REAL LIFE ON THE DOLE : PART 1

This is about the actual experience day-to-day of trying to maintain any sort of half-way decent life while relying on the woefully inadequate benefits system in this country. Life on the dole, if you like, not that its called that anymore, nor is the Government Department that administers it the DSS anymore. This stood for the Department of Social Security. Now it is the DWP, the Department for Work and Pensions. This strongly suggests that there is no such thing as social security anymore, there is only work and pensions, the idea of social security has been quietly dropped. A far more accurate name would be the DSI : the Department for Social Insecurity, for that is what it does, it gives just enough for you to feel permanently insecure while not in employment.

The dole, unemployment benefit or the silly, demeaning current phrase ‘ Job Seekers Allowance ‘ now stands at its lowest level as compared to average earnings since it was introduced in 1912 at a rate that was 22 % of average male earnings in manufacturing. Since then it has fluctuated but by 1979 was still about 22% of average earnings ( manual and non-manual, male and female .) By 2008 it had fallen to an all-time low of 10.5% of average earnings. The maximum amount that an adult over 25 can receive is £60.50 a week. That is to cover all living expenses other than rent and Council Tax which are assessed separately. I no longer have any savings and try to get by on this benefit. Academics that study these issues have made detailed analysis of the consequences of this inadequate level of income for individual citizens expected to live a decent life and participate in society when this is all there is to rely on. What this column is about is being at the sharp end, the day to day reality of this miserly and outdated as well as unfair system.

First, it creates a situation of continual worry and stress about how one is going to meet commitments on basic expenses such as electricity, gas and water bills. All of these have been increasing markedly over the post - privatisation period. I was visited last week by EDF operatives with ultimatums on bills in arrears. The electric is going to be deducted directly from my JSA at a rate of £9 a week, which is going to reduce my two-weekly income to just over £100. The gas has been put on a card pre-payment meter. I now have to think before boiling an egg. I have decided that scrambled are quicker.

Second, there is the effective exclusion from simple social activities, a visit to the pub, a trip on the train. I am no sociologist and no statistician but when a pint costs approximately 5% of your weekly income and a one day travel card for Zone 1 & 2 (off-peak) costs 8% of your weekly income and colossal 10.5% at peak hours it is clear that your participation in everyday life is going to be very limited. Boris Johnson, who I suggest has never experienced anything like this level of income, recently gave a concession : once a massive form has been completed one can get half-price on the buses if claiming JSA. This is exactly the sort of measure that just adds to the sense of being an inferior and sanctioned lesser citizen because one has no job and has to claim benefit.

Third, the continual concern about how one is going to get through the next week actually mitigates against being able to settle down calmly and organise and facilitate income earning ideas or applications for those jobs that exist. One is more likely to seek distraction and panacea when under financial duress.

There is something called the Social Fund. This is a means tested one off loan up to a maximum of £348, note not £350 but £348, I wonder what arcane calculations went in arriving at that figure ? This is immediately then deducted from your basic allowance, as, presumably the Government need that £ 3.35 more than I do on a weekly basis. This is an admission that the basic benefit rate is inadequate, so you have to then get into debt as well.

I recently applied for an emergency loan from the Social Fund when my electricity and gas were at risk of being disconnected. I was telephoned some three or four weeks later and told that unless I was in danger of dying that they could not make a further loan. That was said quite straight faced and without irony.

The Labour Party has presided over this complete failure to bring the benefits system to a level acceptable in a civilised society. I suggest that the Socialist project was effectively abandoned in this area and many of the knock-on problems of crime, social incohesion and inequality have grown as a direct result. Now that the economy has stalled an awfully large number of people are going to realise this and that the myth of the scrounger living comfortably on benefits is a tabloid deflection from the harsh truth. While a life consisting of drinking cans of industrial lager while sitting inertly indoors, barely eating and being able to pay any bills is indeed how some exist, that is not a result of a generous benefit system : it is the opposite. I can assure you that it takes a great amount of strength and ingenuity to not fall into that sort of situation when being drip fed on the woefully inadequate and morally indefensible absolute minimum amount currently allowed when not employed. It is remarkable how little is actually spoken about the reality, there are millions now unemployed and they have virtually no voice, there is no Union for the unemployed, no group is larger and yet still almost completely marginalised and excluded.

As to that other long standing myth : full employment, as far as I am aware the only countries that claimed to have full employment were Nazi Germany during the 2nd World War and the Communist Soviet Union, which hardly seem like models to be followed. Surely it is way past time that this mythical full employment mantra was excised. There is never going to be continuous full employment under a Capitalist system, to say so is to lie. As the deep flaws in that system have been exposed, not, it must be said, by it being challenged by a Labour government who were supine in the face of the grinning Cheshire Cat of the ‘ City’ and its worshipful financial services ‘ industry ‘ ( what does it make, if its an industry ? Oh, people who play complicated games with large sums of money very, very rich, I see ) and as the devastating effects trickle down rapidly to the broader population, many more are going to come up against the consequences of a Darwinist ‘leave it to the markets’ philosophy. There has been a surreptitious removal of the safety net, like in Catch 22 when Yossarian in an plane about to crash discovers that he has no parachute because it has been sold for the value of the silk. Of that I am highly conscious every single day.

And they wonder why people turn to crime.