Social Security Policy

Whether government is the party which should hold the most responsibility in the case of employment and social security policy has always been a debating issue. By looking at the effectiveness of the recent policies that gathered the effort of government and employers, we could examine that whether each party is doing their exact part in contributing to solve this problem, which will eventually “address Britain’s supposedly broken society and restore economic competitiveness” (Jay Wiggan, 2012).

It has been unable to respond to our evolving job market and changing nature of our workforce. Society has changed but the benefits system has failed to change with it. So it is time to bring welfare into the 21st Century. (Iain Duncan Smith,
Secretary

Government need to change employers’ attitudes towards hiring disabled people in workplace. In an article named ‘Employing, Serving All Equitably: The Nordstrom Way’, it is said that "You may not have the very best person in the job if you didn't recruit any disabled job candidates."(M. Satya Prakash and Shirisha Regani, 2007). The disabled could have their special characteristics and personalities which may enhance their job performance in the workplace that normal people may not have. Employers should be told that there may be little difference between work capacity of the disabled and that of normal people in some cases. It is because that economic structure is changing towards tertiary industry in UK, which requires less physical strength in the workplace. Subsidies or minimum space for disabled should also be set so as to motivate or enforce employers to include the disabled. This series of policies could help increase the number of disabled being employed by government force; however, we are not able to fully understand the benefits that the disabled truly received since discrimination (Bell, David, Heitmueller, Axel, 2009) towards the disabled may still exist. The disabled may not be getting equal treatment and welfare. Thus, strengthening consciousness of employers is necessary. Employers should also provide assistance for people to

However, it still depends on the cooperation degree of people. The disabled themselves should take the most active part in this issue. Government and employers can only give a helping hand in providing a platform for them to be employed. If government is too generous in this case, the disabled may be too dependent since they have no intention to make themselves more self-supportive and hence to search for jobs. The disabled may be reluctant to accept job offers below their expected wage (Lawrence F. Katz, 2010) since it makes little difference between the benefits they received from government. This misconception should be corrected by moving from ‘carrots’ towards ‘stick’ (Katharine Weston, 2012). Government can pay more attention to ‘stick’ like Return to Work Credit (RTWC) (Anne Corden and Katharine Nice, 2006) to motivate the disabled become more