The lived reality of life in low pay, no pay Britain

Professor Tracy Shildrick University of LeedsT.Shildrick@leeds.ac.uk

The idle workless?

For too many people worklessness ‘has become a way of life’ (Duncan Smith 2014)

Living off welfare is for many ‘a lifestyle choice’ (Duncan Smith 2010)

Strong work commitment Strongest and most consistent finding across all of our

studies, is that people want to work, even when work is hard, low paid, insecure and scarce:

Work? Very important, just to get out the house and that. There’s nowt worse than not working. It’s so depressing. It’s awful, just awful. Like I say, when I’m working I’m a totally different lad, totally different and when I’m not working I’m just down … It’s hard to explain. It’s just it does put you on this totally, like, puts you on a proper depressing mode (Andrew, 43).

I want to work ‘til they put me in a box’ (Stuart, 43).

…and a dislike of claiming welfare

‘I don’t like it at all. I feel, like, suffocated; that they (JC+) are waiting for me to do something. I just hate it. I’m an independent person. I don’t like relying on benefits. I just hate it. They turn into the FBI, questioning your every movement. It’s like “I just don’t want to be here”! Just going to the Job Centre makes me depressed. I just detest it, I really do’

(Chrissie, 31, occasional employment, voluntary work, long-term depression)

Benefits too high?

The benefits system is sending:

‘incredibly damaging signals. That it pays not to work. That you are owed something for nothing. It gives us millions of working-age people sitting at home on benefits even before the recession hit. It created a culture of entitlement. And it has led to huge resentment amongst those who pay into the system, because they feel that what they’re having to work hard for, others are getting without having to put in the effort (Cameron 2012)

Subsistence living

‘I walk to my eldest daughter’s house and I’ll ask her to give me a meal. I go to Sainsbury’s about 9 o’clock and look for all the reduced items. You’ll buy a loaf of bread and it’ll last you for four days. Reduced eggs they’ll last you a week. I got half a dozen free-range woodland eggs for 20p the other day. So you’ve got six eggs. A loaf of bread, reduced vegetables, whatever it is, and I’ll have vegetables with rice, bread and egg’ (Amanda, 48)

The political rhetoric Moving someone into a job

‘Represents a massive life change for individuals and families. For the young person: once with bleak prospects, but now one of a growing proportion in employment or education, who has their foot on the first rung of the ladder, able to move onwards and upwards. For the lone parent – more of whom are now in work than ever before – which we know is the best route to lift their family out of poverty…(Ian Duncan Smith 2014).

The reality - poverty traps for many

Repeated engagement over years with employment

…but not a sustained route away from poverty for most

‘I struggle, really struggle because by the time I pay me bills, gas, electric and water rates, TV, all that, I'm left with a couple of pound that's it...I wanted to work. If I didn't work I think I'd go crazy… I mean, to be honest, somebody in my situation, I would probably be better off on benefits’.(Winnie, 44, currently doing two part-time cleaning jobs)

References to the studies

Johnston, L., MacDonald, R., Mason, P., Ridley, L., and Webster, C. et al. (2000) Snakes & Ladders, York: JRF.

http://www.jrf.org.uk/sites/files/jrf/jr090-young-people-exclusion.pdf

Webster, C., Simpson, D., MacDonald, R., Abbas, A., Cieslik, M., Shildrick, T., and Simpson, M. (2004) Poor Transitions, Bristol: Policy Press/JRF.

http://www.jrf.org.uk/sites/files/jrf/1861347340.pdf

MacDonald, R., & Marsh, J. (2005) Disconnected Youth? Growing up in Britain’s Poor Neighbourhoods, Palgrave.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Disconnected-Youth-Growing-Britains-Neighbourhoods/dp/1403904871

Shildrick, T., MacDonald, R., Webster, C. and Garthwaite, K. (2010) The Low-pay, no-pay Cycle: understanding recurrent poverty, York: JRF.

http://www.jrf.org.uk/sites/files/jrf/unemployment-pay-poverty-full.pdf

Shildrick, T., MacDonald, R., Furlong, A., Roden, J., and Crow, R. (2012) Intergenerational Cultures of Worklessness: Popular Myth or Miserable Reality?, York: JRF.