'Scroungers' are irrelevant to the 'fairness'/benefits issue. Here's why the government is really obsessed with them

First topic message reminder :

Original including links is at: http://skwalker1964.wordpress.com/2013/01/08/scroungers-irrelevant-to-fairness-why-govts-really-obsessed-by-them/

Ivanhoe - this is the article you were asking about, although it's evolved slightly.

'Scroungers' are irrelevant to the 'fairness'/benefits issue. Here's why the government is really obsessed with them



I’ve written variously about this Tory-led government’s fetish for demonising the vulnerable in order to facilitate its attacks on their state support. Disabled people, young people, housing benefit claimants, the unemployed – all come under sustained propaganda attack from government spokespeople, echoed by the right-wing press and even, on occasion, by the BBC.

This demonisation usually takes the form of some kind of ‘scrounger’ rhetoric, although the perpetrators will throw in ‘shirker’ or ‘skiver’ occasionally, just to mix it up a little. It’s clearly a tactic aimed at the basest instincts of people who are able, or willing, to believe it and resent the ‘scroungers’ who are supposedly the opposite of the ‘strivers’, or ‘those who work hard and do the right thing’, according to the Tory mantra.

This kind of rhetoric is in every government statement about the ‘Uprating Bill’ that will be voted on today in the Commons, as ministers talk about whether it’s ‘fair that those who don’t work should receive better rises than those who work hard and do the right thing’, or whatever variant they pick for a particular statement.

Of course, the rhetoric has very little basis in fact. Most benefit recipient – 60% – are working people who are so poorly paid by their employers or so exploited by their landlords that they can’t manage without state assistance.

But is any of it true? More to the point, if it is – does it matter? And do the government’s stated reasons for targeting them have anything to do with the real reasons?

There don’t seem to be any firm figures that indicate how many of such people there actually are, but certainly they’re far fewer than the government would like everyone to think.

For example, an article in the Guardian highlights cases in which the government grossly exaggerated ‘scrounger’ issues for political purposes:

Example 1

Ministers had made a big issue – in order to justify their benefits cap – of a supposedly high number of families that were receiving £100,000 a year in housing benefit.

The reality? There were only 5 such families, in the whole country.

Example 2

Ministers briefed that over 1,300 people had been ‘off work for a decade with diarrhoea.

The reality? They were suffering from cancer and other severe bowel diseases.

Anecdotal evidence also seems to back up the idea that people avoiding work by choice are a very small minority. For example, on a discussion forum for social care professionals, in a debate about ‘scroungers’, one wrote:

I expect our experiences depend a lot on the location and teams that we might work in. Personally I see a LOT more people who are not claiming the benefits that they are wholly entitled to. I’ve come across a few families that might have stepped out of the front page of the Daily Mail but that has been very uncommon in my experience.

There’s no real doubt that a small percentage of people living long-term on benefits do so (as the government likes to put it) ‘as a lifestyle choice’. But most of what evidence there is seems to suggest that it really is a very small percentage.

However, I believe that – at least now and for the foreseeable future – their existence is absolutely irrelevant to the benefits issue. Any reference to them by politicians and media as justification for any benefit reduction or cap is absolutely, and deliberately, misleading – and hides a true motive that’s much darker.

Here’s why.

The numbers game

For the sake of argument, and so that no one can accuse me of minimising the issue to make my assertion more convincing, let’s assume that every single one of the long-term unemployed are living on benefits as a ‘lifestyle choice’. It’s a ludicrous proposition, of course, but bear with me for the moment.

The latest ONS statistics indicate that there are 449,000 people who have been on unemployment benefits for 24 months or more. I’m sure you’ll agree that ‘lifestyle scroungers’ are going to be, almost without exception, in this category.

So, if every single person in that category was a ‘scrounger’, choosing to live on benefits, that means we have, at worst, 449,000 scroungers in this country – out of a jobless total of around 2.5 million.

