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From The Times

March 6, 2007

A doleful tale from which no one benefits

The pessimism of unemployment

Libby Purves

Launching the Freud report, the Work and Pensions Secretary, John Hutton, got strict about welfare reform. “The status quo is not defensible,” he said severely, seeming not to notice how odd that statement sounds from a Government that has had ten years of comfortable majority in which to change that status quo.

He said much the same thing in December — pledging to end the “can work, won’t work culture” and “hardcore” benefit claimants who won’t compete with East European migrants. Indeed, you could conclude that it is only the sight of foreigners finding jobs in two days that has made the Government notice our own shortcomings. Now the finger is pointed accusingly at the long-term unemployed, the 100,000 able-bodied and unencumbered who have spent six of the past seven years on benefits, and at the boom in incapacity benefit (currently three million claimants). We are promised “initiatives”, involving firms and charities being paid bounties to persuade people into work, combined with benefit cuts, unlovely bullying of single mothers and American wheezes like free haircuts and tattoo removal.

Well, Mr Hutton didn’t confirm the tattoo removal, not being a fool, but we get the idea. And — leaving aside the complex matter of single parents — we should all feel sympathy with the general aspiration. Long-term unemployment is a curse: it not only bankrupts the state but leaches self-respect, health and hope from the individual. Often enough it leads straight on to claiming incapacity for depression and stress (such claims have risen by a third since 1997). The bald fact is that anybody able-bodied, with no serious domestic caring to do, should earn their keep. Daytime TV is no life, nor is the well-documented route whereby the young untrained unemployed — “Neets” — are 50 per cent more likely to drink heavily, take drugs and fall ill.

There are always exceptions, but it cannot be denied that thousands are not trying very hard. In times and places with a general expectation that every herring hangs by its own tail, the most surprisingly encumbered or disabled individuals manage to earn. Just glance back in time at a prewelfare Britain, or across the world, at African women running microcredit businesses while supporting half-a-dozen Aids orphans.

We all know that, really. But crunching through statistics and economic papers I found myself musing on less solid things: attitudes, feelings. One figure that sprang from the thicket was that whereas in the 1960s and 70s the average duration of UK unemployment was under one month, in the next two decades it rose to nearly seven. Doesn’t sound much, but that is an average: it hides the fact that through the Eighties and Nineties it became commonplace in many areas to be without a job or much hope of one.

It also hides creeping incapacity benefit: as mines and factories closed, doctors in depressed areas began signing sick notes for social reasons. “There’s no work here for a man pushing 50,” said one GP when the Corby steelworks closed. “So I sign him off sick. He does better that way.” He probably feels better too, officially labelled as Not A Well Man.

In 1973, I was sent to interview 17-year-olds who — shock horror! — had left school a whole year ago and never worked. “Jobless youth” was much discussed as a novelty. I remember those kids well: they were pitifully ashamed, and vainly applied to shops and hairdressers and British Leyland. A couple of years later the Today programme sent me north to interview another new species: a man in his forties, a former shipyard worker who had been looking for work for two whole years! More shock. He described his life without self-pity — the boredom, the embarrassment, too much time to worry about aches and pains, the sense of rejection when the Jobcentre could not offer even menial work. His wife, who had a cleaning job, sat quiet beside him and once said gently: “It’s not your fault, pet, everyone knows that.”

If you are under 30 and incredulous, let me reiterate that these were news stories: they surprised people. Today they would be unremarkable. And because of that — because of what happened to working people in the faltering 1970s and then the brusquely callous 1980s, when tens of thousands were thrown out of the steel, coal and manufacturing industries — the stigma of unemployment faded. It had to. Mere humanity demanded it. For a couple of decades we had in our midst a vast number of people excluded from work by circumstances beyond their control.

Thus evolved a sense that living on benefits, even without young children or a verifiable illness, is OK. Not perfect, not luxurious, but no disgrace. The euphemism “unwaged” handily put carers under the same umbrella. But a nihilistic sense of benefits as a permissible way of life got passed to the next generation. At the same time a poverty trap developed whereby a low wage brought in less than benefits. Gordon Brown’s working families tax credits (although sometimes chaotic) have helped, but the trap still exists: if a single unemployed parent gets even a tentative job, the free school meals, transport, dentistry and prescriptions abruptly stop. Meanwhile, fussy and prescriptive workplace law makes employers ever less willing to take a chance on any but the star candidates. The long-term unemployed rarely look starry.

