I note that Sky News has recorded that:
Britain's benefits system is bracing for up to four million unemployed in the coming months as the economic fall-out of the COVID crisis accelerates.
The work and pensions secretary Therese Coffey told Sky News her department was preparing to support that level of unemployed, but said she "genuinely hopes" that we do not reach that figure.
I have noted that the Daily Mail has repeated the story, suggesting that the Office for Budget Responsibility agrees the claim, based on July data.
I welcome the government's recognition that it is facing an unemployment crisis: it is about time that it did.
I also think it time to say that I'm already expecting considerable manipulation of unemployment data over the months to come.
As the Guardian has already reported, hundreds of thousands of people are already being denied Universal Credit even though they are now unemployed. That figure is obviously going to rise significantly over coming months.
What we can also be sure of is that many hundreds of thousands more people will simply not register as unemployed or claim benefits, largely because many of them will be over the retirement age, but would otherwise nonetheless work.
What this then means is that even though the government is now preparing for 4 million benefit claimants, the true figure of those unemployed is likely to be very much higher, and that will be the case even if the benefit claimant figure is higher than 4,000,000, as I think entirely plausible.
Preparing appropriate basis for estimating unemployment is going to be one of the challenges of the coming year.
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Yes, it’s a shame they haven’t read this article. Not paying unemployment benefits is criminal. Especially at a time like this when there’s a pandemic and it could drive people to dangerous behaviour such as taking work when they should be in isolation.
I still think the government could be creating work rather what looks like terrifically badly thought through knee jerk policies.
Universal Credit is withheld if the claimant has more than £16,000 in savings or a partner is on a very high salary. Obviously once claimants’ savings fall below this, especially if they have high outgoings, the claimant count will increase again leaving even more angry people and the government losing even more support from this influential group.
You must also factor in the retired people with savings dwindling quickly as they try desperately to help their sons/daughters/grandchildren.
Far too many thought they could rest easy in retirement after working hard all their lives now stressed to the point of despair.
Maybe that’s the point of all this.
Create a stressed out and angry swathe of the population. Stress creates ill health which creates the need for more medication which creates extra billions for the drug companies.
How to turn gross incompetence into gross profits
That is correct.
You literally are expected to destitute yourself before you apply for help.
It’s disgusting and depraved.
I think a lot of Tory voters are getting rather a shock when they discover just how cruel and meagre the UC system is. In the words of their hero, Ian Duncan Smith “This is not an easy life anymore, chum!”.
I know they are, I’m following them on Facebook’s group for ‘The Excluded’, the business people excluded from Sunak’s assistance schemes. 3 million of them all told they estimate. Many are veryunhappy indeed about being, as they see it, abandoned by the govt. This group includes a lot of creative people, so upsetting them is something Sunak may well come to regret as they come after him in ways he can’t imagine.
This is one of those moments in the political life of the country when people are confronted with the truth.
Duncan Smith’s line is all of a oneness with the opinions of many Conservatives who still trot out the lines used to justify the 1832 Poor Law, which established the workhouse.
It pains me to tell you that from personal experience I heard some only days ago!
I estimated between 6-8 million unemployed at the start of this, purely on the basis of what lockdowns and prolonged social distancing requirements, would do to the many heavily indebted businesses of marginal viability in the UK. Add a disorderly exit from the EU, with scant preparation in place, and the sky really is the limit. I don’t think 10 million is too unlikely.
Sunak is going to have to get to grips with the scope and scale of what a government sovereign in its own currency can really do in a crisis, or the whole house of cards is going to come down. The fact that so far all he seems interested in discussing is what taxes may have to rise to pay for the modest action thus far undertaken, suggests he can’t even entertain the kind of thinking necessary to face the challenges ahead.
Aren’t there some other numbers that would paint in some more of the picture, such as National Insurance? The number of people paying, and the total raised, for example?
ONS publish various data on employment. I suspect that the important number over the next three months is “payrolled employees”. This peaked at 29 million prior to COVID, latest estimates are that it remains at 28.3 million…. if the latest efforts from Rishi Sunak to ameliorate the end of furlough do prove to be insufficient then we should see it here.
Of course, there will be pain in the self-employed sector but the “question of the week” is “has Rishi done enough?” and these data should tell us.
I think the range of data to review is wider – but that’s clearly key data
I think there are two fairly distinct issues here.
First, from a macro-economic view we need to be alert to the fact that upheaval we are seeing (and going to see) means that assuming a single number captures what is going on is wrong.
It is certainly wrong to focus on the claimant count as it will miss huge swathes of unemployed, under-employed and pseudo-self-employed. I don’t know what data will illuminate what is really going on but we need to scan them all. I fear that a focus on the claimant count will be used as an excuse for limited action….. and deliberately so.
Second, the coming tsunami of lay-offs will challenge the notion that unemployment is somehow the fault of the jobless. This is a good thing but there will be a lot of pain inflicted before we reach a slightly more enlightened view….. pain that could to some large extent be avoided.
This is undoubtedly going to need analysis in many ways to get a view as to what is really happening