Mead is the guru of supply side solutions and a key part of his argument is that welfare enables benefit recipients who are citizens to avoid low paid work which is then done by non-citizens. However, he is after the fair since his line is essential to David Freud's rubbish approach which was commissioned by New 'Labour' and has been enthusiastically taken up by the Tories. It is already the basis of UK policy with the key targets being recipients of incapacity benefit and the partners of recipients of work conditional benefits. The real effect will be to impose a partner's income and resources means test on those who presently are on incapacity benefit and will be pushed off it through JSA to social assistance.

David Byrne


-----Original Message-----
From: Social-Policy is run by SPA for all social policy specialists on behalf of sue christoforou
Sent: Wed 6/9/2010 9:39 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Public 'can run cost effective services'

The think tank Policy Exchange hosted an event this evening where Lawrence
Mead, of New York University, was giving a talk entitled 'Poor Men, Welfare
and Conditionality'. His view is that men out of work should be obliged to
work, that programmes to achieve this should be paternalist, mandatory and
should emphasis work over training or education in order to instill
discipline and a work ethic.

Mead believes work should be imposed, that men need to work and society
needs them to work. He went on to say that work is an obligation and is a
condition of citizenship. His agenda isn't about getting people off benefit.
Even those who some how can afford to live without working and without
claiming benefit should be mandated to work. When asked what types of jobs
those who go through these work programmes in the US get, Mead's answer was
that they get low-skill service jobs and that if they work long enough
hours, they have enough to live on.The paper that informed this evening's
talk can be found at:
www.nyu.edu/gsas/dept/politics/faculty/mead/Research/Brookings_3rd_draft.pdf
.

One might argue that none of this matters terribly, except for the fact that
Mead had spent this morning at 10 Downing Street.

On 8 June 2010 23:34, sue christoforou <[log in to unmask]>wrote:

> I can't help but ask, what form will that 'support' take and how narrowly
> will 'most in need' be defined? The previous govt's version of these
> concepts as they featured in their welfare reform programme (a key architect
> of which reappears as this govt's Minister for Welfare Reform) were such
> that they were detrimental to those defined out of the 'most in need'
> category and the recipients of 'support' as discussed in a recent Citizens
> Advice report:
> http://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/index/campaigns/policy_campaign_publications/evidence_reports/er_benefitsandtaxcredits/not_working
>
>
> On 8 June 2010 23:03, Paul Ashton <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
>> I meant to include a link to the Treasury's Spending Review Framework
>> announced by the Chancellor today.
>>
>> It contains this possibly reassuring statement:
>>
>> 2.4 In light of its commitments to fairness and social mobility, the
>> Government will look closely at the effects of its decisions on
>> different groups in society, especially the least well off, and on
>> different regions. Coupled with the radical reforms the Government
>> has proposed for welfare, taxes and education, this Spending Review
>> will make supporting those most in need a priority.
>>
>> (but those of a nervous disposition might want to pass over para 3.4!)
>>
>> The document can be downloaded from:
>>
>> http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/d/spending_review_framework_080610.pdf
>>
>>
>> Paul Ashton
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>