Welfare reform and austerity: continuity and change

Despite the ebb and flow of welfare entitlement,Footnote ² the reform trajectory was characterised by a remarkable degree of continuity between 1979 and 2010 (Wright, Reference Wright2012; Stewart and Wright, Reference Stewart and Wright2014).Footnote ³ During this period, the broad direction of travel can be seen as one of ‘creeping conditionality’, whereby welfare reforms reduced the extent and level of welfare entitlements and increased the use of conditional entitlements across a range of policy domains (Dwyer, Reference Dwyer2004b). As a result, the language of social citizenship shifted further away from ‘rights’ and more towards the concept of ‘employment assistance’ and ‘support’ (Carmel and Papadopoulos, Reference Carmel, Papadopoulos and Millar2003). In addition to this, a substantial number of individuals were incorporated into the tax-benefit churn through the introduction and expansion of in-work social security for low-income individuals and families with children (Dean, Reference Dean2004).

During the years of New Labour, welfare conditionality was extended to target more and more individuals who were previously exempt from activation measures (Griggs and Bennett, Reference Griggs and Bennett2009; Dwyer and Wright, Reference Dwyer and Wright2014). Alongside this, means-testing became an increasingly prominent feature of working-age social security (Hood and Oakley, Reference Hood and Oakley2014b). Benefit uprating varied according to the target group in question and the real-term value of working-age social security fell over time (Hood and Oakley, Reference Hood and Oakley2014a). There was also an increasing trend towards selectivity and targeting of social security provisions, with working-age, childless and low-income groups losing out the most (Hood and Oakley, Reference Hood and Oakley2014b).

By the 2010 general election, there was broad political consensus on the need to ‘re-vision’ the welfare contract, with each of the three main political parties competing to be the ‘toughest’ on welfare reform (Patrick, Reference Patrick2012). Beyond a desire to go ‘further and faster’, there was initially little to distinguish the Conservative Party's approach from the ‘policy paradigm established by Labour’ (Lister and Bennett, Reference Lister and Bennett2010: 102). Coming into power in 2010, the Conservative–Liberal Democrat coalition government sought to procure a political and policy mandate for welfare state retrenchment and fiscal consolidation by citing the profligate welfare system as the principle cause of welfare dependency and public sector debt (CSR., 2010; DWP, 2010; Clarke and Newman, Reference Clarke and Newman2012). In keeping with previous political administrations, it mobilised a range of discursive strategies that problematised ‘cultures of worklessness’ and sought to tackle ‘welfare dependency’ (Garthwaite, Reference Garthwaite2011; Slater, Reference Slater2014). Such strategies have proven particularly effective at cultivating an ‘anti-welfare commonsense’ amongst the general public, including those receiving low-income social security (Shildrick and MacDonald, Reference Shildrick and MacDonald2013; Jensen and Tyler, Reference Jensen and Tyler2015).

As a result, the policy agendas of welfare reform and fiscal consolidation became tightly intertwined with each deriving its political legitimacy and policy imperative from the other: ‘the age of irresponsibility is giving way to the age of austerity’ (Cameron, Reference Cameron2009). In many respects, welfare reforms implemented since 2010 can be seen as an extension, personalisation (according to individual circumstances and needs) and intensification of welfare conditionality (Grover, Reference Grover2012; Dwyer and Wright, Reference Dwyer and Wright2014; Johnsen, Reference Johnsen2014; Stewart and Wright, Reference Stewart and Wright2014). Whilst there is a great deal of continuity in this regard, there are two key developments that indicate a shift in welfare politics ‘which is unprecedented’ (Taylor-Gooby and Stoker, Reference Taylor-Gooby and Stoker2011: 14). These are the scale and regressive nature of the cuts to public social spending and the elevated role of welfare withdrawal and sanctions.

