Policy context

While a comprehensive review of the Coalition's welfare reform approach cannot be provided here, it is important briefly to summarise its main characteristics and historical antecedents. The Coalition proclaims that their ‘tough’ new approach represents a radical departure, but the reality is of substantial continuity with their New Labour predecessor. Commentators have observed marked similarities in all three main political parties’ approaches to welfare, with Lister and Bennett (Reference Lister and Bennett2010) describing a process of ‘policy leapfrog’ while McKay and Rowlingson (Reference Mckay, Rowlingson and Bochel2011) characterise the Coalition's broad strategy on social security as one of ‘continuation with intensification’. Today, there is almost universal consensus among mainstream politicians of the need to address ‘welfare dependency’, which is consistently characterised as inherently problematic and narrowly equated with reliance on out-of-work benefits (Lister, Reference Lister2004). The tools of welfare conditionality and tough benefit sanctions in efforts to ‘help’ individuals off benefits and into work are widely utilised, while there is also a consistent and continual emphasis on seeking to ‘make work pay’.

In praising ‘hard-working families’, the Coalition continues New Labour's marked emphasis on paid work as both ‘the best form of welfare’ and the primary duty of the responsible citizen (Patrick, Reference Patrick2013). The whole welfare-to-work agenda is premised on the importance of ‘activating’ individuals from benefit ‘dependence’ to formal employment in the paid labour market. This approach relies on the argument that paid work is the surest route out of poverty, neglecting the reality that it is by no means a guaranteed one, given the enduring existence of substantial in-work poverty (Crisp et al., Reference Crisp, Batty, Cole and Robinson2009). The Government describes paid work as a transformative activity that not only delivers pecuniary rewards but can also improve self-esteem, physical and mental health and family life, as well as helping address problematic behaviours such as offending and substance misuse (Duncan Smith, Reference Duncan Smith2013).

Importantly, the Government's approach is firmly focused on the supply-side of the labour market – on the steps individuals need to take to become ‘work-ready’ and get into the ‘habit of work’ – with a concurrent neglect of demand-side and structural barriers to work, such as the availability of jobs, suitable child care, and employer discrimination towards disabled people (Newman, Reference Newman2011). Employing welfare conditionality suggests that compulsion and the threat of sanctions are required to incentivise and motivate individuals into work. Together, the supply-side focus and reliance on welfare conditionality operate to ‘individualise the social’ (Ferge, Reference Ferge1997); implying that out-of-work benefit claimants are largely responsible for their non-work and subsequent poverty (Newman, Reference Newman2011).

While there is marked continuity between the Coalition and New Labour's approaches to welfare reform, there is no doubt that the Coalition is overseeing a significant ratcheting up of the pace and extent of change. Substantial cuts to the social security budget (£18bn between 2010 and 2014/15) have seen the value of many benefits fall in real terms, while reforms to housing and disability benefits limit and restrict eligibility for social welfare. The Welfare Reform Act 2012 legislated for a significant extension and intensification of welfare conditionality, including the ultimate sanction of three years without benefits for those who fail three times to comply with various work-related conditions.

From the ‘deserving’ and ‘undeserving’ to ‘strivers’ and ‘shirkers’?

As well as substantial changes to the welfare offer, the Coalition has also been responsible for an intensification in the vilification and stigmatisation of benefit claimants via a notable increase in the use of derogatory language to describe and even (de)moralise out-of-work benefit claimants (Patrick, Reference Patrick2013). Applying negative rhetoric and stigmatising caricatures to those on out-of-work benefits has a long history, and has been a notable feature of attempts to undermine support for social welfare for many years, particularly via suggestions that the benefit system encourages idleness and the creation of an underclass cut off from mainstream society (Deacon, Reference Deacon1976; Bagguley and Mann, Reference Bagguley and Mann1992). Since the Poor Law (and beyond), efforts have been made to differentiate between those deemed worthy of state support and those judged undeserving, on the basis of behaviour(s), (dis)engagement with formal employment and reasons for non-work.

