{"id":26964,"date":"2025-03-21T15:54:17","date_gmt":"2025-03-21T15:54:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/?p=26964"},"modified":"2025-04-08T13:54:35","modified_gmt":"2025-04-08T12:54:35","slug":"why-the-social-pain-of-welfare-reform-overshadows-any-economic-gain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/arts-social-sciences\/why-the-social-pain-of-welfare-reform-overshadows-any-economic-gain\/","title":{"rendered":"Why the social pain of welfare reform overshadows any economic gain"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The UK government is <a href=\"https:\/\/www.gov.uk\/government\/news\/biggest-shake-up-to-welfare-system-in-a-generation-to-get-britain-working\">calling it<\/a> the \u201cbiggest shakeup to the welfare system in a generation\u201d \u2013 prompted by what the Prime Minister described as the \u201cdevastating\u201d cost of sickness and disability benefits.<em>\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Alan Shipman, Senior Lecturer in Economics, writing in The Conversation, says <\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/theconversation.com\/labour-says-benefit-reforms-are-a-moral-mission-it-looks-more-like-moral-panic-252404\">planned reforms<\/a> to cut those costs are designed to save \u00a35 billion a year by 2030, from a welfare budget that will reach \u00a370 billion on current projections.<\/p>\n<p>Similar warnings about unsustainable welfare payments can be heard in other countries struggling with the rising costs of social security, state pensions and subsidised healthcare. Germany\u2019s new chancellor <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dw.com\/en\/curbing-welfare-state-bureaucracy-germany\/a-71957549\">thinks<\/a> his country\u2019s welfare system is wasteful and discourages full-time work. France, meanwhile, has been preparing for social security to absorb half the spending cuts it says <a href=\"https:\/\/www.lemonde.fr\/en\/politics\/article\/2024\/10\/02\/french-government-promises-40-billion-in-spending-cuts-in-2025_6727986_5.html\">it needs in 2025<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>In some cases, their solvency can be calculated using projections of future claims, employment levels and demographic trends. On present predictions, for example, the US social security fund will \u201cgo broke\u201d\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.ssa.gov\/OACT\/solvency\/\">between 2033 and 2035<\/a>. The Trump administration, while denying it will cut benefits, is promising to trim the bill with\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/social-security-payments-deceased-false-claims-doge-ed2885f5769f368853ac3615b4852cf7\">a clampdown<\/a>\u00a0on \u201cfraud and waste\u201d.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/theconversation.com\/why-the-social-pain-of-welfare-reform-overshadows-any-economic-gain-252574\">Read the full article on The Conversation<\/a><\/p>\n<p><em>Picture credit: Joergelman from Pixabay<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The UK government is calling it the \u201cbiggest shakeup to the welfare system in a generation\u201d \u2013 prompted by what the Prime Minister described as the \u201cdevastating\u201d cost of sickness and disability benefits.\u00a0 Alan Shipman, Senior Lecturer in Economics, writing in The Conversation, says planned reforms to cut those costs are designed to save \u00a35 [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19,"featured_media":26965,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,15],"tags":[874,1640,1643,2200],"class_list":["post-26964","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arts-social-sciences","category-society-politics","tag-fbl","tag-ou-home","tag-ou-news","tag-the-conversation"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26964","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/19"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26964"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26964\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26984,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26964\/revisions\/26984"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26965"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26964"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26964"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26964"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}