Britain has developed a curious contradiction in the way it values essential work. We routinely express admiration for soldiers, nurses, care workers and other public servants whose labour sustains the functioning of society, yet the material rewards attached to many of these professions frequently bear little relationship to their social importance. At the same time, the state commits substantial resources to supporting people outside employment.
This raises a fundamental question about the architecture of welfare and public policy: should a proportion of welfare expenditure be reconceived not merely as a mechanism for supporting people outside employment, but as an investment in making socially indispensable work more economically attractive?
The objective should be to construct a sufficiently compelling economic and social proposition that moving from welfare into essential employment becomes an attractive choice rather than merely an obligation.
This would require us to think more imaginatively about the concept of a “core service profession”. Certain occupations possess an importance that extends beyond their immediate economic function. A nurse does not merely provide a service to an individual patient; the profession is integral to the resilience of the entire health system.
These occupations could therefore be recognised as a distinct category of employment: professions in which the state and society have a strategic interest in recruitment, retention and long-term participation. Recognition, however, should amount to more than ceremonial appreciation.
The state could construct a comprehensive package of fiscal and social advantages for designated core-service occupations. These might include substantial income-tax relief, preferential access to affordable housing, heavily discounted public transport, enhanced pension contributions, subsidised childcare, training opportunities and other employment-related benefits.
Consider the difference this could make to an individual’s decision-making. A prospective nurse, care worker or soldier should not assess the attractiveness of the profession solely by comparing headline salaries. Their effective remuneration could incorporate a broader package of advantages: lower taxation, reduced housing costs, cheaper transportation, enhanced pension provision and access to subsidised services.
A hypothetical “National Service Employment Allowance” could, for example, provide enhanced tax relief to those employed in designated occupations. Housing priority could assist workers who are required to live close to hospitals, care facilities or military establishments, particularly in areas where housing costs have become prohibitive. Significant transport concessions could reduce the cost of commuting. Taken together, these measures could substantially increase the real disposable income associated with essential employment without requiring the state to increase basic salaries by an equivalent amount.
Such an approach could also alter the terms of the welfare debate.
The conventional question is often framed as: how much can government reduce the welfare bill? A more constructive question would be: how can public expenditure be configured so that employment becomes sufficiently rewarding to draw more people towards productive and socially necessary work?
For an individual receiving benefits, the prospect of accepting a demanding job can be economically unattractive if the transition produces only a modest increase in disposable income while simultaneously introducing commuting costs, childcare expenses, housing pressures and the loss of existing support. Change those incentives, and behaviour can change with them.
If employment in a core-service profession offered higher effective disposable income, access to housing, subsidised transport, professional development and a credible career progression pathway, the proposition would become fundamentally different. Employment would cease to be merely the alternative to welfare. It would become an opportunity for economic advancement, security and social recognition.
There is another dimension that is equally important: status. Britain has often undervalued occupations whose social utility is enormous, but whose economic status is comparatively modest. Care work illustrates this particularly clearly. Caring for elderly, disabled and vulnerable people is among the most consequential forms of work performed in a modern society, yet those undertaking it have historically struggled to receive commensurate financial and cultural recognition.
That is not simply a labour-market problem. It is a question of what society chooses to esteem.
Government has the capacity to influence those social signals. The creation of a formally recognised category of core-service employment would communicate that certain forms of work carry an importance beyond their immediate salary. It would establish a hierarchy of social contribution in which serving the community, protecting the nation and caring for its most vulnerable citizens are explicitly valued.
The economic case may ultimately be as compelling as the social one. Successfully moving people from welfare into productive employment could simultaneously reduce welfare expenditure, increase tax receipts, alleviate labour shortages and strengthen essential public services. Rather than viewing welfare and employment as opposing categories of government expenditure, policymakers could begin to see them as interconnected components of a broader labour-market strategy.
The fundamental objective should not be to stigmatise those who require welfare support. Nor should it be to create a punitive distinction between the employed and unemployed. It should be to ensure that employment, particularly employment in areas of profound national importance, represents a genuinely attractive economic proposition.
