Why we need to shame-proof social security

This week, Power to Persuade is featuring articles by experts involved in a recent workshop, Rethinking Welfare and Conditionality in Australia, convened by the Social Security Research Policy and Practice Network - a group of people from universities, advocacy organisations, and community services providers who are focused on achieving a social security system that affords people dignity and economic security. More information about the Social Security Research Policy and Practice Network, and links to videos from the workshop, are provided below this article.

In today’s article, Dr Katherine Curchin, Dr Aino Suomi & Professor Peter Butterworth (ANU) discuss their research on people’s experiences and perceptions of transitioning from Australia’s Disability Support Pension (DSP) to the Age Pension. Their research participants recounted how stigma associated with income support for people with disability of working age had negative effects on their health, well-being, dignity and social connections, and how this changed when they moved on to the means-tested and more commonly-received Age Pension. The authors argue that the different framing of the two pensions is a deliberate political strategy to legitimize cuts to social security.

The income support system is a key element of Australia’s social safety net. It provides income to those with few resources while also seeking to encourage self-sufficiency, promote social and economic participation, and enhance personal and family wellbeing. But the stigma attached to receiving social security in Australia undermines these noble aims. Australia has one of the world’s most highly targeted social security systems, meaning that it tends to support only people who have very little income from other sources. In countries with highly targeted social security systems such as Australia, the UK, and the US, the level of social security stigma is higher than in countries with more generous social security schemes. This stigma has negative health, social and economic consequences. Stigmatized individuals anticipate and receive worse treatment from the general public and service providers. People have reported that receiving social security makes them feel like they are only ‘half a citizen’.

Social security stigma is tied to perceptions of deservingness, and different payments carry different amounts of stigma. To further investigate this we spoke to people transitioning from the higher stigma Disability Support Pension (DSP) to the lower stigma Age Pension. We wanted to know: could having a birthday change the way you experience social security?

The Age Pension is a means-tested payment available to people over the age of 66 years and 6 months. Meanwhile the Disability Support Pension is available to people below this age who can prove they are unable to work for more than 15 hours per week due to a permanent physical, intellectual or psychiatric condition. 

Age pensioners who had recently moved from DSP to the less stigmatising (and more commonly received) payment said they were treated differently by Centrelink staff after the transition.  Some DSP recipients told us that in day-to-day life they were happier if others assumed they were older, and mistakenly assumed they were receiving the age pension. Participants with invisible disabilities such as mental health conditions felt that others viewed them negatively and assumed they were a ‘bludger’ or ‘faking it’ or a ‘scam artist’. One research participant noted ‘it would be different if I was in a wheelchair’.

Scholars have argued that such tainting of people on DSP as fraudulent has been part of a deliberate political strategy aimed at legitimizing cuts to social security. The anticipation of stigma may also serve to deter some people from taking up benefits, even when they are in dire need. At the same time eligibility for DSP has been greatly tightened over the last ten years. As a result, the proportion of people with disabilities relying on unemployment benefits has grown dramatically.

Contrary to the myths surrounding social security, we found that people wanted to work for a living. Some felt guilty that they no longer had the capacity to support themselves or their families through employment.

Regardless of which side of 66 they were on, participants in our research were forced to do without things that other Australians take for granted. The meagreness of the payments reinforced their sense of being ignored and devalued. They recounted numerous ways that receiving income support made them feel outside our common humanity. This social security stigma interacted with their growing sense of invisibility in a society that celebrates youth. As one of them put it: ‘we're the old people of society that nobody wants. Just the dregs of society. But are basically ignored.’

Our research participants recounted how the experience of welfare stigma has negative effects on their health, well-being, dignity and social connections. So what can be done about this? Clearly there is a need for greater recognition of common humanity and dignity and an acknowledgement of the genuine barriers people experience which result in their need for income support. The media has an important role to play. The language journalists choose can promote respect or feed harmful stereotypes with ramifications for the well-being of people who need income support.

Ruth Lister argues that we should find ways of ‘shame-proofing’ the delivery of benefits and services to people on low incomes. Some practical steps towards this are including voices of service users in the formulation and monitoring of programs and in the training of service providers.

Finally, we need to lift the demeaning rates of payment so that nobody is locked out of society. Lack of economic security threatens not only our access to the material things we need but our relationships with each other.

About the authors:

Dr Katherine Curchin is a Senior Lecturer in Social Policy at the Australian Centre for Social Research Methods @katiecurchin

Dr Aino Suomi is a public health researcher and a psychologist. She is the Director of the Centre for Gambling Research @SuomiAino

Prof Peter Butterworth is a Professor at the National Centre for Population Health at the Australian National University.

Links to videos from the Rethinking Welfare and Conditionality in Australia workshop:

·       Opening and panel on welfare-care-nexus - https://youtu.be/anHNZfzLV6U

·       Stigma in welfare policy and practice - https://youtu.be/r0MuLc4gyqo

·       Panel on employment services and welfare-to-work - https://youtu.be/cLbY50m5JRM

·       Closing discussion - https://youtu.be/7JyAHjN0DMA

About the Social Security Research Policy and Practice Network: 

The Social Security Research Policy and Practice Network is a group of over 30 people from universities, advocacy organisations, and community services providers who are focused on achieving a social security system that affords people dignity and economic security. Its members include representatives from the Brotherhood of St Laurence, the Australian Council of Social Services, Family Care, and the Anti-Poverty Centre as well as researchers from the University of Melbourne, Monash University, RMIT, Swinburne University, the Australian National University, Sydney University, the University of New South Wales, and the University of Queensland – all of whom work on the impacts of welfare conditionality on people’s lives and the frontline delivery of programs. The network formed in 2018 following the visit of Prof Sharon Wright (University of Glasgow) from the UK Welfare Conditionality project to Australia, and it has previously organised streams of the Australian Social Policy Conference.

Content moderator Dr Sue Olney