Exploring and understanding the lived experience of young jobseekers under universal credit

Abstract

Welfare policy in the United Kingdom has become increasingly focused on creating ‘active’ and ‘responsible’ claimants. Culminating the most recent and most radical reform known as ‘Universal Credit’ (UC). UC has intensified the surveillance of welfare claimants, demanding more from them in return for financial support. The new strategies propose a growing number of people choose to live off benefits and have no ambition to enter the labour market. This conceptualisation of a feckless ‘welfare class’ is used to justify the strict conditionality imposed on jobseekers under UC. However, there is insufficient evidence to support either that, a large proportion of out-of-work claimants are unmotivated to find work or, that punitive welfare strategies are effective. This study generated primary, qualitative data to add to the small but growing pool of knowledge concerned with understanding the lived experience of UC. None of the qualitative research concerned with claimant perspectives of UC has focused exclusively on the experiences of young out-of-work claimants. Thus, this study addressed the gap in the literature by exploring the experiences of eight, young (18-25 year old) claimants across central Scotland. More specifically, the perspectives were analysed to uncover attitudes towards the design of UC, support received, welfare conditionality and the main problems with the reform and how it could be improved. The findings were generated by semi-structured, in-depth interviews. The findings demonstrated that: 1) the design of UC was ineffective in terms of helping young claimants secure employment; 2) the support received was minimal, impersonal and inconsistent; 3) the strict conditions were viewed as harsh and ineffective in terms of increasing motivation; 4) a more caring, individualised system which seeks to support, rather than punish claimants should be implemented.