The objective would not simply be a smaller welfare. It would be something considerably more ambitious: a labour market in which the nation actively rewards service, essential occupations regain their prestige, critical vacancies are filled, and those who keep society functioning know that their contribution is recognised not merely with words, but with tangible economic security.
* Edward Marsh is a veteran and has worked in defence and national security for 20 years, a member of the business network and is on the Party’s approved parliamentary candidate list.
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37 Comments
“ For an individual receiving benefits, the prospect of accepting a demanding job can be economically unattractive…”
This is a key point. Last year the Centre for Social Justice warned that welfare pays more than a job for 1m on combined benefits. So, while I agree we should do more to raise the financial reward to those in essential jobs, I think we also need to look carefully at the amount people can claim on welfare. It is absolutely unacceptable that anyone should be refusing to work because they are better off living on benefits.
I agree wholeheartedly with Edward Marsh’s two final paragraphs: the problem is how to get there.
@Jana: I wonder what evidence the Centre for Social Justice (founded by three Tories: Iain Duncan Smith, Tim Montgomerie, and Philippa Stroud) has for that 1m figure, and if it has been “peer reviewed.”? Even poor, unemployed and other wise disadvantaged people have their pride. and may attempt to salvage their self-respect by claiming to their neighbours that their benefits make them “better of than working.” But I’m sure it’s often an empty boast and they’d love to have a respectable job.
@ Jana As a former Lib Dem Cabinet Member for Social Care, and Chair of a Foodbank (both in Scotland), I’m disappointed to see you raising that old canard about being better off on benefits than working. You should know that in fact the DWP carry out very stringent checks including :
1. Case Reviews: Millions of Universal Credit and other benefit claims are systematically examined using data matching and risk-based computer systems.
2. Bank and Third-Party Data: The DWP works with major banks to flag accounts that match risk indicators, such as exceeding the £16,000 capital/savings limit for means-tested benefits.
3. If your claim is selected for review, you will receive a message in your online journal asking for evidence like bank statements, ID, or proof of address, usually with a strict 14-day deadline.
4, Following reports of suspicion of abuse from individuals such as neighbours.
It would also be interesting and enlightening for you to watch the trailer (it’s on You tube) of the 2016 film, ‘I, Daniel Blake’.
What about the kitchen porter, cleaner , dinner lady etc – should they carry on struggling paying market rent , full public transport fares, take their turn on the housing waiting list.
The party should be trying to elevate everybody – not a favoured few
I think articles like this are so important. As life becomes more difficult skilled people seek better lives be that going to Australia, going into the private sector or giving up and become a social media influencer. We need to ensure that public service is rewarded so to stop people leaving.
As life becomes harder those with minor health conditions start to have major health conditions and drop out the work place. And some people see it as an opportunity to claim benefits they wouldn’t previously try for.
As investment is centralised into few areas the issues will become worse in those areas not getting investment….
Issues are numerous and complex. For example, we both need more social housing and major improvements to the old stock we have and having little money to do so.
So much needs looking into. We can’t follow the 2010 model of minor tweaks or blaming benefit claimants which didn’t work then and won’t work now.
@Peter Wrigley, @David Raw
From personal experience: I have a good friend who is a manager in a manufacturing company who was telling me that his company recently phoned the local job centre to ask them to stop sending people to apply for jobs who would be worse off if they took the job. This followed several people having been offered full time jobs that paid more than minimum wage but then refusing the position on the basis they believed they would be worse off. Anecdotal, yes, but if this is being repeated across the country it would tend to support the claims made by the Social Justice Commission.
With almost all of these mentioned “key professions” being public sector ones (care workers, for now, aside) where the state both sets and pays the wage directly, wouldn’t it be simpler, rather than spending thousands per worker on a range of perks needing further coordination at some expense across hundreds of public and private organisations, to cut through all that and give the workers those thousands directly? Then they don’t need to do complex calculations of “well, if I work in job A I get £3500/year more, but job B gets me a transport voucher worth £780/year and this and that and the other which I may or may not be able to use”.
Similarly, income tax relief of £2000 and raising their gross salary so that their net salary rises by £2000 cost the state exactly the same, and give the worker the same take-home pay, but raising their salary keeps the pay comparable with the private sector and makes it easier to understand which jobs do pay more.
