Pushing unrepresentative figures and dodgy rhetoric hardly fits a fairness agenda. Where is the evidence-based debate?
Philosopher Harry G Frankfurt once defined "bullshit" as distinct from lying. Lying requires an engagement with the truth, whereas the former represents instead a "lack of connection to a concern with truth" and an "indifference to how things really are". And these two themes seem to run through the government's dialogue with the public over changes to housing benefit.
The housing benefit shakeup ? a deficit-cutting measure from the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) intended to remove �1bn of government subsidy from the private rental sector ? was introduced to parliament with the remarkable claim from the chancellor, George Osborne, that "there are some families receiving �104,000 a year in housing benefit". This figure, challenged at the time by the Telegraph and Full Fact, was shown to be misleading. The DWP refused to release data validating the claim, instead directing enquirers to a search of the Daily Mail and the Sun newspaper websites, neither of which is a conventional source of high-quality benefit statistics. Since then, the DWP has continued to use similar figures in press releases and media interviews to justify the fairness of policies where "hard working families no longer have to subsidise people living in properties they themselves could not afford". Assuming, in good faith, that the DWP were not repeating discredited claims, we submitted an freedom of information request for their evidence:
The response (reproduced above) stated that in December 2010 there were "around 10 housing benefit claimants eligible for �1,917 or more per week". This represents just one hundred thousandth of the total number of households receiving housing benefit ? so not terribly representative. The DWP refused to release more detailed data, citing individual privacy and referring us to the official statistics. These do not reveal the numbers of such households: only those who receive in excess of �50,000 (just 160, a figure so insignificant that the DWP rounds it to 0% with respect to total claimants).
Even the claim of reducing the subsidy paid by "hard-working families" suffers when held to the data. Consistent with the rhetoric, DWP figures do show that some of society's less "economically active" will have their benefits reduced; 70% of lone parents and 40% of households with at least one resident over 60 claim housing benefit, as do nearly 80% of unemployed individuals renting in the private sector. However, those that will see the greatest reduction are those households with dependants, and those requiring larger homes. This suggests families will be disproportionately affected. Perhaps the government does not consider these to be "hard working", and the measures are intended to make them work harder?
Claimants living in London, already victims of high rental prices, will see average reductions of 40% more than elsewhere. The average weekly loss (�22) would result in someone earning the London living wage (�8.30 per hour) losing, over a year, the equivalent of three weeks' wage ? a lot of hard work.
As well as the use of misleading headline figures, there has been no good-quality published government analysis of the impact of the cuts. The housing minister, Grant Shapps, has previously suggested that families make up this shortfall in their housing benefit or move. How these stated outcomes might be achieved, as well as their feasibility and effects, has not been part of the government's dialogue.
Only now is the DWP more thoroughly investigating the full implications of �1bn of cuts on families, individuals and the private rental economy ? with an investigation not expected to conclude until 2013. Significant and predictable damage may already have been done by this point. Despite pre-election Liberal Democrat rhetoric on evidence, cuts that demonstrably target the disadvantaged, elderly, unemployed, lone parents and families in general have not been subjected to evidence-led policy discussions. Rather they have been promoted through unrepresentative figures and unreasonable rhetoric as part of the coalition's fairness agenda.
Instead of an honest, evidence-led discussion about fairness and how to achieve it, the DWP use headline figures with no apparent concern that they mislead and displays an indifference to its own statistics. The intent may not be to lie, but what comes out is still bullshit.
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/jun/01/coalition-misleading-housing-benefit
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