welfare
Mining communities, unemployment and incapacity benefits
As the government prepares to slash incapacity benefits, Rob Ray looks at a report brought out last year which is amongst the starkest examples of how incapacity has been used in recent years to hide much of the country's unemployment problems.
'20 Years on: Has the economy of the coalfields recovered?' examined communities where over 10% of the population had been employed in the mines before the mass closures.
The report, brought out by the Centre for regional and social economic research at Sheffield Hallam university, said:
Labour's cruellest cut - Incapacity benefits in detail
Iain Mackay explores the government's proposals to cut benefits for the disabled - claimed by nearly 3 million - and discovers damned lies in the statistics.
The latest of New Labour's attacks on working class people has been announced. The aim is to abolish Incapacity Benefit (IB). Of course, the radical sounding rhetoric has been applied. Alan Johnson, the Work and Pensions secretary, described the changes as the most radical benefit reform for sick and disabled people since the Beveridge report.
From state provision to charity sector - the friendly face of privatisation
From the Bulgarian education system to the Bolivian water supply, capitalists love nothing more than turning an area of life previously financed by universal taxation into a source of profit.
The announcement that the government’s new get-tough-on-disabled-people regime will not be implemented by a government department is an indicator of a much wider process - the wholesale privatisation of public services in Britain. The ‘assessment’ of disabled people, care homes, employment and training services, the justice system; all are up for grabs.
Incapacity benefit cuts
New Labour cut back on benefits to the disabled.
Apparently David Blunkett was decidedly mellow when it came to Incapacity Benefits cuts, at least he was compared to new Work & Pensions secretary John Hutton (weekly salary: £2,600). This week Hutton outlined his plans to introduce a range of penalties for claimants (weekly income: £58 a week) who show unwillingness to take part in ‘work focussed’ activities.
