A report for Crisis, undertaken by researchers at Sheffield Hallam, records the devastating effect of sanctions on homeless people (though 21% of the sample became homeless because of the sanction). People who are sanctioned are driven to ‘beg, borrow and steal’; 38% of those sanctioned had stolen essential items. (I commented on the likelihood of this, using some rather old evidence, two years ago.) Three quarters of the large sample reported negative effects on their health. Sanctions do not drive people into work; they drive people away from the labour market. They are creating problems that will take us a generation to resolve – if ever we do.
It is utterly disgraceful that this state of affairs exists in a country as rich as the UK. France – where I live for the moment – has those on “benefits” going for food parcels, without which they too would beg steal or borrow. Shame on TPTB all round.