John Hutton is right: the status quo is unacceptable both in economic and in humane terms. But those who brandish carrots and sticks and hair-clippers must understand that often their enemy is a fatalistic state of mind which, though unhelpful, is explicable. That, not simple idleness, is the difference between a second-generation British refusenik and an ambitious Pole who still believes, owing to his very different national history, that life’s natural path leads upwards.

My daughter, her husband and the two teen-age children recently moved to Australia. They were suprised to find that all teenagers were expected to work after school in the evenings and week-ends. This is expected as it became part of their CV's and without a history of employment it will be very difficult for them to obtain a decent job after school and college. Employers expect graduates to be able to prove that they are capable of working, even if only in a burger joint. The experience they gather is a pointer to their future potential.

John Dunn, Exeter, Devon

I've got qualifications coming out of my ears and 15 years experience in high-tech science. I've worked hard and been busy and active all my life. Been unemployed 2 years now. First 3 months, 5 job interviews, no offers. Then the vacancies dried up.
So I did a little research. Government figures, during 2005, number of jobvacancies fell by 30,000, number of jobseekers rose by 250,000.
Then that lovely Mr. Gordon Brown said we had more people working than ever before, and the economy was doing great.
He forgot to say they let 600,000 East European jobseekers into the country. I've nothing against immigrant workers, like my parents; but come on, you do the maths!
Depressing? Not a bit of it. I love listening to my mates moaning about their jobs; it's always a good laugh when I offer to swap places with them.

Patrick Simpson, Oxford, UK

Here is a siple fact for M/s Purves. When Mrs T became prime minister , the UK produced 23 million tonnes of steel per annum with 80 thousand workers. When she left office, the UK still produced 23 million tonnes of steel per annum, but with 32 thousand workers. . That was not destroying jobs, but curing vast overmanning.
In so many parts of the UK, many workers, and their children, have not come to terms with the fact that the days of the pickaxe are long gone,and will not return. The problem with governments is that they debate at the speed of mid Victorian MPs Whilst science and technology roars on at an ever increasing speed. What a worker used to do
is no guarantee of a paid job. The exit from Fleet St was a classic example.However we still all need Maths and English as a starter, attendance at night school should be
a demanded for receiving benefits, a bonus for success.

DAVID VINTER, LOUTH, LINCS., UK.

It is only right that people who are long term unemployed should be made to take a job no matter what it may be.
Are these people above the rest of us!
does the country owe them a living?
nobody in my family has ever been unemployed,be it grandparents, parents, elder children who after college have to do shop work.
Its the attitude towards the way we live and if we wish to be respected that determins how hard we persue the prospect of attaining employment.
Those who want the easy life and don't care about respect know only too well that the government and the rest of us will end up supporting them.

suzie, Littleborough, Lancashire

Sir, have you ever been unemployed yourself? I suggest you try looking for a job to get a taste of what it's like. I got made redundant last year and spent over 8 weeks with full-time job search - from which I got exactly one offer . And I am what you would consider a well-qualified professional with international experience, a Master's Degree, language skills and over 10 years experience. I know people with no qualifications and a history of "McJobs" who have been looking for much longer, to no avail. So don't trash the unemployed - what they really need are jobs, not sticks or carrots.

Paulina Smid, London, UK

The attitude of employers is also a problem. I have a PhD, postgraduate vocational qualifications, and extensive experience in part-time Adult Education, research and writing. It took me 9 years from graduation to get my first full-time regular job in the heritage sector. Unfortunately, it was a 3 year contract only, which has now ended, and I am back on JobSeeker's Allowance. Time and again, I have found myself rejected as 'under-experienced' and/or 'over-qualified'. I have been rejected for museum posts for being too 'research-oriented' or 'academic', when generic management types and 'infotainment' are in vogue. Job Centres are useless at helping anyone who has good qualifications and is not socially dysfunctional. I am bitter and angry that, as I near 42, I have no security, no home of my own, and no pension - not through want of trying.

