Moving out of Benefits Street

搬出福利街

British attitudes to welfare have undergone a quiet revolution

英国人对福利的态度经历了一场悄无声息的革命

Fears about benefit fiddling are at their lowest level in three decades

对福利造假的担忧降至30年来的最低水平

Jul 13th 2019

“FAIRNESS”, DECLARED George Osborne, the then chancellor, in 2012, is “about being fair to the person who leaves home every morning to go out to work and sees their neighbour still asleep, living a life on benefits.” Newspapers printed story after story about welfare fraudsters pinching from the public purse, from the woman with two Samoyed dogs who collected thousands of pounds a month and claimed, “It’s not worth my while working,” to the man who collected disability benefit while competing in bodybuilding contests. In 2014 one in ten Britons tuned in to “Benefits Street”, a documentary which featured welfare recipients drinking and fighting on rubbish-strewn streets.

2012年时任英国财政大臣乔治•奥斯本(George Osborne)宣称，“公平”是“对那些每天早上出门去上班，却看到邻居还在睡觉、靠救济金生活的人公平”。报纸上刊登了一篇又一篇关于福利诈骗者盗用公款的报道，从一个月领着数千英镑养着两只萨摩耶犬的女人，到一个领取残疾人补助金却还一边参加健美比赛的男人，她都说:“这一切，不值得在他们盗取福利的同时，我却在辛苦工作。”2014年，十分之一的英国人收看了“福利街”，这是一部纪录片，讲述的是领取福利的人在垃圾满地的街道上饮酒斗殴。

词汇

Chancellor/（英）大臣

Fraudster/骗子；诈骗犯

Back then it felt impossible to be too mean to benefit claimants. They were a political piñata: whack them and votes fell out. When in 2013 the opposition Labour Party opposed a bill that would have resulted in three years of real-terms benefit cuts, the Conservatives responded with an advert that read: “Today Labour are voting to increase benefits by more than workers’ wages.” In the run-up to the general election in 2015, Mr Osborne promised £12bn ($18bn) of cuts to welfare. Voters rewarded his party with a majority.

当时，人们觉得不可能太吝啬而不让领取救济金者受益。他们是政治皮纳塔:重击他们，选票就会掉出来。2013年，当反对党工党(Labour Party)反对一项将导致3年实际福利削减的法案时，保守党的回应是打出了一则广告:“如今，工党正在投票决定，将福利增加幅度超过工人工资。”在2015年大选前夕，奥斯本承诺削减120亿英镑(合180亿美元)的福利。选民们以多数票支持他的政党。

词汇

Claimant/索赔人；英式英语有（因失业等）领取救济金者的含义

Piñata/彩色礼品包（内装玩具和糖果，美国西班牙语社群儿童聚会玩游戏时蒙眼用小棍戳破）

 

But the political piñata is no longer paying out. These days 56% of people think that cutting benefits “would damage too many people’s lives”—the highest figure since 2001 (see chart). Fears about benefit fiddling are at their lowest level in three decades. Concern over the extent of poverty, however, is rising, according to the latest edition of the British Social Attitudes Survey, published on July 11th. Voters no longer complain about “scroungers” during focus groups, say pollsters. TV programmes are more likely to focus on the botched roll-out of universal credit, a big welfare reform, than they are on the undeserving poor. Newspapers carry many fewer stories than they used to about skivers (see chart), instead running sympathetic profiles of people forced to use food banks.

但政治皮纳塔已不再奏效。如今，56%的人认为削减福利“会损害太多人的生活”——这是自2001年以来的最高数字(见图表)。对福利造假的担忧降至30年来的最低水平。然而，根据7月11日发布的最新一期英国社会态度调查，人们对贫困程度的担忧正在上升。民意测验专家表示，选民不再在焦点小组讨论中抱怨“乞讨者”。电视节目更有可能把焦点放在糟糕的普及信贷(一项重大的福利改革)的推出上，而不是放在不值得关注的穷人身上。报纸上关于逃避工作的人的报道比以前少了很多(见图表)，取而代之的是对被迫依靠食物银行的人进行同情的描述。

词汇

Scrounger/乞讨者；行乞者

Pollster/民意调查人

Botche/搞砸的

Skiver/英国俚语，指一贯逃避责任或工作的人

The shift has many causes. One is economic. The working-age employment rate has risen to an all-time high, so in Mr Osborne’s terms there are fewer people still snoozing as their neighbours begin their morning commute. Wages are also growing at their fastest rate since the financial crisis of 2008-09. When people feel reasonably flush they may feel more generous towards others.

