Keeping a distance but heading in the same direction: formal rules on unemployment benefit sanctions and social assistance benefit sanctions in Poland, 1989–2014

PurposeThis paper aims to examine the development of welfare conditionality and especially benefit sanctions in Central and Eastern Europe (the CEE) and to develop a methodology by implementing Institutional Grammar (IG) for studying rules on benefit sanctions relying only on legal text.Design/methodology/approachIG was used as a tool for analyzing legal regulations on benefit sanctions. It was incorporated into a social rights framework that provided a theoretical background for the study.FindingsThe paper shows the dynamic development of rules on benefit sanctions in Poland in social assistance and unemployment services. Both the harshness and strictness of these rules have increased. Simultaneously, the rules of benefit sanctions in social assistance remain more liberal than those associated with unemployment services.Originality/valueThe study presents the first comprehensive and concise overview of benefit sanctions development in the CEE and the first long-term comparison of these types of sanctions in two safety net systems operating in one country. The study also used IG for the first time in social policy research.

Spatial Constraints on Residency as an Instrument of Employment Policy: the Experience of Limited Employment Locations in New Zealand

<p><b>New Zealand is one of the only OECD countries to have attempted to impose spatialconstraints on residency as a policy tool in its welfaretoworkstrategy. The LimitedEmployment Locations (LEL) policy introduced in 2004 created 259 limited employmentlocation communities throughout the country in an attempt to influence the residentiallocation of Ministry of Social Development (MSD) clients so they are, “in the right placeat the right time to take advantage of growing employment opportunities” (MSD, 2004a,p1). The overarching goal of the LEL policy is to get more New Zealanders intoemployment (MSD, 2004b, p1) – in doing so reducing New Zealand’s overallunemployment rate and ensuring that, at a time of low unemployment and skill shortages,there are adequate numbers of job seekers available (MSD, 2004d, p2). Unemploymentbeneficiaries have a responsibility to seek work and, according to the new policy, if theymove into any of these mostly small, rural communities without access to reliabletransport, they risk losing their benefit following the end of a sanction process. The LELpolicy thus effectively limits the portability of the unemployment benefit (UB), creating anew geography of welfare eligibility.</b></p> <p>Through analysis of policy documents and interviews with MSD and Work and Incomestaff, this research outlines and critically evaluates the motivations and behaviouralassumptions behind the LEL policy. The research then uses the results of acommissioned panel survey, and results of field interviews exploring the views and actualbehaviour of UB recipients, to test the motivations and behavioural assumptions behindthe policy. The research uses as its case area the Opotiki District in New Zealand’s Bayof Plenty Region.</p> <p>The research traces the evolution of the zones themselves and describes a range ofreactions to the policy. One of the primary findings of the study is the importance of‘home’ in the motivation of beneficiaries moving to LELs, particularly Maoribeneficiaries who dominate movement to LEL areas in the district. This movement is shaped by the desire to maximise living standards and to take advantage of the social,family, and cultural networks that these areas offer. Returning to home LELcommunities occurs in spite of the new policy and the risks of benefit sanctions that itpresents, and there is also very little evidence to date that the LEL policy is encouragingbeneficiary movement to areas of better employment prospects.</p>

Spatial Constraints on Residency as an Instrument of Employment Policy: the Experience of Limited Employment Locations in New Zealand

<p><b>New Zealand is one of the only OECD countries to have attempted to impose spatialconstraints on residency as a policy tool in its welfaretoworkstrategy. The LimitedEmployment Locations (LEL) policy introduced in 2004 created 259 limited employmentlocation communities throughout the country in an attempt to influence the residentiallocation of Ministry of Social Development (MSD) clients so they are, “in the right placeat the right time to take advantage of growing employment opportunities” (MSD, 2004a,p1). The overarching goal of the LEL policy is to get more New Zealanders intoemployment (MSD, 2004b, p1) – in doing so reducing New Zealand’s overallunemployment rate and ensuring that, at a time of low unemployment and skill shortages,there are adequate numbers of job seekers available (MSD, 2004d, p2). Unemploymentbeneficiaries have a responsibility to seek work and, according to the new policy, if theymove into any of these mostly small, rural communities without access to reliabletransport, they risk losing their benefit following the end of a sanction process. The LELpolicy thus effectively limits the portability of the unemployment benefit (UB), creating anew geography of welfare eligibility.</b></p> <p>Through analysis of policy documents and interviews with MSD and Work and Incomestaff, this research outlines and critically evaluates the motivations and behaviouralassumptions behind the LEL policy. The research then uses the results of acommissioned panel survey, and results of field interviews exploring the views and actualbehaviour of UB recipients, to test the motivations and behavioural assumptions behindthe policy. The research uses as its case area the Opotiki District in New Zealand’s Bayof Plenty Region.</p> <p>The research traces the evolution of the zones themselves and describes a range ofreactions to the policy. One of the primary findings of the study is the importance of‘home’ in the motivation of beneficiaries moving to LELs, particularly Maoribeneficiaries who dominate movement to LEL areas in the district. This movement is shaped by the desire to maximise living standards and to take advantage of the social,family, and cultural networks that these areas offer. Returning to home LELcommunities occurs in spite of the new policy and the risks of benefit sanctions that itpresents, and there is also very little evidence to date that the LEL policy is encouragingbeneficiary movement to areas of better employment prospects.</p>

The impacts of benefit sanctions: a scoping review of the quantitative research evidence

In recent decades, the use of conditionality backed by benefit sanctions for those claiming unemployment and related benefits has become widespread in the social security systems of high-income countries. Critics argue that sanctions may be ineffective in bringing people back to employment or indeed harmful in a range of ways. Existing reviews largely assess the labour market impacts of sanctions but our understanding of the wider impacts is more limited. We report results from a scoping review of the international quantitative research evidence on both labour market and wider impacts of benefit sanctions. Following systematic search and screening, we extract data for 94 studies reporting on 253 outcome measures. We provide a narrative summary, paying attention to the ability of the studies to support causal inference. Despite variation in the evidence base and study designs, we found that labour market studies, covering two thirds of our sample, consistently reported positive impacts for employment but negative impacts for job quality and stability in the longer term, along with increased transitions to non-employment or economic inactivity. Although largely relying on non-experimental designs, wider-outcome studies reported significant associations with increased material hardship and health problems. There was also some evidence that sanctions were associated with increased child maltreatment and poorer child well-being.

In-work Universal Credit: Claimant Experiences of Conditionality Mismatches and Counterproductive Benefit Sanctions

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.

The ‘fearsome frowning face of the state’ and ex-prisoners: promoting employment or alienation, anger and perpetual punishment?

Wacquant has argued that a transnational political process, comprising harsh penal and social policies, is underway to exert social control over marginal populations created by economic liberalism and welfare state retrenchment. This chapter considers the relevance of Wacquant’s ideas to the UK by drawing upon new primary research which has explored offender experiences of both ‘prisonfare’ and ‘workfare’. It shows how the social atomisation associated with economic liberalism is intensified and institutionalised by prison with dire consequences for the ability of ex-prisoners to display the behaviour necessary to make and sustain a claim for out-of-work benefits. Moreover, the indications are that long-term imprisonment often leaves a legacy of alienation, dependency and conflict which leads to benefit sanctions and further criminal activity.