To add to Chloe’s list hospital porters, phlebotomists, litter pickers and security guards. I am sure there are many others but some occupations have less trade union recognition so pay is lower with fewer employment rights.
Well said Chloe. If we want more people to do public sector job X, pay people doing that job more. All the evidence is that people look at headline wages, and having some small print saying “you will get £500 off your income tax and a bus pass” is really unlikely to be the best way to spend money to recruit people. Of course almost all the jobs you state already have much bigger employer pension contributions than is typical.
Although people often say they would be not be better off working this is very rarely the case – go to Turn2Us, invent a family, and see how much better they are if they take a job. It is usually massive – work pays in Britain.
The quoted comparison between welfare income vs work is deceptive, because it assumes that anyone taking a job loses access to *ALL* welfare payments, which often isn’t the case. PIP can be claimed by people in work as one of it purposes is to help people get to and perform work. Likewise people in work may still be eligible for some Universal Credit, including the housing and child element. UC is reduced by 55p for every £1 earned.
The number of people who would genuinely be worse off working will be very small, so most people who believe that must be misinformed – perhaps by reporting of things like the Centre for Social Justice Report whose comparisons cherry-pick larger families claiming PIP vs working for low wages with total loss of welfare income.
> several people having been offered full time jobs that paid more than minimum wage but then refusing the position on the basis they believed they would be worse off.
Having a job can incur costs, such as commuting and also moving up tax bands.
There is also a factor that wage rates are depressed in the UK – I assert – at a given skill level. At my last workplace new hires were being offered roles at 2 staff-grades lower than historic norms.. Can you spell private equity?
This is a part of the story of skill shortages that government occasionally talk about. I know electricians and technicians who are self-employed as employee status does not pay them well enough. They have full order-books and people seek them out. Firms just do not pay well enough or offer good enough on-the-job training. The same applies to the armed forces and skilled trades for the public sector. The response is to contract work out and pull in skilled migrants.
” This followed several people having been offered full time jobs…. then refusing ..on the basis they believed they would be worse off.”
In my working life I often had to ask hourly paid workers to work overtime. I quite regularly was told they couldn’t because they would be worse off after tax. This was impossible and they usually did know this. What they really meant was that it wasn’t worth doing the extra work for the extra money received.
If someone is offered a job which does pay more than they receive in benefits. They might say they’ll be worse off; but, what they really mean is that it’s not worth working 35 hours for £70 or so.
Lib Dems often talk about “the taper. This is what it means in practice.
The idea of guaranteed jobs seems to clash with Lib Dem sensibilities as regards welfare payments. Is it somehow demeaning to ask something in return for the help that is offered? It could be, if we were asking people to work for next to nothing, but not if we are paying a living wage.
There’s really something to be said for the phrase “From each according to their abilities…” The next part of the quote “..to each according to their needs” is more problematic. I’d interpret, for starters, this to mean that no-one needs the multi-million salaries and bonuses dished out to undeserving executives of the privatised utilities!
The traditional workplace social contract—where an employee offered loyalty and hard work in exchange for lifetime job security, predictable wage growth, steady pensions, and comprehensive health benefits—has largely eroded, replaced by a transactional, flexible, and often precarious gig-economy model. Much of these jobs in yester year came with some type of official lodgings like a vicerage, a Caretaker’s lodge, nurses domitory or hostel etc.
“several people having been offered full time jobs that paid more than minimum wage but then refusing the position on the basis they believed they would be worse off.”
Well, no doubt that’s what people say. It sounds better than “Look, staying on benefits will work better for me, because I’ll have time to do jobs around the house rather than pay someone else, I’ll have time to look after my old Mum, I won’t have to pay commuting costs, and I’ll moonlight for a few cash-only gigs as well, maybe inside the law, maybe not.”
No, slashing benefits would not be the answer to that line of reasoning. It would exacerbate gross poverty and it would encourage more crime.
“Workfare” might have a role to play. If “people offered full time jobs that paid more than minimum wage” knew that no job means litterpicking, maybe they’d accept the jobs on offer.
@ Jana I’m sorry, Jana, but you’re asking me to take the anecdotal evidence ‘of a friend’ over the published regulation standards and practices of a public body.
