tag:theconversation.com,2011:/fr/topics/welfare-469/articlesWelfare – The Conversation2023-11-15T17:44:30Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2162822023-11-15T17:44:30Z2023-11-15T17:44:30ZHomeless mothers in England spend up to £300 per month on buses to get their children to school<p>When women with children are made homeless – usually by either rent arrears, after no-fault evictions or domestic violence – they are often moved into temporary accommodation. The latest figures from the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/statistical-data-sets/live-tables-on-homelessness#statutory-homelessness-live-tables">reveal</a> there are presently 104,510 households and 131,000 children living in temporary accommodation in England. </p>
<p>Sometimes this lack of a permanent place to call home is not so temporary. In Greater Manchester, specifically, homeless families spend on average <a href="https://sharedhealthfoundation.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/Homeless-Families-The-Gold-Standard.pdf">two years</a> in temporary accommodation. During that period, they can be moved multiple times, at very short notice and across boroughs. </p>
<p>For children experiencing homelessness, school is often seen as the <a href="https://assets.childrenscommissioner.gov.uk/wpuploads/2019/08/cco-bleak-houses-report-august-2019.pdf">one steady, safe environment</a>. And yet, being moved to temporary accommodation can often cause extensive disruption to schooling too. In 2023, the homelessness charity, <a href="https://tfl.ams3.cdn.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/documents/Still_Living_in_Limbo.pdf">Shelter</a>, surveyed 1,112 respondents living in temporary accommodation. It found that almost half (47%) of families surveyed with school-age children had needed to change their schools due to being moved far from their previous home. One in five (19%) children had to travel more than an hour to get to school. </p>
<p>Our <a href="https://sharedhealthfoundation.org.uk/publications/the-debt-trap-report/">new report</a>, published in collaboration with the <a href="https://sharedhealthfoundation.org.uk">Shared Health Foundation</a>, shows that some homeless families are spending up to one quarter of their monthly income – as much as £300 – on bus travel. Gaps in eligibility criteria – or the inability to complete applications – mean that people living in temporary accommodation are often unable to access financial support for what the UK government calls <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/home-to-school-travel-and-transport-guidance">“home-to-school travel”</a>. Free school bus passes for compulsory school-age children are one of the clearest examples of this. </p>
<h2>How homeless families rely on bus travel</h2>
<p>Nationally, free bus passes are available to both children eligible for free school meals and those whose families are in receipt of the maximum level of working tax credit. But this eligibility only extends to children attending their “nearest qualifying school”. Oldham council, for example, <a href="https://www.oldham.gov.uk/homepage/1407/mainstream_home_to_school_transport_and_college_transport_policy.html">defines</a> this as the nearest council-maintained school or educational establishment with places available, that caters to the age, ability, aptitude and any special educational needs of the child.</p>
<p>There are exemptions to this, mainly on the basis of children attending schools further away on religious grounds. These <a href="https://www.oldhamconnect.uk/Pages/Download/9b7ff1eb-28d7-4b1a-bc63-ca57f6d5441e/PageSectionDocuments">exemptions</a>, however, often do not apply to children who have been placed in temporary accommodation far from their schools. </p>
<p>In other words, the “nearest qualifying school” would be a school near to the child’s new temporary accommodation – to get the free school bus pass, the child would have to move to that school. If parents do not want to move children, out of concern that further disruption will be bad for them, the family – some of the country’s most vulnerable and indebted families – will have to pay large amounts of money for bus travel. </p>
<p>Between May 2022 and October 2023 we interviewed 13 women who all resided in Greater Manchester and had been made homeless with their children. They had lived in temporary accommodation and had experienced rental debt, council tax debt and other personal debts. </p>
<p>We also interviewed local frontline staff, councils, support workers and integrated service charities.</p>
<p>Our interviewees told us of the considerable logistical, financial and emotional burdens of maintaining stability in their children’s schooling. However, they all had little sense of how long they would be able to stay in their current temporary accommodation. </p>
<p>For homeless families, moving children to schools local to their current temporary accommodation is highly risky. They may only be in the area for a short period. </p>
<p>One woman we interviewed, Casho (not her real name) became homeless, with her three children, after experiencing domestic violence. Bus travel was crucial to ensuring her children stay in their existing schools and not miss out on education. But in order for each to reach their schools the family was forced to take multiple buses – 18 single bus journeys, daily. </p>
<p>Casho’s children were eligible for the free school bus passes. But to apply she needed to pay for passport photos and the wait between applying and receiving the pass could be weeks long. Casho did not have the money for passport photos so had not even been able to apply when we spoke with her.</p>
<p>For all the parents we interviewed, low income levels and debts owed meant that any additional payment – no matter how small – could be the difference between, say, getting the children to school, or being able to afford to put the heating on. </p>
<p>As Casho put it: “Sometimes food’s running out. But the bus, I need to buy a pass again.” Until she was able to sort out the free school bus passes, she was having to spend £280 per month on bus journeys: more than a quarter of her total monthly income on school transport. </p>
<p>Casho has started to bid for a permanent property. Ideally, this would be within walking distance of her children’s schools – though that is unlikely, given the extremely limited choice of social housing in the area. </p>
<p>No child should be expected to move schools simply because transport is unaffordable. And no borough in the country should be without formal provision for transport in place for those adults and children living in temporary accommodation. And yet, although <a href="https://consult.education.gov.uk/home-to-school-transport-and-admissions-team/home-to-school-travel-and-transport-statutory-guid/supporting_documents/Draft%20statutory%20guidance%20%20Home%20to%20school%20travel%20and%20transport%20for%20children%20of%20compulsory%20school%20age.pdf">under consultation in 2019</a>, it is currently not <a href="https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1165730/Travel_to_school_for_children_of_compulsory_school_age.pdf">government guidance</a> to include free travel in a local authority’s home-to-school travel policy for a child who has been forced to move into temporary accommodation or a refuge. </p>
<p>Unless such guidance is made statutory, and the financial means provided to institute it, the country’s most vulnerable children will continue to suffer the consequences.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/216282/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Katherine Brickell receives funding from the Urban Studies Foundation and the British Academy for this research.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mel Nowicki receives funding from the Urban Studies Foundation for this research.</span></em></p>Homeless families rehoused in temporary are bearing the brunt of the high travel costs and policies ill-designed to accommodate their specific needs.Katherine Brickell, Professor of Urban Studies, King's College LondonMel Nowicki, Senior Lecturer in Urban Geography, Oxford Brookes UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2153792023-10-12T10:34:49Z2023-10-12T10:34:49ZThe cost of living crisis can’t wait for the next election: three key issues the UK government needs to tackle now<p>Speakers at the 2023 Labour party conference have rightly addressed <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/oct/10/five-key-points-from-keir-starmers-speech">the economic insecurity</a> affecting families across the UK. As winter approaches, many are at breaking point. One week earlier, however, the Conservatives were notably quiet on this point. And yet, the government’s <a href="https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/inflationandpriceindices/articles/costoflivinginsights/food">own statistics</a> show that four in ten adults are struggling with rent or mortgage payments and are buying less food when shopping. </p>
<p>The government has implemented a range of measures to support people facing rising costs. These include direct support to households through the <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/energy-bills-support/energy-bills-support-factsheet-8-september-2022">energy price guarantee</a>, and <a href="https://www.gov.uk/guidance/cost-of-living-payment">cost of living payments</a> to households in receipt of eligible benefits. Other initiatives – the <a href="https://www.gov.uk/cost-living-help-local-council">household support fund</a> and <a href="https://www.gov.uk/guidance/council-tax-rebate-factsheet">council tax energy rebates</a> – have been devolved to local authorities to roll out. </p>
<p>Our <a href="https://www.york.ac.uk/media/policyengine/costoflivingresearchgroup/Cost%20of%20Living%20report%20(5)%20(1).pdf">new research</a> combines evidence collated since 2022, through projects in the University of York’s <a href="https://www.york.ac.uk/policy-engine/cost-of-living/#:%7E:text=Chaired%20by%20Professor%20Kate%20Pickett,Equality%20and%20Health%20and%20Wellbeing.">Cost of Living Research Group</a>. In particular, we are conducting <a href="https://changingrealities.org/">collaborative research</a> with more than 100 families on low incomes based across the UK, along with analysis of national statistics and surveys of over 700 local councillors. </p>
<p>Our findings show that these governmental interventions have not helped the country’s most vulnerable people. They point to three crucial issues that need to be addressed: <a href="https://theconversation.com/poverty-in-britain-is-firmly-linked-to-the-countrys-mountain-of-private-wealth-labour-must-address-this-growing-inequality-212741">child poverty</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-uk-economys-covid-bounceback-was-stronger-than-we-thought-but-heres-why-people-are-still-feeling-financial-pain-212947">fuel poverty</a>, and <a href="https://theconversation.com/austerity-gutted-the-welfare-state-preserving-benefits-now-cant-make-up-for-that-193360">local authority welfare funding</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Children in school uniform with backpacks." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/553272/original/file-20231011-24-y5diez.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/553272/original/file-20231011-24-y5diez.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/553272/original/file-20231011-24-y5diez.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/553272/original/file-20231011-24-y5diez.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/553272/original/file-20231011-24-y5diez.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/553272/original/file-20231011-24-y5diez.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/553272/original/file-20231011-24-y5diez.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">280,000 children are impacted by the cap on benefits.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/multicultural-children-asian-indian-chinese-caucasian-1738679645">Shutterstock</a></span>
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<h2>Child poverty</h2>
<p>The pandemic and cost of living crisis have exposed weaknesses in the UK’s social security system, opened up by over a <a href="https://wbg.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/SOCIAL-SECURITY-2019.pdf">decade of cuts</a>. Children in the poorest households are <a href="https://www.thenhsa.co.uk/app/uploads/2023/01/COTN-APPG.pdf">bearing the brunt</a> of this failing safety net. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.gov.uk/benefit-cap">benefit cap</a> and <a href="https://www.gov.uk/guidance/claiming-benefits-for-2-or-more-children">two-child limit</a>, which restricted the support provided through tax credits and universal credit to two children per household, were key contributors to rising child poverty throughout the 2010s, predominantly affecting <a href="https://largerfamilies.study/">larger families</a>. One in ten children (1.5 million) now live in households affected by the two-child limit. The benefit cap, meanwhile, has affected the lives of 280,000 children. Some 32,000 households – 110,000 children – have their income limited by both. </p>
<p>The people we spoke with explained how living in poverty has affected their whole families. One respondent, Lili, said: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Scrimping like this does have a negative effect on us all … I wake up in the night worrying about money and know how much it costs to use every single appliance. My standard of self-care and wellbeing has declined, but I am trying to ensure that our daughter’s does not. We are surviving but not really living, let alone thriving.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The government’s cost of living payments were <a href="https://largerfamilies.study/">paid at a flat rate</a> and not adjusted to household size. This means they have not met the needs of families with children. Abolishing the two-child limit and benefit cap would make an immediate difference to low-income households, <a href="https://www.york.ac.uk/media/policyengine/costoflivingresearchgroup/Cost%20of%20Living%20report%20(5)%20(1).pdf">helping lift</a> more than 1.5 million children out of poverty.</p>
<h2>Fuel poverty</h2>
<p>Since 2021, the proportion of people unable to meet their energy needs has risen dramatically. Our research shows that one in ten UK households are now affected. </p>
<p>That number rises to three in ten for one-parent households with two or more children. This means these families are at risk of living in damp, mouldy and cold homes, which can lead to heart and lung problems and undermine their mental health. For children, living in fuel poverty can have a significant <a href="https://www.thenhsa.co.uk/app/uploads/2023/01/COTN-APPG.pdf">lifelong impact</a>.</p>
<p>The Westminster government’s energy support has done little to alleviate hardship. As another respondent, Dotty, put it: “I’m lucky if £20 credit on my electric pre-payment meter will even last me for three days.” </p>
<p>Despite the <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/energy-bills-support/energy-price-guarantee-up-until-30-june-2023">energy price guarantee</a>, our <a href="https://www.york.ac.uk/media/business-society/research/Who_are_the_fuel_poor_revised_v2.pdf">analysis</a> suggests that six in ten families on the lowest incomes were living in fuel poverty in April 2023. We estimate that one in three households in fuel poverty (around 1.75 million people) have been ineligible for government cost of living support.</p>
<p>A recent survey from the energy provider EDF <a href="https://www.edfenergy.com/media-centre/news-releases/public-show-strong-support-social-energy-tariff-winter-approaches">found</a> that 77% of the British public are in favour of a social energy tariff. Implementing such a tariff could help target government support to the most vulnerable households.</p>
<h2>Local welfare systems</h2>
<p>Councils are responsible for administering the national government’s household support fund. The first of this series of support packages, now totalling over £2.5bn, was announced by Westminster in October 2021.</p>
<p>The problem is that after a decade and a half of austerity policies, councils and local services have been <a href="https://theconversation.com/birminghams-bankruptcy-is-only-the-tip-of-the-iceberg-local-authorities-across-england-are-at-risk-212912">stripped to the bone</a>. They now lack the infrastructure and capacity to administer and roll out these short-term schemes, about which they are notified, by central government, at short notice.</p>
<p>One council worker told us how “bitty” the funding had been: “Every time we’ve had the scheme, the message from the Department for Work and Pensions has been, ‘This is the last year you’ll get the funding.’” As a result, the council worker said, they do not plan for the long-term.</p>
<p>Our analysis of the second wave of household support fund <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/household-support-fund-2-management-information-1-april-to-30-september-2022/">allocations</a> showed that, while authorities such as Doncaster and Leeds allocated more than 70% of their funds to support for energy and water needs, neighbouring authorities North Yorkshire and Wakefield allocated 90% or more towards food. </p>
<p>This inconsistency is making life harder for people seeking help. As one respondent, Mollie put it: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>I reached out to my local council regarding the household support fund, as my sister mentioned she had received some support in the form of food vouchers. It turns out her local council made the scheme easier to access.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The household support fund can be a lifeline for households struggling with rising costs. But getting aid to the people who need it takes stable, predictable funding and proper strategic planning. </p>
<p>In his conference speech, opposition leader Keir Starmer said the Labour party wants to move away from the current government’s short-term, <a href="https://labour.org.uk/updates/press-releases/keir-starmers-speech-at-labour-conference/">“sticking plaster”</a> approach to politics. The reality, however, is that neither party currently has a sufficiently ambitious plan to rebuild the UK’s social security system. People cannot wait until the next election to get the help they need. The government needs to act now.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/215379/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kit Colliver receives funding from the Economic and Social Research Council. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Amy Barnes receives funding from the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) and the UK Prevention Research Partnership (an initiative funded by UK Research and Innovation Councils, the Department of Health and Social Care (England), UK devolved administrations, and leading health research charities). Amy is a Trustee of Healthwatch North Yorkshire and Manor and Castle Development Trust, Sheffield.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Maddy Power receives funding from the Wellcome Trust. Maddy is a member of the Labour Party and a Trustee of the Independent Food Aid Network.</span></em></p>Governmental support is failing the country’s most vulnerable households. Politicians need to act now.Kit Colliver, Research Associate at York Law School, University of YorkAmy Barnes, Senior Researcher, Public Health and Society, University of YorkMaddy Power, Research Fellow in the Department of Health Sciences, University of YorkLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2125282023-09-27T17:50:49Z2023-09-27T17:50:49ZForcing people to repay welfare ‘loans’ traps them in a poverty cycle – where is the policy debate about that?<p>The National Party’s <a href="https://www.1news.co.nz/2023/09/26/more-sanctions-for-unemployed-beneficiaries-under-national/">pledge to apply sanctions</a> to unemployed people receiving a welfare payment, if they are “persistently” failing to meet the criteria for receiving the benefit, has attracted plenty of comment and <a href="https://www.1news.co.nz/2023/09/26/nationals-benefit-sanctions-plan-cruel-dehumanising-greens/">criticism</a>.</p>
<p>Less talked about has been the party’s promise to index benefits to inflation to keep pace with the cost of living. This might at least provide some relief to those struggling to make ends meet on welfare, though is not clear how much difference it would make to the current system of indexing benefits to wages. </p>
<p>In any case, this alone it is unlikely to break the cycle of poverty many find themselves in.</p>
<p>One of the major drivers of this is the way the welfare system pushes some of the most vulnerable people into debt with loans for things such as school uniforms, power bills and car repairs.</p>
<p>The government provides one-off grants to cover benefit shortfalls. But most of these grants are essentially loans. </p>
<p>People receiving benefits are required to repay the government through weekly deductions from their normal benefits – which leaves them with even less money to survive on each week.</p>
<p>With <a href="https://www.stuff.co.nz/pou-tiaki/132980318/auckland-mother-serves-up-cereal-for-dinner-due-to-rising-food-costs">rising costs</a>, the situation is only getting worse for many of the 351,756 New Zealanders <a href="https://figure.nz/chart/TtiUrpceJruy058e-ITw010dHsM6bvA2a">accessing one of the main benefits</a>. </p>
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<h2>Our whittled down welfare state</h2>
<p>Broadly, there are three levels of government benefits in our current system. </p>
<p>The main benefits (such as jobseeker, sole parent and supported living payment) <a href="https://www.workandincome.govt.nz/products/benefit-rates/benefit-rates-april-2023.html">pay a fixed weekly amount</a>. The jobseeker benefit rate is set at NZ$337.74 and sole parents receive $472.79 a week. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-labour-national-consensus-on-family-support-means-the-election-wont-change-much-for-nzs-poorest-households-212450">The Labour-National consensus on family support means the election won’t change much for NZ’s poorest households</a>
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<p>Those on benefits have access to a second level of benefits – weekly supplementary benefits such as an <a href="https://www.workandincome.govt.nz/products/a-z-benefits/accommodation-supplement.html">accommodation supplement</a> and other allowances or tax credits.</p>
<p>The third level of support is one-off discretionary payments for specific essential needs.</p>
<p>Those on benefits cannot realistically make ends meet without repeated use of these one-off payments, unless they use assistance from elsewhere – such as family, charity or borrowing from loan sharks. </p>
<p>This problem has been building for decades. </p>
<h2>Benefits have been too low for too long</h2>
<p>In the 1970s, the <a href="https://mro.massey.ac.nz/handle/10179/12967">Royal Commission on Social Security</a> declared the system should provide “a standard of living consistent with human dignity and approaching that enjoyed by the majority”. </p>
<p>But Ruth Richardson’s “<a href="https://www.stuff.co.nz/the-press/christchurch-life/124978983/1991-the-mother-of-all-budgets">mother of all budgets</a>” in 1991 slashed benefits. Rates never recovered and today’s <a href="https://www.1news.co.nz/2022/03/29/benefit-increases-will-still-leave-families-locked-in-poverty/">benefits are not enough to live on</a>. </p>
<p>In 2018, the <a href="https://www.weag.govt.nz/">Welfare Expert Advisory Group</a> looked at how much money households need in two lifestyle scenarios: bare essentials and a minimum level of participation in the community, such as playing a sport and taking public transport. </p>
<p>The main benefits plus supplementary allowances did not meet the cost of the bare essentials, let alone minimal participation. </p>
<p>The Labour government has since <a href="https://www.beehive.govt.nz/release/government-delivers-income-increases-over-14-million-new-zealanders">increased benefit rates</a>, meaning they are now slightly above those recommended by the advisory group. But those recommendations were made in 2019 and don’t take into account the <a href="https://www.stats.govt.nz/news/annual-inflation-at-6-0-percent">sharp rise in inflation</a> since then. </p>
<p>Advocacy group <a href="https://fairerfuture.org.nz/">Fairer Future</a> published an updated assessment in 2022 – nine out of 13 types of households still can’t meet their core costs with the current benefit rates.</p>
<h2>How ‘advances’ create debt traps</h2>
<p>When they don’t have money for an essential need, people on benefits can receive a “special needs grant”, which doesn’t have to be repaid. But in practice, Work and Income virtually never makes this type of grant for anything except food and some other specific items, such as some health travel costs or emergency dental treatment.</p>
<p>For <a href="https://www.1news.co.nz/2023/02/27/very-stressful-beneficiary-says-he-cant-afford-msd-debt/">all other essential needs</a> – such as school uniforms, car repairs, replacing essential appliances, overdue rent, power bills and tenancy bonds – a one-off payment called an “advance” is used. Advances are loans and have to be paid back.</p>
<p>There are several issues with these types of loans.</p>
<p>First, people on benefits are racking up thousands of dollars worth of debts to cover their essential needs. It serves to trap them in financial difficulties for the foreseeable future. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/why-new-zealands-government-cannot-ignore-major-welfare-reform-report-116895">Why New Zealand's government cannot ignore major welfare reform report</a>
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<p>As long as they remain on benefits or low incomes, it’s difficult to repay these debts. And the <a href="https://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/public/2018/0032/latest/whole.html">Social Security Act 2018</a> doesn’t allow the Ministry of Social Development (MSD) to waive debts.</p>
<h2>Contradictory policies</h2>
<p>Another problem is that people on benefits have to start repaying their debt straight away, with weekly deductions coming out of their already limited benefit.</p>
<p>Each new advance results in a further weekly deduction. Often these add up to $50 a week or more. MSD policy says repayments should not add up to more than $40 a week, but that is often ignored. </p>
<p>This happens because the law stipulates that each individual debt should be repaid in no more than two years, unless there are exceptional circumstances. Paying this debt off in two years often requires total deductions to be much higher than $40.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/kindness-doesnt-begin-at-home-jacinda-arderns-support-for-beneficiaries-lags-well-behind-australias-139387">Kindness doesn't begin at home: Jacinda Ardern's support for beneficiaries lags well behind Australia's</a>
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<p>The third issue is that one-off payments can be refused regardless of the need. That is because there are two provisions pulling in opposite directions.</p>
<p>On the one hand the law says a payment should be made if not making it would cause serious hardship. But on the other hand, the law also says payments should not be made if the person already has too much debt.</p>
<p>People receiving benefits and their case managers face the choice between more debt and higher repayments, or failing to meet an essential need.</p>
<h2>Ways to start easing the burden</h2>
<p>So what is the fix? A great deal could be achieved by just changing the policies and practices followed by Work and Income.</p>
<p>Case managers have the discretion to make non-recoverable grants for non-food essential needs. These could and should be used when someone has an essential need, particularly when they already have significant debt. </p>
<p>Weekly deductions for debts could also be automatically made very low.</p>
<p>When it comes to changing the law, the best solution would be to make weekly benefit rates adequate to live on. </p>
<p>The government could also make these benefit debts similar to student loans, with no repayments required until the person is off the benefit and their income is above a certain threshold.</p>
<p>However we do it, surely it must be time to do something to fix this poverty trap.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/212528/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Hanna Wilberg has collaborated with advocacy organisations such as Auckland Action Against Poverty to help people on benefits.</span></em></p>People on benefits are borrowing from the government to pay for essentials like power bills and car repairs. But repayments leave them with even less than before.Hanna Wilberg, Associate professor - Law, University of Auckland, Waipapa Taumata RauLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2047162023-08-14T19:37:44Z2023-08-14T19:37:44ZCanada’s welfare system is failing mothers with infants<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/541320/original/file-20230805-15-xi8j4t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C82%2C3670%2C2351&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Food insecurity can impact both a mother’s ability or decision to breastfeed, and also the ability to purchase baby formula.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span></figcaption></figure><iframe style="width: 100%; height: 100px; border: none; position: relative; z-index: 1;" allowtransparency="" allow="clipboard-read; clipboard-write" src="https://narrations.ad-auris.com/widget/the-conversation-canada/canadas-welfare-system-is-failing-mothers-with-infants" width="100%" height="400"></iframe>
<p>The Canadian government issued a <a href="https://theconversation.com/federal-budget-2023-grocery-rebate-is-the-right-direction-on-food-insecurity-but-theres-a-long-road-ahead-201926">one-time grocery rebate</a> in July, targeted at low-income Canadians. While the rebate provided some relief to people struggling with soaring inflation, <a href="https://theconversation.com/federal-budget-2023-grocery-rebate-is-the-right-direction-on-food-insecurity-but-theres-a-long-road-ahead-201926">it is far from enough</a> to address the depth of poverty and intensity of food insecurity faced by the lowest income Canadians. </p>
<p>During the <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4981537/">most vulnerable time of life</a>, mothers and infants living on welfare are experiencing food insecurity, which can have <a href="https://www.healthaffairs.org/doi/10.1377/hlthaff.2015.0645">lifelong impacts</a>. Governments need to make policy changes to better serve mothers and their children. </p>
<h2>Infant food insecurity</h2>
<p>Food insecurity is defined as having “<a href="https://proof.utoronto.ca/food-insecurity/">inadequate or insecure access to food due to financial constraints</a>.” Maternal food insecurity can result in many health-damaging effects, ranging from <a href="https://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/10/1/e033296">adverse birth outcomes</a> to <a href="https://www.healthaffairs.org/doi/10.1377/hlthaff.2015.0645">mental health issues</a>. Infant food insecurity can result in long-term developmental impacts, including effects on <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pcl.2019.12.004">cognition and brain development</a>. </p>
<p>Experts have outlined how <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-are-babies-going-hungry-in-a-food-rich-nation-like-canada-165789">food insecurity can impact a mother’s ability or decision to breastfeed</a>. Food-insecure mothers might cease breastfeeding much sooner because they feel they have inadequate breastmilk supply. In addition, they might struggle to afford infant formula.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/524793/original/file-20230508-29-dhs4uw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A woman feeding a baby from a bottle." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/524793/original/file-20230508-29-dhs4uw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/524793/original/file-20230508-29-dhs4uw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/524793/original/file-20230508-29-dhs4uw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/524793/original/file-20230508-29-dhs4uw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/524793/original/file-20230508-29-dhs4uw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/524793/original/file-20230508-29-dhs4uw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/524793/original/file-20230508-29-dhs4uw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Mothers and infants living on welfare are experiencing food insecurity, which can have lifelong impacts.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>While food-insecure mothers initiate breastfeeding at the same rate as food-secure mothers, <a href="https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/study-finds-moms-living-in-poverty-struggle-to-breastfeed-their-babies-longer-1.3853616?cache=yes">rates drop steeply within the first two months</a>. Mothers who are undernourished themselves might perceive they have less than adequate milk supply and often stop breastfeeding for this reason, <a href="https://www.ubcpress.ca/out-of-milk">believing the baby will suffer because they have an inadequate diet</a>. </p>
<p>For low-income mothers, breastfeeding might seem to be the most cost-effective way of feeding their infants. However, other research shows that <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32162282/">both formula and breastfeeding are unaffordable to mothers who receive welfare</a>. </p>
<h2>Problems with the welfare system</h2>
<p>Approximately <a href="https://maytree.com/wp-content/uploads/Social_Assistance_Summaries_All_Canada.pdf">four to six per cent of people</a> in most provinces and territories receive welfare benefits. The number is slightly lower in the Yukon and Alberta and significantly higher in Nunavut where it is just under 28 per cent. </p>
<p>While some provinces and territories provide more financial resources to pregnant women and mothers than others, incomes remain low and inadequate to achieve food security. </p>
<p>For example, Nova Scotia welfare recipients receive a total of <a href="https://novascotia.ca/coms/employment/documents/ESIA_Program_Policy_Manual.pdf">$51 per month in maternal nutrition allowance</a> during pregnancy and up to 12 months after birth. However, this is often not enough support for low-income mothers to adequately feed their infants.</p>
