For Whose Benefit?: The Everyday Realities of Welfare Reform

Welfare reform in the United Kingdom has been underway for years now, but there has been little reflection on how it has been experienced and thought about by the people who are directly affected by it. This book draws on extended, repeat interviews with single parents, disabled people, and young job seekers to consider how they experience the rights and responsibilities of citizenship, and whether the welfare state still offers meaningful protection and security for those who rely on it. This analysis enables the author to highlight the gap between the lived experience of welfare and the policy rhetoric surrounding it.