Doc M, Glasgow, Scotland

Hello,
I am a 45 year old man living in a small town just outside of Liverpool. I have been happily married for 25 years and have 3 daughters aged 22, 20, and 18.
My eldest daughter is a personal assistant in a Blue Chip company. My middle daughter was headhunted by Cambridge University, as was my youngest daughter. Both chose not to attend Cambridge and follow their University studies elsewhere.
I have never had a criminal record, I have a healthy respect of law and authority. I drink at christmas only, and smoke the occasional cigar. I dont gamble, not even the lottery, and I use my time to learn new skills and give me a broader overview on this planet.
I am long term unemployed, as is my wife.
We each receive 45 pounds per week. This is everything. It covers clothes, food, special occasions. My fuel bills are 148 pounds per month.
Pillars of society? or Dole-scrounging scum?
I guess that`s for you to decide.

Phil J N, Runcorn, England

Apart from the monarchy, there are three types of people in this country
1/ Those that have worked and will always try to find employment if they can. Because they are proud people and will always try to provide for their families.

2/ The – ‘why should I work when all hours of the day when I can stay at home and earn some money on the side when I want it’

3/ The large scale employer who will send our jobs out of this country with no loyalty or respect for the hard working people who helped earn them their wealth in the first place.
With all of this stacked against its no wonder the country is in such a state

alan, Vallys, Wales

one fact : so many on Incapacity because it suited succesive govts to take them off the jobseekers allowance figures.
Is it just me who treats anything this govt says in way of initiatives etc. with a hearty laugh up my sleeve. O yes lets get the private sector involved, same as in NHS etc, where swathes of money have disappeard on such initiatives and consultants - an unmitigated, unrelenting disaster which workers in the health service are having to help redress by now being told to take a pay cut. Blair, Brown, Hutton et al should be ashamed of their posturing and pointing the finger at the jobless and single parents in a society where city bonuses of millions are the norm, where they themselves pay for nothing (look at their expenses for goodness sake) and where money can be found for projects like the useless Olympic games and a disastrous war dragging ever onwards.

joseph, GLASGOW,

It's a bit narrow to imply that all those using the incapacity benefit system are delusioned builders, tilers, carpenters, kitchen fitters etc bereft of the archetypal cheery eastern european will to work. I wonder how many 'incapable' people would remain in this degrading trap if, say, the Enterprise Allowance scheme was given a sensible re-think? Like it or not, there are people who simply cannot fit into the workplace at any level who may flourish if given the realistic chance to set up and run their own business.

Alicia Anderson, Richmond,

in an ideal world the jobs would be where the unemployed are... unfortunately they're not.
As for the fact that Poles etc. come here to work, well yes they do, often in the south east which (as many agree) is a costly place to live - do we really expect the longterm unemployed to move to the southeast (leaving their families behind) to share a squalid flat and earn a minium wage ? would it not be better to encourage the jobs to move out of the south east to the regions ? (reducing pressure in the south east etc) and 'balancing' the country?

gareth, Hull, Yorkshire

Mr Warren Cox, there is very little security when on benefits, and no assurance that you will be paid regularly, as DWP stops payment of Income Support whenever there is the slightest query about your income or situation. It is also very difficult to manage on £50 a week and there are big incentives to go back to work, such as Tax Credits etc. Being on benefits is soul-destroying and not a lifestyle option, believe me!
Obviously you've never had to wait 3 hours in a faceless social security office on a friday waiting to find out if they will give you any money for the weekend so that you can feed your children or keep your landlord off your back for another month. It is not a pleasant experience or one that most people choose to repeat. I cried with shame whilst I sat there.

Ms B, Bournemouth,

Apologies, sincere. Purves not toynbee. I'm sorry.

sue, London, UK

I have never understood how "Neets", whose only income was minimal benefits, managed to afford illegal drugs and excessive alcohol/nicotine habits in the first place.

Does permanent unemployment 'cause' addiction, does addiction 'cause' permanent unemployment, or is there an unknown third causative factor involved in these coincident data?

Brian Vallance, LEFKIMMI, Greece

"American wheezes like free haircuts and tattoo removal"? American? I think not. We're quite capable of acts of inanity on our own, thank you. We don't need to blame everything on our cousins over there.

Pat O'Donnell, Ascot,

I recall that in the 1950s all the futurologists predicted that, one fine day, most people would not need to work because the new technology would liberate them. Not much thought was given to how the virtuous idle were to live ; the assumption was that the general prosperity of the Utopia would take care of all that.

Well, the technology has done what it promised, albeit in unexpected ways. But human nature has not changed ; the haves want more and more while the have-nots despair. The wealthy inter-marry and consolidate their wealth and influence, while the poor don't even bother marrying, thus confirming their (and their children's) poverty and ineffectualness. The pundits ponder and pontificate - and tinker with the tax allowance system until it is so complex that no-one understands it. And the problem grows, of course.