<p><a href="https://proof.utoronto.ca/2023/new-data-on-household-food-insecurity-in-2022/">COVID-19 increased household food insecurity rates for households with children in both Canada</a> and the <a href="https://www.ers.usda.gov/amber-waves/2022/february/food-insecurity-for-households-with-children-rose-in-2020-disrupting-decade-long-decline/">United States</a></p>
<p>Allowances for pregnant women and mothers of infants receiving welfare are similarly low across Canada. These low rates create food insecurity for these vulnerable families and must be rectified via provincial, territorial and federal government policies. </p>
<h2>Charity alone is not enough</h2>
<p>Some might assume that charities and food banks will provide vital support for low-income families. A recent study found that during the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic, many community organizations <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/14927713.2022.2054460">answered the increased call for food</a>. </p>
<p>While community organizations were critical in filling pandemic gaps, they alone cannot address the root cause of food insecurity: inadequate incomes. That problem continues, and the number of people relying on food banks has <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/60-rise-use-of-food-banks-programs-canada-2023-1.6711094">increased exponentially in the past couple of years</a>.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/as-governments-shirk-their-responsibilities-non-profits-are-more-important-than-ever-205169">As governments shirk their responsibilities, non-profits are more important than ever</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Additionally, many food banks are <a href="https://ca.style.yahoo.com/at-breaking-point-canadian-food-banks-struggling-insecurity-inflation-214221464.html">struggling to provide enough food</a>. The demand for food now far outstrips the donations most food banks receive. A sustainable solution to food insecurity is needed, particularly for pregnant women and mothers of infants. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/541322/original/file-20230805-21-3ju57z.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A person in a grey t-shirt placing food items on a shelf" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/541322/original/file-20230805-21-3ju57z.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/541322/original/file-20230805-21-3ju57z.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/541322/original/file-20230805-21-3ju57z.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/541322/original/file-20230805-21-3ju57z.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/541322/original/file-20230805-21-3ju57z.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/541322/original/file-20230805-21-3ju57z.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/541322/original/file-20230805-21-3ju57z.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A volunteer places products on shelves at a food bank in Ottawa. Food banks alone cannot address the root cause of food insecurity: inadequate incomes.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Adrian Wyld</span></span>
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</figure>
<h2>Child welfare laws</h2>
<p>In addition, child welfare laws need to be changed to stop them from unfairly penalizing poorer parents. In Nova Scotia, the <a href="https://policyalternatives.ca/sites/default/files/uploads/publications/Nova%20Scotia%20Office/2023/03/CCPAChildPovertyReportCardFINAL.pdf"><em>Children and Family Services Act</em> stipulates</a> that parents’ failure to provide adequate nutrition is grounds for child apprehension.</p>
<p><a href="https://policyalternatives.ca/sites/default/files/uploads/publications/Nova%20Scotia%20Office/2023/03/CCPAChildPovertyReportCardFINAL.pdf">The 2022 Report Card on Child and Family Poverty in Nova Scotia</a> recommended removing this stipulation. <a href="https://fernwoodpublishing.ca/book/ineligible">Experts have highlighted</a> the punitive nature of such requirements. These kinds of regulations punish mothers for their poverty and food insecurity, rather than increasing the financial support they receive.</p>
<h2>Impact of inflation</h2>
<p>There are also reforms that need to take place around welfare rates that would create a more liveable income source for mothers and infants in particular. </p>
<p>As the 2022 report card on poverty in Nova Scotia shows, welfare rates are not indexed to inflation in the province. This has resulted in <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/ns-income-assistance-rates-unchanged-1.6788662">benefits stagnating</a> despite a few modest increases in the past several years. Only three provinces and territories <a href="https://maytree.com/wp-content/uploads/Welfare_in_Canada_2021.pdf">index welfare rates to inflation:</a> New Brunswick, Québec and the Yukon. In Québec, <a href="https://inroadsjournal.ca/quebecs-distinct-welfare-state-on-poverty-among-families-with-children-quebec-%E2%80%A8and-the-rest-of-canada-have-taken-different-paths/">this has resulted in lower income inequality</a>. </p>
<p>The province has also recently launched a <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/quebec-basic-income-program-begins-advocates-say-many-low-income-people-excluded-1.6730003">basic income program</a> and although the eligibility requirements exclude many, it does increase income recipients would otherwise receive from welfare benefits.</p>
<p>With inflation affecting the price of food, the depth of food insecurity for mothers receiving welfare payments will only grow. Welfare rates must reflect the income necessary to feed pregnant and new mothers and provide them the support they need to care for their children.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/204716/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Laura Fisher receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.</span></em></p>Low-income mothers with infants are struggling with food insecurity, which can lead to long-term health impacts for both mothers and children.Laura Fisher, PhD student, Sociology, Dalhousie UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2092162023-07-07T11:09:28Z2023-07-07T11:09:28ZVictims now know they were right about robodebt all along. Let the royal commission change the way we talk about welfare<p>The long-awaited <a href="https://robodebt.royalcommission.gov.au/publications/report">robodebt royal commission report</a> landed today, making searing adverse findings against both politicians and bureaucrats. </p>
<p>Key individuals are denounced in stark moral terms: for venality, cowardice and callous disregard. </p>
<p>The report contains the statement that “on the evidence before the commission, elements of the tort of misfeasance in public office appear to exist”. </p>
<p>The victims and key advocates who have laboured in obscurity, through days when no listened, can now know they were right all along.</p>
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<h2>Consequences</h2>
<p>The report leaves a core question unanswered: will anyone ever face consequences for what happened? Robodebt Royal Commissioner Catherine Holmes’ decision to keep referrals confidential should be perceived as victim-centred. </p>
<p>A royal commission is the last fail-safe of our democracy, the one way we open doors those in power would prefer to keep shut. </p>
<p>It’s a mechanism that is particularly precious to the marginalised, those failed by the media and party political cycles. </p>
<p>The confidentiality serves to highlight the elemental values that were denied to people during robodebt itself: procedural fairness, ethics and attention to proof.</p>
<p>On compensation for the victims, the report states:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The administration costs of a scheme which addressed all the different ways in which people were harmed by the Scheme and examined their circumstances to establish what compensation was appropriate in each case would be astronomic, given the numbers involved. A better use of the money would be to lift the rate at which social security benefits are paid.</p>
</blockquote>
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<h2>Holmes’ challenge for Australians</h2>
<p>The report leans heavily into the importance of pursuing a deeper change in our political life. This reflects the arguments of advocates that even if it had been lawful, robodebt was still a scandal. </p>
<p>The commissioner’s call to consider raising the rate of JobSeeker directs us to the bigger picture. Welfare advocates in this country can now forcefully critique any government program that trades on stigma or vulnerability and ignores real-life suffering.</p>
<p>That will now forever be known as robodebt governance.</p>
<p>As the report reads: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>politicians need to lead a change in social attitudes to people receiving welfare payments. The evidence before the commission was that fraud in the welfare system was miniscule, but that is not the impression one would get from what ministers responsible for social security payments have said over the years. Anti-welfare rhetoric is easy populism, useful for campaign purposes.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The report reflects that Australia’s constitution places all its trust on responsible politicians and a vibrant parliamentary culture. </p>
<p>The law does not offer the protections the public often thinks it does, and plays an outsized role in public debate. Across more than 900 pages, the key take away for social security recipients is effectively: find a way to get political power and cultural influence, any way you can.</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/robodebt-royal-commissioner-makes-multiple-referrals-for-prosecution-condemning-scheme-as-crude-and-cruel-209318">Robodebt royal commissioner makes multiple referrals for prosecution, condemning scheme as 'crude and cruel'</a>
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<h2>‘Robodebt’: the power of a word</h2>
<p>It was confronting to watch today as politicians and media picked over the findings of the report, when it took so long to have the wrongs of robodebt noticed by anyone.</p>
<p>The report detailed:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The beginning of 2017 was the point at which Robodebt’s unfairness, probable illegality and cruelty became apparent. It should then have been abandoned or revised drastically, and an enormous amount of hardship and misery (as well as the expense the government was so anxious to minimise) would have been averted.</p>
<p>Instead the path taken was to double down, to go on the attack in the media against those who complained and to maintain the falsehood that in fact the system had not changed at all. The government was, the DHS and DSS ministers maintained, acting righteously to recoup taxpayers’ money from the undeserving.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>My thoughts were with the #notmydebt volunteers. With transparency advocate Justin Warren who spent years seeking the very documents that could have stopped this long ago. </p>
<p>To Asher Wolf, Lyndsey Jackson, Amy Patterson and the forever anonymous volunteers who <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-rise-of-robodebt-how-twitter-activists-pushed-a-government-scandal-from-hashtags-to-a-royal-commission-209131">built the very word on everyone’s lips</a>. The people who were told it was disrespectful and wrong to even use the word “robodebt”.</p>
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<h2>Change comes from the outside</h2>
<p>Australians carry as many ideas about their government as the politicians who run it. Robodebt stands as a warning against rose-tinted visions of the rule of law, or any idea our institutions are inherently self-correcting. </p>
<p>The politicians have taken this report into their world. We must always remember the spaces it actually comes from. How social security recipients found the power to make this all happen. Commissioner Holmes has named that as the path to real change.</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/why-robodebts-use-of-income-averaging-lacked-basic-common-sense-201296">Why robodebt's use of 'income averaging' lacked basic common sense</a>
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<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/209216/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Darren O'Donovan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Welfare advocates in this country can now forcefully critique any government program that trades on stigma or vulnerability and ignores real-life suffering.Darren O'Donovan, Senior Lecturer in Administrative Law, La Trobe UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2023372023-07-04T20:08:39Z2023-07-04T20:08:39Z‘The culmination of years of suffering’: what can we expect from the robodebt royal commission’s final report?<p>On Friday, the Royal Commission into the Robodebt Scheme will submit its final report to the federal government, which is expected to release it to the public shortly thereafter.</p>
<p>The report will be the culmination of years of suffering and work by victims to hold their government to account. </p>
<p>So what can we expect?</p>
<h2>Conspiracy or ‘stuff up’?</h2>
<p>The headline questions the commission will adjudicate are confronting:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>Did officials at one Commonwealth department deceive another when removing key legal and policy warnings from the cabinet submission that launched robodebt?</p></li>
<li><p>Even worse, did two departments collude to remove references to the unlawful method of averaging?</p></li>
<li><p>Did department officials mislead the Commonwealth ombudsman in its 2017 investigation?</p></li>
<li><p>Why was damning legal advice left unactioned by officials?</p></li>
</ul>
<p>The whistleblowing of true public servants like former Centrelink employee <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/dec/03/you-are-being-misled-the-centrelink-worker-who-tried-to-stop-robodebt-as-it-started">Colleen Taylor</a> means the report’s release will not be a dark day for the whole public service.</p>
<p>It will, rather, collapse the established worldview of its senior executive class. A worldview that denies Australians the facts about their government and fobs off independent oversight.</p>
<p>Adverse findings against individuals will not be lightly reached. Hearings, however viral they go, only explore possibilities, but reports make careful findings. Shockingly poor record creation practices in Commonwealth agencies may limit the character of what can be found.</p>
<p>If it recommends further investigation into individuals’ conduct, the report’s release will be tailored to avoid prejudicing any future proceedings.</p>
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<h2>Standards in political life</h2>
<p>Coverage surged for politicians’ appearances at the commission, with many holding out for “who knew what when” moments. In giving evidence, politicians often relied on public servants’ failure to deliver warnings at key moments in the scheme. Ministers who oversaw robodebt consistently used this lack of frank advice to defend their failure to stop it.</p>
<p>The final report will spend time reacquainting our political class with basic expectations of responsible government and standards in public life.</p>
<p>Our public representatives emerged as utterly insubstantial figures, consumed by marketing political images like “welfare cop” and party political combat. They displayed a striking lack of curiosity towards key questions. Adverse information flowed around, rather than through them.</p>
<p>The final report will reflect on standards in our public life and the ethical lows that are plumbed for party political ends: for example, the <a href="https://www.thesaturdaypaper.com.au/news/politics/2023/02/04/fw-urgent-tudge-leaked-personal-data-cow-welfare-critics">leaking of private information</a> by the office of then-Human Services Minister Alan Tudge to “correct the record” and discourage people speaking out.</p>
<p>It will tackle <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-03-02/qld-robodebt-scheme-government-royal-commission-stuart-robert/102034796">warped ideas</a> of ministerial responsibility and cabinet solidarity that see facts or views suppressed in the name of defending a position.</p>
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<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-robodebt-scheme-failed-tests-of-lawfulness-impartiality-integrity-and-trust-193832">The Robodebt scheme failed tests of lawfulness, impartiality, integrity and trust</a>
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<p>This commission was fiercely independent, despite <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/aug/25/witch-hunt-peter-dutton-decries-morrisons-ministries-inquiry-and-robodebt-royal-commission">misdirected efforts</a> by Opposition Leader Peter Dutton to portray it as a “witchhunt”.</p>
<p>It painstakingly examined the history of unlawful income averaging (which was used to calculate robodebts), setting out <a href="https://www.aap.com.au/factcheck/dutton-misleads-with-shorten-robodebt-claim/">the fundamental differences</a> in investigation approaches over time. It found <a href="https://robodebt.royalcommission.gov.au/system/files/exhibit/Exhibit%208737%20-%20CTH.9999.0001.0041_R%20-%20%5BFinal%5D%20Services%20Australia%20-%20Updated%20Response%20to%20NTG-0014%20%5B27%20October%202022%5D%20%5BCLEAN%5D.pdf">2010 documents</a> describing the use of averaging as a last resort to close files where evidence was not available.</p>
<p>It uncovered the <a href="https://robodebt.royalcommission.gov.au/system/files/exhibit/Exhibit%204-6548%20-%20CTH.4000.0068.4975%20-%20310120%20Remediation%20user%20stories_1.pdf">corners cut</a> in remediation, as debts such as these were never paid back. These are the invisible spaces no political slogans ever address, where unapproved practices take root against people who can’t argue back.</p>
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<h2>Access to justice at the frontline</h2>
<p>The governance dynamics that sustained robodebt are not limited to a certain time or place. Consider <a href="http://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/cases/cth/AATA//2023/1286.html">the unlawfully crude use</a> of bank statements by Services Australia when reprocessing robodebts, which was called out by an appeals tribunal in May. </p>
<p>Our social security system is <a href="https://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/cases/cth/AATA/2023/719.html">still failing</a> to provide people with disability adequate reasons for life-changing pension decisions.</p>
<p>Robodebt used <a href="https://robodebt.royalcommission.gov.au/publications/exhibit-4-7628-cth100000089520-attachment-d-dhs-population-insights">behavioural economics approaches</a> to engineer feelings of shame and prevent legal consciousness from forming.</p>
<p>It gamed our administrative law system to overwrite or rapture the debts of those who did complain, while nothing changed on the frontline.</p>
<p>It imposed an administrative burden on those unable to carry it, confident they would triage the trauma and cop the debt.</p>
<p>We must have legal reform to oblige Centrelink to implement tribunal standards of decision-making where it matters: right at the frontline.</p>
<h2>Building a culture of accountability</h2>
<p>The <a href="https://www.themandarin.com.au/217248-gordon-de-brouwer-apologises-for-robodebt-flags-ses-crackdown/">early signs</a> are that Australian Public Service leaders are pursuing a robodebt response that centres on non-binding, internal cultural reforms put forward by themselves.</p>
<p>When it comes to careerism or the pursuit of power, history tells us human nature will not be changed by refreshed seminars on ethics. You need to change the underlying relationships of power and accountability.</p>
<p>Change is always hard. But we know what stops it. Consider a freedom of information appeal handed down in the last week of the royal commission. </p>
<p>Six long years ago, transparency advocate Justin Warren sought the weekly manager reports on robodebt’s disastrous launch. Services Australia refused to hand them over. About 2,220 days later, the information commissioner (<a href="https://www.themandarin.com.au/213913-foi-commissioner-resigns-says-change-needed-to-address-timeliness-of-reviews/">who resigned</a> in protest recently) <a href="https://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/cases/cth/AICmr/2023/13.html">had to order</a> their release. He found the basis Services Australia thought they could even try denying the documents was “not readily apparent”. </p>
<p>Beware those who offer “cultural” fixes and non-binding reassurances to self-correct. The Albanese government should not fall back on the very institutions who never fully investigated or acted until the political fluke of an exceptional royal commission.</p>
<p>Future scandals will be prevented by the things that stopped robodebt: access to facts, firm legal rights and enforceable remedies for injustice.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/202337/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Darren O'Donovan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Beware those who offer ‘cultural’ fixes and non-binding reassurances. The government shouldn’t fall back on the very institutions that never fully acted until a royal commission.Darren O'Donovan, Senior Lecturer in Administrative Law, La Trobe UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2055952023-06-26T16:14:12Z2023-06-26T16:14:12ZThe British public often has unexpected opinions about welfare spending – here’s why<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/530988/original/file-20230608-19-7qw788.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=344%2C82%2C4543%2C1908&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The soaring costs of energy and food have <a href="https://www.resolutionfoundation.org/publications/stressed-out/">diminished the value of incomes</a> for millions, leaving the majority of Britons <a href="https://obr.uk/box/developments-in-the-outlook-for-household-living-standards/">significantly poorer</a>. Wages have <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-60373405">failed to recover</a> since the 2008 financial crash and public services have suffered in <a href="https://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/publication/public-services-spending-round">availability and quality</a>.</p>
<p>We might expect this to amplify calls for the government to spend more to help the less well off, particularly as increasing numbers of people are affected. But public opinion about redistribution, shifting resources from society’s richer to support its poorer, doesn’t always follow an immediately obvious logic.</p>
<p>Evidence suggests that broadly redistributive policies, like increasing general taxation to fund public services, are <a href="https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/pol.20190276#:%7E:text=Contrary%2520to%2520prevailing%2520wisdom%252C%2520people,they%2520consider%2520acceptable%2520for%2520others.">not always more popular among poorer people</a>. However, they are often supported by many of the wealthier individuals who <a href="https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10.1086/694201">stand to lose out financially</a>.</p>
<p>In a new systematic <a href="https://politicscentre.nuffield.ox.ac.uk/research/redistribution-report/">review</a> from the Nuffield Politics Research Centre, we draw upon more than 100 pieces of academic research to make sense of this conundrum. We suggest that both material changes to household finances, alongside more long-lasting psychological factors, are central to understanding why economic crises have nuanced effects on support for redistribution. They affect people in different ways, and our review explains how and why. </p>
<h2>Material and non-material factors</h2>
<p>There is reason to think people support redistribution when they stand to personally benefit from it. In their most simple form, these arguments suggest that those at the lower end of the wage scale will want the government to <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/1830813#metadata_info_tab_contents">increase taxes to fund more public spending</a>.</p>
<p>These arguments are powerful because many Britons rely on a regular income, <a href="https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/personalandhouseholdfinances/incomeandwealth/bulletins/totalwealthingreatbritain/april2018tomarch2020">absent significant savings or housing assets</a>. When people do have access to such wealth, it also drives their social attitudes. As house prices rise, for instance, homeowners feel less reliant on the welfare state and become <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/american-political-science-review/article/political-economy-of-ownership-housing-markets-and-the-welfare-state/F9F0C1F7146D3F35CA3856CD981E5567">less supportive of government spending</a>. When house prices fall, support for such spending rebounds.</p>
<p>But these accounts focus only on people’s present day circumstances, and so fail to capture the whole story. Long-term expectations are one example. A university student cleaning tables might not support higher taxes if they have a graduate job lined up at an investment bank. A low-income family might think differently about government spending if they stand to inherit property from their parents. <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/who-wants-what/64C476A5E9154D764AA84358736F1125">Some of today’s poor stand to be tomorrow’s rich</a>, and they know it.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A couple standing in front of a house with a sold sign in front." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/530989/original/file-20230608-15-i790b6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/530989/original/file-20230608-15-i790b6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=405&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/530989/original/file-20230608-15-i790b6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=405&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/530989/original/file-20230608-15-i790b6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=405&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/530989/original/file-20230608-15-i790b6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=509&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/530989/original/file-20230608-15-i790b6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=509&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/530989/original/file-20230608-15-i790b6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=509&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Views on welfare can depend on future prospects.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>We think eligibility and accessibility of government support are also key parts of the puzzle. Many poorer people in the UK find it <a href="https://www.jrf.org.uk/report/welfare-sanctions-and-conditionality-uk">difficult to access</a> the support to which they are entitled, with some analysts estimating that <a href="https://www.entitledto.co.uk/blog/2021/january/15plus-billion-unclaimed-means-tested-benefits-but-the-sketchy-take-up-data-makes-it-hard-to-say-for-sure/">up to £15 billion of means-tested benefits remain unclaimed each year</a>. The barriers put in place to make claiming benefits harder might shake people’s faith that the welfare system offers them a safety net, and question how much it contributes to society as a whole.</p>
<p>A lot of government spending also <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0958928714556970">helps middle-income Britons</a> more than their poorer counterparts. The best <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/society/2020/jan/23/englands-poorest-get-worse-nhs-care-than-wealthiest-citizens">healthcare</a> and <a href="https://schoolsweek.co.uk/schools-in-rich-areas-are-more-than-twice-as-likely-to-be-outstanding/">state schools</a> are usually found in the country’s wealthiest areas, while many services and subsidies, like tax-free savings allowances, <a href="https://www.which.co.uk/money/savings-and-isas/isas/cash-isas/are-isas-still-worthwhile-ajbZN3x6fWoO">cannot be fully exploited</a> by those on low incomes. Poorer individuals might support redistribution in principle, but in practice it is not always clear that they are the ones benefiting. </p>
<h2>Who deserves help?</h2>
<p>Away from cost-benefit style thinking, we consider how non-material factors might shape people’s attitudes. In public opinion surveys, a significant proportion of well-off people say they <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/who-wants-what/64C476A5E9154D764AA84358736F1125">support greater government spending</a> and would be willing to pay more tax to fund it. This circle is difficult to square in terms of self-interest alone.</p>
<p>In some circumstances, and at personal cost, richer individuals feel genuine concern for the wellbeing of others and are willing to <a href="https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10.1086/694201">redistribute resources to them</a>.</p>
<p>But the extent of this generosity is often limited and depends on someone’s definition of “others”. Altruism can be <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/j.1467-6419.2011.00711.x">higher in countries that are less ethnically diverse</a> and support for redistribution is lower when the recipient is from a <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/american-political-science-review/article/economic-versus-cultural-differences-forms-of-ethnic-diversity-and-public-goods-provision/1A668817F0A20FE9FF613B2247654A0E">minority ethnic group</a>. The same is sometimes true when the recipient is seen to be a member of a <a href="https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/politicsandpolicy/welfare-politics-discourse-public-opinion/">lower social class</a>.</p>
<p>Richer people might also adopt self-interested beliefs in meritocracy, with the poverty of others written off as stemming from a lack of effort rather than a lack of luck. Generosity only extends to certain groups of people. Altruism is not dead, but it is ‘parochial’.</p>
<p>Richer people might also adopt self-interested beliefs in meritocracy, with the poverty of others written off as stemming from <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167268121001116">lack of effort rather than lack of luck</a>. Generosity only extends to certain groups of people. Altruism is not dead, <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/nature04981">but it is limited</a>.</p>
<p>Upbringing is also a part of the story. Being raised in a poorer household increases baseline <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/009057209090030B">support for redistribution</a>, and this can colour the way that income shocks, or indeed financial comfort, are <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1470594X15618966">perceived in future</a>. Some wealthy individuals might be comfortable with redistribution because of their childhood experiences, while those born into wealth might remain averse even if they get poorer over time.</p>
<p>Some think that <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/british-journal-of-political-science/article/how-do-economic-circumstances-determine-preferences-evidence-from-longrun-panel-data/73A1EA58796DA942A360401D01AB6BC5">only large shocks can truly shift the dial</a> on people’s beliefs, and perhaps Britain’s cost of living crisis – which has affected people across the income and upbringing distribution – represents such a case. But if those from wealthier backgrounds see the quickest financial recovery, any immediate changes in attitudes could be more short-lived.</p>
<p>All in all, despite seeing one of the deepest and most widespread shocks to household incomes in decades, it is not obvious that everyone will want more redistribution than they did before. This variability is essential for campaigners, policymakers, and politicians to understand, in order to devise policies that will remain sustainable over the long term.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/205595/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alex Yeandle does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>It’s not always the case that poorer citizens want more public spending and richer people want less.Alex Yeandle, Research Review Writer, Nuffield Politics Research Centre, University of OxfordLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2064892023-06-02T12:40:21Z2023-06-02T12:40:21ZWork requirements don’t work for domestic violence survivors – but Michigan data shows they rarely get waivers they should receive for cash assistance<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/529631/original/file-20230601-26-jmk5gb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=48%2C104%2C5318%2C3231&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Denying waivers to survivors of domestic violence can hinder their independence from their abusers. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/rear-view-of-an-unrecognizable-abused-woman-sitting-royalty-free-image/1327080394">Alvaro Medina Jurado/Moment via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>The <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/topics/research-brief-83231">Research Brief</a> is a short take about interesting academic work.</em></p>
<h2>The big idea</h2>
<p>Very few people who have survived domestic violence are <a href="https://www.acf.hhs.gov/opre/project/family-self-sufficiency-and-stability-research-scholars-network-fssrn-2020-2025">getting Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) waivers</a> from the work requirements and time limits tied to those benefits – even though they’re eligible for them, according to our new research.</p>
