So it's the fault of the workless, and nothing to do with level of payment of subsistence / earnings replacement benefits, then ? I wonder what Joseph Rowntree, amongst others, would say about it ?

oooh, i've never been so...as mrs miggins would say...
the link between poverty and ill-health is nothing new, nor is disingenuous posturing by politicians...

it's possible that we (the electorate in general) have plumbed new lows in cynicism, as far as expectations of politicians goes, in reaction to the cynicism of the politicians, or maybe it's just my age...?

i have to wonder why he thought his party has been making such 'heart-felt' bleatings on child poverty, if he really didn't know why, but would really prefer he takes the very complex issues more seriously than construing statistics to support his workfare policy.

(posting, as it 'appens, from sick leave)

If work was so damned good for you, the rich would keep it all for themselves...

What better example could you find of how much Whitehall is out of touch with the real world outside of the M25..?

Clearly Mr hain has never had to claim a benefit in his life - he's never suddenly found himself unemployed, had to try and survive on £59 per week, had to watch his credit rating drop to zero as he fails to pay his cards, direct debits etc , and in the meantime pay all his utility bills, feed himself and find the cash to use public transport to actively seek work.

I would publically challenge him to live on a single persons JSA for one month, if only to give himself a brief insight into the real world.

For a Minister in a goverment which professes to want to change the lot of the working people, to admit that he doesn't begin to understand what the real world looks like is beyond belief..


Please note that all views expressed are of a personal nature, and do not reflect in anyway the views of any Local Authority, and the words have been changed to avoid being censored by Shawn......

Better still Mike,

Hain should actually have to make a claim for JSA through the simplified JCP, oh and have no money too, so he could claim a crisis loan or claim an interim payment, have a work focused interview (25 miles away like a lot of rural claimants have to). Find somewhere in the private sector to rent, claim HB/CTB, find a dentist, find a wallmart/macdonalds type job with a short term contract or zero hours contract (then claim tax credits to top up the very low minimum wage his govt lauds as a success). Rely solely on privatised/deregulated transport, live miles from adequate shops (out of town shopping urban and rural problem). Have access to health care which is rationed on a post code basis, and centralised so you need a car to access it.

I could go on and on and on.But my impotent righteous rage makes me despair with our current historical cycle, in which the bad and the greedy reign supreme again, after that short little window after the 2nd world war to the late 70's. I'm with Ghandi on the civilisation bit and the west.

gotta go and think about funghi.

So we are stuck with the usual suspects belonging to political parties with different names - same policies, same ideology, same sentiments,same dodgy policies that create the same social ills which they perpetuate and compound all just competing for the same space up the greasy pole, only to blunder and bluster.

Then to add insult to injury they all (or aspiring to)exercise venal policies reminiscent of Louis the wotsit in Ancien France in the latter part of the 18th century e.g. asset stripping, PFI's, patronage e.g. cash for honours, govt contracts to organisations headed by ex-govt wotsits.

No Jan its not your age, its the age we live in!

honestly, i wonder sometimes, whether it's a generation thing, like favoutite music...plus i'm aware that my 'formative years' in the old DHSS started in the early seventies, and on the national insurance side...a lovely lady called hilda became my unofficial mentor on the pensions section - she was part time tribunal clerk, (there were local appeal tribunals in those days) and she had started pre-1948 on (NI) card exchange, done every job going, and knew everything! : )

but i do think there are all sorts of things that we, focused on ss law and rights, haven't quite caught up with...
it has been a long time since the DSS was a clockwork admin machine with the law at the heart of it, and administering the benfit system it's raison d'etre. one look at the DWP business plan makes that clear. (btw, does anyone know what the Customer Insight Unit is??)
what i don't like about it is that there's a lot of meddling and fiddling about that i assume comes out of the social security budget, when it is social engineering spending, but accountability-wise, the size of the department's budget is always part of all the tutting and demonizing of social security claimants, so that's all right then...nobody cares, apart from Mr. Hain, when he's giving a speech...

now it seems that 'controlling the gateway' is the thing, and all the rights in the world don't mean anything if you can't access them, and the processors don't know about them...

the contracting out of 'pathways to work' -the stick and the orange coloured stick approach... a friend of mine who works in that field recently applied for a job with one of the successful contractors and attended an interview day, in which the candidates had to give a short presentation on 'long term unemployment is due to personal failings'... this was identified as a trick question, and the presentation prepared on the scenario of a real live person with learning difficulties, dyslexia and epilepsy, who had left 'special' school at 15 unable to read or write, count, tell the time etc... the thrust of the talk being that you cannot provide the help and support such people need to get into employment by blaming them or regarding them as failures...
guess what...? it wasn't a trick question, and the interviewer blokey (believed to have set the task) was pretty hot under the collar about his presentation, which was definitely meant as a serious proposition. my friend is an experienced employment adviser, who has worked with people with mental health problems, ethnic minorities, and all sorts of folks with barriers of various kinds. he told me he thought the other candidates were a good bunch (he would have employed them!) mainly with 'sales' backgrounds.

go figure... : )

Fri 19-Oct-07 09:14 AM by shawn

(Edited to shorten link)

As a fully paid up member of the National Union of Pedants and Allied Trades, I decided to have a look at the BMJ study quoted by Hain.

For a start the study was published in July 2006, so either the DWP's internal post is as bad at Whitehall as it is elsewhere or Mr Hain is a little behind in his reading.

Secondly, what the study analyses is deaths from EXTERNAL causes ie deaths from injury and poisoning - it's not a study of ill health in children. It specifically mentions road traffic accidents and house fires.

Thirdly, the study does not provide a proper comparison over the years because of the way socio-economic class is/was measured. Looking at the figures for 89-92 the death rates for 'Unskilled Manual' families is about three times HIGHER than for 'Unoccupied' families. Therefore children from the lowest paid working families are now safer compared to those on benefits. So you could make an argument about increases in the minimum wage versus cuts in benefit rates since that time. I can see the Dail Mail headline now - "Government policy is killing our kids".

Finally I quote from the "Possible mechanisms and implications for policymakers" section of the study. All emphasis are mine.

"Explanations for the inequalities that persist between children from workless families and those in work are NECESSARILY SPECULATIVE but probably lie in different exposures as there is NO RELIABLE EVIDENCE that differences in attitudes and knowledge can account for them. The higher risk of being killed as a pedestrian, compared with as a car occupant, certainly suggests greater exposure to risk of road injury. Their higher risk of dying in house fires may reflect the quality and type of housing, with THE GREATEST RISKS FOR THOSE IN TEMPORARY AND POOR HOUSING."

I'll leave it to you whether Hain is being disengenious in how he uses this study or whether it was a bit hard for him (it does have some big words and a couple of graphs in it).

The study is available here

David

Cheers Shawn, I can't get the hang of this interweb thingy.

David

"We believe however that work represents the most sustainable route out of poverty," says the minister in today's news story. Ergo people not in work (and on benefits) live in poverty. So they aren't income replacement benefits, then, and recipients must, then, live in poverty. But the amounts paid won't be increased to bring people out of poverty, will they ? When I last talked to my 106 year old grandmother who worked in "the Department" pre 1948, she wondered how ministers had the gall to be proud of our benefits system. No wonder she encouraged me to fight being included on Mr Lilley's infamous little (Benefit Tourist) list.
Thanks to everyone who has put in their two penny worth on his one. I can't remember a minister going on record to state that people on benefits live in poverty, before. I'm sure someone else can, though ...