Edward Marsh….The conventional question is often framed as: how much can government reduce the welfare bill?
Easy; just vote Reform.. They have promised to reduce it by £50billion (details to follow sometime in the future)
@David Raw
“ I’m sorry, Jana, but you’re asking me to take the anecdotal evidence ‘of a friend’ over the published regulation standards and practices of a public body.”
No problem, I accept that. However I thought it was worth hearing some ‘lived experience’.
@David Raw & @Jana – From my interactions with the benefits system, the real issue is that it is a separate system to the tax system and has very harsh clawbacks which effectively punish people for getting a job. Additionally, being separate and not integrated into the tax system , people have to do what I regard as unreasonable levels of reporting on the benefits they receive and then due to the values of work get deducted one month due to an increase in earned income, but not automatically reinstated the next month when wages fall (eg. No overtime).
I’ve long believed the benefits system needs to be integrated into the tax system and it becomes less onerous and harsh with respect to overpayment for those who get into work and then stay in work – giving people a carrot to work and earn more than the stick currently used to punish people who have improve their position and income, and with a little (positive) help lift themselves out of benefits.
It’s very hard to integrate a benefit system based on the short term needs of families and a tax system based on fairness to individuals.
The best route that I can see is a Negative Income Tax or Universal Basic Income that provides every individual with a non means tested sum equivalent to half the basic universal credit for a couple. The benefit system would then top this up to current levels at a household level. That would mean that far fewer people would ever have to interact with the benefits system.
@ David @Jana,
Jana’s and my own previous comments may well be considered to be annecdotal evidence but, if you’re looking for something more subsantial, there is a report from the Centre for Social Justice making much the same points. They say that there are more than a million people who are better off on “combined benefits” than they would be in a job paying a National Living Wage.
I would ask how much higher this figure would be if their net income would be, say, only 10% more than combined benefit levels.
“Recent CSJ research revealed that by 2026 there will be more than a £2,500 gap between earnings and combined benefit income. A full time worker on the National Living Wage (NLW) is expected to earn £22,500 after paying income tax and national insurance.
By comparison, an economically inactive claimant on Universal Credit (UC) for ill health with the average housing benefit and Personal Independence Payment (PIP) would receive an income of around £25,000, rising to £27,500 for those awarded PIP’s highest rate.”
Unfortunately the immediate reaction of many on the liberal – centre left is to try to play down the scale of the problem. This can only infuriate those who are doing their best on a low income and drive them into the arms of the far-right.
https://www.centreforsocialjustice.org.uk/newsroom/welfare-pays-more
@Peter Martin – the point I tried to make above is that comparison isn’t fair or reasonable. If that same individual eligible for £25k to £27.5k of benefits moved into a full time job paying minimum wage, they would still be eligible for some reduced UC and PIP so they would never be worse off by working.
It also disturbs me that right wing politicians and the press (and apparently even some on this forum) are using those with disabilities to attack the welfare system. They are being added to the list of “scroungers” alongside immigrants as the source of the country’s ills.
@ Nick Baird Well said, Nick, especially in your last paragraph. Some things have changed a fair old bit since I first joined the Liberal Party way back in 1961, not always for the better.
@ Nick @ David,
What do you actually mean by “worse off”? Would you be worse off if your income dropped by 1% but you didn’t have to go out to work? How about 5% or 10%? What figure would you put on it? I’m thinking of at least 25%.
It looks to me that many on the centre left are saying something like “Crisis, what crises?” Yet, we have, as alluded to in the OP, a real problem getting our young people to do essential jobs. If the CSJ figure of nearly 1 million young people, the under 25s, who aren’t in work, training or education is correct then we should recognise that this is catastrophic. Mainly for them but also for society in the future too.
If we don’t tackle and solve the problem from a left perspective we know what will happen if we leave to the far right.
Nick Baird is right to point out some flaws in Peter Martin’s posting. However, when Nick says “If that same individual … moved into a full time job paying minimum wage… they would never be worse off by working”, he is ignoring all the lucrative things you can do while being unemployed.
You can look after children. You can be a carer for the elderly. You can save costs by doing jobs like home plumbing or car repairs yourself. You can do cash-in-hand jobs for others. Or of course you can do crime. You have plenty of time for all that.