<p>State governments administer the federal TANF program, commonly known as welfare or cash assistance, in accordance with their own guidelines. Federal law allows states to <a href="https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/RL/RL32748">grant domestic violence waivers</a> to TANF recipients when time limits, work requirements and other policies increase their risk of abuse or would unfairly penalize victims of abuse. Without a waiver, people who receive these benefits can only get <a href="https://research.upjohn.org/jrnlarticles/214/">TANF benefits for a limited time</a>, which can’t exceed a total of five years, and they must document the completion of up to 120 hours a month of “<a href="https://www.acf.hhs.gov/opre/report/tanf-work-requirements-and-state-strategies-fulfill-them">work activities</a>,” according to a <a href="https://www.cbpp.org/research/income-security/temporary-assistance-for-needy-families">complex compliance formula</a>.</p>
<p>We examined annual reports from Michigan to the federal government on the number of domestic violence waivers it issued from 2008 to 2021. Even when the number of approved TANF applications increased, as occurred at the beginning of the <a href="https://mlpp.org/revitalize-the-family-independence-program-to-help-more-michigan-families-reach-financial-stability/">COVID-19 pandemic</a>, the number of domestic violence waivers issued remained flat.</p>
<p>In recent years, an average of 12,600 families in Michigan received TANF benefits in a typical month. More than 75% were female-led single-parent households. Since studies have found that 25% to 50% of women who get these benefits <a href="https://www.doi.org/10.1891/1946-6560.2.2.147">have experienced domestic violence</a>, we would expect at least 750 to 1,000 women getting this assistance to be experiencing domestic violence or to have recently left a violent relationship.</p>
<p>Instead, the state has only issued a total of from seven to 36 waivers per year for the past decade.</p>
<p>Our estimates of how many domestic violence waivers should be issued exclude men and transgender and binary people due to a <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2018-021960">lack of relevant research</a>. </p>
<p>To better understand what causes this discrepancy, we conducted focus groups with TANF caseworkers in 10 Michigan counties. They said they got no training on what domestic violence does to survivors’ ability to work, or guidance on when to grant the waivers. They also said there were no standard screening practices.</p>
<p>They also told us that survivors typically have to request waivers – even though by offering the waivers, Michigan has agreed to certify that TANF applicants and recipients are <a href="https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/RL/RL32748">notified that they are available</a>.</p>
<p>The caseworkers also said that domestic violence survivors who didn’t meet TANF work requirements often lost their benefits.</p>
<h2>Why it matters</h2>
<p>People who have experienced domestic violence can have <a href="https://econpapers.repec.org/article/rfajournl/v_3a5_3ay_3a2017_3ai_3a12_3ap_3a20-31.htm">trouble finding and keeping jobs</a> because of physical injuries and their abusers’ <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0886260520962075">efforts to sabotage their employment</a>. </p>
<p>Denying waivers to survivors can hinder their ability to gain financial independence and could place them at risk for returning to their abusive partner as a way to meet their housing and child care needs.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://theconversation.com/house-approval-of-debt-ceiling-deal-a-triumph-of-the-political-center-206837">debt-ceiling deal</a> struck between the White House and Republican leaders now pending in Congress would exempt people who are experiencing homelessness, former foster youth and veterans from <a href="https://theconversation.com/snap-work-requirements-dont-actually-get-more-people-working-but-they-do-drastically-limit-the-availability-of-food-aid-204257">Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program</a> work requirements. Known as SNAP, that program provides low-income people with money they must spend on groceries.</p>
<p>Our findings show that even with exemptions in place for at-risk groups, people who are eligible for such exceptions do not automatically get them.</p>
<p>That same deal also includes provisions that may encourage <a href="https://www.foxbusiness.com/money/debt-ceiling-deal-includes-new-work-requirements-snap-how-they-would-work">states to further restrict TANF waivers</a> by setting stricter overall work requirement goals for all parents who get this aid. </p>
<h2>What other work is being done</h2>
<p>In states with more lenient work requirements, such as not immediately stopping benefits when people miss work requirement targets, and more generous financial incentives, people who get TANF benefits tend to have better and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s10834-020-09714-8">higher-paying jobs</a> when they exit the program. In contrast, recent research indicates that taking TANF benefits away from domestic violence survivors can increase the risk that they will <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2020.113355">experience further abuse</a>. </p>
<h2>What’s next</h2>
<p>We plan to expand our analysis to include the entire country and to see how waivers can be successfully used to help domestic violence survivors escape poverty.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/206489/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kristina Nikolova Andrea Hetling receives funding from the Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation, Administration for Children and Families, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Grant Number 90PE0044.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Andrea Hetling receives funding from the Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation, Administration for Children and Families, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Grant Number 90PE0043-01-01.</span></em></p>People who have experienced domestic violence can have trouble finding and keeping jobs because of physical injuries and their abusers’ efforts to sabotage their employment.Kristina Nikolova, Research Assistant Professor of Social Work, University of Windsor, and Adjunct Professor of Social Work, Wayne State UniversityAndrea Hetling, Professor of Public Policy, Rutgers UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2051692023-05-24T18:42:43Z2023-05-24T18:42:43ZAs governments shirk their responsibilities, non-profits are more important than ever<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/526608/original/file-20230516-25-53n9ix.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=49%2C65%2C5414%2C3481&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">In a neoliberal era, where profitability is prioritized over social duty, all orders of government in Canada are increasingly shirking responsibility for providing social services onto non-profits.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>You’ve likely walked past that non-profit youth centre or literacy program in your neighborhood countless times. You’ve probably never needed to make use of it and never given it a second thought. </p>
<p>But on your next stroll, take a moment to consider the work that organization does, the challenges it faces and the vast benefits it brings to your community.</p>
<p>In an age of <a href="https://thepointer.com/article/2023-02-26/150-nonprofits-want-government-budgets-that-equitably-and-effectively-prevent-mounting-social-problems/">proliferating social troubles and government retreat</a>, Canadians must be aware of the critical role played by the non-profit sector. </p>
<p>Recent decades have seen <a href="https://www.investopedia.com/terms/n/neoliberalism.asp">the welfare state withdraw in favour of free-market principles</a>. In a neoliberal era, where <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/336700342_Neoliberalism_and_poverty_An_unbreakable_relationship">profitability is prioritized over social duty</a>, all orders of government in Canada have <a href="https://www.mqup.ca/liberating-temporariness--products-9780773543829.php">shirked much of the responsibility</a> for providing social services onto non-profits. </p>
<h2>Importance of social connections</h2>
<p>As non-profits have become saddled with more obligations, they are <a href="https://doi.org/10.4000/eccs.3562">handcuffed by limited funding</a>. Long-term funding arrangements between governments and non-profits have been replaced by provisional and competitive funding. While non-profits are expected to do significantly more, they are relegated to coping with <a href="http://www.justlabour.yorku.ca/volume22/pdfs/06_baines_et_al_press.pdf">far fewer resources</a>. </p>
<p>This has serious implications for the long-term well-being of communities, especially those already marginalized and under-served. </p>
<p>Not only are non-profits now providing critical services and social supports for which the state previously took responsibility, they are also <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.evalprogplan.2020.101817">settings where vital forms of social capital are produced</a>. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.google.ca/books/edition/Bowling_Alone/rd2ibodep7UC?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=bowling+alone&printsec=frontcover">Social capital</a> refers to networks of trust, belonging and support developed among people within a given community (bonding social capital), and between people who identify with different communities or social groups (bridging social capital). Social capital enables people to <a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0226012883/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0226012883&linkCode=as2&tag=thplofyo07-20&linkId=4QCXIF457L26NDJI">work together toward mutual well-being and goal attainment</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/526578/original/file-20230516-11525-g5d19v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A woman with short hair wearing a mask carries a box of fresh fruit." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/526578/original/file-20230516-11525-g5d19v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/526578/original/file-20230516-11525-g5d19v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526578/original/file-20230516-11525-g5d19v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526578/original/file-20230516-11525-g5d19v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526578/original/file-20230516-11525-g5d19v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526578/original/file-20230516-11525-g5d19v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526578/original/file-20230516-11525-g5d19v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Charities and non-profits do vital work to support communities, often with limited funding.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Social capital doesn’t just happen</h2>
<p>Communities must find ways to create worthwhile forms of social capital. And that’s where non-profit organizations can fill a gap. However, constantly scrambling for money leaves these organizations little time, resources and capacity to provide programming that fosters social capital. </p>
<p><a href="https://doi.org/10.1007%2Fs42413-022-00186-2">Our research</a> on community literacy organizations illuminated the role of non-profit organizations in helping people cultivate social capital. We conducted interviews and focus groups with program leads, staff and service users at eight non-profit organizations in southern Ontario to learn how they support literacy in their communities.</p>
<p>We found that producing social capital enabled them to serve communities in ways that transcended their primary mandates. </p>
<p>It is unrealistic to expect people to build social capital on their own, devoid of enabling social infrastructure. The challenge of creating meaningful social connections is daunting. Especially as society becomes increasingly individualistic. <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/ca/blog/the-secular-life/201911/is-canada-losing-its-religion">Religion</a> — once a stalwart source of community — continues to decline and <a href="https://theconversation.com/a-rise-in-self-service-technologies-may-cause-a-decline-in-our-sense-of-community-201339">technology</a> is rapidly displacing face-to-face human interaction. Urban planners and community stakeholders need to provide the settings and opportunities for people to come together, connect and collaborate. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/toronto-needs-more-beauty-in-its-waterfront-designs-100871">Toronto needs more beauty in its waterfront designs</a>
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<p>We found that non-profit community programs serve as settings where people from marginalized backgrounds can build beneficial forms of social capital. Such local initiatives provided individuals with recurrent and predictable channels to interact, share lived experiences and work together. </p>
<p>For example, mothers of children with disabilities participated in self-help groups where they shared their experiences, exchanged information and generally supported one another. Civic projects, such as a community garden started at one organization, brought together residents, young and old. </p>
<p>Non-profit programs provide people with opportunities to interact with different community members and forge meaningful interactions with people outside their social group that <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/10632921.2012.761167">mitigate prejudice and foster trust and understanding</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/526580/original/file-20230516-21-4ordb9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A woman standing in front of people seated in a classroom." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/526580/original/file-20230516-21-4ordb9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/526580/original/file-20230516-21-4ordb9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526580/original/file-20230516-21-4ordb9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526580/original/file-20230516-21-4ordb9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526580/original/file-20230516-21-4ordb9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526580/original/file-20230516-21-4ordb9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526580/original/file-20230516-21-4ordb9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Social programs, like those improving literacy, provide vital space for people to build meaningful social connections.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span>
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<p>Over the course of our research, we saw what started as bridging social capital strengthen into bonding ties between program participants, and in many cases between program users, staff and volunteers. The significance of these bonds was powerfully conveyed by one participant who took part in our study: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>… what I take away from this group [is] that there are good people still left in a world that’s so scary, and people that are there to support. And whether I’m here or not, they’re always willing to help somebody else that’s in need. And… knowing that the option of … being there and the people that come together for this group–it’s really incredible to know that you have somebody.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The programs we studied connected individuals to new people, organizations, supports and resources and provided ongoing opportunities to build bridging social capital.</p>
<p>While the primary purpose of the non-profit organizations was to improve literacy, these programs accomplished much more. By providing a judgement-free safe space where participants had opportunities to share and collaborate, these organizations fostered social capital within communities. </p>
<p>The community organizations we studied had recently lost their primary funding provided by a regional anti-poverty program. Program leads and staff remained committed to supporting service users but struggled to do so given the need to devote more time and resources to addressing funding insecurities. </p>
<h2>Benefits of social capital</h2>
<p>When social capital is actively fostered, social trust is elevated. Research has demonstrated that <a href="https://static.prisonpolicy.org/scans/Community-and-the-Crime-Decline-The-Causal-Effect-of-Local-Nonprofits-on-Violent-Crime.pdf">the more non-profit organizations there are in a community, the lower the crime rate</a>. Non-profit organizations help to lessen crime by enhancing levels of social capital and trust and expanding opportunities and hope. </p>
<p>Strengthening people’s social and organizational ties broadens their horizons and improves their <a href="https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230287624_5">well-being</a>. Non-profits play a crucial role in fostering and sustaining such social capital. </p>
<p>If governments expect communities to be viable and fend for themselves amid diminishing public support, local non-profits cannot be relegated to financial precarity. By starving the non-profit sector, governments are ironically undermining the capacity of communities to live up to the neoliberal ideals of self-reliance and local resourcefulness.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/205169/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kevin Gosine served as a third-party evaluator and accessed research funding provided by the Ontario Trillium Foundation by way of the Local Poverty Reduction Fund of the Province of Ontario. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Darlene Ciuffetelli Parker served as a third-party evaluator and accessed research funding provided by the Ontario Trillium Foundation by way of the Local Poverty Reduction Fund of the Province of Ontario. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tiffany L. Gallagher served as a third-party evaluator and accessed research funding provided by the Ontario Trillium Foundation by way of the Local Poverty Reduction Fund of the Province of Ontario. </span></em></p>Non-profits provide critical services and social support for communities. They also provide settings where vital forms of social capital are produced.Kevin Gosine, Associate Professor, Department of Sociology, Brock UniversityDarlene Ciuffetelli Parker, Professor, Department of Educational Studies; Director, Teacher Education, Brock UniversityTiffany L. Gallagher, Professor, Department of Educational Studies and Director, Brock Learning Lab, Brock UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2048552023-05-24T15:34:25Z2023-05-24T15:34:25Z‘We will track you down’: how the UK government is reviving the troubling ‘scrounger’ stereotype<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/527286/original/file-20230519-27-x96kaz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=260%2C109%2C5346%2C3623&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/arrested-man-handcuffs-hands-behind-back-258602471">Brian A. Jackson / Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Bass-heavy techno plays, police sirens blare, and men in flak jackets and helmets lead a suspect away in handcuffs. It’s not a late-night crime drama – it’s a <a href="https://twitter.com/DWPgovuk/status/1649846712578473985">public service announcement</a> from the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP).</p>
<p>The video shows a large team of Met police officers and DWP officials conducting a raid in a block of flats, handcuffing men and taking videos of evidence. Cut to Tom Pursglove, minister for disabled people, health and work, addressing the viewer directly:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>We will track you down, we will find you, and we will bring you to justice.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Pursglove is describing the goals of a new “fraud plan” from the department, a policy push to introduce tougher penalties for benefits fraud. A <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/fighting-fraud-in-the-welfare-system/fighting-fraud-in-the-welfare-system--2">policy paper</a> published in May 2022 details the proposals, including legislative updates to be formalised “when parliamentary time allows”. </p>
<p>They include giving the DWP new powers to arrest and conduct search and seizures, expanding its access to third-party data (for example, banking information), and introducing a new civil penalty for fraud. Previously, claimants had the option to go through the courts if they wished to refute a fine, but under the new legislation, fines would become compulsory.</p>
<p>On its surface, preventing benefit fraud is not a controversial aim. No one wants people cheating a system which is designed to help those most in need, right?</p>
<p>But the DWP’s messaging, as seen in this video, is part of a wider pattern of anti-welfare rhetoric that has a long history in the UK. The idea that benefits claimants are “scroungers” or “cheats” makes it <a href="https://www.thelondoneconomic.com/news/poverty-shame-resulting-in-18-billion-of-benefits-going-unclaimed-every-year-262003/">less likely that people will access the resources they need</a> (and are entitled to), resulting in even higher levels of poverty.</p>
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<p>The language used in the video is aggressive from the start, discussing the necessity to “root out” fraud with multiple uses of “track down”, almost reminiscent of a hunt. Pursglove speaking directly to the audience positions every viewer as a possible suspect, reinforced by the imagery of police vans, handcuffs and a taser. Traditional British values are invoked through zoomed-in shots of the lion-and-unicorn badge cover and monochromatic union flags on police jackets, while Pursglove discusses fairness – framing the Met police as a force for justice. </p>
<h2>The ‘scrounger’ narrative</h2>
<p>The DWP’s video suggests the “scrounger” narrative is returning after a brief hibernation during Brexit, where issues of <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17405904.2019.1593206?casa_token=X2X9amEypMEAAAAA%3AOV-RuOh7Oi9sADxagF22md0FNCvaluipuGRwyY-6RKjdRGvJxxDYTkrwVrcP5PuI0jmmo9Y9ouvf">trade and immigration</a> dominated public concern. It is best summed up in Pursglove’s message: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>We of course want a safety net that supports the most vulnerable in our society and those who find themselves in difficult circumstances, but we just cannot have people cheating the system.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>An ongoing problem since the <a href="https://academic.oup.com/edited-volume/41629">conception of social policy</a> in the UK has been determining who is in “genuine” need and who is not. A pamphlet called <a href="https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/a-caveat-for-common-cursetors-1567">A Caveat for Common Cursetors</a>, published in 1567, details the different ways beggars would feign illness to encourage charity. This, much like the modern tabloid equivalent, was sensationalist and thought to exaggerate the truth to make for better reading.</p>
<p>In her work <a href="https://archive.org/details/disabledstate00ston/mode/2up">The Disabled State</a> (1984), policy theorist Deborah Stone argued that the foundations on which the modern welfare state is built have caused inherent suspicion of people trying to claim benefits.</p>
<p>For example, people claiming personal independence payments (PIP) have alleged that assessors use “tricks” to covertly assess whether they are being truthful about their conditions. These were described in a <a href="https://committees.parliament.uk/oralevidence/12707/html/">2022 DWP committee meeting</a> – examples included allegations that lifts were broken deliberately to see if claimants were able to use stairs, and that assessors purposefully dropped a pen in front of a claimant to see if they had sufficient mobility to pick up an item.</p>
<p>These alone could be dismissed as unfortunate coincidences, but are very serious when placed in context. A few years earlier, the high court found PIP <a href="https://publiclawproject.org.uk/latest/high-court-finds-2017-personal-independence-payment-pip-regulations-unlawful/">regulations unlawful</a> due to discriminating against people with mental health impairments. And the latest statistics show that 69% of PIP appeals <a href="https://www.benefitsandwork.co.uk/news/appeals-backlog-rises-as-success-rates-fall-for-all-but-pip#:%7E:text=The%20success%20rates%20for%20appeals,PIP%2069%25%2C%20up%201%25">are successful</a>, which suggests that people are frequently denied benefits that they are later found to have the right to.</p>
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<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/skint-britain-response-to-series-about-life-on-universal-credit-shows-government-is-still-not-listening-112089">Skint Britain: response to series about life on Universal Credit shows government is still not listening</a>
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<h2>Scroungers in the media</h2>
<p>The modern scrounger stereotype was revitalised in the mid-2000s and 2010s, through media and television programmes such as Channel 4’s <a href="https://www.channel4.com/news/benefits-street-birmingham-channel-4-twitter-row">Benefits Street</a>. The 2014 show followed the residents of James Turner Street in Birmingham, the majority of whom were unemployed and received state benefits. Posing as an observational documentary, the show shined an unsympathetic light on these residents, and would sometimes include or exclude details of a disability to <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.5153/sro.3441">fit the narrative</a>. </p>
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<p>The year after Benefits Street, The Sun newspaper published “<a href="https://www.thesun.co.uk/archives/news/11453/the-welfies/">The Welfies</a>”, profiling nine people considered “benefit grabbers” and describing one as “the slobbo with no jobbo”.</p>
<p>These examples reflect a <a href="https://www.bloomsburycollections.com/book/scroungers-moral-panics-and-media-myths/introduction-scroungerphobia-revisited">moral panic</a> surrounding welfare in the 2010s, which reinforced the idea that welfare claimants are “shirkers” who take advantage of a system for those genuinely in need.</p>
<h2>Benefits fraud: the numbers</h2>
<p>In 2012, it was estimated that welfare overpaid due to benefits fraud and tax credit fraud came to just under <a href="https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/118530/annual-fraud-indicator-2012.pdf">£1.6 billion</a>. This is a big number, but some perspective is necessary. In the same year, <a href="https://www.cas.org.uk/features/myth-busting-real-figures-benefit-fraud">£1.3 billion in benefits went unclaimed</a> due to errors by claimants and officials. </p>
<p>Pursglove states that £9 billion will be lost to fraud “in coming years”. Meanwhile, social policy analysis company <a href="https://policyinpractice.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/Missing-out-19-billion-of-support.pdf">Policy in Practice</a> estimates that £19 billion a year is going unclaimed in benefits – also reflecting the amount unclaimed due to the complexity of application processes and <a href="https://policyinpractice.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/Missing-out-19-billion-of-support.pdf">stigma felt by applicants</a>, despite their eligibility. </p>
<p>Again, when we contextualise the numbers, benefits fraud becomes a much smaller issue.</p>
<p>It is not a leap to consider that the demonisation of welfare claimants in British society could be contributing to so much going unclaimed. Alongside “<a href="https://www.thelondoneconomic.com/news/poverty-shame-resulting-in-18-billion-of-benefits-going-unclaimed-every-year-262003/">poverty shame</a>” (where people feel ashamed of claiming benefits due to prejudice), obtuse and hard-to-navigate assessments mean that when denied benefits, people don’t appeal the result due to sheer exhaustion.</p>
<p>With <a href="https://www.bigissue.com/news/social-justice/uk-poverty-the-facts-figures-effects-solutions-cost-living-crisis/">one in five people living in poverty</a> last year, the return of the “scrounger” discourse will only worsen these already dire problems.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/204855/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Leo Woodend is a member of the Leeds Centre for Disability Studies. </span></em></p>The idea that people are cheating the benefits system has a long history in British society.Leo Woodend, PhD Student, University of LeedsLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2012962023-03-16T03:51:02Z2023-03-16T03:51:02ZWhy robodebt’s use of ‘income averaging’ lacked basic common sense<p>The practice of “income averaging” to calculate debts in the robodebt scheme was completely flawed. This is what I confirmed in <a href="https://robodebt.royalcommission.gov.au/publications/professor-peter-whiteford-report-robodebt-royal-commission">my new report</a> conducted for the robodebt royal commission published last Friday, the final day of the commission’s public hearings.</p>
<p>This process effectively assumed many people receiving social security benefits had stable earnings throughout a whole year. </p>
<p>But this is unlikely to be accurate for the many people who don’t work standard <a href="https://theconversation.com/note-to-centrelink-australian-workers-lives-have-changed-70946">full-time hours</a>, and particularly for students, since the tax year and the academic year don’t coincide. </p>
<p>My report finds averaging of incomes is completely inconsistent with social security policies that have been developed by governments since the 1980s.</p>
<p>Since 1980, social security legislation has been amended more than 20 times to encourage recipients to take up part-time and casual work. These include the <a href="https://www.servicesaustralia.gov.au/working-credit">Working Credit</a> for people receiving unemployment and other payments, and a similar but more generous <a href="https://www.servicesaustralia.gov.au/income-bank">Income Bank</a> for students.</p>
<p>These measures are specifically designed to <a href="https://formerministers.dss.gov.au/189/australians-working-together/">encourage people to take up more work</a>, including part-time and irregular casual work, and keep more of their social security payments.</p>
<p>Robodebt’s lack of consistency with long-standing policies should have been obvious from the start. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1634075269140033536"}"></div></p>
<h2>What is income averaging?</h2>
<p>In the robodebt scheme, income averaging involved data-matching historic records of social security benefit payments with past income tax returns, identifying discrepancies between these records.</p>
<p>It reduced human investigation of the discrepancies. The automatic calculation of “overpayments” for many people was based on a simple calculation that averaged income over the financial year.</p>
<p>The “debts” were based on the difference between this averaged income and the income that people actually reported while they were receiving payments.</p>
<p>I wrote <a href="https://theconversation.com/note-to-centrelink-australian-workers-lives-have-changed-70946">an article</a> for The Conversation on this in 2017. At the time, I thought, Centrelink couldn’t possibly have done that. </p>
<p>Well, as the royal commission has found, that’s <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-02-20/robodebt-scheme-government-royal-commission-fraud-income/101998782">precisely what it was doing</a>.</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/note-to-centrelink-australian-workers-lives-have-changed-70946">Note to Centrelink: Australian workers' lives have changed</a>
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<p>A victim of robodebt, Deanna Amato, brought a <a href="https://www.legalaid.vic.gov.au/explainer-deanna-amatos-robo-debt-case">test case</a> to the Federal Court in 2019, which caused the government to admit robodebt was unlawful.</p>
<p>Amato also gave evidence at the <a href="https://robodebt.royalcommission.gov.au/publications/transcript-hearing-day-36-24-february-2023">royal commission in late February this year</a>. She described how it was obvious her debt was in error:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>It was averaged over the […] whole financial year. Study usually starts at the beginning of a calendar year. So I had been working full-time for the first six months of that year and then I had stopped working full-time to study. So it was really obvious that they had averaged out over the whole year rather than the six months I was actually only claiming Austudy for.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>What I found</h2>
<p>It’s well known Australia has a high proportion of casual workers. </p>
<p>Because they’re employed on an “as needed” basis, their hours can vary substantially. Therefore, their income can too. </p>
<p>ABS data showed that in 2014 <a href="https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/labour/earnings-and-working-conditions/characteristics-employment-australia">nearly 40%</a> of casual workers didn’t work the same hours each week. Also, around 53% had pay that varied from one pay period to another. These figures have been broadly stable since 2008.</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/robodebt-was-a-fiasco-with-a-cost-we-have-yet-to-fully-appreciate-150169">Robodebt was a fiasco with a cost we have yet to fully appreciate</a>
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<p>My report analyses new data provided by the Department of Social Services to the royal commission. It looks in detail at the circumstances of people who received social security payments between 2010-11 and 2018-19. These payments included Austudy, Newstart, Parenting Payment Partnered, Parenting Payment Single and Youth Allowance.</p>
<p>These payments accounted <a href="https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Senate/Community_Affairs/Centrelinkcompliance/Submissions">for around 91%</a> of the people subject to the reviews that identified discrepancies and potential “overpayments” between 2016 and 2019 under the different phases of robodebt. </p>
<p>For Newstart and Youth Allowance recipients – who accounted for <a href="https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Senate/Community_Affairs/Centrelinkcompliance/Submissions">75% of those affected by robodebt</a> – between 20% and 40% had earnings while receiving these benefits.</p>
<p>The share of people with income who had stable incomes over the course of the financial year was extremely low. In the Department of Social Services data, it ranged from less than 3% of people receiving youth payments, to around 5% of those receiving Newstart or Austudy, and 5%-10% of those receiving Parenting Payments. </p>