这种转变有很多原因。一个是经济上的。处于工作年龄的就业率已升至历史最高水平，因此用奥斯本的话说，当邻居们开始早晨的通勤时，仍在打盹的人更少了。工资也在以2008-09年金融危机以来最快的速度增长。当人们感到相当富足时，他们可能会对他人更加慷慨。

 

But a strong labour market does not always translate into support for welfare. The British economy boomed in 1997-2007, when Tony Blair’s Labour government was in charge, yet scepticism about welfare rose during Mr Blair’s second and third terms. What other factors are at play?

但强劲的劳动力市场并不总是转化为对福利的支持。英国经济在1997年至2007年蓬勃发展，当时托尼•布莱尔(Tony Blair)领导的工党(Labour)政府执政，但在布莱尔的第二和第三届任期内，人们对福利的怀疑有所上升。还有哪些因素在起作用?

 

Policy is one. The Tories, who came to power in 2010 on a promise to balance the fiscal books, have long been tough on benefits. In a conference speech in 1992 Peter Lilley, then the welfare secretary, adapted the libretto of a Gilbert and Sullivan musical: “I’ve got a little list / Of benefit offenders who I’ll soon be rooting out / And who never would be missed.” Yet even by Conservative standards, cuts to working-age welfare under Mr Osborne were severe. In the 2010-15 parliament about £30bn (equivalent to over 1% of GDP) was stripped away; single parents in work lost benefits worth 6% of their after-tax income. Reforms announced shortly after the general election in 2015 fell even harder on the poor.

政策就是其中之一。保守党在2010年上台时承诺平衡财政收支，长期以来一直对福利政策持强硬态度。1992年，时任英国福利大臣的彼得•利利(Peter Lilley)在一次会议演讲中，改编了吉尔伯特与沙利文(Gilbert and Sullivan)音乐剧的歌词:“我列出了一些小名单/我很快就会根除/而且永远不会错过的福利违法者。”然而，即使按照保守的标准，在奥斯本的领导下，工作年龄福利的削减也是严重的。在2010年至2015年的议会中，约300亿英镑(相当于GDP的1%以上)被削减;单亲父母失去了税后收入6%的福利。2015年大选后不久宣布的改革对穷人的打击更大。

词汇

libretto/剧本；歌词集

 

The highly visible effects of these policies, from a proliferation of food banks to a rise in rough sleeping, have convinced many people that Mr Osborne went too far. As on many subjects, public opinion on welfare tends to be “thermostatic”, says Ben Baumberg Geiger of the University of Kent. Once policies become harsher or softer than the level preferred by the public, voters send a signal and the government adjusts the policy “temperature” accordingly. Philip Hammond, who replaced Mr Osborne in 2016, has slightly increased the working-age welfare budget.

这些政策的显著效果，从食品银行的激增到睡眠质量的提高，让很多人相信奥斯本做得太过了。肯特大学的本·鲍姆伯格·盖格说，就像在许多问题上一样，公众对福利的看法往往是“恒温的”。一旦政策变得比公众所喜欢的更严厉或更温和，选民就会发出一个信号，政府就会相应地调整政策的“温度”。2016年接替奥斯本的菲利普•哈蒙德(Philip Hammond)小幅提高了工作年龄福利预算。

词汇

Proliferation/增殖；扩散

Thermostatic/调节温度装置的；恒温的

 

Changes in other policy areas may help to explain why the public has gone softer on welfare. The growing concern in the 2000s with benefit fraud and abuse coincided with a big rise in immigration, especially after 2004, when residents of eight eastern European countries got the right to work in Britain. Voters feared the prospect of migrants coming to live off the taxpayer (many did indeed claim in-work benefits, though very few lived off the dole). A sense that Brexit will lead to lower immigration may have convinced people that there is no longer such a risk involved in having a generous welfare policy. Once the government is seen to be acting on a topic, public opinion moves on, says Andrew Cooper, a pollster at Populus.

