We’ve had so many reports on inequality – now act | Letters

Chris Grover says austerity policies are even more punishing than the workhouse, John Veit-Wilson on social security for everyone, Jack Czauderna on so many reports, Dr David Alderson on why he won’t vote for the Lib Dems, and Paul Nicolson et al on the inequality between renters and landlords or landowners

Philip Alston, the UN rapporteur on extreme poverty, is right to say that austerity has sought to recreate the workhouse for the 21st century (Report, 22 May). The idea of “less eligibility” (that the experience of state support should always be felt as being economically and socially worse than earning a living) underpinned the 19th-century workhouse and frames contemporary austerity policies. But, in the weaponising of less eligibility for today’s precarious labour markets, social security policy goes beyond the oppressiveness of the poor law. Though the experience of the poor law was designed to be deeply unpleasant and grudging, it was also designed to relieve destitution by focusing on the needs of all household members.

In contrast, social security policy, particularly after George Osborne’s 2015 budget, is designed to create destitution by, for example, only providing support for two children per household and limiting benefit payments in arbitrary ways via the benefit cap. The Department for Work and Pensions claims that Alston provides a “completely inaccurate picture of our approach to tackling poverty”. If anything, he under-emphasises the regressiveness of contemporary social security policies.
Dr Chris Grover
Lancaster University

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from Property | The Guardian http://bit.ly/2VFCrxb
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