<h2>Share of people on social security payments with stable income over the course of each financial year, 2010-11 to 2018-19</h2>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/515377/original/file-20230315-24-i6ezz2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/515377/original/file-20230315-24-i6ezz2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=321&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515377/original/file-20230315-24-i6ezz2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=321&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515377/original/file-20230315-24-i6ezz2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=321&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515377/original/file-20230315-24-i6ezz2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=404&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515377/original/file-20230315-24-i6ezz2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=404&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515377/original/file-20230315-24-i6ezz2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=404&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Supplied</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
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</figure>
<p>For most of these people with variable income, the variations were large. More than 90% had periods when their income was more than $100 per fortnight different from their average, and more than 80% had variations greater than $200 per fortnight.</p>
<p>Average earnings varied substantially for people receiving social security payments for only part of a financial year. Receiving social security benefits for many people is <a href="https://theconversation.com/our-research-shows-more-australians-receive-unemployment-payments-than-you-think-151289">a short-term and sometimes recurring experience</a>.</p>
<p>To take the example of Newstart, in 2015-16 there were around 783,000 people who received payments at the start of the financial year. About 500,000 people entered the payment system during the year, and 325,000 exited the system. So, in total, nearly 1.2 million people received Newstart payments at some point during the financial year. Flows into and out of the other social security payments were similar. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-robodebt-scheme-failed-tests-of-lawfulness-impartiality-integrity-and-trust-193832">The Robodebt scheme failed tests of lawfulness, impartiality, integrity and trust</a>
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<p>For the unemployed and students, most people received payments for only part of the year. Almost nobody who received income had completely stable income over the robodebt period. What’s more, significant numbers of people who received social security payments were on such payments for only part of any financial year.</p>
<p>It’s completely inaccurate to assume that income over the course of a financial year can be averaged to produce an accurate figure for the actual patterns of people’s earnings.</p>
<p>Using this to then calculate “overpayments” isn’t only inconsistent with the social security policy directions adopted by government for decades, it also lacks basic common sense.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/201296/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Peter Whiteford receives funding from the Australian Research Council. He is a member of the Economic Inclusion Advisory Committee. This report for the Royal Commission into Robodebt was prepared without charge.</span></em></p>My new report for the royal commission examines why the practice of income averaging is so problematic.Peter Whiteford, Professor, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2010602023-03-13T12:37:25Z2023-03-13T12:37:25ZRural poverty is getting worse – and welfare harder to access<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/513995/original/file-20230307-2080-jhv7cy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=171%2C40%2C6538%2C4426&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/balallan-scotland-march-25-2022-abandoned-2234722441">mepstock/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In Britain, people imagine poverty as mainly an urban phenomenon. We think of poverty as rundown housing estates or tower blocks, far from the idyllic countryside scenes of shows like Escape to the Country. </p>
<p>But this is only part of the picture. Poverty in rural areas is more widespread than people might think. Fifty per cent of rural households <a href="https://eprints.ncl.ac.uk/263634">experienced poverty</a> at some point between 1991-2008 (54% in towns and cities). Surveys by the <a href="https://www.fca.org.uk/">Financial Conduct Authority</a>, an independent regulatory body, revealed that 54% of rural dwellers were financially vulnerable in 2018. </p>
<p>We <a href="https://policy.bristoluniversitypress.co.uk/rural-poverty-today">have found</a> that low pay, insecure employment, unaffordable housing and poor public transport infrastructure are all factors driving rural poverty. But the figures used to measure poverty (and determine where state support goes) are not always appropriate for rural contexts. </p>
<p>For example, the <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/english-indices-of-deprivation-2019">index of multiple deprivation</a>, which governments use to identify areas where poverty is concentrated, can miss rural poverty, which is typically more dispersed. Such indices also use data on lack of car ownership to help measure an area’s poverty – but in a rural area, a car is essential even for poorer households.</p>
<p>Our new book <a href="https://policy.bristoluniversitypress.co.uk/rural-poverty-today">Rural Poverty Today: Experiences of Social Exclusion in Rural Britain</a> shows the reality of rural poverty in Britain, and how the current cost of living crisis is exacerbating it. And while families everywhere are suffering, those in rural areas have more difficulty accessing state support through the welfare system.</p>
<h2>Rural cost of living</h2>
<p>A <a href="https://www.gov.scot/publications/cost-remoteness-reflecting-higher-living-costs-remote-rural-scotland-measuring-fuel-poverty/">2021 report</a> by Loughborough University found that for households in remote rural areas in Scotland, the minimum income standard is typically 15-30% higher than it is for urban households. </p>
<p>Rural living costs are higher largely because of fuel costs for heating and transport, and higher prices for food and other essentials. A 2020 study <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S2214629620302747">mapped “double energy vulnerability”</a> – the combination of high fuel costs for transport and for heating – in Britain. The researchers found that rural households face the greatest financial pressure, as they pay a higher proportion of their income on these fuel costs. Rural homes tend to be older, larger, poorly insulated, difficult and costly to retrofit with insulation, and are often not on mains energy supplies.</p>
<p>In 2022, <a href="https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1139133/annual-fuel-poverty-statistics-lilee-report-2023-2022-data.pdf">rural households</a> had a higher fuel poverty rate (15.9%) and a larger fuel poverty gap (£956) than households in towns and cities. The fuel poverty rate was even higher (20.1%) for rural households off mains gas, who have to rely on expensive electricity or oil tanks instead.</p>
<p>Estimated fuel poverty rates for rural households in 2023 are higher still. <a href="https://www.eas.org.uk/en/fuel-poverty-set-to-break-the-50-barrier-in-parts-of-scotland_59652/">Modelling by York University in early 2022</a> found that 57% of households in the Western Isles of Scotland (also called the Outer Hebrides) were experiencing fuel poverty, and they estimate that this has now risen to over 80%.</p>
<p>This has real human impacts. In our research, we found older people unable to put on the heating, people collecting firewood and only heating one room, and families unable to afford to refill their oil tanks (which have a minimum delivery of 500 litres) in midwinter. Urban households do not face this problem, as their houses are more commonly on mains energy.</p>
<h2>The welfare state and rural poverty</h2>
<p>Welfare – in the form of benefits and universal credit – should be a source of support for vulnerable households. But in <a href="https://policy.bristoluniversitypress.co.uk/rural-poverty-today">our research</a>, we’ve found that the welfare system is less able to support rural residents who may have unpredictable incomes, don’t have digital connectivity, or who do not have the skills to navigate a complex online system.</p>
<p>There is also a stigma attached to claiming benefits in small communities, where seeking welfare advice or claiming benefits is more visible and may lead to being perceived as lazy and not deserving of neighbours’ help.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A derelict red telephone booth next to the sole remaining wall of a building in a rural area" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/514879/original/file-20230313-16-ic1z6x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/514879/original/file-20230313-16-ic1z6x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=368&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/514879/original/file-20230313-16-ic1z6x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=368&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/514879/original/file-20230313-16-ic1z6x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=368&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/514879/original/file-20230313-16-ic1z6x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=463&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/514879/original/file-20230313-16-ic1z6x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=463&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/514879/original/file-20230313-16-ic1z6x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=463&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Living in remote areas can make it much harder to access welfare.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/slow-decline-empire-using-example-northern-2140756531">chilterngreen.de/Shutterstock</a></span>
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<p>Many of the challenges welfare claimants in rural areas face are similar to those in urban areas – the complexity and flawed design of the online system, payment delays and unpleasant experiences at assessment centres. But some issues are worse for rural claimants. We heard repeatedly of the inability of the benefits system (both legacy benefits and universal credit) to deal fairly with the volatility and irregularity of rural incomes from tourism, retail, or casual farm and estate work. </p>
<p>This can make household budgeting difficult, and in the most serious cases, increases the risk of debt and destitution. When benefits are overpaid, a frequent occurrence for people on irregular or volatile incomes who are unaware of the error, the overpayments are then deducted from subsequent months’ payments. This “clawback” can leave families with too little to live on.</p>
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<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/what-is-it-like-to-be-destitute-in-britain-it-makes-you-feel-like-some-kind-of-underclass-177395">What is it like to be destitute in Britain? 'It makes you feel like some kind of underclass'</a>
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<h2>Distanced from support</h2>
<p>Many people are unable to access the very systems which should help them receive support, particularly if they live far from welfare offices. Rural claimants with a long-term physical or mental illness or disability will face strenuous, lengthy journeys to attend work capability assessments, a requirement to receive disability benefits. </p>
<p>In the Western Isles, where there is no assessment centre, residents can wait up to a year before an officer visits the islands, unless they can travel to Inverness or Skye. And as the benefits system moves mostly online, those who don’t have or <a href="https://policy.bristoluniversitypress.co.uk/rural-poverty-today">can’t afford broadband access</a> will struggle to get the help they need. </p>
<p>Reaching and supporting the most vulnerable in rural communities is likely to become even more difficult as the cost of living crisis continues. Meeting the challenge should be front of mind for political parties as they <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/feb/21/rural-communities-in-my-dna-and-important-to-labour-starmer-tells-farmers">compete for the rural vote</a> in the next election.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/201060/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Newcastle University received funding to support this research from Standard Life Foundation, a charity whose objective is to address financial hardship. Mark Shucksmith was principal investigator but received no personal financial benefit. Mark has previously conducted research on rural poverty funded similarly by external grants from Joseph Rowntree Foundation, Scottish Government, Scottish Consumer Council, Scottish Homes, Rural Development Commission, ESRC and EU.
Mark Shucksmith is a Trustee of Carnegie UK, Macaulay Development Trust and European Rural Communities Alliance. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>In her research role at Scotland's Rural College, Jane Atterton received funding from Standard Life Foundation (now abdrn Financial Fairness Trust) to conduct the 'Rural Lives' research on rural financial hardship and social exclusion. Jane has undertaken research on a variety of topics relating to rural businesses and rural communities over the last 20 years with funding from a range of public, private and third sector organisations.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>While employed as a Researcher at Scotland's Rural College, Jayne Glass received funding from Standard Life Foundation (now abdrn Financial Fairness Trust) to conduct the 'Rural Lives' research on rural financial hardship and social exclusion.</span></em></p>High rural poverty rates are driven largely by fuel and transport costs.Mark Shucksmith, Professor of Planning, Newcastle University, Newcastle UniversityJane Atterton, Senior Lecturer and Manager of the Rural Policy Centre, Scotland's Rural CollegeJayne Glass, Researcher in Geography, Uppsala UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2011652023-03-10T05:43:33Z2023-03-10T05:43:33Z‘Amateurish, rushed and disastrous’: royal commission exposes robodebt as ethically indefensible policy targeting vulnerable people<p>The robodebt royal commission hearings came to an end on Friday. Over the past four months, they have delivered a telling portrait of unaccountable government power.</p>
<p>As they look back on a mass of limited recollections, missing paper and inaction, what are key things Australians should take away?</p>
<h2>‘I’m appalled’</h2>
<p>The first phase of the inquiry was marked by bombshell revelations. Two iron curtains that protect government – legal professional privilege and cabinet confidentiality – were pulled back.</p>
<p>In the opening week, we learned:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>In 2014, Department of Social Services’ <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/oct/31/legal-doubts-over-robodebt-raised-with-government-department-in-2014-inquiry-hears">legal advice</a> on robodebt was a flat “no”. New legislation was needed to raise debts by averaging annual income. Robodebt went ahead without it.</p></li>
<li><p>In 2017, after enormous public outcry, external legal advice was not sought. Instead, a government lawyer reported feeling “pressure” to produce heavily qualified <a href="https://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/im-appalled-robodet-inquiry-commissioners-shock-at-departments-admission/4gxm8kigw">legal advice</a>. This unpersuasive advice was then used to justify the scheme.</p></li>
<li><p>In 2018, the Department of Social Services, <a href="https://www.afr.com/politics/federal/bad-government-on-display-for-all-to-see-in-robo-debt-debacle-20230205-p5chy1">received advice dubbed</a> “catastrophic” for the scheme. It stayed in draft, something lawyers admitted was a common practice. </p></li>
</ul>
<p>Confronted by this, Commissioner Catherine Holmes had only <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/nov/05/a-shameful-chapter-how-australias-robodebt-saga-was-allowed-to-unfold">two words</a>: “I’m appalled”.</p>
<p>Without the commission, the standard rules on transparency would have applied. Australians would never have known any of it.</p>
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<h2>Ethically indefensible</h2>
<p>Robodebt is about so much more than just the absence of law. After years of semantics and political rhetoric, the hearings confirmed robodebt as baseless, ethically indefensible policy. </p>
<p>Holmes <a href="https://www.afr.com/politics/federal/turnbull-never-considered-robo-debt-legality-20230306-p5cpp9">rebuked</a> the program as “amateurish, rushed and disastrous”.</p>
<p>The core concept at the heart of robodebt was the tactical imposition of administrative burden on vulnerable people. Instead of the previous system, where evidence would be gathered direct from employers, the onus of proof was reversed. </p>
<p>The hearings revealed the department’s own budget <a href="https://robodebt.royalcommission.gov.au/system/files/2023-03/transcript-hearing-day-41-3-march.pdf">assumed most people would give up</a>. Hundreds of thousands would effectively cop an averaged and inaccurate debt. </p>
<p>Robodebt should never again be framed as a technological glitch or a legal oversight. It was the active and direct exploitation of people’s vulnerability. The department’s own research into the letters sent confirmed they <a href="https://robodebt.royalcommission.gov.au/system/files/2023-03/transcript-hearing-day-41-3-march.pdf">generated terror and confusion</a>. We learnt it even held modelling that debts raised under the programme were inflated.</p>
<p>We have built a dense, highly conditional welfare system, which concentrates enormous, life-changing powers in the hands of government decision-makers. The hearings delivered a portrait of a system warped by imbalances of power and a lack of access to justice. </p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/robodebt-was-a-fiasco-with-a-cost-we-have-yet-to-fully-appreciate-150169">Robodebt was a fiasco with a cost we have yet to fully appreciate</a>
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<h2>Welfare cop</h2>
<p>So what of the politicians? Their appearances had one clear theme: they positioned themselves as the victims of the Australian Public Service.</p>
<p>Scott Morrison indicated he was entitled to <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-12-14/scott-morrison-fronts-robodebt-inquiry/101771092">rely on a checklist</a> that read “no legislation needed”. Christian Porter relied on the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/feb/02/christian-porter-tells-inquiry-someone-in-department-assured-him-robodebt-was-legal-but-i-cant-recall-who">verbal assurance</a> of a public servant that the system was above board.</p>
<p>For hours, we cycled through the same phrases: “I did not know”. “I was not told”. “I was entitled to rely on public servants”.</p>
<p>In our Westminster system, a minister is responsible for the actions of their department. The hearings have revealed that to be abstract fiction rather than functional reality. While a storm of suffering and advocacy raged, politicians and their offices didn’t ask even the simplest questions about the core issue.</p>
<p>What they focused on was seeking political benefit – right from the earliest press releases, trumpeting the arrival <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/dec/17/how-morrison-launched-australias-strong-welfare-cop-and-the-pain-robodebt-left-in-its-wake">of a</a> “strong welfare cop on the beat”. In the pursuit of this political brand, we saw egregious actions ranging from deliberately evading questions to approving the <a href="https://indaily.com.au/news/2023/01/31/shut-this-story-down-minister-distributed-private-centrelink-data-after-negative-robodebt-media/">release of the personal information</a> to “correct the record”.</p>
<p>Moving past individuals, our focus needs to be on tackling the broader ecosystem that produced “welfare cop”. The phrase speaks powerfully to how we have fallen into a social security system driven by shortcut cultural images, rather than on supporting work, families and care.</p>
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<h2>Taken advantage of</h2>
<p>Most people will not have had time to follow the commission. Media coverage, predictably, surged for “politician days”. They missed the most powerful and important contributions. </p>
<p>Victims of the scheme spoke up for what should matter, what a social security system needs to protect and deliver. Sandra Bevan, a single mother of four boys, who works in disability support, <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-12-16/qld-robodebt-scheme-government-royal-commission-victim/101780890">told us</a> about the experience of correctly reporting income and not being listened to.</p>
<p>It was so traumatic that she swore she would “never access Centrelink benefits ever again”. Bevan is a powerful reminder of where courage, strength and leadership are found in our society.</p>
<p>In the final block, another victim, Matthew Thompson, summed up <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-03-01/qld-robodebt-scheme-royal-commission-matthew-thompson/102039536">what he felt drove robodebt</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>It seems to me that the powerful people are always able to take advantage of vulnerable people, as the gap between rich and poorer increases still. And no matter how many royal commissions we have, that always seems to be the case. And I hope this royal commission can change that.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Holmes could only give <a href="https://twitter.com/DarrenODonovan/status/1630733001624788995">a simple human response</a>. Somehow, all at once, it spoke to her commitment, the limits on her role, the history of royal commissions and the reality of the system as it currently is:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I’m afraid I can’t promise you that. But we’ll do what we can.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>In a room in Brisbane, we have learnt of the scale of problems in front of us. Only a broader societal change, not just a royal commission, will ever deliver the change we need.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/201165/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Darren O'Donovan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Robodebt should never again be framed as a technological glitch or a legal oversight. It was the active and direct exploitation of people’s vulnerability.Darren O'Donovan, Senior Lecturer in Administrative Law, La Trobe UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1967952023-02-16T19:04:51Z2023-02-16T19:04:51ZFriday essay: parents of 9-month-old babies as ‘workers in waiting’? How ParentsNext monitors single mothers<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/509643/original/file-20230213-22-yuofjf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=23%2C0%2C5152%2C3445&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Laura Garcia/Pexels</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>For the first two months of Svetlana’s daughter’s life, the pair couch-surfed and lived on the streets. Granted public housing, Svetlana then worked to “stabilise” herself and slowly form “new ties”. A “former addict”, she had been “clean and sober for six years”. </p>
<p>Her daughter faced speech delays, and with help from a social service, Svetlana had been focused on supporting her, deciding to keep her at preschool for an additional year. Svetlana’s father, who has <a href="https://theconversation.com/should-we-move-our-loved-one-with-dementia-into-a-nursing-home-6-things-to-consider-when-making-this-tough-decision-189770">dementia</a>, had lately moved to an aged care facility, leaving her mother “all alone” and “very sick”.</p>
<p>“On top of all this, ParentsNext was introduced to me,” she told me. “I wanted to keep an open mind,” she continued, “and I did.”</p>
<hr>
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<em>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/after-robodebt-its-time-to-address-parentsnext-133222">After Robodebt, it's time to address ParentsNext</a>
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</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Parents as ‘workers in waiting’</h2>
<p>The <a href="https://www.servicesaustralia.gov.au/parentsnext">official description</a> of ParentsNext is that it “helps parents with children under six, to plan and prepare for future study or employment”.</p>
<p>The program <a href="https://publishing.monash.edu/product/class-in-australia/">reclassifies</a> the parents of very young children — initially six-month-old babies and now nine-month-old babies — as “workers in waiting”, who need to partake in monitored activities. Yet their designation is different from and their treatment more ambiguous than that of “the unemployed”.</p>
<p>Participants are required to engage in one of a range of possible activities, and some of these are certainly tied to and compatible with parenting. Attending playgroup and story time sessions at local libraries “count” as legitimate activities. </p>
<p>Paid work is Svetlana’s aspiration, and after a long break since her role as an administrator in a corporate setting, she was “terrified”. ParentsNext seemed to promise a bridge between the past and future.</p>
<p>“The phantom phone call” was how Svetlana referred to it. She remembered receiving an alert: “We’ll call you at this time. And if you don’t answer, your payments might be suspended.” The phone call didn’t arrive at the specified time; her “heart was missing a beat”. Then, at the day’s close, the phone call came, confirming her eligibility for ParentsNext. She was “happy to get help”.</p>
<p>Svetlana repeated, simply and without shame, “I need help.”</p>
<p>In early December 2018, she went to a meeting with her ParentsNext case manager and was “bamboozled” with information about where, when and how to report. Svetlana continued to report to Centrelink, as per the conditions of her Parenting Payment (Single). </p>
<p>She did not realise she had agreed to an additional layer of reporting requirements via a different app; on December 24, her payment was suspended, <a href="https://theconversation.com/after-robodebt-its-time-to-address-parentsnext-133222">a common experience</a> of women in this program.</p>
<h2>An extension of welfare conditions</h2>
<p>ParentsNext’s precursor was the 2006 Welfare to Work policy, <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/233152582_Researching_governmentalities_through_ethnography_The_case_of_Australian_welfare_reforms_and_programs_for_single_parents">which represented</a> a radical change in policies affecting Australian single parents. </p>
<p>Previously, parenting itself was treated as a “legitimate social role”, with minimal conditions attached to the income support available to impoverished parents. Under Welfare to Work, <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/14407833211042942">sole parents were</a> essentially “reclassified” as unemployed from when their youngest child turned eight.</p>
<p>ParentsNext waves the wand again, starting when children are nine months old (as mentioned earlier, it was originally six months). As Trish, a single mum, pointed out, “normally you don’t start getting harassed by Centrelink until your kid’s about to go to school or something like that”. For Trish, ParentsNext brings forward harassment’s start date.</p>
<p>I agree with Trish, but formulate it in more technical terms: the significance of ParentsNext is that it represents an extension of welfare conditions to circumstances previously protected from them. </p>
<p>My memory of the six-month, sleep-deprived mark is this: I read somewhere that it was time to start thinking about introducing solid food, which I duly did. It was flung around the room before my baby wailed for the breast. My focus, in other words, was my baby, even if there was more to my life than parenting. </p>
<p>Under pressure to accept that six-month-old babies are still unpredictable and demanding, eligibility for mandatory participation in ParentsNext was changed to nine months in mid-2021. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/509652/original/file-20230213-16-ium28s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/509652/original/file-20230213-16-ium28s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/509652/original/file-20230213-16-ium28s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/509652/original/file-20230213-16-ium28s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/509652/original/file-20230213-16-ium28s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/509652/original/file-20230213-16-ium28s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/509652/original/file-20230213-16-ium28s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/509652/original/file-20230213-16-ium28s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Life with a young baby is often characterised by sleep deprivation and a life focused on the baby.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Rodnae Productions/Pexels</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Is caring a legitimate activity?</h2>
<p>By the time Svetlana’s ParentsNext provider reopened in the new year, she had a new case manager. “That lady”, who had seemed “overworked, jaded and cynical” — the one who explained verbally that ParentsNext essentially involved mastering a second reporting system — was gone. Her replacement “apologised profusely”, and together they set to work on a participation plan. Svetlana suggested that her weekly participation activity be, in effect, caring.</p>
<p>So, did it count, she asked her empathetic new case manager, that she looked after her little girl and also caught two buses across the city each way, each day, to visit her lonely, ailing mum? Was caring for others a legitimate “activity”?</p>
<p>“That’s not in our abilities to put it in as an activity,” came the response. As “helpful” as she tried to be, Svetlana’s new case manager — “freshly graduated”, “idealistic”, “you can tell it’s getting a bit much” — still seemed intent on “ticking boxes”.</p>
<p>They agreed, instead, that Svetlana would enrol in a TAFE course that would qualify her to seek work as a receptionist in a medical centre. Yet Svetlana discovered she had become so “unplugged from the system” that self-directed, online study was far more daunting than she envisaged. She floundered. The fragility of her confidence was painfully evident to me.</p>
<p>A sudden health emergency, three weeks before our interview, turned into a “real saga” and had interrupted her efforts at study. She had secured a temporary exemption from ParentsNext. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/you-have-to-beg-for-help-how-our-welfare-system-pressures-people-to-perform-vulnerability-180975">'You have to beg for help': how our welfare system pressures people to perform vulnerability</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1425371632906821638"}"></div></p>
<h2>‘They will go after you’</h2>
<p>For my research into ParentsNext, I circulated a call for interviewees on social media. Slowly, often cautiously, women contacted me wanting to talk. Anxiety pervaded many of these exchanges; reassurances about anonymity were sought. </p>
<p>One person, Misha, created a new email account for the purpose of corresponding with me, so concerned was she that her ParentsNext provider might find out she was criticising the program: “They will go after you if your name becomes public.”</p>
<p>I met Eloise in a house set deep in thick, tinder-dry bush. We ate strawberries while a fierce morning heat steadily swelled to fill the kitchen and a high, milky white sky. Within weeks of us meeting, the east coast was ablaze.</p>
<p>Eloise was in pain. A long search for a diagnosis had recently led to the conclusion that she has Ehlers–Danlos syndrome, which affects connective tissue. In other words, she was “too sick to work and not sick enough” for the Disability Support Pension.</p>
<p>When Eloise got that first phone call about ParentsNext, “out of the blue”, she was just “trying to work out what I was going to do with my health”. The caller asked a series of questions about educational attainment and her son’s age. </p>
<p>She then scheduled an appointment for Eloise for the next day, in an outer Sydney suburb that was a two-hour train ride away. “I don’t have a car. I have a toddler and a chronic illness. Like, I don’t know what you expect me to do.”</p>
<p>“I remember very vividly her saying, ‘Why are you crying? We’re here to help you; we’re trying to help you.’” Eloise continued, “I’ve been dealing with them ever since.”</p>
<p>Eloise signed a participation plan, agreeing to go to TAFE to complete her Higher School Certificate. “I wanted to do it anyway,” she reasoned. “In retrospect, I would’ve picked something else so I could go to TAFE without stress and do it at my own pace and not with payments-getting-cut hanging over my head.”</p>
<p>Eloise left school in Year 9 but completed Year 10 at TAFE and remained grateful for the support and understanding she received from TAFE teachers. For Eloise’s single mum, “education was the ticket out of poverty”. Her mum had slowly completed a degree and was now working as a counsellor. The two of them were meant to show the world that “we can do just as good as you can”.</p>
<p>At 21, Eloise became a mum. Like her own mother, she was acutely conscious of others’ judgements: “dumb girls have babies”.</p>
<p>The Ehlers–Danlos diagnosis solved some problems but threw up new ones. </p>
<blockquote>
<p>I am not sure how to toe the line between, “Yes, I’m too disabled to get a job, but I am not too disabled to look after my son.”</p>
<p>Looking after him is my priority and has been my life for four years […] I love being a mum!</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Me: “What do you love about it?”
