Welfare reform: national policies with local impacts

Abstract

Welfare reform has been central to UK policymaking since the election of a Conservative-led government in 2010. The welfare reforms apply across the whole of the country, but their impacts vary profoundly from place to place – a consequence that government seems largely to have ignored. The measures introduced are targeted at working age people which leads to a disproportionate impact on areas with weaker local labour markets. This chapter draws on a range of official statistics, including local area claimant data, to document the financial losses in different parts of the country. It concludes that although the overall financial loss to claimants proved less than originally anticipated it remains very large, even before the implementation of Universal Credit and the post-2015 benefit changes, and that one of the main impacts of welfare reform is to hit the poorest places hardest.