其他政策领域的变化可能有助于解释为什么公众对福利的态度有所软化。在本世纪头十年，人们对福利欺诈和滥用的担忧日益加剧，与此同时，移民人数大幅增加，尤其是在2004年之后，8个东欧国家的居民获得了在英国工作的权利。选民们担心移民们将来会依靠纳税人生活(许多人确实要求在职福利，但很少有人靠失业救济金生活)。认为英国退欧将导致移民减少的想法，可能已经让人们相信，英国的慷慨的福利政策不再受外来移民风险的影响。Populus的民意调查员安德鲁•库珀(Andrew Cooper)表示，一旦政府被认为是在某个话题上采取行动，公众意见就会跟随着政府前进。

 

The change in mood is matched in the political debate. Not long ago, opposition parties boasted that they would be tougher on welfare than the incumbent. As recently as 2015 Labour—then under the caretaker leadership of Harriet Harman, a veteran of Mr Blair’s administrations—whipped its MPs to abstain on a vote on Mr Osborne’s benefit cuts, rather than vote against them. Ed Miliband, who preceded her as leader, promised to crack down on migrants receiving benefits.

在政治辩论中，人们的情绪也发生了相应的变化。不久前，反对党还夸口说，他们在福利方面会比现任政府更加强硬。就在2015年，工党——当时在布莱尔政府的资深看守人哈丽雅特•哈曼的领导下——敦促其议员们对奥斯本削减福利的提案投弃权票，而不是投反对票。在她之前担任工党领袖的埃德•米利班德(Ed Miliband)承诺打击接受福利的移民。

词汇

Incumbent/现任的；依靠的

Abstain/（投票时）弃权，放弃

 

A bunch of left-wing backbenchers, including Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell, ignored Ms Harman’s orders, with Mr McDonnell pledging to “swim through vomit” to oppose the cuts. Mr Corbyn has since become Labour’s leader, and the party has moved in a different direction. It has mooted a universal basic income and hinted that it would scrap universal credit. Labour’s emollient approach means that the Tories no longer need to be macho about welfare. “Politicians now in Parliament can’t get up and speak the way they did a few years ago,” says Mr McDonnell, now the shadow chancellor. “In those days, we were still at ‘scrounger’ and all the rest.”

包括杰里米•科尔宾(Jeremy Corbyn)和约翰•麦克唐奈(John McDonnell)在内的一群左翼后座议员无视哈曼的命令，麦克唐奈誓言要“穿过呕吐物”来反对削减开支。科尔宾先生后来成为工党的领袖，工党已经朝着不同的方向前进。它提出了全民基本收入，并暗示将废除全民信贷。工党的温和态度意味着保守党不再需要在福利问题上表现得像个男子汉。现任影子内阁大臣的麦克唐奈表示:“现在国会中的政客们无法像几年前那样站起来说话。”“在那些日子里，我们仍然在‘乞丐’和其他问题上。”

词汇

Vomit/呕吐物

Emollient/润肤霜；镇痛膏；软化剂

Macho/大男子气概的

 

One person, at least, has not changed his mind on benefits. When asked last October whether he regretted his actions in government, Mr Osborne admitted to policy failures regarding the EU, immigration and the banking industry. But he mounted a staunch defence of his welfare cuts. “If you are going to have to deal with the fact the country was spending too much, it would be a bit odd to leave out the very large chunk the government was spending on welfare,” said Mr Osborne. Voters, it seems, now disagree.

至少有一个人没有改变对福利的看法。去年10月，当被问及是否对自己在政府中的行为感到后悔时，奥斯本承认自己在欧盟、移民和银行业方面的政策失误。但他坚决捍卫自己的福利削减。奥斯本表示:“如果你不得不面对这个国家支出过多的事实，那么把政府在福利方面的巨额支出排除在外就有点奇怪了。”现在看来，选民们对此并不认同。

词汇

Staunch/坚定的；忠诚的