Eloise: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Oh, he’s cool. My kid’s just cool! He’s really funny […] I like hearing the weird stuff he comes out with.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Parenting, Eloise reflected, is “the first thing I’ve ever felt that I was kind of good at”.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/509653/original/file-20230213-23-2t59mq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/509653/original/file-20230213-23-2t59mq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/509653/original/file-20230213-23-2t59mq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/509653/original/file-20230213-23-2t59mq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/509653/original/file-20230213-23-2t59mq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/509653/original/file-20230213-23-2t59mq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/509653/original/file-20230213-23-2t59mq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/509653/original/file-20230213-23-2t59mq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">21-year-old Eloise says looking after her son is her priority. ‘I love being a mum!’</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Tatiana Syrikova/Pexels</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Individual responsibility</h2>
<p>Access to income support in the contemporary welfare state is <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/233152582_Researching_governmentalities_through_ethnography_The_case_of_Australian_welfare_reforms_and_programs_for_single_parents">conditional on</a> the development of and adherence to an individualised agreement that emerges via “one-on-one meetings with individual advisers”. The “participation plans” that Svetlana and Eloise signed are an example of these kinds of agreements.</p>
<p>Some frontline workers <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/ajs4.35">certainly perceive</a> that empathetic listening and attention is at least the one thing they do have in their arsenal to give their clients, since to assist them to find work when there is not enough work to go around is not within their power. Others go above and beyond to broker work and training opportunities where they do exist. </p>
<p>However, a consistent theme in research into this system is that the coercive work case managers do, in emphasising and enforcing compliance through computerised systems, is more keenly felt and perceived than the supportive work they do. Further, those working these roles in the conditional, privatised welfare system <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0095399719839362">increasingly view</a> their “clients” negatively, seeing them as individually responsible for their circumstances.</p>
<p>Māori foster mother Jo relayed: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>So I met her. Her name is [Belinda]. My worker. She got surprised with me that I knew a lot. She liked my questions.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Belinda began to explain to Jo that ParentsNext “is a new government program and … this is how they going to roll it out for …”</p>
<p>Jo “interjected her”: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>I was actually telling her that foster carers are exempt from these types of programs and her reply was, “I don’t know that; I need to find out for myself.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Jo, in other words, knew more about the program than the worker tasked with enforcing its conditions.</p>
<p>While Svetlana perceived that her new, more supportive case manager was a recent university graduate, others sensed that case managers might well have themselves been “sort of quite downtrodden by the system and then now they’re suddenly in this semi-sales position”. </p>
<p>In these cases, when people have “been at the bottom” themselves, there can exist an almost evangelical edge: “I’m going to help people and I’m, yeah, a little bit better than these people because I’ve worked hard and I deserve it.”</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/if-only-they-made-better-life-choices-how-simplistic-explanations-of-poverty-and-food-insecurity-miss-the-mark-190430">‘If only they made better life choices’ – how simplistic explanations of poverty and food insecurity miss the mark</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>‘Relative privilege’ and making the system work</h2>
<p>Lallie described to me her first encounter with Australia’s welfare system: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Oh, my God, you have a system?! That looks after you? Geee! I came from war. There is no backup. There was just early insecurity: physical, emotional, psychological insecurity.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Lallie and her family are African refugees who settled in Brisbane when she was 10. Medicare, too, was a revelation.</p>
<p>Lallie completed high school in Brisbane and then went to university. Even before graduating, a path stretched before her. After gaining her degree, she worked in community sector roles in homeless services, sexual health and mental health. She also designed, launched and began running a consultancy on the side.</p>
<p>Her consultancy was just beginning to take off when COVID hit. No more “toxic workplaces”; no more “working with dickheads”. And, most importantly, she could devote more time to her youngest child, who had just been diagnosed with a complex medical condition. “I have to stay close to home. I have to be here more.” </p>
<p>She needed room to breathe. Without a regular income, Lallie found herself on Parenting Payment (Single) and then on ParentsNext.</p>
<p>I interviewed Lallie over the phone. She was articulate, compelling, forceful. I had no trouble imagining her first appointment with her ParentsNext case manager, which also took place over the phone. </p>
<p>Lallie told her: “This is where I’m at in life. My child has these needs.” Lallie insisted that taking her child to appointments be counted as her “participation activity” rather than doing something new. The case manager checked with her supervising manager and then acquiesced.</p>
<p>This was Lallie’s approach: “How do I make this work for me, immediately?” She emphasised: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>How do I make this work for me? Because I don’t have time for bullshit. I just don’t have time for Centrelink to be dangling me left and right.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Impressed with Lallie’s plans for her consultancy, her case manager next agreed to upgrade Lallie’s Zoom account and buy lights so Lallie’s work could successfully transition online. Soon, Lallie was back at work, “nice shirt on top” and “pyjama pants on the bottom”.</p>
<p>In Lallie’s words, she insisted this was a story of relative “privilege”. Lallie explains it thus: “I have a background in advocacy. I just advocated for myself.” Lallie is a single mother, a refugee, an African Australian. </p>
<p>We talked of her experiences of racism and sexism: “I don’t always sit in the privilege basket.” I was surprised by her choice of words, but also grasped that Lallie was intent on impressing upon me that she is more than the identity categories I might be tempted to tell her story through.</p>
<p>Lallie sees herself and takes pride in possessing “system literacy privilege”. By this she means that through her work and over time she has accrued deep and valuable knowledge about how to navigate systems of support. </p>
<p>Every time she made a call to Centrelink or a provider, for example, she made notes about whom she spoke to and what was said. She undertook research before meetings and arrived knowing her entitlements, just as foster mum Jo had done. Adept at navigating welfare bureaucracies, Lallie was able to wring resources out of a scenario that only harmed many other of my interviewees.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1600019597553725442"}"></div></p>
<h2>The indignity of investigation</h2>
<p>Historian Mark Peel <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/9263156-the-lowest-rung">eloquently describes</a> the “indignity of the investigation” into one’s impoverished circumstances. For some of his interviewees, this was even more painful than the material penury they found ways to endure; they “resented having to passively accept someone else’s interpretation of their problems”.</p>
<p>This is what Arlie told me: she was initially hopeful ParentsNext might support her to attain her driver’s licence, which her first case manager affirmed. The idea was dismissed by her next case manager, whom she met a month later. At a third appointment, with another case manager again, “the lady asked me to tell her about myself”.</p>
<p>Arlie talked. Meanwhile, “she was writing it all down [on] a blank piece of paper”. Arlie is a “young mum”; she is 21 and has two kids. Her partner is an apprentice plumber. “I’m proud of everything I have, although not everyone sees it that way, and I felt quite judged as she wrote down my life story.” Arlie continued, “I don’t know why but I cried about it that night.”</p>
<p>The blank piece of paper being imprinted by another’s pen seemed to me a suggestive image. Arlie’s story was rewritten in that moment to fit a policy narrative about “teen pregnancy”, “educational attainment” and “welfare dependence”. That’s not the story Arlie was telling, nor the story she lives by.</p>
<p>Ayesha, who grew up in Kolkata and holds two postgraduate degrees, enjoys a greater degree of social standing than Arlie: she is highly qualified, speaks of a “career” rather than “work”, which has a more instrumental cast, and has led a transnational cosmopolitan life that shaped the tenor of our rich exchange. It struck me that she held tightly to her own self-imagining, despite attempts at its rewriting.</p>
<p>Ayesha saw herself as more than a welfare recipient and more than a mother, “as much as I love listening to Peppa Pig and Paw Patrol on repeat”. She liked to conjure an image of herself, she told me, “that active, corporate-gear-wearing, you know, Starbucks-holding person who was taking the commute into the city every morning”. </p>
<p>She referred to “that bit of me” and also said, “I’ve lost quite a bit of me.” Ayesha seemed poised to retrieve and foreground the parts of herself she valued. Others I interviewed had their story more strongly subsumed into the process of rewriting.</p>
<p>Yet Eloise, too, who left school in Year 9 and lived with the “dumb girls have babies” story, worked to subtly overwrite the tale of “intergenerational welfare dependence”. As earlier explained, she was raised by a single mother. It was </p>
<blockquote>
<p>just me and my mum. Yeah. Just the two of us. Um, my dad kind of came and went occasionally, but it was, it was just the two of us. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>She stated, “So I am the next on the line of single parenting.”</p>
<p>It was then that Eloise recast single motherhood from a source of lack to a source of strength. “I respect my mum a lot for raising me as well as she could,” said Eloise. She did her very best “with the resources […] that she had”.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>This is an edited extract from <a href="https://www.mup.com.au/books/who-cares-paperback-softback">Who Cares?: Life on Welfare in Australia</a> by Eve Vincent (MUP), published 21 February 2023.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/196795/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Eve Vincent does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>ParentsNext requires the parents of very young children to perform monitored activities in return for Centrelink payments. Eve Vincent talks to single mothers about ‘the indignity of investigation’.Eve Vincent, Senior Lecturer, Macquarie School of Social Sciences, Macquarie UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1985972023-02-06T13:47:09Z2023-02-06T13:47:09ZChina’s demand for Africa’s donkeys is rising. Why it’s time to control the trade<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/507537/original/file-20230201-14-y1ilnp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Women walk with their donkeys in Ethiopia's Amhara region.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Buena Vista Images/GettyImages</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In recent years, there’s been a huge, rising demand for donkey hides in China, where they are used to make an ancient health-related product called <em>ejiao</em>. <em>Ejiao</em> is made from collagen <a href="https://www.thedonkeysanctuary.org.uk/end-the-donkey-skin-trade/what-is-ejiao">that’s been extracted</a> from donkey hides mixed with herbs and other ingredients to create medicinal and health consumer products. It’s believed to have <a href="https://www.thechinastory.org/yearbooks/yearbook-2017/forum-conspicuous-consumption/feasting-on-donkey-skin/">properties that strengthen</a> the blood, stop bleeding and improve the quality of both vital fluids and sleep. </p>
<p><em>Ejiao</em> <a href="http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2018-12/21/c_137690073.htm">sells for about</a> US$783 per kilo and the Chinese market for it has increased <a href="https://new.qq.com/rain/a/20220609A032D100">from about US$3.2 billion in 2013 to about US$7.8 billion in 2020</a>. This recent rise in demand is driven by several factors, including rising incomes, popularisation of the product via a television series, and an ageing population (age is a key demographic driving demand). In addition, <em>ejiao</em> is sometimes prescribed by doctors and the cost can newly be covered by health insurance. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/507853/original/file-20230202-2164-klq9tc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/507853/original/file-20230202-2164-klq9tc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/507853/original/file-20230202-2164-klq9tc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/507853/original/file-20230202-2164-klq9tc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/507853/original/file-20230202-2164-klq9tc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/507853/original/file-20230202-2164-klq9tc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/507853/original/file-20230202-2164-klq9tc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Ejiao.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">HelloRF Zcool/Shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The demand for <em>ejiao</em> has led to a shortage of donkeys in China and increasingly worldwide. Countries in Africa have been particularly affected. </p>
<p>Africa is home to the highest number of donkeys in the world: about <a href="http://data.un.org/Data.aspx?q=ass&d=FAO&f=itemCode%3a1107">two-thirds</a> of the estimated global population of 53 million donkeys in 2020. Exact figures on how many hides are exported to China aren’t available due to a growing illicit trade, but there are indications. A <a href="https://www.mdpi.com/2076-2615/12/9/1073">study</a> of South Africa’s donkey population, for instance, suggests that it went from 210,000 in 1996 to about 146,000 in 2019. This was attributed to the export of donkey hides.</p>
<p>In a <a href="https://saiia.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/SAIIA_OP-339_ChinaAfricaDonkeys.pdf">recent paper</a> I examined the trends, issues and prospects for the Africa–China donkey trade. My information came from interviews, literature and news reviews in English and Chinese. </p>
<p>My findings are that the scale of the donkey trade, both illicit and legal, poses a challenge for many countries in Africa, especially in terms of its impact on the most marginalised communities. Besides donkey welfare, a big part of the challenge is how affordable donkeys are locally. Donkeys have a valuable, ancient role as a workhorse and losing access to them creates a huge problem for poor households. The other part of the challenge is regulatory. Only when the donkey hide trade is fully regulated - and export numbers are able to be very limited - might the trade work without adverse consequences for the poor. </p>
<p>This was also highlighted by a <a href="https://www.thecitizen.co.tz/tanzania/news/east-africa-news/trade-in-donkey-skins-still-unpopular-in-east-africa-4069512">recent survey</a> of the <a href="https://www.eac.int/">East African Community</a> which found that the region was not ready for the mass slaughter and unregulated trade of donkeys. Millions of vulnerable East Africans rely on donkeys for a living and are at risk of losing out through the donkey skin trade. </p>
<h2>Value of donkeys</h2>
<p>Donkeys are <a href="https://thehorse.com/features/beasts-of-burden-africas-working-horses-and-donkeys/">estimated to support about 158 million people in Africa</a>. In rural areas, the presence of a donkey in a household helps to alleviate poverty and frees women and girls from household drudgery. </p>
<p>Donkeys are one of the simplest, most sustainable and affordable means of transporting people, goods and farm inputs and outputs from home to farm to market and vice versa, as well as to water wells and other places. Even in harsh environments donkeys can travel long distances with a heavy load, limited fluids, and without showing signs of fatigue. They are a durable household asset. </p>
<p>Donkey ownership increases productivity and lessens hard work by, for example, reducing the loads women must otherwise carry themselves. In Ghana, for instance, owning a donkey was <a href="https://www.mdpi.com/2076-2615/11/11/3154?type=check_update&version=1">found to save</a> adults about five hours of labour a week, and children 10 hours a week. The presence of a donkey also freed girl children to go to school.</p>
<p>Donkeys can also carry heavy loads of firewood and water. This means people need to make fewer trips. This <a href="https://www.mdpi.com/2076-2615/11/11/3154?type=check_update&version=1">frees up labour</a> and time for other income generating activities, such as sowing someone’s farm for money.</p>
<p>The value of having a donkey in the household is evident. The loss of a donkey to a household in rural Kenya is <a href="http://erepo.usiu.ac.ke/11732/7197">associated with</a> an increased risk of poverty – children drop out of school, and there’s less water security and more economic fragility. This makes the donkey trade a sensitive topic.</p>
<h2>Government responses</h2>
<p>Rising Chinese demand for donkeys has elicited a variety of responses by governments across Africa. </p>
<p>Tanzania, for example, attempted to create a formal donkey industry and trade. But, in 2022, <a href="https://www.capitalethiopia.com/2022/06/19/tanzania-bans-donkey-slaughter-to-stop-risk-of-extinction/">authorities banned it</a> because legal supply couldn’t keep up with demand. Female donkeys typically produce only a few foals each in a lifetime. </p>
<p>In Kenya, public outrage – largely due to the rise of donkey prices and diminishing supply – led to a ban on exports in February 2020. Kenya’s donkey exporters, however, <a href="https://global.chinadaily.com.cn/a/202008/07/WS5f2cf3e0a31083481725eeea.html">took their case</a> against the ban to Kenya’s High Court in June 2020, and won.</p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/why-kenya-has-banned-the-commercial-slaughter-of-donkeys-121455">Why Kenya has banned the commercial slaughter of donkeys</a>
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<p>Elsewhere, countries such as Botswana, Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger, Senegal and Tanzania banned donkey exports. Others, such as South Africa, banned or limited the donkey trade with requirements for established slaughterhouses and related quotas. </p>
<p>However, the implementation of donkey bans varies according to the strength of the regulatory capacity in each country - and how easy it is to smuggle things across borders.</p>
<p>In South Africa’s case, export quotas have merely sent the trade underground. This leads to more donkey theft. Illicitly traded hides from South Africa are <a href="https://www.voanews.com/a/africa-s-donkeys-are-being-stolen-and-slaughtered-for-chinese-medicine-/6651256.html">typically</a> from donkeys that are slaughtered inhumanely in the bush or in sub-standard slaughterhouses in Lesotho. Then they are exported to China. </p>
<p>Poverty also fosters the trade, which in turn can lead to further impoverishment. Donkey owners, needing a short-term income windfall, will <a href="https://www.thebrooke.org/news/world-animal-day-research-shows-detrimental-effect-donkey-skin-trade-families">sell their animal</a>. It may then be slaughtered and traded illegally and lead to diminished income-earning opportunity in the medium and long run. </p>
<h2>What needs to be done</h2>
<p>A recent <a href="https://panafricandonkeyconference.org/">Pan-African Donkey Conference</a> called for a <a href="http://www.environewsnigeria.com/pan-african-conference-seeks-15-year-ban-on-donkey-slaughter/#:%7E:text=%E2%80%9CTo%20curb%20this%20unsustainable%20exploitation,and%20other%20donkey%20related%20products.">15-year continent-wide moratorium</a> on the trade to allow supply to recover and regulatory capacity to be enhanced. </p>
<p>The <em>ejiao</em> industry in China is well organised and resourced. A handful of major firms and one province dominate the industry in China, and they are represented by the Shandong Ejiao Industry Association. </p>
<p>A China-Africa donkey hide trade may be possible if African countries get organised, form associations and establish a dialogue with the Shandong Ejiao Industry. The aim would be to work out sustainable mechanisms, prevent damage to local interests and help to counter the illicit trade. </p>
<p>In parallel to this, it would be important for animal welfare agencies in China to raise awareness of the illicit and damaging impact of the illicit donkey hide trade. </p>
<p>For now, I believe that the trade is premature. Better regulatory standards are needed by China’s <em>ejiao</em> industry such that illegally traded and stolen donkey hides are not part of the industry. Deeper cooperation across African countries would also help to preserve the ancient role of the donkey in supporting trade and the continent’s most vulnerable and geographically isolated groups.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/198597/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Lauren Johnston does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The demand for donkey hides to produce ejiao has led to a shortage of donkeys in China and increasingly worldwide.Lauren Johnston, Senior Researcher, South African Institute of International AffairsLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1957942023-01-03T11:54:57Z2023-01-03T11:54:57ZAusterity has its own life – here’s how it lives on in future generations<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/501860/original/file-20221219-14-3mfq8r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=16%2C0%2C5447%2C3637&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Financial worries stemming from austerity could span generations.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/worried-aged-mother-embracing-comforting-grown-1463151290">fizkes / Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Austerity in the UK is here to stay. The Bank of England has warned that the country is facing the longest recession since records began, predicting that the economic slump will <a href="https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/monetary-policy-report/2022/november-2022">extend well into 2024</a>. At the same time, the most recent budget has been called austerity 2.0 by <a href="https://www.deloitteacademy.co.uk/node/4317">companies</a>, <a href="https://www.unison.org.uk/news/general-secretary-blog/2022/11/blog-the-government-paves-the-way-for-austerity-2-0/">unions</a>, <a href="https://www.london.gov.uk/media-centre/mayors-press-release/Mayor-accuses-Government-of-ushering-in-%E2%80%98Austerity-2.0%E2%80%99">political figures</a> and <a href="https://wbg.org.uk/analysis/uk-budget-assessments/misguided-plans-for-austerity-2-0-wbg-response-to-autumn-statement-2022/">policy experts</a>. This suggests the era of public spending cuts seen since 2010 has reached the next phase: austerity as the “<a href="https://www.ituc-csi.org/austerity-the-new-normal">new normal</a>”.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/society/2020/mar/03/lost-decade-hidden-story-how-austerity-broke-britain">Austerity policies</a> implemented since 2010 have not been substantially reversed or retracted in recent years. In fact, they have often been levelled at the most marginalised social groups. </p>
<p>In 2019, cuts in total expenditure on welfare and benefit payments alone were expected to total <a href="https://journals.lwbooks.co.uk/soundings/vol-2019-issue-71/abstract-7603/">£37 billion a year by 2020</a>. And now, growing numbers of people in the UK are struggling with everyday costs of living, while a further <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/nov/17/uk-government-spending-where-the-cuts-will-fall">£28 billion</a> of cuts to public funding were announced in the government’s November 2022 budget.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/autumn-statement-is-highly-political-compared-to-research-on-best-ways-to-fix-public-finances-195035">Autumn statement is highly political compared to research on 'best' ways to fix public finances</a>
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<p>All of this shows how keenly economic policies are <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0309132518796280">felt in everyday life</a>, in the mundane: eating, heating, caring, shopping and travelling. And perpetual and cumulative cuts like those we have seen made in recent years to welfare, education, social and healthcare services shape daily lives and social relationships. The effects continue, across time and generations. They also worsen existing <a href="https://www.intersecting-inequalities.com/">inequalities</a> relating to <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1057/fr.2014.42">gender</a>, race, class, age and disability.</p>
<p>My <a href="https://academic.oup.com/joeg/article/16/2/305/2413171">previous research</a> during the 2008-09 UK economic recession revealed how memories and intergenerational relationships are key to understanding what it means to get by in times of recession and crisis. For instance, upbringing, living through previous recessions, debt and hardship are central to how people respond to economic downturns. These experiences, family histories and memories are often shared across generations in a way that influences younger people about financial issues.</p>
<p>Policies that aim to tackle poverty and economic inequality need to go beyond a focus on “the household” because this is not the only (or even the predominant) framework for how social relationships are built. Instead, people live within and across households that intersect based on kinship, friendship, intimacy and more. These are the main mechanisms that people use to <a href="https://policy.bristoluniversitypress.co.uk/growing-up-and-getting-by">get by during difficult times</a>.</p>
<p>Further research shows how austerity can be experienced as a “<a href="https://rgs-ibg.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/tran.12300">personal crisis</a>”, affecting the things people can do, afford and dream about, including having security at home and work. It even extends to whether or not people are able to make decisions about <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/00380261221135753">having children</a>. Suffice it to say, economic policies have more than momentary effects, they ripple across people’s lives – and that of their children – even if their circumstances improve.</p>
<h2>A life of its own</h2>
<p>Taking this further, <a href="https://www.isrf.org/2022/02/23/the-social-life-of-crisis/">my latest research</a> shows how austerity policies also have their own life. In the UK, this started with the early dismantling of the welfare state alongside diminished investment in deprived and post-industrial areas from the 1980s onwards. <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0308518X17701729">These programmes</a> have <a href="https://equalitytrust.org.uk/scale-economic-inequality-uk">entrenched inequality in certain regions</a> of the UK. So, while the current era of austerity arose from the recession following the global financial crisis 14 years ago, it is more deeply embedded in certain parts of the country.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/three-charts-that-explain-why-falling-living-standards-could-deepen-the-uks-north-south-divide-196088">Three charts that explain why falling living standards could deepen the UK's north-south divide</a>
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<p>We can get an idea of <a href="https://www.isrf.org/2022/02/23/the-social-life-of-crisis/">how austerity affects people’s daily lives</a> by listening to their stories. Yusuf, for example, spoke to me about the instabilities he currently faces at work and how that has affected his life choices. “There’s no job security or stability,” he says. “There’s not enough trade [as a mechanic] anymore like there used to be years ago.” As a result, Yusuf does not think he could afford to have children.</p>
<p>Employment opportunities and local industries across northern England (where my research was carried out), had already been hit hard by years of <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/00380261221135753">local underinvestment</a>. But adding austerity to the mix meant these factors culminated in multi-faceted forms of insecurity and uncertainty for Yusuf. His lack of job security is then linked to being unable to afford to have children – a <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/01459740.2021.1951261">different life</a> to the one he had imagined.</p>
<p>Even if austerity cuts were reversed today, the long-term effects for Yusuf and countless others could continue for generations. Economic policies should be implemented alongside forecasts of what their effects will be for future generations. Researching these future outcomes, as well as past and current experiences, will highlight the unevenness of austerity measures. This will help to ensure that austerity policies and the devastation they cause do not become normalised, condemning many more generations to their long-term negative effects.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/195794/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sarah Marie Hall receives funding from UKRI and the Independent Social Research Foundation.</span></em></p>Public spending cuts and the soaring cost of living will not only affect people lives now, but could trickle down through generations.Sarah Marie Hall, Professor in Human Geography, University of ManchesterLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1963662022-12-21T19:35:43Z2022-12-21T19:35:43ZAfter the Cold War: Why COVID-19 infection and death rates were so high in eastern Europe<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/501473/original/file-20221216-19457-uv4lpe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C1293%2C8640%2C4449&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">People wait to be vaccinated against COVID-19 in Zagreb, Croatia, in November 2021. Countries throughout central and eastern Europe have high COVID-19 infection and death rates, but for a surprising reason — the post-communism privatization of health care.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Darko Bandic)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Two years ago, we examined <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-canada-compares-to-welfare-states-in-covid-19-cases-and-deaths-167742">where Canada stood</a> compared to similar countries on COVID-19 rates. This was part of a <a href="https://doi.org/10.1057/s41285-022-00178-4">larger study</a> that looked at COVID-19 infections based on a country’s welfare regime: <a href="https://lanekenworthy.files.wordpress.com/2017/03/reading-espingandersen1990pp9to78.pdf">liberal, social democratic or conservative/corporatist</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1755-618X.1989.tb00411.x">Welfare regimes</a> use income redistribution, sick pay, pensions, maternity leave, unemployment support and social assistance to address inequalities in society. </p>