However, the number of available jobs in the whole of the UK – again according to the latest ONS stats – is 489,000. For 2.5 million unemployed people.

This means that, even if you can get someone into every available vacancy, you would still have over 2 million people unemployed. Of course, you never will fill every vacancy – many of those jobs will be vacant because they require special skills and experience that aren’t available, or because they pay so badly that no person in their right mind would want them.

But, again for the sake of argument, let’s assume that the government cuts benefits so drastically that all our notional ‘scroungers’ decide they are going to have to take those jobs – and we’ll assume that they have the necessary skills to do them.

What situation do we then have? Simple: over 2 million people who want to work, and no jobs for them.

Unless and until we reach a ‘full employment’ situation – one in which there is work for every person who wants to work and is capable of working – the ‘lifestyle scroungers’ are absolutely irrelevant to the benefits or ‘fairness’ issues.

In the current situation, where we have more than 5 unemployed people for every available job, every ‘scrounger’ forced into work means one less job for someone who wants to work. Somebody is going to be on benefits – a lot of ‘somebodies’, in fact – even if we had zero scroungers.

The only time when it would be legitimate to spend Parliamentary time and effort even discussing the genuine ‘scroungers’ would be if we ever return to a full-employment situation. However, there’s a massive reason why we won’t in the foreseeable future – and why it’s incredibly hypocritical for anyone to use so-called ‘scroungers’ as an excuse to ‘bash the benefit claimants’ as the government and the right-wing press love to do. It’s tied up in the last 2 sentences of the previous paragraph – but all should become clear shortly.

The ugly truth

For all their ‘striver vs skiver’ rhetoric, right-wingers don’t want everyone in work – and that includes politicians. They just don’t want people to be able to live on benefits in the long-term - for a very specific reason. That’s possibly a shocking thought for you. However, it’s not just my opinion – it’s on record as fact.

In 1997, the Bank of England’s ‘Monetary Policy Committee’ (MPC) met to discuss its business. In the minutes arising from that meeting, an incredibly frank and extremely revealing couple of paragraphs were included:



According to the Bank of England’s MPC, high numbers of long-term unemployed people does not push down wages – to them a desirable thing – to the same extent as numbers in short-term unemployment.

Lots of people unemployed in the short-term means that those in work are more worried about their job-security – and are therefore more likely to tolerate lower wages and less likely to demand increases. High numbers of long-term unemployed are less ‘effective’ in holding the employed to ransom, because the long-term unemployed aren’t as much of a threat to their job tenure.

Another part of the same document talks about a ‘natural level of unemployment’, saying that if

“the level of unemployment [was] below the natural rate, increasing inflation would generally result.”

In other words, a certain level of unemployment is natural and desirable – the wealthy right does not want everybody to have a job.

The Bank of England’s motivation is, notionally at least, a concern that upward pressure on inflation might stoke higher inflation. These concerns have not gone away since 1997. In one of its 2012 reports on inflationary pressures, the MPC stated:

Since the second quarter of 2011, the number of vacancies had been broadly stable while unemployment had increased, suggesting that the unemployed were less able to fill those vacancies.

But for employers, and the politicians they donate to, there’s another, clearer, baser motive.

Greed.

David Cameron, George Osborne, Ian Duncan Smith and co want there to be a lot of people out of work – because that keeps the rest of us ‘in our place’, and stops us expecting pay rises that will reduce fat, corporate profits. Whatever the rhetoric, the fiscal cost of that level of unemployment is perfectly acceptable to the bankers and CEOs, because it bolsters profits and executive salaries. The Bank of England says so.

They just don’t want there to be many long-term unemployed people – because that doesn’t do the job as effectively. So the Tories and their donors have a vested interest in targeting the long-term unemployed – one that has precisely nothing to do with fairness.