Today, Conservative Coalition Ministers employ stigmatising language to describe the ‘problem’ they perceive with a supposed ‘culture of welfare dependency’, with Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne describing benefit claimants ‘sleeping off a life on benefits’ (Reference Osborne2012). Frequently, an assumed passivity and inactive reliance on the state is contrasted with ‘hard-working families’ who are celebrated as the ‘beating heart of this nation’ (Duncan Smith, Reference Duncan Smith2010). This ‘strivers’ and ‘shirkers’ discourse is perhaps best conceptualised as a contemporary re-working of older distinctions between the ‘deserving’ and ‘undeserving’, with the ‘strivers’/‘shirkers’ dichotomy focused on determining deservingness based on engagement in the formal labour market. Arguably, this discourse could serve to exclude and ‘other’ those reliant on benefits for all or most of their income, while also helping generate public support for the Coalition's programme of welfare residualisation. There remain questions, however, as to whether this narrative is actually rooted in evidence about the lived realities and moral values of those reliant on out-of-work benefits for all or part of their income. It is questions such as these which this research aimed to explore.

‘Existing, not living’: benefits as a lifestyle choice?

In seeking to justify and defend a tightening of welfare conditionality and a reduction in the real value of many benefits, the Government has repeatedly returned to the idea of benefits as a lifestyle choice. George Osborne (Reference Osborne2010) used his first Conservative Party Conference as Chancellor of the Exchequer to argue that, for too many, benefits had become a ‘lifestyle choice’; while David Cameron asked: ‘Why has it become acceptable for many people to choose a life on benefits?’ (Reference Cameron2012). The characterisation of benefits as a lifestyle choice has material value in the Government's attempt to generate support for their measures to ensure that work always pays more than welfare, most often by reducing the value of benefits rather than by increasing the rewards of paid work. Relying on the model of man as rational economic actor, the ‘making work pay’ narrative suggests that, by creating a clearer fiscal incentive to work, the Government will make benefits a less attractive ‘choice’. The suggestion that some people ‘choose’ benefits also serves as a rationale for employing welfare conditionality to compel out-of-work benefit claimants to prepare for paid employment, with enforcement required to persuade individuals to make a better ‘choice’ by finding work.

While the narrative may provide a justification for the Government's welfare reform approach, it is a narrative that does not seem to be supported by the empirical evidence (Crisp et al., Reference Crisp, Batty, Cole and Robinson2009; Shildrick et al., Reference Shildrick, Macdonald, Webster and Garthwaite2012; Garthwaite, Reference Garthwaite2013). In the research outlined here, participants challenged the idea of benefits as a lifestyle choice; commonly employing strong negative language to describe the reality of life on benefits.

Later in the same interview, Sophie explicitly countered the idea of benefits as a lifestyle choice:

Several of the participants actually questioned whether it was possible to have a ‘life’ on benefits:

Further challenging the lifestyle choice rhetoric, it was remarkable how many of the research participants (eleven of the twenty two) when asked about their hopes for the future listed getting off benefits as their primary aspiration. This was a dominant narrative in many of the research participants’ accounts:

Following the participants longitudinally enabled a tracking of these aspirations over time, with this research uncovering individuals whose determination to leave benefits endured despite setbacks and challenges in efforts to secure work. Susan's aspiration to move off benefits and into work was a central theme in all three of our interviews:

While the ‘benefits as a lifestyle choice’ descriptor did not appear well-suited to the participants in this study, its power perhaps lies in its capacity to ‘condition’ how individuals see themselves, increasing the sense of shame and stigmatisation that so often seemed to coincide with poverty and reliance on benefits. Furthermore, although the ‘benefits as lifestyle choice’ narrative did not coincide with how research participants described themselves, it was seen as having clear applicability in characterising ‘other’ ‘less deserving’ claimants. Previous research has consistently found a tendency amongst those living in poverty and/or reliant on benefits for all or most of their income to simultaneously characterise themselves as ‘deserving’ while identifying other claimants who are less deserving, and perhaps should not be entitled to state support (Batty and Flint, Reference Batty and Flint2010; Shildrick et al., Reference Shildrick, Macdonald, Webster and Garthwaite2012; Garthwaite, Reference Garthwaite2013; Walker et al., Reference Walker, Kyomuhendo, Chase, Choudry, Gubrium, Nicola, Lodemel, Mathew, Mwiine, Pellissery and Ming2013). Given the persistent and continual stigmatisation of those reliant on benefits, it is arguably easier to describe some ‘other’ who complies with the government's characterisation rather than trying to undermine and dismantle this characterisation entirely. This research found participants were often ready with anecdotes and examples of ‘other’ benefit claimants who did see benefits as a ‘lifestyle choice’, who claimed fraudulently, or received more than that to which they should be entitled. This was perhaps part of an attempt to distance themselves from the stigma and shame associated with welfare ‘dependency’ and poverty by deflecting it onto other people (Shildrick et al., Reference Shildrick, Macdonald, Webster and Garthwaite2012; Walker et al., Reference Walker, Kyomuhendo, Chase, Choudry, Gubrium, Nicola, Lodemel, Mathew, Mwiine, Pellissery and Ming2013).

