Introduction

by Dr Kate Summers, LSE Fellow in Qualitative Methodology

There were two main motivations for the project. The first was to enhance the dominant way in which social security money has been thought about by policymakers. The second was to inform the current policy context.

The study involved in-depth interviews with 43 working-age social security recipients. The sample was constructed so that a range of personal characteristics including age, gender, ethnicity, household type and employment status were included. Participants were accessed via advice and community centres.

In order to be included in the sample, participants had to be in receipt of either Jobseekers Allowance, Working Tax Credit, or Universal Credit. In the interviews, participants were also asked about any other social security payments that they received, which included Housing Benefit, Child Benefit, Child Tax Credits, and payments received by other household members. Claimants in receipt of disability or health related payments, such as Employment and Support Allowance and Personal Independence Payment, were not included in the study. This decision was taken in order to make the scope of the study manageable: participants included those who were either in-work on a low-income or out of work, and who did and did not have children; those with a disability or long-term health condition that the benefits system recognised affected their ability to work, were not included.

The interviews focused on asking participants to describe the processes of receiving, organising and spending social security money, as well as their explanations and reflections of these processes. The interviews were recorded, transcribed, and then analysed using a form of thematic analysis whereby themes were derived from the interview data and compared and contrasted across different participants’ accounts.

The findings can be broken down into three main areas:

Organising social security money. The timings according to which social security monies were received and organised were a central dynamic in participants’ lives. The majority of participants operated on predominantly short-term timescales, spanning from daily to fortnightly, and did so in order to ‘stay afloat’ and deal with a situation where money went ‘in one hand and out the other’. Within these timescales participants used various ‘earmarking’ techniques, using bank accounts and cash money, to divide, protect, and organise monies for their intended purpose. Participants put significant, effortful work into organising, segmenting and designating their monies. Over half of the sample had experienced some sort of disruption to their timescales, resulting from unexpected changes to patterns of social security receipt, or amount. Some participants aimed to stash away small amounts of money to mitigate disruptions, while indebtedness was talked about as both something to be avoided, but also as inevitable and necessary. Participants did also make reference to longer term timescales, in order to situate and emphasise that their current financial circumstances were temporary: things had been better in the past, and would hopefully be better again in the future.

Spending social security money. When it came to spending money, the majority of participants drew a distinction between spending on what can be described as ‘needs’ and ‘wants’. ‘Needs’ constituted items of expenditure that were seen as essential in some way, and most often consisted of rent, food, bills, travel, and children’s clothes. Money was carefully marshalled in order to meet ‘needs’. Some participants also spoke about meeting what can be termed ‘social needs’, which related to explicitly fulfilling some sort of perceived social obligation, including, for example, fulfilling one’s role as a parent by paying for a child’s participation in social or sports activities. Spending on ‘wants’, which involved spending on ‘treats’ or ‘luxuries’ but also spending in a carefree or unplanned manner, was something that the majority of participants spoke about as having happened in the past and perhaps happening again in the future.

The findings of the research have implications for policy reform that span the design and delivery of working-age social security benefits. Two of the main potential areas for reform are summarised here:

1. Reintroducing or bolstering choice and control for social security claimants. It was found that participants had to take responsibility, and cope with, managing their social security money, but often had very little control over many aspects of their social security receipt. Recipients could, among other things:

a) Be given the freedom to choose when they receive their payments, including on which day of the week, and at what time interval. This would recognise and support the multiplicity of ways in which claimants currently organise their monies. For example, this choice would allow claimants to align payment receipt with receipt of wages, payment of important bills, or other ways in which they structure the organisation of their monies.

The author is very grateful to the participants of this research, who gave up their time and talked at length about aspects of their personal lives.

Kate completed her PhD in Social Policy in 2018 at the LSE, where she was based in the Centre for Analysis of Social Exclusion and the Department for Social Policy. Kate is now a Fellow in the Methodology Department at the LSE. Her research interests are centred around poverty, economic inequality, and related social policies, in the UK context.

@kateesummers

Dr Kate Summers is happy to be contacted with any comments and questions, and for press enquiries. She also welcomes opportunities for potential collaboration.

Edited by Tammy Campbell. Video production and social media by Cheryl Conner.

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