To you and me, if we had to choose which of the 2.5 million unemployed people to put into the <500,000 jobs that exist for them, would probably see it as best, fairest and most logical to fill those jobs with people that really want to do them – whether they’ve been unemployed for 6 weeks or 6 years – rather than have them filled by people who don’t really want to do them.

But the government and its wealthy friends have a different agenda. One that’s better served by having only short-term unemployed people who are desperate for work – so that a sword is always hanging over the rest of us that employers can use to dampen our ‘uppity’ expectations of decent pay and conditions.

Scroungers are irrelevant to the issue of benefits and fairness while we have our current level of unemployment. They are not irrelevant to the Tories’ real, strategic but hidden aims – which go against the very same hard-working ‘strivers’ whose side they claim to be on.

When you hear about the vote today, or think about the issues, or consider whether Labour is doing the right thing for the country by voting against the ‘uprating bill’, bear all this in mind.

boatlady wrote:Sorry if I've ruffled feathers here.

No you haven't, you have simply posted something that is wrong and for which you should apologise. Instead you post the following...

boatlady wrote:Having re-read Bellatori's post, I accept he didn't actually refer to Housing Benefit as welfare on this occasion.

which is completely unacceptable because it basically implies that if I did not do it this time I did it before like a repeat offender.

2) Re the debate as to who is subsidised by Housing Benefit, and indeed other in-work benefits, I think we need to look at who benefits from the issuing of these benefits.

You go into a supermarket and see a bottle of wine for sale at £6. You have only got £4 in your pocket so I give you an extra £2 so you can make the purchase. Who am I subsidising? You or the supermarket. The answer is you. The supermarket does not care whether you have £6 or get subbed by me to buy the bottle. The market rate is £6 and they will sell to whomsoever arrives with the requisite amount. No amount of twisting the facts will turn a benefit intended to subsidise a tenant who comes up short into a subsidy to a landlord. That bottle of wine is going to be £6 whether you like it or not and will sell to someone else if you don't want it. That is the 'joys' of the free market.   

I have already pointed out that rent caps do not work. If you think about it the only way that could work would be to nationalise housing. Not a hope and trying to pick off landlords one at a time would simply end up in court and losing. In the short term housing benefit cost will rise. There is a shortage of housing and competition means that rents will increase. The only solution long term is to build houses - lots of them - at least 1,000,000. Its like with the wine. They have a bumpier harvest and produce twice as much they know it is not all going to sell. What happens? Down comes the price. Build the houses and the landlords have competition. They might not find a tenant. Down comes the rent.

boatlady wrote:... but I don't think it would be as fair.

No it's not fair and I suspect until someone dies or we have a picture of a family huddling in blankets on a park bench there will be little sense of urgency. We know Mrs T did not give a tinkers cuss for workers living conditions and DC probably even less however there were 13 years when this entirely foreseeable problem could have been tackled but wasn't. Will the same happen in 2015?

Once again I refer you to bobby's post about France and my follow on comments.

you have simply posted something that is wrong and for which you should apologise

No - to both parts of that assertion - I have expressed an opinion that differs from yours.
For this, no apology is needed or indeed appropriate

boatlady wrote:you have simply posted something that is wrong and for which you should apologise

No - to both parts of that assertion - I have expressed an opinion that differs from yours.
For this, no apology is needed or indeed appropriate

You tried to impute a number of things to me in an attempt to discredit my post that were factually inaccurate. Three things specifically which I was left to point out in a previous post.

The nearest you came to correcting this was to write - "Having re-read Bellatori's post, I accept he didn't actually refer to Housing Benefit as welfare on this occasion." which had the rather unpleasantly snide qualification stuck on the end which was entirely unworthy. You were wrong but you could not bring yourself to truly admit it.

As for our difference in view on the matter of substance, that is the nature of who is being subsidised, I look forward to your account of trying to buy a £6 bottle of wine in Tesco and offering £4 at the till. Let us all know how you get on.

Unbelievable   

Oh what sensitive little souls we shelter in our midst. Ask Mummy to kiss it better, Bellatori.

oftenwrong wrote:...

