
Back in 2009, months before the coalition government unleashed sweeping austerity, the then Conservative backbencher Iain Duncan Smith produced a study that would go on to lay the foundations for the rollout of universal credit.(早在2009年,联合政府推出大规模紧缩政策的几个月前,时任保守党后座议员伊恩·邓肯·史密斯完成了一项研究,该研究后来为通用福利的推行奠定了基础。) Now, nearly two decades later, Duncan Smith and his thinktank, the Centre for Social Justice (CSJ)(社会正义中心智库), has published State of Dependency: a landmark report promising to expose “the full scale of Britain’s worklessness crisis”.
早在2009年,联合政府推出大规模紧缩政策的几个月前,时任保守党后座议员伊恩·邓肯·史密斯完成了一项研究,该研究后来为通用福利的推行奠定了基础。如今近二十年过去,邓肯·史密斯和他的智库社会正义中心(CSJ)发布了《依赖状态》:一份承诺要揭露“英国无工作危机全貌”的里程碑式报告。
The study paints a picture of(描绘……的图景) mass benefits reliance(依赖): it identifies 3,400 local areas where more than half the working-age population are on out-of-work benefits, or “economic opiates(鸦片制剂)”, as the authors call them. They’ve even provided an interactive map (in the yellow and black colours of a road hazard sign, no less) so members of the public can type in their postcode to see if their neighbourhood is “a welfare hotspot”.(他们甚至提供了一张互动地图(用的还是道路危险标志的黄黑配色),让公众输入邮编,看看自己所在的社区是不是“福利热点”。)
这项研究描绘了一幅大规模依赖福利的图景:它指出有3400个地方区域,其工作年龄人口中超过一半在领取失业福利,或者按作者的说法,是“经济鸦片”。他们甚至提供了一张互动地图(用的还是道路危险标志的黄黑配色),让公众输入邮编,看看自己所在的社区是不是“福利热点”。
This is not just another ugly social policy report from a politically sidelined former minister – it is a gauntlet being thrown down ahead of Britain’s big benefits debate.(这不仅仅是一位政治上被边缘化的前大臣发布的又一份丑陋的社会政策报告——这是在英国福利大辩论前夕扔下的一只挑战手套。)
这不仅仅是一位政治上被边缘化的前大臣发布的又一份丑陋的社会政策报告——这是在英国福利大辩论前夕扔下的一只挑战手套。