It would surely be quite fair to say that you should first be asked to use some of that time for helping the community – by picking litter, by manning libraries, whatever. If that keeps you too busy for the petty crime, and so it shifts that balance of advantage back to your accepting that full-time job offer instead – Then that would be a win for society.
@Peter Martin – the Government has already put a figure on it of 45%. UC claimants lose 55p of benefit for every £1 earned.
The high level of youth unemployment is a tragedy, but that is a separate issue and they aren’t the ones getting these claimed inflated income levels from benefits (not least because the under 25s are eligible for less).
The comparisons used by the right wing, which you are happy to repeat, pitch “disabled people on maximum benefits” against “low paid people on no benefits” which is an entirely fake comparison. And by always dragging PIP claimants into these comparisons to achieve maximum effect they are demonising the disabled as scroungers in order to attack the benefits system as a whole.
By all means make proposals to reduce youth unemployment and train young people to perform essential roles, but let’s do it without repeating false comparisons from the likes of the CSJ.
@ Nick,
I’d say David has understood the point I’m making better than yourself.
From a left perspective we should be trying to eliminate poverty by providing well paying jobs rather than trying to provide ever higher unconditional social benefits. Lib Dems rarely, if ever, make a strong case against low wage levels.
Lib Dems have good intentions but trying to eliminate poverty through ever higher benefit payments is clearly not working. It’s creating a social backlash against the benefits system and risks destroying what genuine claimants do need. It is far easier to persuade voters that employers should pay their workers properly rather than that they should top up low wages via their taxes. Beveridge is often quoted on LDV with approval but he did not support unconditional welfare payments. He favoured the “contributory principle.”
The cost of subsidising the low wages paid out to many workers via the UC system is estimated to be between £30 bn and £40 bn. So why not insist that workers are paid more so that these sums are unnecessary? Can the big supermarkets, and others, really not do without taxpayer support?
Labour and nature are the source of all value. We should do everything we can to ensure that neither are wasted. Incidentally, if you Google this phrase you’ll find it is not a “repeat” of a “right wing comparison”.
@Nick Baird
“ And by always dragging PIP claimants into these comparisons to achieve maximum effect they are demonising the disabled as scroungers…”
I think the problem is that the growth in claimants getting PIP payments is largely driven by people who would not be widely viewed as being ‘disabled’ in the traditional sense such as claiming ‘anxiety. I do not blame people on benefits seeking to maximise their income by claiming PIP, particularly by getting their children diagnosed with ADHD and then also claiming Carers’ Allowance for looking after their own children, but it does mean that the ‘carer’ will then lose these payments if they take full-time employment.
We need a support system that helps those of working age who are genuinely unable to work for a living, and also those able to work but unable to secure employment…but that’s it.
@ Jana “I do not blame people on benefits seeking to maximise their income by claiming PIP, particularly by getting their children diagnosed with ADHD and then also claiming Carers’ Allowance for looking after their own children”.
I’m sorry, Jana, but as a former Chair of a Foodbank who actually dealt with several hundred people on benefits over the years and knew of their circumstances, I have to say your message would have more impact if you actually produced some verified empirical evidence instead of merely repeating veiled assertions.
“Labour and nature are the source of all value”. The problem is that in the UK, much of that labour was by people long since dead. Unskilled labour these days is just not that valuable to employers.
@David Raw
“…your message would have more impact if you actually produced some verified empirical evidence..”
Perhaps this BBC news item from 15 years ago ( showing this is not just a recent issue)?
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-12359070
@ Jana So you’ve note recent evidence ?
Peter Martin,
I agree that the lack of a real financial incentive for many people to take up low-paid jobs rather than living on benefits is a problem. But I emphatically don’t agree when you say:
“trying to eliminate poverty through ever higher benefit payments is clearly not working. It’s creating a social backlash against the benefits system”
Torsten Bell (chapter 8)
https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/461720/great-britain-by-bell-torsten/9781529932393
has shown that since 2010, benefit CUTS have reduced the average income of the poorest fifth of households by £2800 per year. “Ever higher benefits payments” – Nonsense!
