In seeking to justify and defend their programme of welfare reform, Cameron's governments repeatedly stereotyped and stigmatised recipients of ‘welfare’ (Baumberg et al., 2012; Daguerre and Etherington, 2014). In speeches, policy documents and media interventions, they characterised ‘welfare dependants’ as ‘languishing’ on benefits, all too often exhibiting a host of problematic and deficit behaviours (cf. Cameron, 2014b; Duncan Smith, 2014a). Through repeat interviews with out-of-work benefit claimants, this research allowed us to see how individuals were affected by the dominant narrative on ‘welfare’, which influences how they saw themselves and – importantly – how they saw and regard ‘others’. As Hans Gerth and C. Wright Mills (1953, pp. 88–9) wrote more than 60 years ago:

Theorists have repeatedly emphasised the importance of thinking of poverty and social exclusion not only as states of material deprivation, but also as ones with significant relational and psychological consequences and costs (Lister, 2004; Levitas, 2006; Walker, 2014; Wright, 2016). This chapter examines the relational dimension of out-of-work benefits receipt and explores how individuals respond to being at the receiving end of a punitive and demeaning rhetoric. It demonstrates the consequences this can have for individuals’ identity and sense of self-worth, as well as the ways in which the benefits system itself so often reproduces and reanimates benefits stigma. Following an outline of experiences of benefits stigma, this chapter goes on to look at how individuals challenge and manage this stigma – most commonly through engagement in a defensive ‘othering’ of those judged less deserving of state support. Attitudes towards welfare reform and conditionality are then outlined, showing how individuals are often receptive to the case being made for welfare reform despite being adversely affected themselves by the changes introduced.

How benefit claimants see themselves

In the UK today, stigma and shame are very commonly associated with benefits receipt and the poverty it so often entails (Macmillan, 2003; Batty and Flint, 2013; Shildrick and MacDonald, 2013; Garthwaite, 2014; Graham et al., 2014; Walker, 2014; Wright, 2016).