Participants often spoke particularly negatively about the deservingness of migrants, and those with drug and alcohol misuse issues:

These processes of stigmatising and ‘othering’ certain sub-sets of benefit claimants are inherently and inevitably divisive, and therefore reduce the possibility for those living in poverty to ‘get organised’ (Lister, Reference Lister2004) by challenging Governmental policy and rhetoric around welfare dependency.

Given that the notion of benefits as a lifestyle choice is increasingly accepted by the wider public (National Centre for Social Research, 2012), it is perhaps unsurprising that it is a policy narrative that is employed so frequently and with such political vigour. Arguably, its very potency is that no one interprets it as a description of themselves, but it is rather understood as a criticism of others, who are then seen as appropriate targets for Government ‘reform’.

Working on welfare (I): ‘getting by’ on benefits

Alongside the suggestion that many make a choice to rely on benefits rather than joining ‘hard-working families’ in employment, the Government often contrasts a passivity which supposedly characterises ‘welfare dependency’ with the active work of responsible citizens busy earning a wage. However, lived realities for individuals reliant on out-of-work benefits are far more complex (and busy) than suggested by David Cameron's description of benefit claimants: ‘sitting on their sofas waiting for their benefit cheques to arrive’ (Reference Cameron2010). Lister (Reference Lister2004) describes four responses to living in poverty, all of which involve active agency on behalf of ‘the poor’: ‘getting by’ (managing in poverty); ‘getting off’ (leaving poverty behind); ‘getting (back) at’ (everyday resistance against the system); and ‘getting organised’ (collective action to challenge the circumstance of being in poverty). In this study, the work and efforts involved in ‘getting by’ was a dominant theme, with participants variously displaying ingenuity and resourcefulness in their efforts to manage on what they received in out-of-work benefits. ‘Getting off’ was also an important aspiration and objective for many in the sample, and this is further discussed later in the paper (pp. 13–15).

Managing on benefits frequently entailed hard choices, as available money was often insufficient to purchase everything that the individual and/or their household required. James explained:

Closely connected with having to make difficult decisions was the necessity of simply ‘doing without’, particularly so that children could have what they needed. Two of the single mothers described not eating so that their children had enough to eat, while others spoke of managing without basic items such as a washing machine or proper heating.

The work involved in managing on benefits was often time intensive, including activities such as hand washing clothes, collecting and selling scrap to try and make a few pounds, and going to several shops to make sure you paid the lowest price possible for your day-to-day essentials. Ridge (Reference Ridge2009) has written about the time expended by people living in poverty to search out bargains and low-cost items, and this was certainly the case amongst the research sample. Cath, a disability benefit claimant, described going to a number of shops in her effort to get the best deal, shopping almost daily to take advantage of the reduced food shelves in supermarkets, which contain food fast approaching the use-by date.

