Apparently Channel 4 are showing yet another poverty porn series, which seem rather the fashion these days. This one is called “Benefits street” and has caused something of a stir – which is probably why they chose the title. After the first episode there has been all sorts of people claiming that the program is either highlighting a really important issue or cruel evil exploitation of honest working class people. Many people are claiming that it’s just fueling hatred and dividing people as some part of an evil Tory scheme, and that the program is distorting the facts. This has lead to things such as the Infographic on the left produced by Haze Magazine. Now I’ve no idea if the numbers it presents are correct or not and to a large extent I don’t really care, what caught my attention however was the sneaky change of argument in the graphic there. The argument that most people make is that the benefits system is broken because it is possible to earn more than someone working by claiming benefits. This Infographic tries to debunk this my showing how much better off the hypothetical family would be by just working 30 hours on minimum wage, except they only consider Job Seekers Allowance not the total amount of benefits available.
So you’ll note that we’ve gone from talking about benefits to just talking about how much an unemployed couple with two school age children receive only in job seekers allowance. Which really isn’t the same argument as off the top of my head such a couple would also receive:
- Housing benefit
- Child benefit for both children
- Council tax rebate
So that’s a bit more than just the very low sum that JSA provides and which no-one is claiming people are better off on. I believe there may be further benefits available beyond those above but that depends on the details of our hypothetical family, and also being asked to pay less tax isn’t really a benefit, just as companies paying less tax aren’t being subsidised – although of course it does help make money go further. If they started work they might lose some of those benefits but then they might start getting tax credits and other such things, I’ve no idea like I say not really interested. However if you’re going to argue about Myths Vs. Reality, it probably helps to actually be having the same argument as the people you’re trying to correct. Being devious with your data like this doesn’t really help advance the debate but then “reframing” debates in this way is a commonly used tactic as shown by things such as the “bedroom tax”.