I am fast becoming an unashamed Luddite.

James, Norfolk,

Does Purves believe that what she does is 'working'????

David Mitchell (Dr.), London,

Libby notices that long term welfare dependancy has emerged. She notices that we have changed from a contribution model of welfare (you are entitled because you contribute), to an entitlement only model. She notices that workplace law makes employers reluctant to take a chance on employees that are at all risky. She notices that this is unsustainable.

She doesn't notice that people who have been saying this for years like Frank Field are labelled uncaring or her own adjective - callous.

TDK, Edinburgh, Scotland

Apropos your article and the three comments, when is some one like you going to make the distinction between 'commerce' and 'economics'. Then there might be some progress with this problem of 'unemployment'.

Donald Emmett, London, UK

When you have the security of knowing that the Government will reliably pay you each month if you are on benefits, why would you aspire to take on a poorly paid role working on the minimum wage for a company that may potentially be exploiting you as an indiviual (minimum wage jobs don't have many perks or much in the way of job satisfaction. They may end up earning less in a job than on benefits. It just doesn't add up.
On the other side of the coin, why would companies want to employ people who may actually be going to work becuase they are forced to, rather than because they want to. They could be faced with unreliable staff who have no interest in doing any work at all, and spend their time 'long term sick', or finding excuses why they can't be at work.
I appreciate there will be those who can and will want to work, and I hope this new approach suits them well. However the benefits system can only carry so many people. You can take a horse to water, but can you make it drink?

Warren Cox, Newbury, Berkshire

Dear Sandy of N, India

Is that why 34% of India's children are malnourished?

Pete, Cov,

If this Labour government had not been so quick to please their new big business friends by allowing the importation of cheap third world and eastern European labour, then the long term British unemployed might have been able to participate in the successful economy we have had up until now and the benefits culture that has resulted might not be so great. Of course these people are living on benefits, they are at the lower end of the pay scale and they cannot compete with the low cost people that the mass unchecked immigration of the last 10 years has brought. You cannot live a British way of life and pay your way on the money these immigrants make, unless you want to live to their standards, who wants to live 10 in a 3 bedroom house? Thats the reality which never gets publicised. We as consumers may get cheap supermarket food but we are paying for it indirectly in ever higher taxation, with the likes of Tesco laughing all the way to the bank.

Mr Maher, London, UK

Super.....now that we have a labour force of 486 million in the EU with access to Britain for some reason British employers are crying out for those living on benefit annuities to come and spiece up their workforce before paying a trip to an industrial tribunal.

Getting creamed by Chinese competition and Brown's incompetent tax system is not challenging enough for small businesses who long to mentor the long-term unemployed.

It makes you wonder if too long spent in the public sector - BBC, Quangoland, Govt dulls the sense that revenue does not come automatically in the form of a BACS transfer each month but has to be earned through daily uncertainty

TomTom, Leeds, UK

Let me put forth the scenario prevalent in our Indian sub-continent. We don't have any dole system , or any such unemployment allowance which shall encourage a breed of "can work, won't work" sort of people. Frankly speaking our Government isn't robust enough, nor financially sturdy in fine fettle, to create any social security system for its citizens, except the Family pension and super annuation schemes for the retirees chiefly from Government jobs. As such the hoi polloi and the commoners, don't have any back up support and solely rely upon their own will, toil and efforts to earn their livelihood.On face of it 'unemployment' is a curse , but the creeping and long nagging unemployed state acts like an addiction. As per our religious tenet, the theory of "karma" or work is worship , keeps a person going ahead in life. Being unemployed, a state of laziness , indolence and work-shy attitude builts in the personality of a person. Remaining 'unwaged' such people either turn into beggars, or sheer derelicts.

Sandy, N, India

Following my previous statement... I have also worked two full time jobs each minimum wage or just a little above and yet still could not manage to earn enough to pay for rent. I had to live in my car. That costs more money than necessary because you can't keep frozen foods or anything that needs to be cooked. So all meals were either take out or something that need not be cooked or kept in a freezer depleeting any possibility to save money. It isn't like some of us aren't trying, it is impossible to get ahead when the system lets you down. There are many things that could be fixed if the leaders of this country would really worry about the people instead of their own fattening wallets. Don't get me wrong, I love my country, but not what is happening to the people.

