In-work Universal Credit
Claimant Experiences of Conditionality Mismatches and Counterproductive Benefit Sanctions
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 2116202 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Sharon Wright (0000-0002-6312-6052, University of Glasgow), Peter Dwyer (0000-0002-2297-2375, University of York) |
| Year | 2022 |
| Volume | 51 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 20-38 |
| Publication date | 2022-01-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Journal of Social Policy (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0047-2794 • E-ISSN: 1469-7823 |
| Publisher | Cambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1017/s0047279420000562 |
| OpenAlex | W3107617774 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 27 |
| References cited | 32 |
Universal Credit is the UK's globally innovative social security reform that replaces six means tested benefits with one monthly payment for working age claimants - combining social security and tax credit systems. Universal Credit expands welfare conditionality via mandatory job search conditions to enhance 'progression' amongst working claimants by requiring extra working hours or multiple jobs. This exposes low paid workers to tough benefit sanctions for non-compliance, which could remove essential income indefinitely or for fixed periods of up to three years. Our unique contribution is to establish how this new regime is experienced at micro level by in-work claimants over time. We present findings from Qualitative Longitudinal Research (141 interviews with 58 claimants, 2014-17), to demonstrate how UC impacts on in-work recipients and how conditionality produces a new coerced worker-claimant model of social support. We identify a series of welfare conditionality mismatches and conclude that conditionality for in-work claimants is largely counterproductive. This implies a redesign of the UK system and serves as an international warning to potential policy emulators
Business · Conditionality · Economics · Market economy · Payment · Plaintiff · Political science · Politics · Public economics · Sanctions · Social policy · Social security · Welfare · Work (physics) · Employment and Welfare Studies · Finance · Gender, Labor, and Family Dynamics · Law · Social Policy and Reform Studies
Workers using foodbanks’
Food, work and poverty in the UK today
From Working Tax Credit to Universal Credit
Digital conditionality
Zero Poverty Society
Building relationships of trust? The experiences of military veterans claiming ‘interface first’ Universal Credit
Digital first Universal Credit and street-level discretion within screen-level implementation
A resource‐based perspective on the regulatory welfare state
Welfare Reform and Housing Insecurity
When Can Government Paternalist Interventions Be Justified? Welfare-to-Work and Interference Intentions
Introduction Qualitative Longitudinal Research for Social Policy – Where Are We Now
A thematic analysis of homelessness practitioners’ perception of the impacts of welfare reforms in the UK
Managing Asylum
When means‐testing meets work‐testing
Can Universal Basic Income work for disabled people? An examination of existing UK organisational and academic positions
A step too far
Benefits Conditionality in the United Kingdom
Long-term childhood poverty in Britain
The impact of universal credit rollout on homelessness assistance need in Scottish local authorities
Universal Credit receipt among working-age patients who are accessing specialist mental health services
Claiming deservingness
From Precarious Work to Precarious Lives
The Impact of Welfare Conditionality on Experiences of Job Quality
Mapping the Coercive Turn
Re-examining 'personalised conditionality
Universal Credit
Getting By
Welfare Conditionality
Debating conditionality for disability benefits recipients and welfare reform
Intensifying the use of benefit sanctions
Dismantling the Welfare State?
Social Security and Wage Poverty
Does sanctioning disabled claimants of unemployment insurance increase labour market inactivity? An analysis of 346 British local authorities between 2009 and 2014
Universal Credit, ubiquitous conditionality and its implications for social citizenship
Lone Parents and Welfare-to-work Conditionality
Universal Credit
Qualitative Longitudinal Research for Social Policy – Introduction to Themed Section
Analysing Qualitative Longitudinal Research in Evaluations
Qualitative Longitudinal Analysis for Policy
What ‘works’ when retracing sample members in a qualitative longitudinal study
A hand up or a slap down? Criminalising benefit claimants in Britain via strategies of surveillance, sanctions and deterrence
The effect of welfare sanctions on Tanf exits and employment
Employers' perspectives on benefit conditionality in the UK and Denmark
Punitive benefit sanctions, welfare conditionality, and the social abuse of unemployed people in Britain
Do Welfare Sanctions Help or Hurt the Poor? Estimating the Causal Effect of Sanctioning on Client Earnings
The Demise of Tax Credits
The Effect of Unemployment Insurance Sanctions on the Transition Rate from Unemployment to Employment
Welfare Reform and Lone Parents in the UK
Policy Practitioners' Accounts of Evidence-Based Policy Making
Welfare-to-work, Agency and Personal Responsibility
| Unique citing works | 27 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 5,4 |
| Citation span | 2021 - 2026 (6) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 24 |