Mark Steel on the benefits cap

From today's Independent:

We've come to that point in the lifetime of every Tory government when we're invited to scream about people on benefits.

Some people enjoy this activity all the time, but at the moment it's like New Year's Eve for drinking, a time when if you're not doing it to excess, you get sneered at for not taking part in the fun.

So everyone has to tell a story they've heard, such as, "One lot, they haven't worked for 25 years, went down the benefit office, said they needed an aircraft carrier. They filled in a form and the next day it was delivered. Then they sent it back as they didn't like the colour."

Almost every newspaper and minister's interview is packed with stories like this, to justify capping benefits so they can "encourage" claimants back to work.

This assumes that the reason unemployment goes up is there's a surge in people deciding not to work. It's true that this seems to have happened at exactly the same time as a global recession but this is probably a coincidence.

So the Government has chosen the amount at which a family's benefits must be capped as £26,000, because no one should be allowed to claim more than the average wage.

This would be fair if the way benefit payments were calculated is that you went for an interview, in which you said how much you fancied spending this year and they gave it to you.

But the 67,000 households who receive this sum do so because it matches their circumstances. That's why a family of five can claim more than a single person who lives with their parents...

Well said Mark.