Chapter
List of tables and figures
Introduction: Beyond Benefits Street – exploring experiences and narratives of welfare reform
Researching welfare reform
Social citizenship as theoretical lens
The lived experiences of welfare reform study
Structure of the book and key messages
1. Social citizenship from above
Understanding social citizenship
Why employ social citizenship as a theoretical lens for examining processes of welfare reform over time?
T. H. Marshall: citizenship as ‘equality of status’
Social citizenship, poverty and participation
Citizenship from above in the UK: 1997–2016
2. The emergence of a framing consensus on ‘welfare’
The framing consensus on ‘welfare’
Supporting the framing consensus: the role of ‘poverty porn’ and the media
1979–97: the Thatcher and Major years
1997–2010: enter New Labour
2010 onwards: a new politics? Cameron’s Conservatives
‘Welfare’ policy under May
3. The everyday realities of out-of-work benefits receipt
The out-of-work benefit claimants interviewed
Triggers for current benefits receipt
Applying for and claiming benefits
The work involved in ‘getting by’
Debt and financial exclusion
Informal chains of borrowing and lending
Not working but still contributing
Political (dis)engagement
Aspirations and imagined futures
The future: a resource or something to fear?
4. Is welfare-to-work working? Relationships with work over time
Orientations to paid employment
The provision of welfare-to-work ‘support’
5. Ending welfare dependency? Experiencing welfare reform
Anticipating welfare reform
Redrawing of eligibility for disability benefits
Lived experiences of ‘ubiquitous conditionality’
The work associated with welfare reform
The costs of welfare reform
6. Scroungerphobia: living with the stigma of benefits
How benefit claimants see themselves
Managing and deflecting stigma
How benefit claimants see others
Attitudes towards welfare reform and conditionality
7. Diverse trajectories between 2011 and 2016
Returning for a fourth time
Diverse journeys over time
Experiences of welfare-to-work ‘support’ over time
The persistence of poverty
The long-term costs of welfare reform
Experiencing and escaping benefits stigma
Problematising ‘poverty porn’
Conclusion: social insecurity and ‘welfare’
The disjuncture between citizenship from above and below
Rethinking the logic for welfare conditionality and sanctions
The burden of welfare reform
Towards a more inclusive social citizenship
Implications for further research
Concluding thoughts: social insecurity
For whose benefit?
：The everyday realities of welfare reform
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