So you obviously hold little store by integrity and accuracy then. Why am I not surprised?   

Greed. David Cameron, George Osborne, Ian Duncan Smith and co want there to be a lot of people out of work – because that keeps the rest of us ‘in our place’, and stops us expecting pay rises that will reduce fat, corporate profits. Whatever the rhetoric, the fiscal cost of that level of unemployment is perfectly acceptable to the bankers and CEOs, because it bolsters profits and executive salaries. The Bank of England says so. They just don’t want there to be many long-term unemployed people – because that doesn’t do the job as effectively. So the Tories and their donors have a vested interest in targeting the long-term unemployed – one that has precisely nothing to do with fairness. To you and me, if we had to choose which of the 2.5 million unemployed people to put into the <500,000 jobs that exist for them, would probably see it as best, fairest and most logical to fill those jobs with people that really want to do them – whether they’ve been unemployed for 6 weeks or 6 years – rather than have them filled by people who don’t really want to do them. But the government and its wealthy friends have a different agenda. One that’s better served by having only short-term unemployed people who are desperate for work – so that a sword is always hanging over the rest of us that employers can use to dampen our ‘uppity’ expectations of decent pay and conditions. wrote:

So where is the Left wing press that could be putting this as its front page headline??

oftenwrong wrote:Oh what sensitive little souls we shelter in our midst.  Ask Mummy to kiss it better, Bellatori.

No relevance to the thread, just a personal attack but I wonder if it'll be deleted


Is this relevant to the thread?
Ivan

Just a thought ...



Thank you for your patience.

Dan Fante wrote:...No relevance to the thread, just a personal attack but I wonder if it'll be deleted

Did you really wonder for more than an instant? I suppose one has to show forbearance to the childish and clearly somewhat challenged amongst us.


Is this relevant to the thread??
Ivan

Whilst Ivan is deciding what he doing with the other thread I think the following article draws attention to a very important point about any governments approach to the welfare system.

The households missing out on winter fuel discounts

A short quote hits the point exactly...

Inside Out discovered that only a fraction of those who are entitled to the Warm Home Discount in County Durham are in receipt of it.

Presenter Chris Jackson spoke to resident Sharon Pape from Newton Aycliffe, who was unaware of the scheme despite being on benefits.

There has never been an onus on ANY government to ensure that those in need receive ALL those benefits to which they are entitled. On the contrary, it is clear that this current government is actively trying to do the exact opposite e.g. invalidity allowance, job centre targets... In many ways this type of issue is an argument that there should just be one benefit based on an individuals needs and circumstances and that the benefits agency should have to be proactive in ensuring that each claimant is justly and fairly treated. I suspect that such a fair and proactive approach would do much to remove the 'scrounger' stigma from those on benefits and also to make life more difficult for the small minority of 'real' scroungers.

I may be wrong but I seem to remember reading something in the past that indicated that unclaimed benefits amount to more than the estimated total of all 'benefit cheats'. As you allude to it's in the interests of government to make the system more complex than it needs to be.

Bellatori wrote:

Dan Fante wrote:...No relevance to the thread, just a personal attack but I wonder if it'll be deleted

Did you really wonder for more than an instant? I suppose one has to show forbearance to the childish and clearly somewhat challenged amongst us.


Is this relevant to the thread??
Ivan

OWs personal attack... No

His follow up snide comment... No

Your support for him... No

All of them are completely irrelevant. If you are trying to make the point that you will allow personal attacks on posters you may not be entirely in agreement with then... yes, I think you succeeded.

Just a thought, Ivan: Deal with it.

Bellatori. You've already been asked not to post messages in red, because that's the colour of moderation, but no, you ignore that.
 
You've posted at least five messages which amount to nothing more than personal attacks on other members, but they still stand, so you can stop being a hypocrite.
 
You've been told twice previously not to post complaints on a thread, but you ignored that.
 
