SEND TO A FRIEND
PRINTImmediate Release: 11 September 2009
Reflecting on the experiences of leading grant-giving charity, Elizabeth Finn Care, award-winning documentary series Dispatches will lift the lid on some of the biggest victims of this recession: the middle-class. The 1-hour long programme will screen next Monday (14th September) at 8pm on Channel 4.
Three quarters of a million people who have lost their jobs during the credit crunch are not claiming the benefits they are entitled to. It is feared that most of these are middle class; individuals who are instead living off redundancy payments, savings, overdrafts or credit cards whilst seeking out employment, and in the process, increasing their debt and in the case of property owners, heading ever closer to repossession.
Elizabeth Finn Care is now calling on the government to address the plight of this group of 'missing unemployed.'
Elizabeth Finn Care is concerned that a combination of embarrassment, wishful thinking and an unfamiliarity with the benefits system has created an economic time-bomb that could have repercussions for us all. If this group of unemployed do not seek help, and fast, they risk losing their homes and spiralling into debt, with the strain on the benefits system becoming far greater in the long-run
The charity argues that encouraging people to take up what they are entitled to as soon as things go bad, is far cheaper than supporting someone who has been rendered homeless, severely indebted and left suffering from mental health issues brought on by the anxiety that comes from their ever worsening situations.
Whilst Elizabeth Finn Care commends the almost £1 billion invested in schemes to help young people during the recession, the charity is alarmed that the Job Search for Newly Unemployed Professionals scheme - which provides only £3 million for around 20,000 people - does not go nearly far enough. To put into context, the charity alone gives over £4.5 million in grants annually to just over 3,000 individuals.
With the number of middle class unemployed estimated to be ten times the number allocated for help through the government’s scheme, Elizabeth Finn Care is conscious that many within the middle classes stand to be Britain’s next generation of 'hidden poor' unless more drastic action is taken.