Work’s worth

Anastasia De Waal, 9 October 2009

This week the importance of work for a prospective Conservative government was emphasised. In what were received as radical proposals, the Tories announced that they would, broadly ala Wisconsin welfare reforms, push people off benefits and into work – as well as push longer working years. That the former proposal in particular, off welfare and into work, is seen as radical is an indictment of where Labour has failed to pursue what would once have been seen as its rightful path.

One of the main things which has distinguished New Labour from old Labour is the stark lack of significance given to having a job – or most importantly, not having one. Focusing instead on a one-pronged short-term strategy to raise household income through cash transfers, the Blair administration in particular failed to take into sufficient account the detrimental impact of worklessness on more than money: morale and self-esteem. Very weak on the one hand and clumsy on the other, attempts were made to get people off benefits and into work and in some cases getting a job just didn’t – and still doesn’t – pay. The effect has been not just a state of stagnant poverty for large numbers, but a crippling lack of routine and everyday stability, damaging both the unemployed themselves and their children. The number of workless youths out of education – NEETs – which rose steadily against a backdrop of high employment and job availability has been particularly worrying, with dropping directly into unemployment a sure-fire way to undermine the germination of self-respect and a sense of purpose – and of course life chances.

The implications of worklessness cannot be underplayed – pushing the case for both welfare reform which supports people into employment (and not by simply slashing benefits) and education policy which ensures that young people are equipped for entry into the workforce.

The reality poorly-equipped young people face in the labour market is emphasised in a piece of new research from Northeastern University. Reported this week in the New York Times, a nation-wide study which has used census and other government data, shows the employment and criminal justice experiences of ‘young high school dropouts’:
‘On any given day, about one in every 10 young male high school dropouts is in jail or juvenile detention, compared with one in 35 young male high school graduates’.

Dropping out of school prematurely lead researcher Andrew Sum argues, is at huge public expense, as well as private:

‘It’s one of the country’s costliest problems. The unemployment, the incarceration rates …’

Clearly in an economic downturn even those who do not drop out of school are much more likely to face unemployment. But it is also clear, particularly in light of the ‘costs’, social and economic, of worklessness that prudent public spending does not entail scrimping on either education or getting people into work. Both are false economies.