Regarding the former, welfare state retrenchment has frequently been used to impel public service reform and recalibration (cf. Pierson, Reference Pierson and Pierson2001). Historically, it has tended to exist more in political and policy rhetoric than in reality. However, public spending fell from 47.1 to 42.7 per cent of GDP between 2009/10 and 2014/15 in the UK (Lupton et al., Reference Lupton, Burchardt, Fitzgerald, Hills, McKnight, Obolenskaya, Stewart, Thomson, Tunstall and Vizard2015). Since 2010, public social spending has consistently fallen in real-terms and is set to fall further over the coming years (OBR, 2015). Contributing towards this, are a series of changes to the tax-benefit system, including the introduction of a benefit cap for social tenants, ‘removal of the spare bedroom subsidy’ and cuts to working tax credits for many low-income lone parents and families. Despite assurances that ‘those with the broadest shoulders should bear the greatest burden’, public service reforms as well as tax-benefit changes have been highly regressive (De Agostini et al., Reference De Agostini, Hills and Sutherland2015). Alongside this, benefit sanctions and financial penalties now have an increasingly prevalent role with these being used much more widely and frequently than ever before in social security, but also other welfare domains. This has led to the suspension and withdrawal of public social assistance for a substantial number of low-income individuals and vulnerable groups (Fletcher, Reference Fletcher2011; Watts et al., Reference Watts, Fitzpatrick, Bramley and Watkins2014). For example, the number of JSA sanctions grew by 69 per cent from 351,440 to 594,865 per annum between 2008 and 2014 (DWP, 2016). The number of ESA sanctions grew by 84 per cent from 18,846 to 34,710 per annum between 2009 and 2014 (DWP, 2016). The new sanctions regime introduced between 2012 and 2013 has increased the severity and frequency of sanctions, which has had the most deleterious effects on young people, lone parents, disabled people and recently homeless individuals. During this period, ‘almost one million individuals were referred for sanctioning, and more than half a million (528,000) received an adverse decision’ (Watts et al., Reference Watts, Fitzpatrick, Bramley and Watkins2014: 5).

Whilst a systematic trend towards liberal paternalism in welfare reforms has been observable in the long term, a sharper shift has occurred since 2010 (Wright, Reference Wright2016). In light of these developments, the UK welfare system can be understood as entering a ‘new phase’ of ‘fundamental restructuring’ (Taylor-Gooby, Reference Taylor-Gooby2012; Hastings et al., Reference Hastings, Bailey, Gannon, Besemer and Bramley2015). The emergence of ‘welfare austerity’ can be seen as instigating ‘a new, more constrained and qualitatively different deal for citizens than that envisaged by the architects of the post-war welfare state’ (Dwyer and Wright, Reference Dwyer and Wright2014: 33).

Welfare austerity: clarifying its implications for social citizenship

Cumulatively, welfare austerity has made the material and symbolic benefits of social citizenship ‘increasingly conditional, exclusive and selective’ (Lister, Reference Lister2011: 78). Crucially though, it remains unclear at what point, if any, the diminishing value of, and increasing conditions attached to, welfare vitiate its character as a right of social citizenship. This is principally due to the conceptual indeterminacy of citizenship and its consequent lack of clear boundary limits and definitions. Here, social citizenship can be understood as something of a Sorites Paradox. A Sorites Paradox refers to the problem of conceptual vagueness, or rather the indeterminate applicability of key terms. Consider a heap of sand; if one grain of sand is taken away, a heap still remains. If another is removed, the same applies, and so on and so forth. However, at some point the collection of grains becomes so small that the sand can no longer, logically, be considered a heap. The difficulty comes in trying to define and identify the particular point at which this occurs.

Similarly, let us turn to the example of social citizenship. Analytically, it is worth thinking of social citizenship, in its paradigmatic form, as a heap of sand. As the value of welfare provision diminishes and the conditions attached to its receipt increase, the grains of sand that comprise the rights and status of social citizenship diminish over time. However, the difficulty comes in identifying the minimum conditions that safeguard the status of social citizenship, that is, the crucial difference that distinguishes citizenship from non-citizenship.Footnote ⁴ Whilst the multidimensional phenomenon of citizenship makes an exhaustive theory problematic, a ‘systematic’ sociology of citizenship is necessary to understand the material and symbolic implications of welfare austerity.

Given broader historical reforms and the more recent policy measures implemented since 2010, there are three key considerations of relevance: the ‘effectiveness’, ‘inalienability’ and ‘universality’ of contemporary social citizenship. This should help in some way to establish at what point the grains of sand comprising citizenship become so diminished that we can no longer reasonably consider someone to be in possession of the rights and status of social citizenship. In other words, at what point might can we consider welfare austerity to have rendered the rights of social citizenship ineffectual in safeguarding an equality of status notionally guaranteed through membership?

