Ahead of her speech at the Labour Party conference today, chancellor of the exchequer Rachel Reeves announced the ‘youth guarantee’ – that she will guarantee paid work to under-21-year-olds – but of course, this is Labour, so it’s never as it seems.
Tackling youth unemployment is good, but there’s a catch of course
The new plans announced today will mean any young person between the ages of 18 and 21 who has been on Universal Credit for 18 months without being in education or a job will be offered a “paid work placement”. But here’s the catch: if the claimant refuses the placement, they will see their benefits stopped.
The BBC reported that:
The aim of the placements would be to help people build up the skills to get a full-time job.
But there is of course no clarity on what they ‘placements’ will be: if they will be focused and tailored to what the youngster wants to do, or if it’ll be a low wage scheme where they end up stacking shelves for less than minimum wage, which companies will be allowed to do because a placement isn’t the same as a job.
Forcing more working class kids into low-paying jobs via the youth guarantee
The government will be trying hard to position this as allowing the next generation to flourish, but what it actually means is forcing yet more working class kids into low-paid, zero-hour jobs with no room to gain new skills or move up the job ladder.
The government currently has no companies signed up to the scheme, but says many big businesses are interested. Worryingly, as I reported last year, there are already government-run schemes where young people are required to do low, or unpaid ‘work experience’ with retail brands, which do nothing to further their employment skills or help in their future career. How will this be any different?
Pushing disabled kids under the bus again
There’s also the fact that alongside this, the government are quietly planning to change the eligibility of the Universal Credit health element, meaning sick and disabled young people who cannot work will not only receive no extra support but be forced into work.
If this new plan comes in they will be forced into dangerous work and lose their benefits if they do not comply with taking low-paid work that will make them sicker. This is, of course, also the generation that was forced back into school despite a deadly pandemic raging across the world, so many of them will also have long Covid or PTSD.
Reeves’s latest thing is a welfare system that’s based on ‘contribution’, but that’s not how the welfare system should work. It’s supposed to be there as a safety net for those who need it most.
Work doesn’t = dignity
Reeves is expected to say:
We won’t leave a generation of young people to languish without prospects – denied the dignity, the security and the ladders of opportunity that good work provides.
Not only is this constantly tying dignity to work absolutely fucking gross, but as Liz on X pointed out, kids aren’t living it up on benefits. Someone under 25 gets just £316 a month to live on.
Rachel Barnard, director of policy at Trussell, also highlighted on X, it’s also harder for young people to make ends meet now:
Meeting the cost of a job is likely to be harder for more young people now. More will be skipping meals. More will have mental health challenges. For this to work it needs to focus on support not sanctions.
Reeves youth guarantee: working class kids kept down
What’s more, the government know that this approach of forcing people to take any work going or threatening them with sanctions does not work. A report published by the Work and Pensions committee on 8 September highlighted that Jobcentres forcing claimants into any work, regardless of suitability, is “flawed”.
The report said that:
This approach doesn’t work for claimants, exacerbating cycles of low work, no work; nor does it
work for employers, who receive unmotivated candidates applying just to meet benefit conditions
If Reeves truly cared about getting young people into work, it would be focused on working with young people to give them the tools and skills to get into work – not some sham youth guarantee.
Threats of sanctions won’t inspire a new generation. Instead, all you’ll get is starving kids who’ll take any grunt work going – but maybe that’s exactly what the government wants – so young people won’t stand up to them.
Feature image via ITV News/YouTube.