(Bell does also note that in response to the Tory benefit cuts, PIP claims have soared. Should we condemn some PIP claimants for dishonesty, or compliment them for doing what they must to survive, one might ask?)
There has always been a backlash against benefits. It has rarely been so unjustified.
The answer is not even more benefit cuts. The answer could be – Workfare to cut out exploitation of the benefits system – and in parallel, RAISING the benefit levels so savagely cut by the Tories.
@ David,
I did say “*trying* to eliminate poverty through ever higher benefit payments….” ‘Trying’ is not the same as succeeding.
You make the point that the more standard benefits have been cut under the Tories but that PIP claims have soared. We’ve all heard stories of people who are claiming PIP unnecessarily. You’ve asked the question “should we condemn some PIP claimants for dishonesty….? ”
We may all have our differing opinions on this one. I haven’t done a survey but I think we all know what most people will say.
I asked Google’s AI the question: “how many people are claiming PIP in the UK and what is the cost?”
Answer: “As of early 2026, over 4 million people are claiming Personal Independence Payment (PIP) in England and Wales. The annual cost of the benefit has surged to roughly £26 billion, with government forecasts projecting total spending to climb past £41 billion a year by 2030”
We should add another 8% or so to include the Scottish ADP system.
Why do so many people feel they need PIP support? Low wages and low esteem inevitably will create depression, lead to other disabilities and shorten life expectancy . Allowing workers decent wages and restoring their self respect is the common sense way forward. It’s a win-win for all.
@Peter,
Fair points about PIP – but I’m afraid that your conclusion that the answer is “allowing workers decent wages” won’t fly. How exactly could we politicians persuade companies to increase their wage bills? We can’t. Companies would just declare that they can’t buck the market and that if they paid higher wages than their competitors, they’d go bust.
Or we could follow the OP proposals and raise public sector wages and perks. But that would favour NHS nurses over private-company care staff and would needlessly raise government spending and hence taxes. That also doesn’t make sense.
What politicians CAN change is benefits policy. They can tighten up on PIP claims. They can roll back the Tory cuts to standard benefits. And to stop unemployment being too attractive, and to get something back in return for benefit payments, they can require unemployed claimants to do useful workfare jobs for the community,
@ David Allen ” What politicians CAN change is benefits policy. They can tighten up on PIP claims”……………………
Oh, dear, yet another example of how the Lib Dem Party has swung to the right in recent years. Whether this is in order to appease ‘Middle England’, I leave it to others to decide.
Just in case you’ve missed it, Mr Allen, PIP already has a very strict regulatory regime with detailed eligibility rules based on a points system that assesses how a health condition or disability affects daily life and mobility, rather than just a medical diagnosis. An independent review led by Sir Stephen Timms recently described the current framework as rigid and complex. Do you propose to add to this rigidity and complexity ?
“How exactly could we politicians persuade companies to increase their wage bills? ”
We already do it by setting minimum wage levels.
The economic system may superficially appear to be about money. However, I would argue that it’s really about ensuring that we all play our part by working to keep the wheels turning. The government doesn’t need our tax money per se. It can create as much as it likes. It does, though, need us to work to get the money to pay our taxes and at the same time create products that are for sale and which give the currency a value.
If the government does require us all to work, it also has responsibility to ensure, as a last resort, that we all do have a job to do. We can all have jobs unless we are sick – in which case we can be put on sick leave. Many disabled people who find it difficult, or even impossible, to find work in our present system could do something given the present level of technology to help. The example of Stephen Hawking comes to mind. He would have been consigned to a nursing home at one time.
A policy of a guaranteed job, at a living wage, is possible. It will set the wage floor for all employers in the economy who will have to at least match this.
Pavlina Tcherneva is the best known advocate.
https://pavlina-tcherneva.net/job-guarantee-faq/
“@ David Allen …………………… Oh, dear, yet another example of how the Lib Dem Party has swung to the right”
Just in case you’ve missed it, Mr Raw, I am suggesting a combination of proposals which would enable us to raise basic benefit levels, and take a lot of people out of poverty, without unduly reducing the incentive to work. Demonising that as right-wing can only mean you haven’t understood my proposals.