Over time, the struggle to ‘get by’ on benefits against a backdrop of welfare reforms sometimes resulted in a worsening of individuals’ financial circumstances and mental health. In her first interview, Chloe explained how she managed as a single parent on IS:

By the time of her third interview, Chloe had been migrated onto JSA and had been sanctioned for missing an interview at the Job Centre. She described deteriorating health and difficult financial conditions:

Debt was a fact of life for many in the study, with evidence of family and friends playing critical roles via informal lending and borrowing, and this was if anything more widespread than reliance on formal forms of credit. As well as financial chains of dependency between family members, James and Sophie both described ingenious ways in which they had learnt to manage their budgets by loaning out some of their benefit payment to friends who were also reliant on benefits. As James explained:

In this way, James was able to ‘bank’ some of his benefit money with a friend in an effort to manage his very limited funds. James felt that if he kept all his money he would not be able to stop himself from spending it, so the informal lending arrangement was a way of self-regulating his behaviour in an effort to ‘get by’.

Given the very tight margins in efforts to manage on out-of-work benefits, even a relatively small change in participants’ financial circumstances could make a considerable difference to their lives. In her first interview, Cath talked about the steps she took to ‘get by’ on the money she received:

Between the second and third interview, Cath was awarded Disability Living Allowance (DLA) following a successful appeal to tribunal. In our third interview, she explained the difference this has made to her life:

While all of the participants in the study described getting by on benefits as a struggle, those who were on disability benefits, and particularly those who received DLA, were the most likely to say that they could just about manage. Critically, the extra income from DLA often gave them an (admittedly very small) financial cushion, particularly when contrasted with the almost impossible task of living on JSA, IS or ESA alone. This finding is pertinent, given that the Government is replacing DLA with Personal Independence Payments (PIPs); cutting expenditure on the new benefit by 20 per cent. This reform could have particularly adverse consequences for those who have previously received DLA, but are judged ineligible for PIP and so see their income reduced significantly. Some disabled people use DLA to help them meet costs associated with being in paid employment, so there are also fears that PIPs’ introduction could create a further barrier to disabled people's employment (Disability Rights UK, 2012).

Overall, the efforts involved in ‘getting by’ on benefits were time intensive, emotionally draining and often associated with feelings of shame and anxiety. While some participants did express pride at their ability to get by, for most this was just taken for granted – a necessary side effect of their reliance on out-of-work benefits. Agency, ingenuity and domestic management are all required in order to live on a low income (Ridge, Reference Ridge2009; Batty and Flint, Reference Batty and Flint2010). The very hard work, which ‘getting by’ entails, challenges the assumed ‘passivity’ of benefit claiming, and is thus a pertinent counter to the dominant government narrative. Given a contemporary context of ongoing welfare reform and mainstream political and media discourses that neglect experiences of everyday hardship for those in poverty (Shildrick et al., Reference Shildrick, Macdonald, Webster and Garthwaite2012; Wright, Reference Wright2012), it is particularly important to draw attention to this lived reality.

Working on welfare (II): other forms of socially valuable contribution

A citizenship discourse, that conceptualises paid work as the primary responsibility of the dutiful citizen, operates to neglect other forms of socially valuable contribution, such are care work, parenting and volunteering (Lister, Reference Lister2004; Dwyer, Reference Dwyer2010; Patrick, Reference Patrick2013). A narrow focus on paid work endures from New Labour to the Coalition, despite David Cameron's initial enthusiasm for a ‘Big Society’ where individuals would be more involved and engaged in their local communities.

The participants in this research were frequently active and engaged in forms of contribution other than formal employment via volunteering, caring and parenting work. Adrian explained how he volunteered between five and seven days a week at a local homeless hostel:

For Adrian, this voluntary work was also seen as an important stepping stone to employment and he hoped that the experience and skills he was gaining would assist him in his continued search for paid employment. His volunteering was particularly important due to Adrian's frequent benefit sanctions.

Adrian continued to volunteer throughout the time period of the research, and gained additional qualifications through this work. The job that he hoped to find as a result of his volunteering did not materialise, however, and so he increasingly spoke of his objective to move on from the hostel and into paid work:

Volunteering as an activity that is both distinct from, and yet also a route into, employment could also be seen in the account of Kane, a disability benefits claimant who had a spell volunteering in the same hostel. He felt that there was less pressure attached to volunteering than being in paid work, and also saw it as an opportunity to gain experience as well as improving his confidence and self-esteem.

