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New Labour at work

New Labour at work. Long-term unemployment and the geography of opportunity Nik Theodore, University of Illinois at Chicago. Tough love, American style.

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New Labour at work

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  1. New Labour at work Long-term unemployment and the geography of opportunity Nik Theodore, University of Illinois at Chicago

  2. Tough love, American style • Britain would benefit from Clinton’s tough love: Forcing people to finding a job, which has worked in America, is a policy New Labour should adopt (Observer, 3 September 2006) • ‘Too many British live on benefit for no better reason than they don’t want to work and there is too little insistence that they show determination and resource in finding some’ (Hutton, 2006).

  3. Hutton on U.S. welfare reform I • Benefit rolls have declined • Poverty rate among African-American children fell to its lowest level in 2000 • ‘Even cases of child maltreatment have fallen’ • US welfare reform has ‘worked even better that its architects imagined…’

  4. Hutton on U.S. welfare reform II • Some teenagers suffer from a lack of parenting • There ‘is a hard core of 10% of single mothers and other claimants in desperate straits who have neither benefit nor work’ • ‘Poverty is still widespread’

  5. New Labour at work • Tony Blair: rethinking ‘the whole of our philosophy in relation to the labour market’ • Embrace of new growth theories that call for an emphasis on macro-economic stability and supply-side intervention

  6. The geography of opportunity • Will Hutton: ‘Too many British live on benefit for no better reason than they don’t want to work and there is too little insistence that they show determination and resource in finding some’ (Observer, 3 September 2006).

  7. The geography of opportunity • David Blunkett: ‘Jobs are there for the taking in most parts of the country’ … ‘there is no hiding place’ for those who don’t accept their responsibility to find work (2001). • John Hutton: ‘can’t work – won’t work culture’ (2007)

  8. The geography of opportunity • HM Treasury: ‘the worst concentrations of joblessness are in very small defined areas and are not caused by a lack of jobs…’ (2003).

  9. The state you’re in Unemployment rateShare LTU 1975 4.6% 14.8% 1985 11.5% 48.7% European Commission, 1991 Final Report to the Second European Poverty Program

  10. Relationship between local inactivity rate and local unemployment rate, 2005

  11. Total and long-term claimant unemployment, 1983–2007

  12. Share of unemployed who found jobs, Britain, 1998-2008

  13. Number of claimants leaving benefit rolls for employment, North East, 1998-2008

  14. New Deal for Young People • 440,000 participants • 41% moved into employment • 34% moved into ‘sustained’ jobs lasting 13+ weeks • ‘about half of those who found work would have done so anyway’ given the cyclical expansion of the economy Jane Millar 2000

  15. New Deal for the Long-Term Unemployed • New Deal for the Long-Term Unemployed: 238,000 participants by February 2000 – 38,000 found jobs (only 32,000 found jobs lasting 13 weeks or more). Joseph Rowntree Foundation, 2000

  16. Discussion • Robin Beveridge, Economic Inclusion Strategy Manager, One NorthEast • Kim Smith, Regional Employability Framework Manager, One NorthEast • Dave Wright, External Partnerships Manager, Job Centre Plus Discussion

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