<p>Liberal, social democratic or conservative/corporatist welfare regimes don’t always reflect electoral politics. Liberal democracies can elect conservative governments, for example. Welfare descriptions are about how states deliver health care, old age or social security to ensure the well-being of their citizens.</p>
<h2>Strong welfare, healthier citizens?</h2>
<p>Liberal states that include Canada, the United States, Ireland, the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand and Japan have modest systems of welfare provision. They rely on minimum state intervention.</p>
<p>Social democracies in countries like Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Finland, Iceland and the Netherlands have a strong focus on governmental benefit provision. They also provide universal health coverage. </p>
<p>The conservative/corporatist states that include Italy, Greece, France, Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Belgium provide <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/means-test">means/income-tested benefits</a>. Their welfare provisions have a low impact in reducing social inequality. </p>
<p>Social epidemiology, which focuses particularly on the impact of social factors on health, has long been using <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/jech.2007.064295">welfare state</a> variables to analyze differences in population health. Strong welfare provisions have generally been associated <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2006.01.030">with lower mortality rates</a>.</p>
<h2>COVID-19 & Eastern Bloc democracies</h2>
<p>Welfare regime theory, however, has paid little attention to eastern European nations. </p>
<p>Before <a href="https://www.usnews.com/news/best-countries/articles/2019-11-08/how-the-fall-of-communism-in-1989-reshaped-eastern-europe">the fall of communism in 1989</a> in eastern Europe, the absence of a private market made the state the primary agent in the distribution of resources. After 1989, however, eastern Europe transitioned to capitalism. </p>
<p>For our research, we expanded our sample to include the former communist states. We divided them into three groups. </p>
<p>The first group includes the former Soviet Union republics of Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Russia and Ukraine. </p>
<p>The second group includes the central and eastern European countries of Bulgaria, Estonia, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Slovakia and the Czech Republic. </p>
<p>The third group includes the southeastern European countries that originated from the former Yugoslavia: Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Serbia and Slovenia. To this, we added Albania. </p>
<p>We assumed that the former communist and socialist states built upon <a href="https://doi.org/10.7591/9780801460098">their former state-centred</a> approaches to health care and benefit provision — and that this would translate into lower COVID-19 infections and mortality rates. But contrary to our expectations, the eastern European states fared worse than western democracies in the number of COVID-19 cases and deaths.</p>
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<img alt="A smiling grey-haired man and woman get vaccinated by someone in a mask and blue scrubs." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/501474/original/file-20221216-19457-offkps.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/501474/original/file-20221216-19457-offkps.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/501474/original/file-20221216-19457-offkps.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/501474/original/file-20221216-19457-offkps.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/501474/original/file-20221216-19457-offkps.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/501474/original/file-20221216-19457-offkps.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/501474/original/file-20221216-19457-offkps.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">An Albanian couple get vaccinated against COVID-19 in their village of Sukth in Albanian in November 2021.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Franc Zhurda)</span></span>
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<h2>Measurements</h2>
<p>We examined COVID-19 cases and deaths per 100,000 people during the first three waves of the pandemic.</p>
<p>Excess deaths per 100,000 were also included. Excess deaths represent the difference between the number of reported deaths in a country from all causes and the number of deaths that would have been expected had there been no pandemic. </p>
<p>Health-care variables included the number of doctors, nurses and hospital beds, as well as variables related to health coverage — COVID-19 vaccination rates, tests and the provision of universal health care.</p>
<p>Policy variables included public trust in government, stringency of government lockdowns and income relief. </p>
<p>We determined that western liberal, social democratic and conservative/corporatist states had lower COVID-19 infections than central, eastern and southeast European countries and former Soviet nations.</p>
<p>This was the case even when accounting for differences among countries in testing, reporting, health-care resources, pandemic policies and economic factors.</p>
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<img alt="A dark-haired woman in an animal-print dress walks past a line of riot police holding the hands of two blonde children." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/501475/original/file-20221216-18-ta3mig.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/501475/original/file-20221216-18-ta3mig.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=360&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/501475/original/file-20221216-18-ta3mig.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=360&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/501475/original/file-20221216-18-ta3mig.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=360&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/501475/original/file-20221216-18-ta3mig.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=453&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/501475/original/file-20221216-18-ta3mig.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=453&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/501475/original/file-20221216-18-ta3mig.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=453&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">A woman with her children walks past riot police after an anti-vaccination protest in Vilnius, Lithuania, in September 2021.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Mindaugas Kulbis)</span></span>
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<h2>Situation worsened with COVID-19 waves</h2>
<p>All countries started the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic with statistically similar cases, deaths and excess deaths. </p>
<p>By the second wave, eastern European countries had significant increases in cases and deaths compared to liberal and social democratic states. Southeastern European countries, once part of Yugoslavia, had the highest number of cases of any other group. </p>
<p>By the third wave, central and eastern European states had more than four times the number of cases than liberal states and 10 times the number of COVID-19 deaths than social democratic states. Overall, eastern and southeastern Europe had excess death rates that were two to three times higher than those in the West. </p>
<p>Why?</p>
<p>Our analysis indicates that western liberal states spend the most on health care, about 10 per cent of their GDP. Southeastern European states spend close to eight per cent of their GDP, while their neighbouring central and eastern European countries and former Soviet states spend even less, close to seven per cent and six per cent respectively. </p>
<p>Yet despite spending less on health, central and eastern Europe countries had lower numbers of COVID-19 cases and excess deaths than southeastern European nations and former Soviet states.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/501927/original/file-20221219-16-u0uotu.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A graph shows the relationship between GDP spent on health care and COVID-19 deaths" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/501927/original/file-20221219-16-u0uotu.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/501927/original/file-20221219-16-u0uotu.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=360&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/501927/original/file-20221219-16-u0uotu.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=360&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/501927/original/file-20221219-16-u0uotu.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=360&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/501927/original/file-20221219-16-u0uotu.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=452&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/501927/original/file-20221219-16-u0uotu.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=452&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/501927/original/file-20221219-16-u0uotu.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=452&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Relationship between GDP spent on health care and COVID-19 deaths.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Authors provided)</span></span>
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<p>This might be explained as an after-effect of capitalism. Albania and Kosovo have been experiencing what <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/heapol/czq070">some call catastrophic</a> out-of-pocket health expenditures — the term used when payments for health services exceed <a href="https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/social-issues-migration-health/health-at-a-glance-2009_health_glance-2009-en">40 per cent</a> of household disposable income.</p>
<p>Looking at COVID-19 deaths per million people, southeastern Europe recorded the highest numbers, even when accounting for the GDP spent on health. Southeastern European countries also have the lowest numbers of hospital beds compared to the other groups, and the smallest number of nurses and doctors per 10,000 people. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/501931/original/file-20221219-26-wddka1.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A graph shows the relationship between the number of hospital beds and COVID-19 deaths by type of welfare state" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/501931/original/file-20221219-26-wddka1.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/501931/original/file-20221219-26-wddka1.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=360&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/501931/original/file-20221219-26-wddka1.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=360&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/501931/original/file-20221219-26-wddka1.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=360&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/501931/original/file-20221219-26-wddka1.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=452&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/501931/original/file-20221219-26-wddka1.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=452&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/501931/original/file-20221219-26-wddka1.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=452&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Relationship between number of hospital beds and COVID-19 deaths by type of welfare state.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Authors provided)</span></span>
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<h2>Privatized health care to blame?</h2>
<p>Inadequate numbers of hospital beds are a symptom of the overextended health-care system in the region, a serious problem in those countries emerging from the dissolution of Yugoslavia. </p>
<p>Most former Yugoslavian states introduced health-care reforms that transitioned state-based health delivery to the free market. This was modelled after the U.K.’s <a href="https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2425732">competing hospitals approach</a> under onetime prime minister Margaret Thatcher. </p>
<p><a href="https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137264770_1">Health-care financing</a> in former Yugoslavian countries followed an insurance model subsidized through payroll and state contributions. It was much more decentralized than in the former Soviet states, which mainly relied on government financing when part of the Soviet Union.</p>
<p>Throughout the 1990s, several conflicts in the former Yugoslavia also <a href="https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.94.11.1894">contributed to the deterioration</a> of the population’s health. These conflicts also hindered government capacity to build and bolster their systems of health provision and delivery.</p>
<p>Some argued that the fall of communism, the liberalization of trade and the privatization of health care moved former Eastern Bloc countries <a href="https://www.economics-sociology.eu/?536,en_georgian-welfare-state-preliminary-study-based-on-esping-andersen%E2%80%99s-typology">towards western-style welfare regimes</a>. </p>
<p>Our data shows, however, that the erosion of their health-care systems by the private market put these states into an impossible situation in terms of managing COVID-19 infections and mortality rates. The fall of communism was detrimental, in fact, when it came to the health and well-being of eastern Europeans.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/196366/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>COVID-19 infection and death rates in former Eastern Bloc countries suggest the fall of communism was detrimental to the health and well-being of eastern Europeans.Raluca Bejan, Assistant Professor, Social Work, Dalhousie UniversityKristina Nikolova, Research assistant professor, Social Work, University of WindsorLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1966622022-12-15T09:31:24Z2022-12-15T09:31:24ZGrattan on Friday: Morrison endures the witness box, while Albanese enjoys being in the box seat with the Senate<p>Scott Morrison will forever be known as “the bulldozer”, and he lived up to his self-description at the Robodebt royal commission this week. </p>
<p>It was vintage Morrison, verbally lumbering about, up and down side streets of varying relevance, as he gave evidence on a scandal that involved appalling treatment of people wrongfully pursued in the name of the “integrity” of the welfare system. </p>
<p>What the inquiry is exposing is the extent of the integrity failure within the former government and the federal public service. </p>
<p>As senior minister at its inception, Morrison might be characterised (fairly or not) as the father of Robodebt: it was developed by the department of human services together with input from his department while he was in the social services portfolio. Someone who saw himself as a tough “cop” on the welfare block, the plan, worked up in the bureaucracy, naturally appealed to him. </p>
<p>The big issue at Wednesday’s hearing was whether he was advised that legislation was needed for the scheme to be legal. Morrison said he wasn’t. </p>
<p>He maintained that, while an early executive minute referred to legislation, the final departmental submission did not indicate that would be required. A box asking whether the proposal would need legislative change was ticked “no”. </p>
<p>Pressed on why he did not pursue the matter, Morrison said he’d assumed the department had done its work. In the end, of course, the scheme was found illegal and the government had to repay a huge amount.</p>
<p>It was less the content of Wednesday’s evidence that was remarkable than the style of its delivery. Royal Commissioner Catherine Holmes reprimanded Morrison multiple times for rambling rather than simply answering what he was being asked. </p>
<p>At one point, rather in the manner of a school teacher, she asked him sharply if he was listening. At another, she said: “I do understand that you come from a background where rhetoric is important but it is necessary to listen to the question.”</p>
<p>Senior counsel assisting the commission, Justin Greggery, repeatedly called Morrison back on track, telling him ten minutes had been wasted in one diversion. </p>
<p>Painful to watch, Morrison’s performance was another reminder of how out of touch with his surroundings he can be, which was a major reason he flopped as PM. </p>
<p>While Morrison was having yet another bad week, his successor, Anthony Albanese, was enjoying his latest win, with the government’s energy package passing parliament, which had been recalled on Thursday to deal with it. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/view-from-the-hill-scott-morrison-makes-parliamentary-history-for-the-worst-of-reasons-195648">View from The Hill: Scott Morrison makes parliamentary history – for the worst of reasons</a>
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<p>The legislation caps the gas price for 12 months, gives the government long-term authority to impose a “reasonable” price on gas, and provides a subsidy for the bills of some household and business users (with detail to be worked out over summer). This relief will cost the federal government $1.5 billion, matched by the states.</p>
<p>The legislation was always going to get through. The government is fortunate in having a compliant Senate, and the energy story gave an insight into how it operates. </p>
<p>The government needs the Greens plus one more vote to carry contested legislation. This majority will almost always be there; equally, there will usually be minor power play along the way.</p>
<p>On the energy bill, the Greens have received a promise of measures in the budget to help households and businesses electrify. Details later. </p>
<p>It was a gesture from the government but the Greens also had nowhere else to go if Labor had wanted to resist. Running into Christmas there was no way they were going to hold this up. </p>
<p>In any event, potential federal compensation for coal producers, if the production cost is above the coal cap the states are set to impose, is not contained in this legislation – and that compensation is the Greens’ main objection. </p>
<p>There’s an interesting dynamic in relation to Senate ACT independent David Pocock on the one hand, and Tasmanian crossbencher Jacqui Lambie (who now has a second senator, Tammy Tyrrell, in her Jacqui Lambie Network) on the other. </p>
<p>Pocock, new this term, has been high-profile and receives extensive media attention. The government relied on his vote to get its industrial relations legislation through, and he will be Labor’s natural go-to person.
On IR, the government gave some concessions to clinch a deal with Pocock, including agreeing to a new body that will review social security payments before each budget and provide recommendations. </p>
<p>Lambie, who was often in the news during the Morrison years, has been put somewhat in the shade by the arrival of Pocock and the configuration of the new Senate. It is not a position she’s used to. So it was unsurprising this week that Lambie was out of the blocks early, supporting the energy legislation. That meant Pocock’s vote wasn’t needed. </p>
<p>Jostling among the Senate crossbenchers – perhaps Pauline Hanson will deal One Nation into the play at some point – is something we’re likely to see in the months ahead. Crossbenchers need to be able to say to their voters they have the ability to “deliver”. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/politics-with-michelle-grattan-niki-savva-on-her-book-bulldozed-scott-morrison-and-the-liberals-woes-195562">Politics with Michelle Grattan: Niki Savva on her book Bulldozed, Scott Morrison and the Liberals' woes</a>
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<p>The energy package is the second major piece of legislation (the other was the IR bill) on which the government has clashed with business interests.</p>
<p>Business groups complained that the widening of multi-employer bargaining in the IR legislation would lead to more strikes. The government responded that its priority (and election commitment) was to get wages moving. </p>
<p>The handling of that legislation told business something it might have anticipated. Despite Albanese insisting he and the business community have a good relationship, when the crunch comes, the government won’t shy away from a fight with it. </p>
<p>The energy package has drawn protests and threats from some resource companies, with claims the government’s interventionist approach will deter investment. </p>
<p>Time will tell whether this is just hot air. Clearly the government judged it had little choice but to do something, given the massive increases householders and enterprises are facing in their bills. </p>
<p>Whatever the longer-term fallout, the government knows whose side the public will be on – and it won’t be that of the resource companies. And within business, manufacturers are happy at anything that restrains the magnitude of the price hikes. </p>
<p>Industry Minister Ed Husic has taken the lead on confronting the gas companies. This week, speaking to the Australian Financial Review, he accused them of “behaving just like big tech in threatening nations when they don’t like a regulatory response that’s done in the national economic interest”. </p>
<p>Labor’s major pieces of legislation go to two of the biggest issues the government faces – real wages that are a long way from increasing, and energy bills that will keep on rising. The government’s actions will to an extent ameliorate, but won’t solve these problems. </p>
<p>Wages and energy will remain dominant issues in 2023, continuing to put a lot of pressure on the Albanese government.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/196662/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michelle Grattan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>It was vintage Morrison, as he gave evidence on a scandal that involved appalling treatment of people wrongfully pursued in the name of the “integrity” of the welfare systemMichelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of CanberraLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1809752022-11-30T22:34:21Z2022-11-30T22:34:21Z‘You have to beg for help’: how our welfare system pressures people to perform vulnerability<p>People who rely on welfare payments to survive are often required to repeatedly tell stories of their personal hardships.</p>
<p>In a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/jun/07/job-seekers-could-have-welfare-stopped-under-onerous-new-points-based-system-advocates-warn">conditional welfare system</a>, many must regularly attend compulsory appointments, job search training courses, and self-development and treatment programs simply to receive their payments.</p>
<p>People in extreme hardship often tell their stories even more frequently as they seek extra relief from non-government charities and community providers.</p>
<p>Those on income support payments below the relative poverty line feel the crunch of <a href="https://www.ncoss.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/NCOSS_CostOfLiving22_FINAL_DESIGNED.pdf">inflation and rising living costs</a> most severely. This means many will require extra support from welfare services to meet their basic needs.</p>
<p>Integral to this system is the idea of “performing vulnerability”.</p>
<p>“Performing vulnerability” – a term I borrow from UK-based researcher <a href="https://policy.bristoluniversitypress.co.uk/vulnerability-and-young-people">Kate Brown</a> to update Australian academic <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/lowest-rung/FA159318C2D046EDD3C9347C8B8E4F2E">Mark Peel’s</a> idea of “performing poverty” – is not just about repeatedly describing personal hardship. </p>
<p>It points to the expectation to describe hardship in particular ways that are recognisable – and hence believable – to support providers.</p>
<p>My book, <a href="https://policy.bristoluniversitypress.co.uk/making-a-life-on-mean-welfare">Making a Life on Mean Welfare: Voices from Multicultural Sydney</a> shows how the expectation to perform vulnerability to access support shapes experiences on both sides of the welfare frontline. </p>
<p>It can compound the cycle of disadvantage associated with receiving welfare in the long term. It does so by <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0038026119876775">fostering mistrust</a> between welfare users and providers, as well as tainting how people in need of support see themselves and their situation.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/australias-underclass-dont-like-work-our-research-shows-vulnerable-job-seekers-dont-get-the-help-they-need-169609">Australia's 'underclass' don't like work? Our research shows vulnerable job seekers don't get the help they need</a>
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<h2>‘Tell me your story’</h2>
<p>For my doctoral research, I spent 18 months speaking to welfare users and workers in culturally and linguistically diverse southwest Sydney. I also observed different aspects of service delivery while volunteering at a community welfare organisation. I interviewed 25 welfare users and 11 community welfare practitioners.</p>
<p>As a researcher of everyday experiences of welfare and poverty, I know all too well what it is like to ask people to tell their stories of hardship yet again.</p>
<p>I also grew up in an impoverished family reliant on welfare to get by. I know firsthand what the impact of retelling stories of hardship can be, particularly when the audience is, as Peel <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/lowest-rung/FA159318C2D046EDD3C9347C8B8E4F2E">puts</a> it, “someone who has the power to give or deny them something they need”.</p>
<p>One of the community welfare practitioners I interviewed summed it up by saying:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>They’re coming again feeling ashamed. They’ve knocked on someone’s door, to tell yet again how shitty their situation is.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Her response was to chat and put them at ease before saying, “Can you tell me your story?” She would follow up by saying, “You’ve given me some insight, let’s formalise your story a little bit.”</p>
<p>Some welfare workers showed more scepticism, particularly when it came to giving out emergency relief. </p>
<p>When someone refused to share more than the minimum information required to be eligible for extra assistance, one welfare worker commented:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>That person doesn’t want to take responsibility. </p>
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<p>Another practitioner told me, “That woman dramatised her situation,” but quickly added, “That doesn’t mean she wasn’t genuine.”</p>
<p>The willingness of people seeking assistance to disclose personal hardships and do so convincingly impacts on how deserving they may come across to those delivering support. The pressure to perform can overshadow encounters between welfare users and workers even when it doesn’t determine the outcome.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/458084/original/file-20220414-12-xkzgr4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="View of a hand filling out a paper form" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/458084/original/file-20220414-12-xkzgr4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/458084/original/file-20220414-12-xkzgr4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/458084/original/file-20220414-12-xkzgr4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/458084/original/file-20220414-12-xkzgr4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/458084/original/file-20220414-12-xkzgr4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/458084/original/file-20220414-12-xkzgr4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/458084/original/file-20220414-12-xkzgr4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Repeatedly telling stories of hardship is part of the process of receiving welfare.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span>
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<h2>‘It’s your dignity’</h2>
<p>Among the most marginal welfare recipients I spoke to, “performing vulnerability” was another toll of poverty.</p>
<p>Those experiencing the worst hardship frequently told me about having to explain “the ins and outs” and feeling “embarrassed”, “intimidated” or “uncomfortable” when they had to present to welfare agencies.</p>
<p>Two young people (whom I have given fictional names) powerfully conveyed the cost of telling all about their struggles:</p>
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<p>Kane: Often if you go to them sorts of people (welfare agencies) you’ve gotta put it all out there, that you’re homeless, that you got nothing, you got no friends, no family – and then they’re gonna go boom “alright” (you get the help you came for)…</p>
<p>Nessa: Yeah, that’s what I had to do to get a house and it’s embarrassing (talking over each other) I think it’s embarrassing.</p>
<p>Kane: You gotta go down to those levels you know – it’s wrong.</p>
<p>Nessa: When you gotta expose everything and don’t want to, it’s, like, your dignity.</p>
<p>Kane: Yeah, it’s everything.</p>
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<h2>Performing is not pretending</h2>
<p>The most marginal welfare users get a great deal of practice performing their hardship. But knowing how to tell their story a certain way is not the same as pretending.</p>
<p>Not only do people at the sharp end of the welfare system have to endure the hardships of poverty, but they must then recite it in a way that registers as genuine, pressing and beyond reprieve.</p>
<p>As a woman living on the disability support pension put it:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>You don’t have the flexibility that a rich person has to respond to crisis, so you have to beg for help. That takes time! And you know you’ll be judged like it’s your fault.</p>
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<p>A welfare system that demands disclosure of personal hardships – even when geared towards being <a href="https://onlinelibrary-wiley-com.ezproxy.uws.edu.au/doi/full/10.1111/1468-4446.12740">supportive</a> rather than suspicious – can undermine dignity and hold back those unwilling or unable to tell their story convincingly or in enough detail.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/disability-and-single-parenthood-loom-large-in-inherited-poverty-123086">Disability and single parenthood loom large in inherited poverty</a>
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<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/180975/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>This article is part of The Conversation’s Breaking the Cycle series, which is supported by a philanthropic grant from the Paul Ramsay Foundation.</span></em></p>As a woman living on the disability support pension put it: ‘You don’t have the flexibility that a rich person has to respond to crisis, so you have to beg for help. And you know you’ll be judged’.Emma Mitchell, Postdoctoral research fellow, Western Sydney UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1933162022-11-03T13:47:26Z2022-11-03T13:47:26ZCOP27 must work out how to cut carbon and still develop African economies<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/492718/original/file-20221101-18-iqric5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">LUDOVIC MARIN/AFP via Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Averting a climate disaster without compromising economic growth and development is a key issue for African countries. Energy production and use is the single biggest contributor to global warming, <a href="https://www.unep.org/explore-topics/energy">accounting for</a> roughly two-thirds of human-induced greenhouse gas emissions. Yet, electricity use and access are <a href="https://escholarship.org/uc/item/7jb0015q">strongly correlated</a> with economic development.</p>
