The UK’s “Work Capability Assessment” is a disaster, but other countries show us how it can be fixed.
Articles on Benefits
Displaying 121 - 140 of 141 articles
Conservative and Labour proposals for young jobseekers have different rhetoric, but both miss the point.
David Cameron has announced plans to reduce the annual benefits cap from £26,000 to £23,000 per year if the Conservative Party wins the general election in May. He argues that the cap saved public money…
If you rely on benefits, accessing a trustworthy financial system is hard. This is the case for both borrowing and for saving. While some question whether people on benefits are in a position to save at…
The impact of immigration on Britain’s tax and welfare system is perhaps the most important economic issue in the debate over the country’s relationship with the EU and its principle of free movement…
Facebook and Apple have come under fire since it was revealed that their female employees are offered financial help for egg-freezing fertility treatment. But the offer is part of a slew of medical and…
Iain Duncan-Smith has made his feelings about benefits claimants clear: poor families are to be given pre-paid cards, loaded with payments, to make sure they spend the money on food, rather than their…
Ed Balls has kicked off the annual Labour conference in Manchester with an ill-judged announcement that his party would increase child benefits by just 1% a year until 2017 if elected to government next…
On July 5, the Daily Mail mounted yet another attack on the pesky human rights folk who have the temerity to question the coalition government’s welfare agenda. The article, headlined “The Brazil Nut strikes…
It is getting harder and harder to prove that you’re “truly British”. With immigration rarely off the front pages and UKIP making waves in election year, a national survey has shown that opinions are hardening…
Year after year, when the British Social Attitudes (BSA) survey is released, newspaper headlines tell us of how our attitudes to benefits have hardened, feeding this into their wider discussions about…
A delayed start to a performance of La Traviata at the Bastille Opera may not seem like the stuff of politics, but it made headlines in France. The Saturday night show went ahead an hour late, but by the…
There is now another slide in the UK towards American-style “workfare” programmes aimed at getting the unemployed back to work as quickly as possible. The evidence showing that workfare programmes actually…
The much-criticised healthcare contractor Atos will no longer administer work capability assessments for disabled and sick people, the government has announced. A new provider will take over the contract…
Councils are facing questions about their use of lie detectors in attempts to catch benefits cheats over the phone. The idea is to listen out for subtle changes in the voice that might indicate that someone…
In a new report, Working For The Few, Oxfam warns that the fight against poverty cannot be won until wealth inequality has been tackled. The wealth of the richest 1% in the world amounts to $110 trillion…
For all of the changes to the UK over the last century, the ideal of “fair play” still seems to be a pretty fundamental part of Britain’s national self-image. The concept that anyone – especially anyone…
The children of this country owe a debt of gratitude to Malcolm Wicks, who died last year. If you have ever benefited from child benefit, you have him to thank. While Wicks was dying he wrote a memoir…
George Osborne has warned that a further £25bn of spending cuts will be needed after the next election – with about half of those cuts to be made from the social security budget, largely from cuts in benefits…
Those who follow the situation of Europe’s Roma know that there is never a “dull” week in which we don’t hear of accusations, abuse, or even violence against them. Most events do not grab major headlines…
Top contributors
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Professor in Social Policy, University of Glasgow
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Professor of Social Policy, Loughborough University
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Professor of Social Policy, University of Glasgow
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Professor of Social Policy, University of Salford
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Senior Lecturer in Sociology and Social Policy, University of Kent
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Professor of Social Policy, University of Birmingham
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Professor in Social Policy, Lancaster University
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Professor of Social Policy, University of York
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Senior Lecturer in Quantitative Sociology in the School of Social Policy, Sociology, and Social Research, University of Kent
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Postdoctoral Research Associate in the Department of Geography, Durham University
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Reader in Employment and Head of the Decent Work and Productivity Research Centre, Manchester Metropolitan University
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Professor of Public Health, Newcastle University
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Senior Lecturer in Economics, University of Sussex Business School, University of Sussex
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Professor of Social Policy, University of York
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Lecturer, Department of Sociology, Maynooth University