Our project findings on the negative effects of benefit sanctions were cited in two major newspapers recently.

In The Guardian, Social Policy Editor Patrick Butler reported on the Department for Work & Pensions’ decision to stop imposing three-year benefit sanctions by the end of the year. Work and Pensions Secretary Amber Rudd said she agreed with the Work & Pensions Select Committee (to which WelCond also gave evidence) that three-year sanctions are ‘unnecessarily long’. She also said three-year sanctions ‘are counter-productive and ultimately undermine our goal of supporting people into work’. Patrick Butler’s article cited the WelCond finding that ‘sanctions were ineffective at getting jobless people into work and were more likely to reduce those affected to poverty, ill-health or even survival crime’.

Meanwhile, in the New York Times columnist Courtney E Martin raised the question: ‘Does anyone deserve to be poor?’ Writing her series on enduring economic inequality in the United States, Ms Martin considers the advantages of a guaranteed income. She moves on to cite WelCond’s finding that placing conditions on receipt of benefits did not improve the lives of those it was intended to serve, did not increase motivation to work and pushed people further into poverty and negative consequences.