Welfare reforms sparked benefits backlash

The shift in the public towards the view that benefits are too generous and promote a dependency culture coincided with New Labour’s reforms to welfare in the late 1990s, new research suggests.

At team from the University of Bristol analysed data from the British Social Attitudes (BSA) survey, conducted every year since 1983 to capture a range of social, political and moral views.

The results show that a change in attitude towards unemployment and social security benefits coincided with the introduction of Labour’s New Deal policies in 1998.

Tony Blair said that “welfare will be a hand-up, and not a hand-out” in 1999 and that viewpoint is reflected by a change in public attitude.

Throughout much of the 1980s and 1990s, there was a widespread belief that out-of-work benefits were set at such derisory levels that they caused significant hardship for people living on them.

In 1986, 46% of the British population said that out-of-work benefit rates were too low. By 1993, that figure had peaked at 55%.

However, at the start of the 21st century, a distinct shift began to emerge. People no longer accepted that benefit levels were inadequate and in 2011 only one person in five (19%) said they were set too low.

This coincided with a growing popular belief that the standard of living for claimants on welfare is too high. Generous benefits are now seen to discourage work and encourage ‘welfare dependency’.

Over half the population now say claimants could find work if they wanted, compared to a quarter in the early-1990s.

These attitudes are all the more striking considering the real value of unemployment benefit in Britain, which has changed very little over the last 30 years, while the rate of unemployment benefits against average earnings has seen a marked decline.

Dr Chris Deeming from Bristol University who led the research said: “Attitudes towards unemployed people are clearly changing and hardening fast. Solidarity with unemployed citizens, poor people and welfare claimants has declined significantly in recent times.

“The extent to which the long-running downward trend will continue as we approach the 2015 general election remains to be seen but a reversal of the trend seems most unlikely, given the direction of workfare policy in the UK.

“The survey findings suggest a fundamental shift in views on the underlying causes of unemployment. The British public now sees work aversion and the declining work ethic as one of the main issues facing society.

“Coupled with this trend is a growing belief that out-of-work benefits are now too generous and act to promote the ‘dependency culture’. This view is widely held, despite evidence to suggest the real value of unemployment benefit in Britain has changed hardly changed over the past 40 years.”