Turning to the question of effectiveness, T.H. Marshall (Reference Marshall1950: 10–11) suggests that, at their most basic level, social rights should provide ‘the right to a modicum of economic welfare and security’. Whilst this is by no means the most expansive conception of social rights, it can be seen as the basis from which to build to ensure an effective participation standard. All those who do not possess this:

Crucially, the real-term value and degree of social protection that is available independently of the labour market has fallen in the short and long term.Footnote ⁵ Since 2012, spending on working-age benefits has fallen as a proportion of GDP (Hills, Reference Hills2015). Stagnation in the real incomes of those in the middle of the income distribution has tempered the effects on inequality and relative poverty in the short-term (DWP, 2015). However, absolute poverty has risen for children, working-age adults, pensioners and households affected by disability (DWP, 2015). If the constitutive relation between the rights and status of social citizenship is broken, those in a condition of material deprivation cannot logically be considered social citizens. In light of this, the hollowing out of welfare rights, particularly for those reliant on low-income social security, has undermined the status of social citizenship.Footnote ⁶ It seems then that the term ‘social citizen’, or even ‘citizen’ may actually serve to obscure the experience and significance of welfare austerity for those most perniciously affected by it.

Turning to the second question of ‘inalienability’, conditions attached to welfare provision have been a longstanding feature of welfare states (Goodin and Rein, Reference Goodin and Rein2001). Whilst some suggest that the mere imposition of conditions attached to social rights undermines their status and efficacy, the point at which this occurs is less clear (King, Reference King1999). Clasen and Clegg (Reference Clasen, Clegg, Clasen and Siegel2007: 171–5) develop a distinction between three different types of welfare conditionality: conditions of category (socio-demographic and employment categories of support); conditions of circumstance (fulfilment of entitlement criteria on the basis of eligibility and/or need) and conditions of conduct (fulfilment of behavioural requirements). Elaborating on this distinction, Watts et al. (Reference Watts, Fitzpatrick, Bramley and Watkins2014) suggest that there has been a steady increase in welfare conditionality, but particularly conditions of conduct, since the 1970s. Building upon the principle of welfare contractualism that pervaded dominant political and policy thinking during the years of New Labour, the Coalition government and incumbent Conservative political administration have sought to strengthen work-related and social obligations attached to welfare provision since 2010 (Wiggan, Reference Wiggan2011; McKay and Rowlingson, Reference McKay, Rowlingson, Bochel and Powell2016). The elevated role of these conditions of conduct is not only observable in the area of social security, but also in other social policy domains. Increasingly, non-compliance with these conditions results in the suspension, reduction or termination of entitlement to public social assistance and provisions (Dwyer and Wright, Reference Dwyer and Wright2014; Watts et al., Reference Watts, Fitzpatrick, Bramley and Watkins2014). Alongside a strengthening of the conditions of category and circumstance, conditions of conduct have weakened the inalienability of welfare entitlement bound up with the praxis of social citizenship in the UK. Within such a context, it becomes increasingly difficult to characterise those subjected to such reforms as ‘social citizens’.

Finally, it is necessary to consider the extent of universality inhered in social citizenship during times of welfare austerity. According to T.H. Marshall (Reference Marshall1950), the shared entitlements and duties conferred through citizenship status must, at the very minimum, uphold equality of status, thereby promoting a sense of collective belonging and identity. Beyond the provision of social rights then, citizenship should operate in a way that moderates material and status differentials between citizen members. Having said that, the heterogeneous operation of citizenship is needed to accommodate a plurality of needs, capacities and applications. The variegated nature of social citizenship is perhaps a necessary feature of its efficacy in this regard. However, at what point does citizenship become so variegated that it can no longer be considered to uphold equality of status between its members?

A great deal of research has outlined the regressive distributional impact of austerity and welfare reform implemented since 2010 (e.g. Lupton et al., Reference Lupton, Burchardt, Fitzgerald, Hills, McKnight, Obolenskaya, Stewart, Thomson, Tunstall and Vizard2015). Overall, low-income households have been worst affected by real-term cuts to working-age social security. According to De Agostini et al. (Reference De Agostini, Hills and Sutherland2015: 31), the distributional effects of changes to social security and direct taxes ‘were regressive. Against a price-linked base, the poorest 30 per cent lost or broke even on average and the top half gained, with the exception of the top 5 per cent’. As such, the evidence suggests that wealthier households have disproportionately benefited from policy developments, whilst poorer households have lost out in relative and nominal terms. This is by no means a novel development in social policy: wealthier households are ‘frequently able to make better use of the common services of the welfare system’ (Vincent, Reference Vincent1991: 181) and of those forms of occupational and fiscal welfare that operate alongside social welfare (Titmuss, Reference Titmuss1958). However, at least in the UK context, these social divisions of welfare have tended to develop during times of welfare state growth and expansion (Mann, Reference Mann2008). The current consolidation of social divisions is occurring alongside highly regressive cuts to public social expenditure – particularly in the domain of social welfare. Within such a context, the increasingly variegated praxis of social citizenship propagates rather than moderates material and status inequalities and undermines the collectivisation of social risk and return. In this regard, social citizenship can currently be understood as implicated in the continuation and growth of inequalities in the UK.

