So just being told the startling statistics gives us an exaggerated impression of both the extent of welfare dependency and the extent to which it's been increasing over the years. The next thing we need to think about is the reasons for the increase in the number of working-age people dependent on government benefits. The fundamental causes of the rise in welfare dependency are marital, demographic and, above all, macro-economic. They have little to do with the moral fibre of the individuals caught up by them. It's no accident that the marked rise in the number of people on welfare since the mid-1970s coincides perfectly with the period in which our economy has been put through the wringer.
Higher unemployment accounts for the lion's share of the rise in welfare dependency.
The point is, first, that it's illogical and unfair to hold the individuals involved responsible for their failure to be in the workforce like the rest of us and, second, that no amount of encouragement or compulsion will get them to take jobs that aren't there. Now, I happen to believe that, thanks to the belated pay-off from micro reform and greatly improved management of the macro economy, we're at last seeing a genuine improvement in unemployment. The sort of reforms proposed by the McClure report will help at the margin, but they're very much a secondary issue.