What is it about?
This article shows how despite deteriorating labour markets following the 2008 recession, working class participants retain a strong commitment to work, but face a variety of challenges in accessing work, primarily linked to its availability, but also including issue such as ill-health and caring commitments. The article then goes on to show how the participants in this study are being impacted by 'punitive' welfare reform, which has been intensified under the Conservative-Liberal Democrat Coalition. This primarily relates to benefits 'sanctions' (the suspension of payments) for supposed 'non-compliance'.
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Why is it important?
This article provides some insights into the failures of more recent neoliberal welfare reforms in the UK, demonstrating their failure to provide meaningful support to recipients, while intensify pressures on the individual and exacerbating poverty.
Perspectives
The impression of 'punitive' welfare reform generated by this research is that it is more about disciplining low income populations than it is about supporting them or helping them into work.
Dr Bob Jeffery
Sheffield Hallam University
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: ‘There’s Nothing’: Unemployment, Attitudes to Work and Punitive Welfare Reform in Post-Crash Salford, Sociological Research Online, July 2018, SAGE Publications,
DOI: 10.1177/1360780418787521.
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