By Rose Tedeschi
Liz Kendall says that young Universal Credit claimants are ‘taking the mickey’ by choosing not to work. Never mind that Universal Credit pays a standard rate of only £393.45 a month, less than a person could make in a week on a full-time minimum wage job. Never mind that millions of jobs are so badly paid that 38% of UC claimants, 2.4 million people, are currently in work.
Liz Kendall’s comments that ‘we can’t have a situation where doing a day’s work is in itself seen as stressful’, and that young people don’t understand that work is ‘just the nature of life and that isn’t stress or pressure’ are condescending. They will fuel anti-disability sentiment and encourage harmful stereotypes about mental health.
The implication that young people can’t understand the difference between suffering from mental health challenges and hard work is patronising and untrue. Around 37% of all new claims are now mental health related. And is it any great surprise?
On 6 February Labour claimed that the ‘broken’ benefits system is ‘letting down people with mental health conditions who want to work,’ suggesting that many who are classed as ‘long term sick’ are being prevented from re-entering the workforce. They say that changes to the benefits system will help those who are ‘crying out for support’ while ‘people who can work, should work’. The underlying threat is that there will be ‘consequences for those who do not fulfil their obligations’ to take any job on offer.
The consequences, it seems, will come in the form of huge cuts to the welfare budget targeted at the £80.8bn cost of Universal Credit and £39.1bn of disability benefits. Cuts were initially feared to be in the magnitude of £3bn but now look set to be much higher. Starmer’s self-described ‘ruthless’ cuts will devastate millions of people.
Poverty and discrimination
Many prominent disabled charities have spoken out against the cuts, fearing they will ‘plunge more disabled people into poverty’ by raising the threshold for accessing help, rather than focusing on ‘invest[ing] in an equal future for disabled people’. Nadia Whittome, Labour MP for Nottingham East, said ‘the changes that the government is proposing will do nothing to help people with mental illnesses. It will just make their lives harder.’
The truth is that poverty limits access to healthcare; hospitals and other health services in lower-income areas are typically oversubscribed and underfunded. Systematic racism and prejudice discourages people of colour from accessing medical help and sees them receive worse care.
Mental health claims are consistently dismissed and not taken seriously, leaving millions without support and allowing their illnesses to worsen. All this forces people onto the benefits system, for which they are demonised and left struggling.
Work may not be stressful for Liz Kendall, who earns £150,000 as a minister and whose banker husband is on £600,000. They probably hire home helps (servants) to do their shopping and housework. For those at the other end of the scale, a bullying boss demanding you work faster for less each day is the final straw.
The real aim of these reforms is to force people into low-paid, part-time, flexible work. Our benefit system must instead provide a good standard of living for the disabled and unemployed, rather than poverty and harassment.
While many of those in receipt of benefits are not in employment, benefits are a trade union issue. The threat of poverty serves to keep workers afraid of unemployment and more willing to tolerate falling wages and worsening conditions. Our unions should demand that benefits are raised to match a living wage, paid for by taxing the rich.
It is clear where Labour’s loyalties lie, and it’s not with their working class voters. For the upcoming struggle against austerity, we need to unite the working class in resistance – employed and unemployed, able-bodied and disabled. To truly make inroads against capitalism and struggle for a society based on human need, we need a revolutionary party.
