Welfare reforms

Welfare reforms and 
 George Galloway gets it right again.

I’ve not stuck my head above the parapet for a very long time now; But every day I hear something else on the radio that causes me concern and I guess now is the time to voice my opinions. I’m not going to repeat myself and drag out all the figures to show how our present Government cabinet are all (without exception) millionaires and multi millionaires. I’ll not bother repeating the figures to show the inequality of distribution of both wealth and income in this country, you may remember the figures go something like top 1% of population own 20+% wealth and bottom 50% of population own less that 10% wealth. If you want the details this is an interesting little report published in 2002 but things have changed very little since then.
http://www.ippr.org.uk/uploadedFiles/projects/Wealth%20Distribution.pdf

What I would like is, every time we hear Mr Cameron going on about his welfare reform; put what he says firmly into the context of the gross inequality of both income and wealth that exist in this country. Remember that he, and all those who work beside him to bring about these 'reforms' belong to the top 1% of wealth owners in this country. These reforms will not affect him or any one he knows, so much for his famous ‘we’re all in this together’.  Next time you hear him say, ‘it’s not right that those who claim benefit should have the same income as those in work’ (or words to that effect). Ask yourself why the sick and disabled who are unable to work should be forced into a lower income bracket that the lowest paid member of society. Ask your self why those who have been forced into unemployment due to job losses, business failures and lack of available jobs should have their benefits deliberately kept at a level below the lowest paid worker.   When he says with such zest and glee that he is restricting benefit rises to a lower percentage than that of the average wage rise ask yourself why? Why is it right to ensure those on benefits, those who don’t work and  receive less than the lowest paid worker, will see their income rise proportionally less than any one else while all around them prices continue to rise. Why is this something we should all be so proud of?

When you hear them talk with such pride and joy about how, due to the changes they have instigated, more people are willing to take on work that is lower paid, fewer hours, without permanent contracts and involve more travelling distance, think of the millions of people like the young girl I work with. This young girl is an English Graduate. Not only are there no graduate jobs, there are no non-graduate jobs that offer job security, a permanent contract and full time hours. This girl has four jobs, she is a school assistant for 25 hours per week and is paid only during term time and her contract is renewed every term. She has an after school cleaning job, again not a permanent contract and it only pays basic minimum wage, she runs a breakfast club in the mornings but that’s for school kids during term time, again no pay during school holidays and no permanent contract. Recently she took on another job as swimming instructor and life guard for kids swimming club over the weekends, no full time or permanent contract here either plus she is only paid minimum wage. Is forcing people to live like this really something to boast about? Is this something our society should be proud of? Personally I think not. No one wants to live this way and for Cameron & co to think of this as progress, as a ‘good’ thing is diabolical.

We have all heard about the dreaded reforms to disability benefits. We are told about the mythical ‘cheats’ who are able to work and refuse too. I know people in receipt of disability benefit and they are not rich, if someone wanted to cheat the system and get rich at other people expense claiming disability benefit is not the way to go. Even before the reforms it was difficult to be awarded disability benefit, the criteria were strict, the process long and arduous and the outcome (if you were fortunate enough to be awarded it) a benefit that kept you just above the poverty level. Now, post reforms, it’s much, much harder. Now there is a system in place that completely disregards the opinions of medical specialists and Consultant Doctors in favour of a tick box system operated by a non-medical company whose remit is to save the government money and whose attitude toward the applicant leaves a whole lot to be desired. I have heard Cameron say that it’s right and proper for those on disability benefit to be reassessed on a regular basis. He claims that conditions change and it’s wrong to leave people on benefit indefinably. I couldn’t disagree more. In reality this means that a person with a degenerative or chronic condition, a person whose condition will worsen over time and will not improve, is constantly and mercilessly hounded by these ‘assessors’. A person can go through the whole application process, appeal against unfair decisions and finally be awarded benefit only to find that after few short weeks or months, the process starts all over again.

And that brings me to the latest lot of ‘reforms’. Housing benefit is changing. Very soon housing benefit will be ‘capped’. This is the official line ‘’ 

‘’Under new legislation, local housing allowance rates will be reduced for private sector claimants and uprated by the consumer price index from April 2013. Social housing tenants will be financially penalised for the under-occupation of homes. An estimated 2 million households will receive less benefits than at present.’’ 

From http://www.insidegovernment.co.uk/event-details/housing-benefit-reform/96
What this means in plain English is that people claiming housing benefit will not be able to claim the whole amount of their rent. The amount they are able to claim will be set by the government, which is great in theory, except that this government has failed to ‘cap’ the amount of rent a private landlord can ask which will leave thousands of families unable to pay their rent. ‘’Ok so move to cheaper property’’, I hear hundreds of people say; well I’m sure they would if there were any cheaper properties to move to. Unfortunately, local authorities don’t have sufficient housing stock to accommodate every one which is why these people ended up in private rented accommodation in the first place, and all privately rented accommodation have rents set way, way above the housing benefit cap. Nice little catch 22 going on there.
The second part of this reform concerns ‘under-occupancy’. This refers to a single person living in a two bed property or a family with only 1 child living in a three bed property, etc. I think the aim of this reform is to encourage people to move to a smaller property and make way for families who need bigger properties. If the property is either a private let or social housing, housing benefit will not be paid for the extra bedroom. If the property is social housing, extra rent will be charged for the extra bedroom. Which for those lucky people in receipt of housing benefit AND living in social housing is a double whammy, extra rent plus a housing benefit cut.  In practice this is just another catch 22. Local authorities don’t make it easy for families to move to bigger or smaller properties, often they don’t have the right property to offer but usually they will leave it up to the tenants to contact each other and arrange an ‘exchange’, which is a long drawn out procedure, takes forever and isn’t always an option. I’ve known people wait years to find someone willing to swap with them. There are families whose eldest child has moved out but who have younger children at local schools who don’t want to move and disrupt schooling. There are older people who keep on the extra bedroom for a carer or for when family visit. Other people like my friend who is 58 and works as many hours as she possibly can in a care home just to make ends meet are facing a rent rise of 15% for occupying a two bed roomed property. She has tried to move before but the local authority will not help, no one wants to exchange with her and private rents are far, far too expensive. She considers herself one of the lucky ones. She has a job, if she works days, nights and bank holidays she just about manages to pay her bills, her rent is already £300 per month, her council tax £80, her gas and electric £100 +, and the cost of travel to and from work about £100 per month, on a minimum wage that leaves very little from which to find the extra rent.
And lastly……………..the thing most people totally forget, or are ignorant of to start with, is the fact that the vast majority of people claiming benefit are THE WORKING POOR. Yep that’s right, they are not benefit scroungers, they are the people working away struggling to make ends meet on a minimum wage, often from two or three part time jobs with no job security and little prospect of any thing better.
These welfare reforms are pushing the poor deeper and deeper into poverty; they do nothing to redress the real problems which are lack of employment, lack of sufficient good quality housing stock that people can afford and something that will redress the vast inequalities in this country.
What upsets me more than any thing is the way every one is being swept along by this coalition government. People believe what they hear, the old adage ‘divide and rule’ has never been so true, pitting poor against poor has always been a favourite ploy of the rich and it’s never been as true as it is today. How much futher do we have to go before people wake up and realise what’s going on here.