The importance of volunteering for individuals’ self-esteem has been found to be significant in other research focused on low-income neighbourhoods (Batty and Flint, Reference Batty and Flint2010). Alongside considerable evidence of volunteering among the research sample, care work and, in particular, looking after family members, was also a common experience. Of the twenty-two people initially interviewed, seven spoke of the care work in which they were engaged. Jim, who himself had serious mental health challenges, described caring for his partner and brother, who both also had mental health issues:

Beckie talked about the work that caring for her daughter involved:

Participants rarely described their care work as a source of pride, but instead simply a necessary component of their day-to-day lives. By contrast, a number of participants described their work as parents as an important source of self-esteem and pride, again coinciding with findings from other studies (Duncan and Edwards, Reference Duncan and Edwards1999; Batty and Flint, Reference Batty and Flint2010).

Importantly, although value and importance was attached to their parenting roles, the single parents often felt angry that this work went unvalued by the wider society.

Despite describing processes of stigmatisation and undermining of their role as single parents, the parents in this study continued to prioritise their parenting activities, often in the face of opposition and obstruction from agencies associated with the welfare state. Susan explained how the job centre had tried to make an appointment for her which clashed with the time of her daughter's swimming lesson:

Susan reflected on this experience in two of her interviews, and it had clearly had a significant impact on her as she sought to juggle her parenting responsibilities with the expectations and demands made of her by the Job Centre.

What was notable in this study was how many of the participants were actively engaged in forms of contribution – parenting, volunteering and care work – which are all too often under-valued and neglected in government accounts that continue to conceptualise paid work alone as the route a to full, ‘active’ citizenship status.

From welfare to ‘work’: focusing on paid employment

The Government frequently describes supposed ‘cultures’ of worklessness and welfare dependency (cf. Cameron, Reference Cameron2011; Duncan Smith, Reference Duncan Smith2011), hinting at the existence of an underclass of welfare dependents with little or no experience of formal employment. Countering this, the study found that most participants did have historic experience(s) of paid work. While this study is based on a small sample, and cannot therefore claim to be representative, it was notable that across the diverse range of participants almost all had some prior experiences of paid employment. Participants had worked in a range of sectors, and commonly described deriving satisfaction from being in paid work.

During the course of the research, three of the participants left benefits for a short period of time after finding employment. Robert and Josh both had a series of spells in and out of work, with their experiences characteristic of the ‘low-pay, no-pay’ cycle identified in Shildrick et al’s (Reference Shildrick, Macdonald, Webster and Garthwaite2012) study. The work was badly paid, insecure and temporary, and did not enable them to escape poverty. Robert had a temporary job which attracted a fixed rate of pay of £30 a day, even though he sometimes had to work twelve-to-fourteen-hour days, while Josh received just £80 remuneration for working approximately 35 hours a week in a corner shop (£136.65 less than he was entitled to under the 2012 National Minimum Wage rate of £6.19 an hour). Josh explained why he accepted work which he knew was ‘kind of a rip off’:

Sophie also secured employment during the study, finding a sales job that she could combine with the parenting of her three children. Although Sophie enjoyed the job, when the school holidays arrived she was unable to access child care and so had no choice but to end her period of employment. For Robert, Josh and Sophie, there was an element of demoralisation in the experience of securing employment, only to lose it shortly afterwards (in each case due to demand side and structural barriers rather than anything connected with the individuals’ behaviour or conduct in work), but each of these participants remained committed to getting off benefits and into employment. While the Government's narrative implies the existence of static groups of ‘strivers’ and ‘shirkers’, the reality is much more fluid, with many individuals moving in and out of work, on and off benefits, as their employment and personal circumstances change over time (Shildrick et al., Reference Shildrick, Macdonald, Webster and Garthwaite2012).

For Rosie, the research period coincided with her transition into relatively secure employment, which included the prospect of career development and advancement. This shift from benefits to employment was described by Rosie as transformative:

Rosie's enthusiasm for working was in notable contrast to her description of relying on out-of-work benefits:

Rosie characterised her time on benefits as one of inactivity and relative passivity, despite being busy searching for jobs and having sole care of her young son. This perhaps reflects – in part – an internalisation of government narratives that so often make a critical comparison between ‘inactive’ out-of-work benefit claimants and ‘hard-working’ families.