Jamie, Spanaway, Washington

In America many childless young adults are told to make it on minimum wage. Pay for a vehicle, pay for a house and all the needs and necessities on minimum wage, what a joke! It doesn't help that the min. wage went up especially when taxes, utilities, gas, food and housing costs have increased so much, really what was the point? All that did was make it harder for the small businesses to maintain their employees and their business. If it were illegal for large corporations to keep their workers under the 40 hour work weeks to save themselves money (no health insurance) or sending jobs to foreign lands (cutting jobs in the USA). That would create more full-time jobs, *the full 40 hours a week with health bennifits* ,then us welfare babies could get a fair chance. Those of us going to college have to decide between food or a needed text book, because we can't get any welfare or good scholarships unless we were black, hispanic, unwed mom/dad or other restriction. Is that realy fair?

Jamie, Spanaway, Washington

"The bald fact is that anybody able-bodied, with no serious domestic caring to do, should earn their keep. "

I am able bodied, and would like to earn my keep, but I have severe and enduring mental illness. Who would ever employ me? Employers run businesses, not asylums.

Sue, Birmingham, UK

America suffers from a similar problem as well. If I were person on benefits in america and got a "minimum wage" job then I would lose any sort of health care, dental care, help with children's day care and be paid a wage that I could not pay the rent, put food on the table nor cloth the children with. What possible incentive is that to even consider the switch to a life without benefits? Additionally with a subpar education I would never hope to rise to any income within any reasonable period of time that would make the lure of leaving benefits worthwhile. I think both the governments of the UK and American miss the most important lure they could use to get people back to work and off the benefits....FREE EDUCATION...help people increase their educational level and give them the skills to get a job that would pay wages GREATER than benefits and this alone would lower the number on benefits to a great degree and the money spent on educating these people would more than come back by having people leave benefits in greater numbers.

Henry Ramirez, superior, Wisconsin, USA

An excellent article, but it always makes my blood run cold when I read that people are put onto Incapacity Benefit because they had a sympathetic GP but nothing physically wrong with them - other than their employment prospects. I have been on Incapacity Benefit for almost 8 years following a hear attack, and and am fed up with being labelled a 'scrounger'! It should be remembered that Incapacity Benefit is only awarded to those who have worked, and contributed to society. I served 30 years in the forces and began a second career in the civil service which was cut dramatically short, going from a £28k (then) salary to a £300 Incapacity Benefit, with all the pleasures of a mortgage still to pay and the normal household bills - thank god for plastic! Now I'm told that the intent is for me to get back to work. Fine, I'm 64, and even I wouldnt employ me, not while there are fit people available! Are we just another easy sitting target?

Bill Glanvill, Horsham, W Sussex

No one has yet dealt with the issue of unemployment by those over 45 - politicians talk about these things but nothing changes. Employers are not interested. So you accept low level temporary jobs when you are highly qualified in experience and qualifications. Because you have done a top job well you are overqualified for the lesser level job which you are willing to do. So you go down the scale of jobs. No one believes you when you say that you are willing to take an average pay job. They think something is wrong when they see the experience on the CV. The hidden and silent issue is that you are too old. So temporary farm work or as a driver is the only work because no one asks for the CV. You sell your house to release capital so that you can put money into pension savings for your old age. and so it continues - no hope. And less capital to maybe invest in a business - please note that the banks are not interested in lending if you are too old. Tinkering with special schemes will never help, yet this is all the government is going to do, and in the meantime valuable and motivated human capital is being wasted and lost

J Gardner, Oxford, uk

It has never worried me overmuch, but I have wondered sometimes why since I retired at the age of 49 in 1984 I have not found employment in the UK. I have since been gainfully employed - mostly in a training capacity - for the last 22 years in the Middle East and Asia. The main skills missing in the UK seems to be good administration and management (especially in government!), which I had once in abundance. So it's all a bit puzzling! I see that 10% of the UK population is now overseas. Such a brain-drain might account for UK governance problems over the ten years of New Labour!

Brian Lewis, Manila, Philippines

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Libby Purves

Libby Purves worked for some years for BBC Radio 4, as a reporter and a presenter on the Today programme and, since 1983, has presented Midweek. She joined The Times as a columnist in 1990. She received an OBE in 1999 for her services to journalism and was Columnist of the Year in the same year. In her spare time she writes bestselling novels. Her opinion column appears in the The Times on Tuesdays