You think you can appoint yourself as a moderator on this forum - you've been told about that too, but hey, nobody tells you what to do, do they?
 
If a thread gets locked for a reason, no problem, just start an identical one! Who the hell do you think you are?
 
You've tried to bully me, a moderator and at least three other posters, and you've poked your nose into long-standing issues with someone who has now been banned.
 
If you join a club, you play by its rules. If you're not prepared to do so, you know what you can do.
 
Your account is suspended for 24 hours, pending review by the moderation team.

Come on, guys- no need for all this stuff.

 

I suppose it's no good being the Chancellor of the Exchequer if one is unable to construct a whoppingly greedy perk for oneself. All that's needed is the sheer brass neck to do so...

Redflag wrote:Labour have there work cut out for them skywalker, refuting all the LIES & Distortion by the Tories .  I do not think that Ed Miliband will be Tory Lite in any way shape or form he knows we have to get away from anything that looks like Tory policy, to let the people of the UK if they vote Labour and Ed Miliband it will be FAIR FOR ALL

Well, maybe there IS a tooth fairy!

Any of us can cry for The Moon - and frequently do so, but Politics is the art of pleasing most of the People some of the time, and some of the People most of the time. Democracy implicitly means rule of the majority, so a minority may always remain unsatisfied with any particular measure. That's what we've chosen, since the alternatives are all worse.

Tories have the clear advantage of being able to tap into the wealth of supporters, because that's who they represent. But the majority of voters are not wealthy, so in a logical world would not vote Tory ever. In reality, having a job means working for The Man, so even a party representing Workers must also have some appeal to Employers, and cannot stand in total opposition. Not least because the Electorate is not in total opposition to Capitalism either.

This is no time to spoil things by spouting logic and common-sense...    

I see I have had a post deleted for 'anti-semitism'. God knows what it was, but I am not anti-Semitic, nor have I ever been. I would like to see the Nazis occupying Palestine executed for their crimes, but that is rather a different point.

Penderyn. The moderators are required to enforce the rules laid down by the site owners, and anything which could be perceived as racism must be removed. In this instance, I believe it was a reference to Jews when you may well have meant Israel. I'd be surprised if anyone on this forum supports the apartheid being practised against Palestinians, but as you would no doubt agree, that isn't down to all Jews any more than all Muslims can be blamed for the Taliban and al-Qaeda.
 
We had our first forum closed down by another provider in 2011 (without warning or explanation), and so the staff here are likely to be extra vigilant in ensuring that we don't transgress any prescribed rules. Thank you for your understanding.

In this case, I understood Penderyn's reference to be to Nazi Germany - meaning this government, like many before them, have the need to single out one particular group for abuse and vilification - I suspect he intended a simple comparison of the two cases.

Me too, for what it's worth...

-" I suspect he intended a simple comparison of the two cases"

That could possibly be the case boatlady. However, I interpreted
what was written using the word "jews" in a context that could well be construde as being anti-semitic and therefore felt it necessary to delete the post.
We must all take care in what we write on this forum for reasons Ivan has for the umpteenth time pointed out.

Fair point. Can't be too careful ...

Ivan wrote:Penderyn. The moderators are required to enforce the rules laid down by the site owners, and anything which could be perceived as racism must be removed. In this instance, I believe it was a reference to Jews when you may well have meant Israel. I'd be surprised if anyone on this forum supports the apartheid being practised against Palestinians, but as you would no doubt agree, that isn't down to all Jews any more than all Muslims can be blamed for the Taliban and al-Qaeda.
 
We had our first forum closed down by another provider in 2011 (without warning or explanation), and so the staff here are likely to be extra vigilant in ensuring that we don't transgress any prescribed rules. Thank you for your understanding.

I have never referred to Zionists as Jews. They are not Jews but Nazis. I take your point, however.

Thank you for your understanding Penderyn, it is much appreciated.