Demonisation of benefits recipients is not just grotesquely inaccurate and unfair but socially counter-productive, delegates to a TUC anti-poverty conference designed to dispel stereotypes and media myths were told earlier this week.
The wide-ranging conference, “Challenging Myths and Stereotypes”, challenged head-on the populist, divisive language used not just by the current Conservative-led Government but also by specifically identified ministers in the last Labour government.
The London-based charity, Community Links, released a paper, Speech Marks, comprehensively documenting many of the lazier claims made by Tory and Labour MPs.
A key briefing paper, Are People on Disability Benefits Swinging the Lead?, mined the official statistical data to refute the headlines and say that fraud is, in reality and tabloid headlines notwithstanding, almost unheard of among disability benefit claimants.
It accounted for 0.5 per cent of the 2010/2011disability living allowance budget and 0.3 per cent of the incapacity benefits bill – both lower than the margin for administrative error by officials themselves.
The constant reinforcing of popular images of benefits recipients as scroungers through the use of what many can only perceive as hate language has not only been associated with attacks on disabled people but hinders the efforts of people to get back into work, said the TUC.
TUC deputy general secretary Frances O’Grady said: “All too often we see people living in poverty ridiculed as cheats or scroungers but poverty is not a laughing matter. Millions of children are growing up within extremely poor families and the UK has one of the lowest levels of social mobility in the developed world.”
Negative portrayals of people on low incomes as lazy, feckless, scrounging on the dole and somehow worth less than the rest of society are not just demonising but hinder jobseekers’ efforts to get back into work, creating an environment of suspicion and disdain amongst employers and support staff, and destroying self-confidence.
“Contrary to stereotypes, the vast majority of people on low incomes are not cheating the benefits system. Most people on the breadline want decent work but are struggling – particularly in the current economic climate”, she said.
The TUC, as a member of the End Child Poverty coalition, has said it will work with children’s and other charities, social-justice groups, faith groups and some businesses to fight the high, and increasing, levels of child poverty in Britain.
People on Disability Benefits Swinging the Lead? is available at www.tuc.org.uk/tucfiles/97/DisabilityBenefits.pdf. Speech Marks is available atwww.tuc.org.uk/tucfiles/101/Speechmarks.pdf
