conditions better. It no good having workers worrying about whether their position could go at any minute, rather than just concentrating on the job in hand.
All the government have done in this area is make it easier for employers to sack their workers, cut the amount of compensation they have to pay to only 12 month’s salary, and cut consultation to just 45 days in the case of mass redundancies – and all this was put forward by Vince Cable, the ‘friendly face’ of the coalition. There’s no added incentive when the government so whole heartedly supports business, not the people they represent.
But this isn’t the only area where businesses get the blind support of the government. The fact is employment doesn’t always pay. There are millions of people who are so underpaid by their employers that they cannot make ends meet on their wage alone. It’s then up to the tax payer to make up the shortfall. Far more money goes on these kinds of benefits than on those who are out of work.
The argument that these are tough times and that businesses and corporations can’t afford it is, for the most part, utter bollocks. The average salary of a FTSE 100 chief executive was estimated to be 100 times that of a school teacher in 2011 or around the £3 million mark in 2012. They continue to pay themselves huge and rising salaries each year, along with their vulgar obligatory bonuses. Not to mention throwing away money on risky ventures like Tesco did with their Fresh ’n’ Easy gamble - something they dusted themselves off from pretty quickly. Meanwhile, the average working person’s wage (around the £25,000 mark) rises only 1% per year, if at all.
What’s more, the new jobs that these companies are creating are mainly part time work, which cannot satisfy the absolutely basic living conditions each human deserves. So is the money being widely invested in a few high-powered boardroom individuals?
Perhaps if a few execs could forgo their raises or bonuses, or better yet take a pay cut, perhaps the wages they pay to their lowest drones wouldn’t be so low. But the ‘not enough to go round’ issue is what every corporation argues when the issue of the Living Wage comes up, yet they have enough stashed away to be used as a play-thing. A cynical person would say some at the top of the food chain have found a convenient excuse in the economic climate.
The biggest scandal we face as far as benefits goes is not that there are so many unfortunate people forced to claim them, but that so many people need them whether they are in work or not. It’s the product of irresponsible capitalism and individualistic greed that is so being pushed by the government and right-wing press and swallowed by the public. As an employee, we shouldn’t be expected to work as low-paid slaves, but rather we should expect inclusion and adequate financial remuneration. Most of us are ultimately working for someone else’s dreams of money, influence and power after all.
It’s the gap between the executives and the average people that is really tearing this country apart. However, it’s the weak, not the strong, we turn the cannons on. This is because we’re told to. And we swallow everything the media and our politicians have to offer. A real incentive to get back into work would be the promise and respect of a living wage and the feeling that one isn’t worthless when compared to those watching over us from their ivory towers.
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