<p>Many African countries are lagging behind in electricity generation and access. According to the <a href="https://trackingsdg7.esmap.org/">Energy Progress Report</a>, in 2020 the 20 countries with the lowest rates of access to electricity were all in sub-Saharan Africa. For example, just 7% of the population in South Sudan and 11% of the population in Chad have access to electricity. Even among the most populous countries in Africa, access to electricity is still limited – 55.4% and 51.1% of the populations of Nigeria and Ethiopia, <a href="https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/EG.ELC.ACCS.ZS?locations=ZG-NG">respectively</a>, have access to electricity.</p>
<p>To close these gaps, energy demand on the continent is <a href="https://www.undp.org/africa/news/africas-just-energy-transition-priority-world-moves-toward-decarbonization">expected to grow</a> by 60% by 2040. </p>
<p>Sufficient energy <a href="https://www.rockefellerfoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/Modern-Energy-Minimum-Sept30.pdf">is essential</a> for most economic activities. Coal, petroleum and natural gas made a significant amount of productive energy available during the industrial revolution. This led to human health and welfare improvements. Cost effective and abundant energy is a key driver for economic growth. </p>
<p>African countries will find it hard to grow their economies and pull their people out of poverty if they can’t take advantage of their abundant energy resources. For example, Africa <a href="https://www.iea.org/reports/africa-energy-outlook-2019">holds</a> 13% of the world’s remaining recoverable gas resources. </p>
<p>So the global effort to cut the use of these resources presents a barrier to Africa’s growth, unless sufficient financing is available to fully transition to renewable and sustainable fuels at a scale needed to support economic growth. </p>
<h2>Africa’s challenges</h2>
<p><a href="https://grist.org/politics/the-u-s-has-officially-stopped-financing-new-coal-plants-abroad/">Over the past few years</a>, the West has been taking a rather coercive approach to Africa’s decarbonisation – the removal or reduction of carbon dioxide (CO2) output into the atmospher. They’ve cut back financing for gas and coal energy projects in Africa, while still pursuing their own new gas and coal deals. In addition, an analysis by the International Renewable Energy Agency <a href="https://www.irena.org/publications/2022/Jan/Renewable-Energy-Market-Analysis-Africa">showed</a> minimum global renewable energy investments in Africa (only 2% out of all the renewable energy investments in the world) over the last two decades. </p>
<p>Without the West’s backing, Africa’s energy decisions might solely rely on resource abundance and cost efficiency. This could lead to further dependence on fossil fuels. </p>
<p>Global environmental problems such as climate change require cooperation at the local, national and international level. The West’s support for Africa is essential to align global decarbonisation targets with regional realities. </p>
<p>Without support to maximise the available resources, economies of scale, cost efficiencies, capacity building, and the potential to electrify large numbers of the population, a focus on renewables alone becomes unjust and unrealistic for Africa. </p>
<h2>Just electrification in a net-zero world</h2>
<p>My <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=U7pa2O0AAAAJ&hl=en">research</a> interests focus on energy production and sustainable development. The need to invest in alternative, sustainable fuels to meet the projected demand is critical. </p>
<p>One of the main challenges at COP27 – the 2022 United Nations Climate Change Conference – will be agreeing on who decides when and how countries ought to transition to net-zero emissions. Put simply, net zero <a href="https://www.un.org/en/climatechange/net-zero-coalition">means</a> cutting greenhouse gas emissions to as close to zero as possible.</p>
<p>Conversations at COP27 should centre on Africa’s interests in order to advance a “just transition” for all. A just transition is one in which social and economic opportunities of climate action are maximised, while challenges – such as inequitable distribution of benefits and costs – are minimised. </p>
<p>Africa <a href="https://www.scienceopen.com/hosted-document?doi=10.14324/111.444/000180.v1">bears</a> the brunt of climate change impacts without being responsible for them. This <a href="https://www.clubofrome.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/Earth4All_Deep_Dive_Ghosh.pdf">undermines</a> the opportunity to create a just energy transition for all with fair assignment of climate responsibility. </p>
<p>Negotiations must find pathways for Africa to deliver electricity for economic empowerment, while depending less on harmful fuels.</p>
<h2>Governance</h2>
<p>Deep decarbonisation and net-zero world goals are paramount to combating the climate crisis. However, the pace and methods of achieving them might come at the cost of leaving millions in the dark with little access to electricity. </p>
<p>A <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1111/j.1478-9302.2010.00226.x">new polycentric model of international climate governance</a> is needed. The old one resembled an era of hierarchy and power concentration in fewer countries. This led to a lack of cooperation at the international level. </p>
<p>The polycentric model could help facilitate the understanding on the need to advance access to electricity while mitigating the climate crisis. This cooperative governance model could correct the past inequitable distribution of benefits and costs by implementing the following three main principles:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>Let those affected by climate change decide when and how to transition to net-zero emissions.</p></li>
<li><p>Replace hierarchical (or “double-standard”) principles with cooperative and polycentric approaches.</p></li>
<li><p>Make autonomy and partnerships pillars of decentralised international cooperation.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>COP27 should embrace the notion that the decisions that shape the lives of Africans should be shaped by Africans. </p>
<p>The people affected by climate change should decide when and how to transition to net-zero emissions. Autonomy and partnerships should characterise international cooperation.</p>
<h2>Energy solutions</h2>
<p>Renewable energy – such as solar, wind and hydro power – is an attractive option. In Africa, women and children <a href="https://cleancooking.org/the-issues/health/">die from</a> household air pollution due to the reliance on wood, charcoal, or coal as energy sources. Citizens are <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S2214629620302140">further affected</a> by forced displacements that occur to accommodate large fossil-based energy infrastructure, like power stations. </p>
<p>A shift away from these practices would allow for a more people-centred clean energy future. There’s an opportunity to bypass a centralised energy system based on fossil fuel. It could be based on renewable energy instead, distributed through mini grids. If done right, this could provide full electrification without the cost of creating coal or natural gas power plants. Some of these power stations will be stranded anyway in the move away from fossil fuels.</p>
<h2>The path to just electrification</h2>
<p>Working together to balance clean energy and electrification in Africa will be a gradual process. The key enabling factor in this process is financing. Financing is needed for new technologies, resilient infrastructure and building people’s capacity. </p>
<p>COP27 is Africa’s turn to map this path.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/193316/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Bethel Tarekegne does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A key issue for African countries is: how to contribute towards averting a climate disaster without compromising economic growth and development.Bethel Tarekegne, Research Engineer, Pacific Northwest National LaboratoryLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1902162022-09-29T19:25:23Z2022-09-29T19:25:23ZBetter income assistance programs are needed to help people with rising cost of living<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/486164/original/file-20220922-15282-7odj0v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=186%2C186%2C4791%2C3261&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Canada’s current social assistance programs are not doing enough to support Canadians.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span></figcaption></figure><iframe style="width: 100%; height: 100px; border: none; position: relative; z-index: 1;" allowtransparency="" allow="clipboard-read; clipboard-write" src="https://narrations.ad-auris.com/widget/the-conversation-canada/better-income-assistance-programs-are-needed-to-help-people-with-rising-cost-of-living" width="100%" height="400"></iframe>
<p>At the onset of the pandemic, the Canadian federal government cobbled together a series of programs to <a href="https://www.canada.ca/en/department-finance/news/2020/07/economic-and-fiscal-snapshot-2020--house-speech.html">help vulnerable populations who needed support</a>. These measures included boosts to <a href="https://pm.gc.ca/en/news/news-releases/2020/05/03/families-receive-increased-support-through-canada-child-benefit">Canada Child Benefit payments</a>, the <a href="https://financialpost.com/personal-finance/taxes/the-gst-hst-credit-has-been-boosted-due-to-covid-19-heres-what-you-need-to-know">goods and services (GST) tax credit</a> and the <a href="https://pm.gc.ca/en/news/news-releases/2020/06/04/canadian-seniors-receive-special-payment-early-july">Old Age Security and Guaranteed Income Supplement</a> for seniors.</p>
<p>This choice of programs is telling in two important respects. First, they all came in the form of income-tested monthly benefits paid through the tax system. Secondly, the programs were mostly directed at families with children and seniors, with the exception of the GST credit that provides tax-free payments to individuals and families across Canada <a href="https://www.statcan.gc.ca/en/topics-start/poverty">at or below the poverty line</a>. </p>
<p>The addition of the <a href="https://www.canada.ca/en/services/benefits/ei/cerb-application.html">Canada Emergency Response Benefit</a> for workers who lost significant income during the pandemic, along with liberalized eligibility rules for Employment Insurance, were necessary but still <a href="https://policyoptions.irpp.org/magazines/august-2021/redesigning-canadas-social-safety-net-for-the-post-pandemic-economy/">left large gaps in protection for others who were economically vulnerable, notably singles and couples without children</a>.</p>
<p>The provincial governments, <a href="https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/social-and-welfare-services">who are in charge of social and welfare assistance</a> in Canada, <a href="https://policyalternatives.ca/newsroom/news-releases/provinces-have-upped-their-covid-19-spending-feds-still-picking-most-tab">largely left pandemic income support to the federal government</a>. More recently, the provinces have been active in attempting to cushion the impact of rising energy prices and inflation, as federal assistance measures expire.</p>
<h2>Diversity of assistance programs</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.alberta.ca/about-fuel-tax.aspx">Alberta</a>, <a href="https://www.taxpayer.com/newsroom/furey%E2%80%99s-gas-tax-cut-helps-confront-soaring-living-costs">Newfoundland</a> and <a href="https://toronto.ctvnews.ca/ontario-government-introduces-legislation-to-temporarily-cut-gas-fuel-taxes-1.5846934">Ontario</a> have introduced temporary reductions in gas taxes, which are directed at families in general rather than those with lower incomes. <a href="https://montrealgazette.com/business/local-business/personal-finance/delean-how-quebecs-500-cost-of-living-payment-affects-tax-returns">Québec introduced a non-taxable $500 benefit</a> to taxpayers with incomes under $100,000 in 2021, with reduced payments for incomes up to $150,000. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="People walk in front of a Shell gas station sign displaying a gas price of 227.9" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/485989/original/file-20220921-15282-ptxago.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/485989/original/file-20220921-15282-ptxago.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=405&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/485989/original/file-20220921-15282-ptxago.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=405&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/485989/original/file-20220921-15282-ptxago.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=405&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/485989/original/file-20220921-15282-ptxago.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=508&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/485989/original/file-20220921-15282-ptxago.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=508&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/485989/original/file-20220921-15282-ptxago.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=508&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Reductions in gas taxes in Alberta, Newfoundland and Ontario are aimed at families that own cars, rather than those with lower incomes.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darryl Dyck</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In 2021, <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/manitoba-family-affordability-package-cheques-1.6568070">Manitoba provided families with household incomes under $175,000</a> a $250 benefit for their first child and $200 for each additional child. They also provided $300 benefits for senior households with incomes under $40,000 who claimed the education property tax credit in 2021, or received provincial Employment and Income Assistance. </p>
<p><a href="https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/family-social-supports/affordability/cost-living">British Columbia is quadrupling the fourth quarter federal Climate Action Tax Credit</a>, which is based on net income and family size. There is clearly a vast diversity of social assistance programs at both the federal and provincial levels — but are they enough to help those in need?</p>
<h2>Building assistance programs</h2>
<p>Underlying these government programs is a historic framework that comes down to three principles: benefit coverage, government generosity, and tapering or reducing the benefits based on income.</p>
<p>In Canada, most social assistance programs are limited or conditional, meaning recipients must meet certain criteria to receive support. Programs tend to be geared toward seniors, families with children and <a href="https://www.canada.ca/en/revenue-agency/services/child-family-benefits/canada-workers-benefit.html">working age adults with imposed employment conditions</a>. While universal coverage <a href="https://pubs.aeaweb.org/doi/pdfplus/10.1257/089533003769204380">has been around since 1962</a>, it <a href="https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2020/2/19/21112570/universal-basic-income-ubi-map">has never gone beyond the experimental stage in North America</a>. </p>
<p>The distribution of income assistance often comes down to the question of who in need of help will actually receive support. In other words, these programs depend on generosity: Who is and is not deserving of coverage? This generosity depends both on the fiscal capacity of governments and their willingness to devote resources to the assistance of those in need. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A middle age caregiver sitting and reading on a bench beside an elderly woman, presumably her client. The caregiver's face is in focus. The elderly woman is slightly blurred." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/486162/original/file-20220922-34664-4sn0xe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/486162/original/file-20220922-34664-4sn0xe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/486162/original/file-20220922-34664-4sn0xe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/486162/original/file-20220922-34664-4sn0xe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/486162/original/file-20220922-34664-4sn0xe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/486162/original/file-20220922-34664-4sn0xe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/486162/original/file-20220922-34664-4sn0xe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Most social assistance programs in Canada are oriented toward elderly people and families with children.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It’s clear that <a href="https://maytree.com/wp-content/uploads/Welfare_in_Canada_2020.pdf">current federal and provincial income support falls short of Canada’s official poverty line</a>, now enshrined under the <a href="https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/P-16.81/page-1.html">Poverty Reduction Act</a>. This is especially significant for non-elderly adults without children who do not receive federal child or seniors benefits.</p>
<p>The effectiveness of social programs also depends on how they are tapered. Tapering refers to the way benefits are distributed to program recipients. Tapering on the basis of family income has been a hallmark of Canadian income supports since the early proposals for a guaranteed basic income, with lower income families receiving larger amounts of benefits for a given financial outlay. </p>
<p>Tapering characterizes the main federal income support programs and was <a href="https://www.poltext.org/sites/poltext.org/files/plateformesV2/Canada/CAN_PL_2015_LIB_en.pdf">explicit in the reasoning behind the current Canada Child Benefit</a> that replaced the <a href="https://www.budget.gc.ca/efp-peb/2014/uccb-puge-eng.html">Universal Child Care Benefit</a>. However, the benefit is not tapered enough — it <a href="https://www.canada.ca/en/revenue-agency/programs/about-canada-revenue-agency-cra/federal-government-budgets/budget-2016-growing-middle-class/canada-child-benefit.html">guarantees families with incomes up to $200,000 receive benefits</a>. This limited tapering means those with the greatest need get less than they might otherwise.</p>
<h2>Better support for Canadians</h2>
<p>It’s clear that Canada’s current income assistance programs are not doing enough to support Canadians. Canadians are <a href="https://policyoptions.irpp.org/magazines/september-2022/crowdfunding-inflation-needs/">increasingly turning to crowdfunding sites for support</a> to keep them afloat during personal and family crises.</p>
<p>If the goal of temporary assistance is to help those in need, it must have broader coverage and better tapering. <a href="https://www.canada.ca/en/revenue-agency/services/child-family-benefits/gsthstc-amount.html">The only program that qualifies at present is the GST credit</a>, but even these payments are modest and only delivered quarterly. </p>
<p>The federal government has just decided to <a href="https://www.canada.ca/en/department-finance/news/2022/09/making-life-more-affordable-doubling-the-goods-and-services-tax-credit-for-sixmonths.html">double the GST credit for six months</a> to deliver additional relief to these low-income families, but a family of four will only receive a maximum of an additional $467 a year from this measure.</p>
<p>A more generous income assistance program should also have more frequent regular payments. Expanding the GST credit might be more helpful, but other ways to supplement or replace provincial social assistance programs, such as a <a href="https://www.policyschool.ca/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/HSP101-Research-GuaranteedBasicIncome.pdf">guaranteed basic income for working-age Canadians</a>, might provide better support for those in need.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/190216/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Wayne Simpson does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Canada’s current income assistance programs are not doing enough to support Canadians. If the goal of temporary assistance is to help those in need, these programs must have better, broader coverage.Wayne Simpson, Professor, Department of Economics, University of ManitobaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1889382022-08-22T11:49:36Z2022-08-22T11:49:36ZCost of living crisis: the UK needs to raise taxes not cut them – here’s why<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/479959/original/file-20220818-23-l63g4u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Taxation has turned out to be the <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-62122166">main issue</a> dividing the two candidates in the current Conservative Party leadership contest. While Rishi Sunak wants to hold off making tax cuts until after the cost of living crisis has been tackled, Liz Truss wants immediate reductions. She believes cutting taxes will not cause <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/video/2022/jul/21/liz-truss-my-tax-cuts-decrease-inflation-tory-leadership-video">further rises in inflation</a> for consumers.</p>
<p>But setting aside concerns that tax cuts risk accelerating <a href="https://uk.news.yahoo.com/tory-leadership-tax-cut-promises-230100093.html">price increases</a> by giving people and businesses more money to spend, these strategies also don’t account for the need to address the current crises facing the UK. In addition to an <a href="https://www.bma.org.uk/bma-media-centre/billions-needed-to-tackle-huge-nhs-backlog-and-reverse-years-of-underfunding-says-bma-ahead-of-comprehensive-spending-review">underfunded</a> health service, households need more help with <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/independentpremium/uk-news/cost-living-energy-bills-debt-b2148418.html">skyrocketing energy costs</a> this winter. This will require large increases in government spending in the immediate future. Britain will need to pay for this either by borrowing more or raising taxes, not lowering them.</p>
<p>There is a pervasive myth about the effects of taxation on a country’s economic growth, namely that higher taxes mean less growth. It is one of those ideas that may seem plausible at first, but is in fact quite wrong. One of the sources of this myth is the idea that raising taxes reduces people’s incentive to work. Put simply, that people will refuse to take on a new job or accept a pay rise because it means paying more tax. Economists have found this idea <a href="https://pubs.aeaweb.org/doi/pdfplus/10.1257/jep.6.1.3">difficult to prove</a>, however.</p>
<p>Furthermore, various income support experiments conducted across the world show that raising welfare payments has <a href="https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2020/2/19/21112570/universal-basic-income-ubi-map">no effect</a> on willingness to work. And <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1017/s0022381613001345">research</a> also shows that tax cuts for businesses in US states have no effect on economic growth.</p>
<p>It is also possible to cast doubt on the myth that higher taxes prevent economic growth by looking at the relationship between tax levels and economic growth in the world’s most advanced industrial economies – the 38 member states of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (<a href="https://www.oecd.org/about/">OECD</a>) – over a long period of time.</p>
<p><strong>1. OECD taxes rise alongside GDP growth</strong></p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/480103/original/file-20220819-22-6jf1r3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Line graph showing correlation between taxation as a percentage of GDP and GDP per capita" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/480103/original/file-20220819-22-6jf1r3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/480103/original/file-20220819-22-6jf1r3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=411&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/480103/original/file-20220819-22-6jf1r3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=411&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/480103/original/file-20220819-22-6jf1r3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=411&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/480103/original/file-20220819-22-6jf1r3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=517&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/480103/original/file-20220819-22-6jf1r3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=517&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/480103/original/file-20220819-22-6jf1r3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=517&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The correlation between taxation and GDP.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.oecd.org/tax/tax-policy/tax-database/">Author's chart using OECD figures.</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The chart above shows the levels of <a href="https://www.oecd.org/tax/tax-policy/tax-database/">taxation</a> (from all sources) and gross domestic product (GDP) per capita among OECD members over the 50 years since 1970. Both GDP (which indicates the size and health of an economy) and the tax take in these countries have increased over time, with the former rising more rapidly than the latter. This produces a strong positive correlation between the two, indicating that higher taxes are associated with increased prosperity, rather than the opposite.</p>
<p>For example in 2019, the last year before COVID hit the world economy, the GDP per capita figures in Germany, Sweden and Denmark were respectively 13%, 11% and 17% higher than in Britain – despite all three countries having significantly <a href="https://ifs.org.uk/taxlab/key-questions/how-do-uk-tax-revenues-compare-internationally">higher tax rates</a>. </p>
<p>The simple explanation for this is based on the interaction between growth and taxation. As countries grow richer, they can raise taxes and spend more on education, health, welfare and other public services. At the same time, this stimulates growth because investment in infrastructure and a healthier and more educated work force increases productivity.</p>
<p>In contrast, reduced spending means less investment and ultimately <a href="https://www.hurstpublishers.com/event/gambling-on-development-why-some-countries-win-and-others-lose-w-stefan-dercon/">lower productivity and growth</a>. The way to stimulate growth is to invest in both private and public assets at the same time, rather than by impoverishing public investment in the mistaken belief that this will stimulate private investment.</p>
<p>While the vast majority of OECD members have raised taxes over the last 50 years, Britain has not. This can be seen in the chart below, which shows taxation as a percentage of GDP in Britain since the start of Harold Wilson’s Labour government in 1965. Britain’s current tax take is essentially the same as it was more than half a century ago, while taxes have increased by about 25% across the rest of the OECD.</p>
<p><strong>2. UK taxes as a percentage of GDP</strong></p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/479952/original/file-20220818-22-419b6c.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Bar chart showing taxes as a percentage of GDP and party incumbency in Britain, 1965 to 2019" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/479952/original/file-20220818-22-419b6c.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/479952/original/file-20220818-22-419b6c.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=408&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/479952/original/file-20220818-22-419b6c.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=408&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/479952/original/file-20220818-22-419b6c.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=408&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/479952/original/file-20220818-22-419b6c.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=512&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/479952/original/file-20220818-22-419b6c.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=512&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/479952/original/file-20220818-22-419b6c.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=512&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Taxes as a Percentage of GDP during each UK government from 1965 to 2019.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.oecd.org/tax/tax-policy/tax-database/">Author's chart using OECD figures</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The chart also shows that there is little difference between successive British governments and the size of the tax take over time. There were fluctuations, but they were quite small and unrelated to which party was in power. This highlights Britain’s collective problem of “<a href="https://ifs.org.uk/publications/16151">cakeism</a>” – that is, wanting decent public services but being unwilling to pay for them. Part of the reason for this is that both major parties appear to be unwilling to tell the public the truth: we can’t cut taxes and address current crises in the cost of living and public services without borrowing more.</p>
<h2>Addressing crises while avoiding a crash</h2>
<p>So many of our public services are currently in crisis – whether it’s <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/society/2022/aug/14/ministers-admit-hospital-buildings-england-roofs-could-collapse-any-time">crumbling hospitals</a>, a <a href="https://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/news/liverpool-news/nhs-staff-shortages-worst-ever-24765094">chronic shortage</a> of NHS staff, the risk of social care system <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/10/16/social-care-boss-warns-basic-services-will-collapse-without/">collapse</a>, or even roads full of potholes. In the end, all of this comes down to a lack of spending and investment.</p>
<p>Ramping up borrowing further is not a long-term solution to this problem. In the last few years, international borrowing by Britain has mushroomed in size. In March 2022 it was £2,365 billion, or just under 100% of GDP – a <a href="https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/governmentpublicsectorandtaxes/publicspending/bulletins/ukgovernmentdebtanddeficitforeurostatmaast/march2022">much higher proportion</a> than in the past, and an indication that the UK could already struggle to repay its debts. The pandemic, the war in Ukraine and Brexit have all contributed to this. </p>
<p>The interest payments on such borrowing are now rising fairly rapidly as <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2022/07/27/fed-decision-july-2022-.html">central banks</a> around the world <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk-interest-rate-rise-what-the-bank-of-englands-historic-hike-means-for-your-money-188042">raise rates</a> to combat <a href="https://www.reuters.com/markets/europe/ecb-finally-join-rate-hike-club-with-big-move-agenda-2022-07-20/">inflation</a>. This means a government that funds tax cuts by borrowing more is going to risk higher inflation and an accelerating deficit as a result. This is a recipe for an economic crash. Extra spending has to be financed. To do this, Britain needs higher taxes not tax cuts.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/188938/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Paul Whiteley has received funding from the British Academy and the ESRC</span></em></p>Why tax cuts are unlikely to help Britain address its current crises.Paul Whiteley, Professor, Department of Government, University of EssexLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1802382022-04-06T20:01:03Z2022-04-06T20:01:03ZPandemic pain remains as Australia’s economic recovery leaves the poor behind<p>“Our recovery leads the world,” treasurer Josh Frydenberg told Australia <a href="https://ministers.treasury.gov.au/ministers/josh-frydenberg-2018/speeches/budget-speech-2022-23">on budget night</a> last week. “We have overcome the biggest economic shock since the Great Depression.”</p>