To summarise, measures implemented since 2010 have undermined the ‘effectiveness’, ‘inalienability’ and ‘universality’ of social citizenship. As noted, due to the indeterminacy of the central term it is difficult to identify the exact point at which an individual is deprived of the rights and status of social citizenship. However, for those most negatively affected by welfare austerity, it is becoming increasingly difficult to characterise these individuals as in possession of the constitutive elements of social citizenship. Their dispossession of the same entitlements as other members of the citizenry not only compromises their equality of status but also the internal coherence of social citizenship in the UK context.

Lived realities of welfare austerity

There is a strong heritage of social policy research exploring lived realities of poverty, social exclusion and welfare reform in the UK (cf. Pemberton et al., Reference Pemberton, Sutton and Fahmy2013). For the purposes of this themed section, this article focuses principally on the more recent empirical contributions to this area that demonstrate the exclusionary dynamics of social citizenship within the current context of welfare austerity. Research confirms that the most deprived areas and communities have been hardest hit by cuts to central and local government spending (Beatty and Fothergill, Reference Beatty and Fothergill2014). Combined with this, welfare reforms are having compound negative effects on the pecuniary position of low-income households (Aldridge and MacInnes, Reference Aldridge and MacInnes2014; Drinkwater et al., Reference Drinkwater, Graham, Kempster and Thomas2014). According to the empirical evidence, day-to-day experiences arising from this have been characterised by fuel poverty, food insecurity, social isolation, insecure tenure, social and familial breakdown and ill health (Athwal et al., Reference Athwal, Brill, Chesters and Quiggin2011; Cooper, Reference Cooper2014; Garthwaite, Reference Garthwaite2014; Pemberton et al., Reference Pemberton, Sutton, Fahmy and Bell2014; Perry et al., Reference Perry, Williams, Sefton and Haddad2014; Dowler and Lambie-Mumford, Reference Dowler and Lambie-Mumford2015; Garthwaite et al., Reference Garthwaite, Collins and Bambra2015).

Faced with increasing financial precarity and uncertainty, households and communities are regularly engaged in the hard work of ‘getting by’ on low-income social security in an attempt to secure, or at least come close to meeting, their basic needs (Lister, Reference Lister2004; Patrick, Reference Patrick2014). The coping strategies drawn upon include borrowing money, reducing fuel and food consumption, ‘going without’, seeking support from family and friends, making use of foodbanks, restricting expenditure to the ‘basis necessities’ and not engaging in social or recreational activities (Cooper, Reference Cooper2014; Patrick, Reference Patrick2014; Pemberton et al., Reference Pemberton, Sutton, Fahmy and Bell2014; Dermott and Pomati, Reference Dermott and Pomati2015; Garthwaite et al., Reference Garthwaite, Collins and Bambra2015; Main and Bradshaw, Reference Main and Bradshaw2016). Whilst these coping strategies help overcome exigent barriers to meeting human needs, this appears to come at a significant physical and psychological cost to those affected by welfare austerity. Research reveals that many feel that their everyday experiences are damaging to their sense of self-worth, and describe feelings of alienation, degradation, shame, stigma and depression (e.g. Chase and Walker, Reference Chase and Walker2013; Baumberg, Reference Baumberg2016).

Drawing on a large qualitative examination of ‘Life on a Low Income in Austere Times’, Pemberton et al. (Reference Pemberton, Sutton, Fahmy and Bell2014: 37–9) find that many of these findings resonate with previous research exploring lived experiences of poverty, social exclusion and welfare reform. However, the authors note increased feelings of pressure, insecurity and marginalisation articulated by those subjected to welfare austerity. A number of other studies also highlight how low-income households are ‘finding things tougher than in previous years’ (Chase and Walker, Reference Chase and Walker2013: 4). Through the accounts, experiences and outcomes of low-income households, this evidence suggests welfare austerity is undermining a common sense of citizen belonging, identity and entitlement for many, particularly low-income households.