Tag Archives: benefits

From the Economic Policy Institute comes this piece on who gets benefits: The pandemic highlighted vast inequalities in the United States, especially in the U.S. labor market. Striking disparities were magnified in who could work from home and who had to go into work in person, who was able to keep their job and who suffered from lost work hours or employment altogether, who had health insurance to seek care when they needed it and who didn’t,...

On Saturday, I watched Ken Loach's 2016 film "I, Daniel Blake" for the first time. The following evening, I watched the second episode in the BBC's adaptation of Victor Hugo's 19th century novel "Les Misérables". And here is my unpopular opinion. I think that as a parable of the U.K. today, particularly the difficulties experienced by single parents, "Les Misérables" beats "I, Daniel Blake" hands down. Why? Because Fantine's story is closer to the experience of single mothers today. True,...

Today is a day for celebration. After nearly 60 years of inequality and discrimination - originally against women, and more recently against men - the state pension age is at last the same for men and women. For one day only, both men and women will retire at 65. Tomorrow, the state pension age for both men and women will start rising again in lockstep, reaching 66 by 2020 and then to 67 and 68.I make no apology for celebrating the equalisation of pension ages. In my view this is long...

Guest post by Jeff Mosenkis of Innovations for Poverty Action. First, the University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy has a new Obama Scholarship, which will pay (full tuition plus, travel costs and living stipend) for professional policy folks from anywhere in the world to get a 1-year mid-career masters there. It’s open to people from all sectors working for the public good with 3-5 years of work experience and a strong track record. Please forward to colleagues and friends who...

This is David Hencke's response to my comment on his blog. You can find the Coppola Comment version of my comment here.For the record while not replying to all your points. 1. I cover a wide range of topics on my blog – child sex abuse, domestic violence, bad treatment of the disabled, the rise of Jeremy Corbyn, dodgy privatisations, institutional racism etc. 2. Given the government has to write to everyone telling them when their pension is due, it is not beyond the wit of man or woman to...

This thread on Twitter has attracted a lot of attention. It goes some way towards explaining why older people are generally in favour of Brexit, and why Theresa May's "strong and stable" mantra particularly appeals to the baby boomer generation. For those who aren't on Twitter, I've paraphrased part of the thread here. I have been thinking about the "strong and stable" mantra, in the context of my mum, who thinks Theresa May is great. Mum is a product of post war Social democracy (born...

How effective is monetary policy?Highly effective, according to the Governor of the Bank of England. In a speech earlier this week, Mark Carney robustly defended the Bank of England's record: "Simulations using the Bank’s main forecasting model suggest that the Bank’s monetary policy measures raised the level of GDP by around 8% relative to trend and lowered unemployment by 4 percentage points at their peak. Without this action, real wages would have been 8% lower, or around £2,000 per...

I know that lots of you are heartily sick of the WASPI campaign, but it does have a tendency to throw up interesting issues. This time, it is the legal status of the UK's state pension.A couple of days ago, the WASPI campaign announced a crowdfunding campaign to raise funds for legal action against the Government. Their CrowdJustice page says that legal action would potentially be twofold: (this is a screen print from the CrowdJustice page. Regular readers of my blog will be aware that I...

I've written before about the arbitrary and cruel judgments made by DWP frontline staff in relation to ESA claimants, particularly the mentally ill. And Guy Standing, in his excellent books about the precarious lives of the "new underclass", describes how the process of claiming benefits creates huge amounts of unproductive "work". Benefit claimants have to "earn" their benefits by what amounts to jumping through hoops. But I confess that - not being a claimant myself - I lacked real...

There is a great deal of confusion over National Insurance - what it is, how it works and what it funds. I have attempted to clear up some of the muddle elsewhere. But partly, it stems from the existence of something called the NI Fund. If there is a Fund, surely this implies that National Insurance contributions are invested? If so, those (like me) who insist that state pensions are unfunded are talking gibberish.There is indeed a NI Fund. But it is badly named. It would be more accurate to...