Introduction

Despite the generality of its title, the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) in the US primarily addresses single parents with children. In the UK this client group is targeted by the New Deal for Lone Parents (see Chapter Five), which is one of a family of New Deal programmes that are central to New Labour's strategy for moving people from welfare-to-work and modernizing the welfare state. The New Deals are active labour market policies that differ in client group, by whether participation is mandatory or voluntary, and according to the nature of the intervention. Many of the key features of these New Deals, such as case working, will be familiar to an American audience, but the UK government has applied these policies to client groups not currently covered by welfare-to-work policies in the US. This chapter, therefore, looks beyond lone parents to consider the Labour government's application of a welfare-to-work model to two quite different target groups, young people and people of working age with disabilities. The intent is to show how, in the UK, the generic model has been modified, both in light of the characteristics of the particular target groups and in response to prevailing norms and expectations as well as political objectives.

Both New Deals discussed here encompass recipients not just of means-tested, cash benefits but also of contributory, social insurance benefits. New Labour has therefore moved beyond welfare as reflected in TANF and addressed groups that in the US would at least potentially be recipients of unemployment insurance payments. The welfare-to-work model has also been applied in the UK to people claiming benefits on the grounds of incapacity for work – who have, therefore, in both the US and Britain, traditionally been considered exempt from the expectation that they should obtain paid work. Being assessed as incapable of work in Britain does not prohibit all forms of work, and claimants performing certain tasks – such as caring, domestic work, voluntary work, and therapeutic work – can retain incapacity benefit entitlement. Nevertheless, until the New Deal for Disabled People, the government did not systematically endeavour to help those on incapacity-related benefits into paid employment.