Labour and other opponents of the government’s welfare cuts have so far focused on their unfairness. How can ministers charge social housing tenants for their “spare rooms” (the notorious “bedroom tax“), cut council tax support by 10 per cent (forcing thousands of families to pay the tax for the first time) and cap benefit increases at just 1 per cent while simultaneously handing 13,000 millionaires an average tax cut of £100,000 a year? But in doing so they are in danger of ignoring another important argument against the measures: welfare cuts aren’t just bad for the poor, they’re bad for growth too.
When George Osborne announced most of the government’s welfare reforms in his first Budget and in the 2010 Spending Review (the bedroom tax was described as “limiting social tenants’ entitlement to appropriately sized homes”) it was on the assumption that the economy would be growing at nearly 3 per cent a year (the OBR originally forecast growth of 2.8 per cent in 2012 and 2.9 per cent in 2013). It is now expected to grow by just 0.6 per cent. Rather than cutting into an expanding economy, Osborne will be cutting into a stagnant one. And austerity, as the OBR reminded David Cameron last week, has consequences. For every £100 of welfare cuts, GDP is reduced by around £60 a year.
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