Welfare at a Social Distance

The last 18 months have been characterised by profound change & uncertainty for those worst affected by COVID-19. Today, we're launching a research comic that shares people's first-hand experience of claiming benefits during the pandemic: bit.ly/31tcJFn Pls RT 🙏📢🙏

New paper from our project: ‘Welfare attitudes in a crisis: How COVID exceptionalism undermined greater solidarity’ in ⁦@JSP_Journal⁩ cambridge.org/core/journals/…

So the @DistantWelfare @kateesummers team used new data to unpack this in an @IPPR article and found that a clear majority of Britons (61%) think that benefit payments are insufficient to alleviate even basic subsistence poverty:

📢📢We are launching 📢📢 *Social Security Soundings* today. It's a website that features 18 women discussing the question "What is social security for?" sssoundings.org

Should we talk about 'social security' instead of 'welfare'? Some new evidence inequalitiesblog.wordpress.com/2023/01/09/sho…

@long_covid @martinmckee Yes coproduced research but need to remove barriers for people eg with #LongCovid in receipt of #Benefits U.K. #DWP as there are complex rules + processes that are #EnergyDrainAdmin , not fit for purpose, risk to income #ESA @Know_HG @DistantWelfare @BeresfordPeter @anita_atwal

"People often think that benefit levels are related to meeting some level of minimum need, but this is not the case. The last, and only, official assessment of benefits adequacy was undertaken in the 1960s, and it had little effect on subsequent policy." bit.ly/3N5lRTV

With the political landscape changing at a dizzying speed, @daniel_edmiston and I have tried to give a slightly wider view on benefit uprating and the need to recentre focus on adequacy and meeting need. @ConversationUK theconversation.com/raising-benefi…

Congratulations to @lisa_scullion and the @DistantWelfare team, who have been shortlisted in this year's @timeshighered awards! ⭐ #THEAwards Read more ⬇️ salford.ac.uk/news/salford-s…

For a detailed account of the barriers that people with learning disabilities face in the benefits system, read @NeilCarpenter14 's new book Benefits on Trial - a short summary at citizen-network.org/library/dwp-on… and you can find the book at citizen-network.org/store/benefits…

Are you interested in analysing new survey data on benefits claimants 2020-2022? Then look at the new Welfare at a (Social) Distance data deposit - more info at jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/wa-jis…

Our @DistantWelfare comic was turned into a #LSEFestival short 🎬📽️ Focusing on lessons we can take forward from social security claimants during the pandemic - inc. - adequacy matters! (with guest voiceovers from @daniel_edmiston & @lisa_scullion 😮) youtube.com/watch?v=mLCWpv…

Digital exclusion is creating a ‘two-tier’ system for people claiming benefits bigissue.com/news/social-ju…

4)But single parents do not feel they are provided with tailored support that takes account of the unique combination of challenges facing them. Data from @DistantWelfare project shows single parent benefit recipients report more negative experiences than others on such issues.

We argue that those *worst* served by existing provision need to be more effectively & systematically integrated into our examination of social security policy if we are to fully understand its diverse (dis)functions, the public agendas it serves & the citizen-subjects it fails.

By attending to wider ecosystems of support, this paper highlights the considerable numbers (particularly BAME local residents and those with @NRPFNetwork) seeking access to financial assistance but currently excluded from, or on the periphery of, the benefits system.

🧵Little thread on our new paper just out in @spaajournal 🧵 Based on in-depth qualitative fieldwork across four areas, this paper examines what bearing local ecosystems of support have on adequacy, access & universality in the UK social security system: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.11…