<p>The government has repeatedly emphasised forecasts of the lowest unemployment rate since the end of the post-World War II economic boom, a time when “full employment” was the norm. </p>
<p>But a bigger story lies beneath the headlines. Our new report, titled <a href="https://www.acu.edu.au/-/media/feature/pagecontent/richtext/about-acu/community-engagement/_docs/scarring-effects-of-the-pandemic-economy.pdf?la=en">Scarring Effects of the Pandemic Economy</a>, shows Australia’s recovery has not been the rising tide that lifts all boats. </p>
<p>While JobKeeper and related policies cushioned the worst impacts of the crisis, the federal government has failed to address rising financial pressure or exclusion of the poorest and most marginalised in our community. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/455981/original/file-20220404-15-8begca.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/455981/original/file-20220404-15-8begca.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/455981/original/file-20220404-15-8begca.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/455981/original/file-20220404-15-8begca.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/455981/original/file-20220404-15-8begca.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/455981/original/file-20220404-15-8begca.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/455981/original/file-20220404-15-8begca.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/455981/original/file-20220404-15-8begca.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">The report, launched this week, shows jobs and labour force participation are far from fully recovered in Victoria.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span>
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<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/despite-record-vacancies-australians-shouldnt-expect-big-pay-rises-soon-180416">Despite record vacancies, Australians shouldn't expect big pay rises soon</a>
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<h2>An uneven economic recovery</h2>
<p>Based on two years of research, the report looks at the ongoing impact of the pandemic on social service providers in Victoria. That included organisations offering emergency relief such as food and clothing, temporary accommodation, or help for victims of family and domestic violence. </p>
<p>The report, launched this week, shows jobs and labour force participation are far from fully recovered in Victoria. </p>
<p>Melbourne had fewer jobs at the end of the Delta wave in late 2021 than before the pandemic. This problem was much worse for women already overburdened due to school and childcare centre closures and who were also more likely to be exposed to sectors with the highest job losses during lockdown, such as hospitality or retail trade. </p>
<p>A further sign of the recovery’s unevenness is the number of people registered with <a href="https://www.dese.gov.au/jobactive">jobactive</a> providers, which are supposed to provide services to the unemployed. This number was almost double pre-pandemic levels even before the Delta wave began in mid-2021. By early 2022, numbers remained over 50% higher than pre-pandemic levels.</p>
<h2>Unable to leave, unable to work, unable to get welfare support</h2>
<p>The social protection afforded by emergency government spending measures in 2020 were denied to hundreds of thousands of people on temporary visas. </p>
<p>This is far from a marginal issue. By the eve of the pandemic, every 18th worker in Victoria had arrived from overseas within the last five years; nearly half of these came from central or south Asian countries. As one social service provider told us:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>We had many international students from India and Bangladesh with no income, no family structures and no social safety net. Their resilience was limited.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This provider’s experience was typical of the sector. Unemployment for workers from this region peaked at 24% – four times higher than peak unemployment for workers born in Australia. </p>
<p>Joblessness, border closures and government exclusion from JobKeeper and JobSeeker caused untold suffering, forcing many migrants to seek emergency relief for the first time in their lives. Many found themselves in an impossible situation – effectively unable to leave, unable to work, and unable to access welfare support.</p>
<p>In 2020, emergency relief providers reported up to a 13-fold increase in the proportion of their clients who had no income. This proportion is lower today but still yet to fall to pre-pandemic levels.</p>
<p>The cohort of clients with no income correlates strongly with migrants on temporary visas.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/455980/original/file-20220404-11-gudagm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/455980/original/file-20220404-11-gudagm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/455980/original/file-20220404-11-gudagm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/455980/original/file-20220404-11-gudagm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/455980/original/file-20220404-11-gudagm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/455980/original/file-20220404-11-gudagm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/455980/original/file-20220404-11-gudagm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/455980/original/file-20220404-11-gudagm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Joblessness, border closures and government exclusion from JobKeeper and JobSeeker forced many migrants to seek emergency relief for the first time in their lives.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span>
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<h2>People still struggle long after the worst of the crisis</h2>
<p>Despite a brief fall during the peak of the first wave of the pandemic, thanks to JobKeeper and JobSeeker, the pandemic drove people to emergency relief providers in record numbers.</p>
<p>In Melbourne, demand for food increased by up to 2.5 times in 2020. </p>
<p>As volunteers withdrew due to lockdowns, the pressure on active volunteers increased. In 2021, hours per active volunteer increased by up to five times and did not decline by the end of the year, even after the Delta wave lockdown ended. One worker assisting victims of family violence told us:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The burden has been huge. [Victims] were locked down with the person that’s abusing [them]. [In bound] calls have just continued to increase.</p>
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<p>These are just some of the “scarring effects” of the pandemic which the rhetoric of high growth and low unemployment do not address. </p>
<p>The report shows the impact of lost jobs and income are not one-off events but have effects which persist long after the worst of the crisis has ended. </p>
<p>In response to these lasting effects, the report reiterates widespread calls across the sector for new investment in public housing and a significant rise in the JobSeeker payment. This would help address working poverty.</p>
<p>The report also calls for renewed government attention to the challenges faced by social service providers trying to assist the poor and vulnerable. These organisations and the people they’re trying to help continue to struggle despite talk of economic recovery.</p>
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<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/things-look-worse-for-casual-workers-than-at-any-time-during-the-pandemic-175065">Things look worse for casual workers than at any time during the pandemic</a>
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<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/180238/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The report on which this story is based was researched in partnership with Catholic Social Services Victoria, the peak body for over 40 organisations which collectively assist over 200,000 Victorians every year, and St Mary’s House of Welcome, a non-profit centre in central Melbourne which provides basic essential services to people experiencing homelessness, poverty and social marginalisation. The research was activated through the Stakeholder Engaged Scholarship Unit at ACU. This story is part of The Conversation's Breaking the Cycle series, which is about escaping cycles of disadvantage. It is supported by a philanthropic grant from the Paul Ramsay Foundation.</span></em></p>A new report on the ongoing impact of the pandemic on social service providers in Victoria found jobs and labour force participation are far from fully recovered.Tom Barnes, Senior Research Fellow, Institute for Humanities and Social Sciences, Australian Catholic UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1787492022-03-30T19:08:48Z2022-03-30T19:08:48ZInflation has already eroded tomorrow’s minimum wage rise – NZ’s low-income workers will need more support<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/454862/original/file-20220328-23-1fq6ywz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=12%2C6%2C4144%2C2727&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Tomorrow’s <a href="https://www.beehive.govt.nz/release/govt-increasing-wages-lowest-paid-workers">minimum wage increase</a> to NZ$21.20 an hour should help a significant number of New Zealand’s lowest paid workers and their families – 300,000 people, according to the government. </p>
<p>Just how <em>much</em> it will help, however, is less certain.</p>
<p>At 6%, the increase is in line with with the 5.9% annual rise in the consumer price index (CPI) in the December 2021 quarter. But inflation is <a href="https://www.interest.co.nz/business/114320/minimum-wage-rise-6-line-inflation-not-large-enough-jump-reach-living-wage-mbie-and">still rising</a>, with domestic and global pressures meaning it’s likely to keep rising for some time. </p>
<p>Those minimum wage gains, along with <a href="https://www.workandincome.govt.nz/products/benefit-rates/benefit-rates-april-2022.html#null">simultaneous increases</a> to other benefits and superannuation payments, are already eroding.</p>
<p>The food price index rose <a href="https://www.stats.govt.nz/news/fruit-and-vegetables-drive-up-annual-food-prices">6.8%</a> in February from the previous year. International <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/5753f4dd-1e8e-4159-a4e4-d232e4ad50ed">commodity</a> and <a href="https://oilprice.com/">oil</a> prices have soared since the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Some estimates suggest an annual CPI rise of <a href="https://www.newsroom.co.nz/soaring-energy-prices-could-spark-recession">between 7% and 8%</a> in this year’s March quarter.</p>
<p>It’s clear low-income households will continue to struggle to keep pace with the rising cost of living. For that reason, the minimum wage increase must be accompanied by other support measures, and not viewed as a solution in its own right.</p>
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<h2>Minimum wages and employment</h2>
<p>In fact, there are those who don’t see a minimum wage as being productive at all. One school of economic thought proposes that minimum wages actually <a href="https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2019/3/19/18271276/alan-krueger-economist-death-minimum-wage-princeton">undermine job creation</a> by making employers avoid paying for more expensive labour at the same time as encouraging more workers into the job market.</p>
<p>This view was articulated by Nobel laureate economist <a href="https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/economic-sciences/1982/summary/">George Stigler</a>, who <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/1056613">wrote in 1976</a>:</p>
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<p>One evidence of professional integrity of the economist is the fact that it is not possible to enlist good economists to defend protectionist programs or minimum wage laws.</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/does-raising-the-minimum-wage-kill-jobs-economists-have-been-trying-to-answer-this-question-for-a-century-and-finally-starting-to-gather-data-157575">Does raising the minimum wage kill jobs? Economists have been trying to answer this question for a century – and finally starting to gather data</a>
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<p>But other economists have argued against this – for example, <a href="https://davidcard.berkeley.edu/">David Card</a> and <a href="https://economics.princeton.edu/alan-krueger/">Alan Krueger</a>, who published several controversial empirical works in the 1990s finding increasing the minimum wage doesn’t necessarily lead to fewer jobs.</p>
<p>Not everyone agrees with Card and Krueger, however. <a href="https://www.economics.uci.edu/%7Edneumark/">David Neumark</a> and <a href="https://www.federalreserve.gov/econres/william-l-wascher.htm">William Wascher</a> evaluated the evidence and argued minimum wages do <a href="https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/minimum-wages">reduce employment opportunities</a> for less skilled workers, “especially those who are most directly affected by minimum wage”.</p>
<p>So, there is no real academic consensus on minimum wages – and not even much agreement on <a href="https://www.nber.org/papers/w28388">what the research literature really says</a>.</p>
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<h2>Effects on poverty</h2>
<p>Given all this, perhaps the better question is whether minimum-wage policies reduce poverty overall. But again, the research has been contradictory.</p>
<p>In one <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/toc/14754991/2012/58/4">New Zealand study</a> in 2012, researchers found minimum wages do not guarantee people will escape poverty. Another <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/oep/gpaa048">study using Irish data</a> also concluded that minimum wages may be “a blunt instrument” for tackling poverty.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/new-zealands-health-restructure-is-doomed-to-fall-short-unless-its-funding-model-is-tackled-first-179935">New Zealand's health restructure is doomed to fall short unless its funding model is tackled first</a>
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<p>On the other hand, a 2021 US study found significant <a href="https://irle.berkeley.edu/files/2019/05/Parental-Labor-Supply-Evidence-from-Minimum-Wage-Changes-1.pdf">positive employment effects</a> for single mothers with aged children five and under, suggesting minimum wages at least have potential as a policy instrument for reducing child poverty.</p>
<p>This is particularly relevant in New Zealand for two reasons: <a href="https://www.stats.govt.nz/news/child-poverty-statistics-show-all-measures-trending-downwards-over-the-last-three-years">one in five</a> Māori children and one in four Pasifika children meet the criteria for material hardship, and Pacific people and Māori <a href="https://www.mbie.govt.nz/dmsdocument/18690-minimum-wage-review-2021">represent 10%</a> and 20% of minimum wage earners, respectively.</p>
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<h2>Minimum wage just one tool</h2>
<p>What does seem clear is that minimum wage policies are most effective as part of a complementary income support bundle, as some overseas <a href="https://www.princeton.edu/%7Edavidlee/wp/Optmin.pdf">research has shown</a> and which was supported by <a href="https://motu-www.motu.org.nz/wpapers/21_03.pdf">a comprehensive review</a> of minimum wage policies in New Zealand.</p>
<p>Examining the effects on various economic outcomes since 2000, the authors argued that minimum wage policies should be “designed and evaluated in the context of other income support policies”.</p>
<p>Those <a href="https://www.msd.govt.nz/documents/about-msd-and-our-work/publications-resources/statistics/benefit/2021/benefit-fact-sheets-snapshot-december-2021.pdf">other supports</a> include the Families Package <a href="https://www.msd.govt.nz/about-msd-and-our-work/publications-resources/evaluation/families-package-reports">introduced in 2018</a>, which included an increase to the accommodation supplement, designed to help low income earners with rent, board or mortgages (but is not available to those in public housing).</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/no-silver-lining-for-climate-change-pain-at-the-petrol-pump-will-do-little-to-get-us-out-of-our-cars-179190">No silver lining for climate change: pain at the petrol pump will do little to get us out of our cars</a>
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<p>The same authors recently <a href="https://www.motu.nz/our-research/population-and-labour/individual-and-group-outcomes/impact-2018-families-package-accommodation-supplement-area-changes-housing-outcomes/">investigated</a> the impact of increases in the maximum accommodation supplement rates to see if these had simply been swallowed by rising accommodation costs.</p>
<p>Their findings were <a href="https://www.beehive.govt.nz/release/government%E2%80%99s-family-package-continues-deliver-new-zealanders">encouraging</a>: more than 90% of the increase in assistance was captured by the recipients as an increase in after-rent income. A minimum wage policy has a greater chance of success when coupled with successful support policies such as this.</p>
<p>But it’s important such complementary policies are synchronised, especially given only some other social policies, such as Working for Families, are <a href="https://www.newsroom.co.nz/ideasroom/children-shouldnt-pay-for-our-broken-system">inflation-adjusted</a>.</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-pandemic-exposes-nzs-supply-chain-vulnerability-be-ready-for-more-inflation-in-the-year-ahead-176232">The pandemic exposes NZ’s supply chain vulnerability – be ready for more inflation in the year ahead</a>
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<h2>Getting the mix right</h2>
<p>Elsewhere, these policy combinations have been effective. In the United States, for example, the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) – as its title suggests, a <a href="https://www.epi.org/publication/eitc-and-minimum-wage-work-together/">refundable tax credit</a> similar to New Zealand’s Working for Families policy – has been <a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Y4qowGOfV7Uw3SfuL3Cj0jfJj7Fwb2R3/view">shown to benefit</a> low-wage workers and families in combination with a modest increase in the minimum wage. </p>
<p>Again, the combination of policies works better than either in isolation, and <a href="https://www.epi.org/publication/eitc-and-minimum-wage-work-together/">some recent studies</a> suggest EITC expansions and minimum wage hikes should be thought of in tendem as complementary policies.</p>
<p>However, one of the big challenges of integrating minimum wage settings with other policies is that each tool affects many economic outcomes. What should be the <a href="https://voxeu.org/article/optimal-minimum-wages">optimal level</a> of minimum wages? How do minimum wage hikes interact with other supporting policies? </p>
<p>While there have been some official <a href="https://www.mbie.govt.nz/dmsdocument/18690-minimum-wage-review-2021">efforts to measure</a> the relationship between the minimum wage and other state interventions, this needs to go further in order to find the right policy mix – especially during a year that will see continued high inflation, low growth and economic uncertainty.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/178749/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Murat Ungor does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Opinion and evidence differ on minimum wage policies, but one thing seems clear – they need to be better integrated within a wider economic support strategy.Murat Ungor, Senior Lecturer in Economics, University of OtagoLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1794842022-03-18T13:36:11Z2022-03-18T13:36:11ZSocial security is the bedrock of South Africa’s human rights protection. But there are gaps<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/453013/original/file-20220318-17-1sap9zt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">South Africa has an extensive social security network, but poverty levels remain obstinately high.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Photo by Dan Kitwood/Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Since South Africa adopted its post-apartheid <a href="https://www.justice.gov.za/legislation/constitution/saconstitution-web-eng.pdf">constitution</a> in 1996, the country has made important strides in realising the right to social security and in reducing poverty and inequality. </p>
<p>Policies, legislation and administrative infrastructure have enabled the government to create an expansive social security system. Two out of three households <a href="https://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/view/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780192894199.001.0001/oxfordhb-9780192894199-e-38#oxfordhb-9780192894199-e-38-div1-256">receive a social grant</a> and <a href="https://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/view/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780192894199.001.0001/oxfordhb-9780192894199-e-38#oxfordhb-9780192894199-e-38-div1-256">60% of the workforce</a> is covered by social insurance. </p>
<p>South Africa is now <a href="https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/bitstream/handle/10986/36338/South-Africa-Social-Assistance-Programs-and-Systems-Review-Policy-Brief.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y">an exemplar</a> of an upper middle-income country that has <a href="https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/handle/10986/36514?show=full&locale-attribute=fr">gone further than many others</a> in growing social protection to promote development. </p>
<p>Nevertheless, the country still has persistent and extraordinarily high rates of <a href="https://www.globalcitizen.org/en/content/1-in-5-south-africans-living-extreme-poverty-un/">poverty</a>, <a href="http://www.statssa.gov.za/?p=14957">unemployment</a>, <a href="https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/press-release/2022/03/09/new-world-bank-report-assesses-sources-of-inequality-in-five-countries-in-southern-africa">inequality</a> and <a href="https://www.afdb.org/en/countries/southern-africa/south-africa/south-africa-economic-outlook">low levels of economic growth</a>.</p>
<p>As South Africa marks <a href="https://www.gov.za/HumanRightsMonth2022">Human Rights Day</a> on 21 March, it is worth reflecting on what has been achieved, what policies and interventions are needed, and what the future trajectories might be.</p>
<h2>What’s in place</h2>
<p>Social security consists of several pillars. One of these is social assistance. This is paid by the state to different categories of vulnerable people such as the aged, people with physical and mental disabilities and children and their families. </p>
<p>The net of support was expanded from three million beneficiaries in 1995 to <a href="https://www.gov.za/speeches/president-cyril-ramaphosa-2022-state-nation-address-10-feb-2022-0000">over 18 million</a> in 2022.</p>
<p>The second pillar is social insurance. This takes the form of contributory schemes linked to employment, such as unemployment, health and pension benefits. Informal social and family provision of support also play an important role. </p>
<p>Some other interventions are not generally classified as part of the country’s social security system. These include <a href="https://mg.co.za/business/2021-03-04-will-job-creation-schemes-fix-the-unemployment-crisis/">public employment schemes</a>, school feeding and a social package of free basic services. Free primary health care, free education for poor children, as well as subsidies for early childhood development centres and to NGOs to deliver welfare services, also fall into this category. </p>
<p>More recently, to mitigate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, a new temporary Social Relief of Distress grant was implemented. It <a href="https://www.gov.za/speeches/president-cyril-ramaphosa-2022-state-nation-address-10-feb-2022-0000">grew</a> from 5.3 million beneficiaries in 2020 to 10 million in 2022. It is targeted at the unemployed and informal workers who are unable to support themselves. </p>
<p>Social assistance is clearly the bedrock of the country’s social security system. It operates alongside minuscule budgetary allocations for welfare services such as community mental health, substance abuse and gender-based violence among others. Welfare services have historically been underfunded and this trend continues.</p>
<p>But there are some problems with the social security system.</p>
<p>Importantly, it doesn’t adequately address or cater for the problem of unemployment whereas most poor people are unemployed, or employed in <a href="https://theconversation.com/employed-but-still-poor-the-state-of-low-wage-working-poverty-in-south-africa-118018">precarious and low-wage work</a> and in the informal sector.</p>
<p>In addition, the system is poorly coordinated. There are weak linkages between the different programmes. For example, caregivers who receive child support grants do not have ready access to other services such social and nutrition support, public employment and early childhood education. This undermines the structural efficiency, effectiveness and responsiveness of the system to meet a diversity of needs over the life cycle.</p>
<h2>Policy gaps and interventions</h2>
<p>The role of social assistance is now widely accepted as the bedrock of the country’s efforts to speed up poverty reduction and income redistribution. What is at issue is how best to achieve this. </p>
<p>Several high-level policy solutions emerged from a <a href="https://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/view/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780192894199.001.0001/oxfordhb-9780192894199-e-38#oxfordhb-9780192894199-e-38-div1-256">policy review I recently conducted</a> for <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-oxford-handbook-of-the-south-african-economy-9780192894199?facet_narrowbybinding_facet=Ebook&facet_narrowbyprice_facet=100to200&lang=en&cc=gb">a new book</a>.</p>
<p>Firstly, social security reforms are needed that centre on filling the gaps. These include support for the long-term and chronically unemployed and informal workers. </p>
<p>Secondly, the benefit levels of social grants, especially the child support grant, must be increased to address malnutrition more effectively. The current grant amount is below the <a href="https://www.news24.com/news24/southafrica/news/stats-sa-adjusts-national-food-poverty-line-to-r624-a-person-per-month-20210909">food poverty line</a>.</p>
<p>Innovative outreach is also needed to improve inclusion of large numbers of children who qualify, but do not receive the grant. These are <a href="https://www.unicef.org/southafrica/media/1226/file/ZAF-removing-barriers-to-accessing-child-grants-2016.pdf">estimated to be 17.5%</a> of eligible children.</p>
<p>There is also a <a href="https://cramsurvey.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/13.-Van-der-Berg-S.-Patel-L-and-Bridgeman-G.-2021-Food-insecurity-in-South-Africa-%E2%80%93-Evidence-from-NIDS-CRAM-Wave-5.pdf">growing acknowledgement</a> that unless employment grows – through various public and private measures – and such work is sustainable, social assistance on its own has a limited effect on lifting people out of poverty and in improving income mobility. Employment growth and better-quality jobs would bring more people into the social insurance system and build a larger middle class. </p>
<p>Social and economic challenges that were intensified by the pandemic are likely to continue. This may further deepen structural unemployment, with some jobs being lost permanently. Ongoing monitoring of the economic recovery and of social development indicators over time is likely to aid more effective policy making. </p>
<p>Social policy solutions are needed that extend interim social relief in the short to medium term. These must also address systemic improvements to overcome delivery challenges. South Africa may do well to follow other countries that maintain <a href="https://documents1.worldbank.org/curated/en/698441502095248081/pdf/117971-REVISED-PUBLIC-Discussion-paper-1704.pdf">social registers</a> such as those in Latin America, Indonesia and Mauritius. These enable authorities to identify potential beneficiaries in need and aid in planning. This will in turn improve the responsiveness of social support.</p>
<p>The temporary expansion of social assistance due to the pandemic brings new challenges. If the COVID-19 relief of distress grant is terminated or gradually phased out as the economy begins to recover and generates employment, tricky political issues may arise. There is the potential for significant political destabilisation. This is because the social and humanitarian crises the grant sought to alleviate would persist.</p>
<p>It is thus likely that the COVID-19 relief of distress grant may by default <a href="https://businesstech.co.za/news/business-opinion/568428/new-grant-for-south-africa-is-a-done-deal-and-you-will-foot-the-bill-for-it-analyst/">become a basic income grant</a>. It’s not clear what form this might take but the government <a href="https://www.gov.za/SONA2022">has announced</a> that it is exploring its options.</p>
<p><a href="https://theconversation.com/basic-income-support-in-south-africa-risks-rewards-and-what-it-will-take-176821">Questions remain </a> as to how affordable these policy options are. Cost-benefit analyses will be needed to aid policy engagement and decision making. The costs – and outcomes – will differ depending on whether a basic income grant prioritises those in greatest need or is given to all income groups. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/basic-income-support-in-south-africa-risks-rewards-and-what-it-will-take-176821">Basic income support in South Africa: risks, rewards and what it will take</a>
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<p>Given the country’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africas-fiscal-squeeze-warning-signs-ignored-for-too-long-177188">fiscal constraints</a>, consideration needs to be given to the fact that other social policies and social development programmes are likely to be crowded out by the further expansion of income support.</p>
<p>Growing cash transfers at the expense of non-monetary forms of social provision – including health and mental health services, education, early childhood education, social work services, housing and basic services, such as water, sanitation and electricity – could be equally counterproductive.</p>
<p>Carefully designed, innovative and evidence-based complementary interventions are needed. These must build human capital and human agency, strengthen families and boost community-level livelihoods. Alongside other similar interventions, these should ultimately aim at breaking the <a href="https://bettercarenetwork.org/library/social-welfare-systems/social-protection-policies-and-programmes/connecting-cash-transfers-with-care-for-better-child-and-family-well-being-evidence-from-a">inter-generational cycles of disadvantage</a>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/179484/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Leila Patel receives funding from the Department of Science and Innovation (DSI) and the National Research Foundation for her Chair in Welfare and Social Development, the Faculty of Humanities, and the University of Johannesburg's Research Committee. </span></em></p>Social security reforms are needed that include support for the long-term and chronically unemployed and informal workers.Leila Patel, Professor of Social Development Studies, University of JohannesburgLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.