While four of the fifteen participants followed longitudinally did experience spells of employment during the research period, a greater proportion were actively involved in looking for work, albeit unsuccessfully. Indeed, the study found a strong work ethic across most of the sample, with almost all participants displaying strong orientations towards employment, where this was a realistic goal. For those for whom work was not currently an option, perhaps due to impairment(s) and/or caring responsibilities, it was still often spoken of as a long-term goal, or as an activity in which individuals were disappointed at not to be able to participate. Previous studies have also highlighted strong personal commitments to employment, even for those not currently working or those churning between jobs and benefits as part of the ‘low-pay, no-pay’ cycle (Crisp et al., Reference Crisp, Batty, Cole and Robinson2009; Shildrick et al., Reference Shildrick, Macdonald, Webster and Garthwaite2012).

Going further, this research has discovered that participants’ ambition to find work endures over time. Indeed, even those who experienced frequent rejections and lack of success in their job searches retained a strong commitment to securing employment. In his third interview, James described how important finding work remained to him, despite repeated setbacks:

Susan spent the whole research period seeking work, without success. She tried a number of different strategies, participating in welfare-to-work courses and volunteering to try and gain additional experience:

When describing their aspirations to work, participants often made an explicit contrast between the life available on benefits and the hoped-for life that might be theirs if they found employment. Indeed, work was often characterised as the antithesis of unemployment, a theme also evident in Shildrick et al.’s study (Reference Shildrick, Macdonald, Webster and Garthwaite2012). For example, in constructing a visual timeline of her hopes and fears for the next twelve months, Sophie placed ‘to get a job’ as her primary hope with her ‘fear’ that she would ‘stay on benefits’ (W2).

Sometimes participants also spoke negatively about their reliance on benefits, contrasting this with their desire to find employment. In two interviews, Sam described herself as ‘scrounging’, suggesting an internalisation of dominant media and government discourses.

She explained how this feeling of being a ‘scrounger’ was motivating her to find work:

Sam's narrative powerfully hints at the stigma and shame associated with reliance on out-of-work benefits, stigma which is magnified by the treatment of benefit claimants in the popular media. Sam was trying hard to find work, and was active in her job search and yet she still felt ‘ashamed’ to be reliant on JSA.

In trying to unpick the various motivations behind the strong work ethic evident among the research participants, it is notable that while financial motivations played a part, they were rarely the only factor, and sometimes were actually described as subordinate to other reasons for seeking employment. When Sophie found work for a short time she was no better off, but explained that this did not matter to her:

The Government's agenda prioritises ‘making work pay’, arguing that people often decide whether or not to work based on financial calculations of how their income will change if they enter employment. However, there was little evidence of people making decisions about work in this way. While the additional money available to those in work was mentioned as a distinct advantage of employment over reliance on benefits, particularly by Robert and Josh, others spoke more generally about the distinction between earning a wage and receiving a benefit cheque:

Participants also spoke of the social and psychological advantages attached to engagement in paid work.

Isobella, a disabled benefit claimant, was involved in ‘permitted work’ at the time of the first and second interviews, making and selling cards at craft fairs. She was worried about how she would manage when she had to give this work up due to worsening health and pressures associated with the impact of ongoing welfare reforms:

Consistent with the findings of other studies (Crisp et al., Reference Crisp, Batty, Cole and Robinson2009; Batty and Flint, Reference Batty and Flint2010), work was conceptualised as being important for self-reliance and independence, and, again, a contrast was often here made between the independence of employment and the necessary dependence which was associated with being on benefits. A number of the single parents were partly motivated to work in order to provide strong role models for their children. Rosie explained:

The Government frequently describes the transformative potential of paid work (cf. Duncan Smith, Reference Duncan Smith2013), and there is no doubt that many of the participants did conceptualise employment as having the scope to significantly change and improve their lives for the better. Overall, what was notable across the sample was the endurance of a strong work ethic over time. This work ethic was present for those experiencing ‘poor work’ and ‘low-pay, no-pay’ churning, as well as for those who experienced repeated setbacks in their efforts to secure paid employment.