Ken Loach’s I, Daniel Blake is brutally realistic portrayal of poverty in Austerity Britain. Set in Newcastle, it follows Dan and Katie as they try to navigate a frustrating and unforgiving welfare state. In doing so, the film illustrates the ongoing ideological battle between two ways of explaining poverty. Are poor individuals responsible for their own situation? Or is poverty ultimately produced and reproduced by the rigid, structural forces of society?
Unable to return to work after a recent heart attack, Dan is nonetheless declared fit for work by the department of work and pensions. Since he can’t work or receive employment and support allowance, he must apply for job seekers allowance. But to receive job seekers allowance, he needs to first fill out an online form, despite having no knowledge of computers, and then prove that he is spending at least 35 hours a week looking for a job, despite not actually being able to take any jobs due to his ill-health.
Meanwhile, Katie has been forced to move to Newcastle from London because she couldn’t afford safe housing for her and her children. Since she’s new to the city, she gets the wrong bus and is late for her appointment at the job centre. This could lead to a sanction, causing her benefit payments to fall by 40%. Upon protesting, she’s simply told that rules are rules.
Any attempt to break these “rules” is met by fierce resistance. A job centre worker who tries to help Dan fill out an online form is cautioned by her boss. She worries that helping Dan in such a way will “set a president” i.e. change the structure from one where the responsibility of changing personal circumstance is placed on the state, rather than the individual. This is a recurring theme throughout the film.
When Dan is forced to attend a CV workshop, he’s told that each unskilled job gets 60 applications….Here the responsibility for getting a job in a ruthless market is placed solely on the individual. Notice that the workshop provides no actual skills, but simply offers a lesson on how to “get smart and reformat a CV.” No attempt is made to alter the structural forces that have brought about this situation; i.e. a distinct lack of both jobs and training for those unfortunate enough to fall into the poverty trap.
Any actual assistance that the characters do receive comes from the generosity of others and not the state. Dan’s neighbour helps him complete his online application for job seekers allowance, and Dan helps Katie sort out the electrics in her new house.
From first glance, it seems that both Dan and Katie are at the whim of uncaring system and can do little to better their own situations. Yet, both are forced to deal with very personal feelings of shame. They are hounded by the idea that their misfortune may be, in some way or another, their own fault.
In one of the most moving scenes of the film, Katie and Dan travel to a local foodbank to pick up much needed supplies. Whilst a volunteer is busy fetching her groceries, Katie, overcome by hunger, grabs a tin of beans and begins eating them with her bare hands. When the others realise what’s happened, she breaks down in shame…
Dan needs to remind Katie that the situation is not her fault, yet he must also deal with the shame of seeking help. He denies the assistance offered by the food bank, despite also having no income or support. When he is forced to turn down a job because of his heart condition, it’s not hard to see the stigma involved in seeking help and how this may cause those in need to blame themselves for being poor.
This scene alludes to the archetype of the benefit scrounger that some politicians and the media have burned into the public imagination. It centres around the idea of the “undeserving poor” an underclass of people that need to take responsibility for their own poverty. The term “underclass” was first coined by Charles Murray in 1984 to illustrate a so-called dependency culture. He argues that the welfare state undermines personal ambition and self-help, leading people towards the easy option; government handouts.
Of course, he does distinguish this form of poverty from people who are “poor through no fault of their own”, yet as we see in I, Daniel Blake, it can be exceptionally hard to prove that this is case. Dan is accused of cheating the system, despite having a legitimate disability and being forbidden to work by his doctor. Part of the problem here, is that Dan is not visibly disabled; he is able-bodied and, at least on the surface, it seems as if he can still perform physical labour. This is the case for most people on disability benefits. Only one in five people claiming it say that their disability is “obvious to anyone when people see [them] in the street, and double that number need to inform others before they can understand.
This paves the way to a much a wider problem, whereby the public vastly overestimates the number of false and fraudulent claims. A recent survey found that, on average, people thought that 25% of claimants were cheating the system, whereas the true figure is closer to 1%. Those who vastly overestimate the scale of the problem, are, surprise surprise, more likely to read stigmatising newspapers like the Daily Mail. Perhaps the worst part of this, is that, as stigma has risen, so has the non-take up of benefits among those actually in need. This shows us that the shame experienced by both Dan and Katie is very real.
One glance at tabloid coverage, and it is easy to explain why. In 2012, the Sun ran a “beat the cheat” campaign where the public were encouraged to phone in if they saw a neighbour that was too sick for work, yet still enjoyed sports and nights out at the pub. A year earlier the Daily Express announced a “new blitz on benefit cheats” and praised a recent initiative to set up a benefit fraud hotline – It later turned out that 96% of calls to the hotline were malicious or timewasting. It’s almost as if the plague of villainous benefit scroungers is, for the most part, imaginary.
Yet this doesn’t stop the structures of the welfare state from being openly hostile to new claimants. Those seeking help must jump through hoop after hoop to prove that they can’t work through no fault of their own; that they are in fact deserving. Dan spends the entirety of the film desperately trying to get the employment and support allowance that he was wrongly denied at the outset. Meanwhile, Katie’s late arrival on her first visit to her first appointment has condemned her to reduced support and a struggle for even the most basic necessities. Both must make heart-breaking decisions and sacrifices to stay afloat. Far from incentivising personal ambition and self-help as Charles Murray would have you believe, not receiving welfare payments sees both characters fall further into the poverty trap.
So, do we blame the system or the individual? I, Daniel Blake seems to point the finger squarely at an apathetic and maliciously bureaucratic system. Yet, it is, after all, a work of fiction. Ken Loach is a former long-term member of the Labour party and is renowned for his socially critical film style. You may be tempted to say “well he would make that film, wouldn’t he?”. This has certainly been the reaction of some commentators, that praise the film, yet are quick to remind viewers that story is not an accurate representation of reality….
But I would argue that these claims are out of touch and disrespectful to those that find themselves in a very similar situation to Daniel and Katie. It doesn’t take long to find real-life stories that are even more damning than the one Ken Loach tells. Stephen Smith, a 64-year-old with several debilitating illnesses was denied benefits by the department of work and pensions in 2017, one year after the film’s release. He was told to claim jobseekers allowance instead and prove that he was spending 35 hours a week looking for work. In February of 2019, Smith wound up in hospital weighing six stone and barely able to move. He told the Liverpool Echo; “I could only make it to the kitchen to make food once a day. I had no muscles in the back of my leg, which meant I couldn’t stand up at all, and had to lean or sit down all the time, but they were telling me I was fit for work”. Four months later, Stephen Smith passed away. Sadly, Stephen’s ordeal was not an isolated case. Between 2011 and 2014, over 2000 claimants died shortly after being declared fit for work and losing their benefits – that’s according to official DWP figures.
I, Daniel Blake, though fictional, is grounded in reality. It gives a gives a gritty, yet incredibly important portrayal of the frustration, stigma and shame of seeking benefits in austerity Britain. It shows us how easy it is to fall deeper into the cycle of poverty, not because of individual failings but because of systemic distrust, humiliation and bureaucratic failure. I would thoroughly recommend the film to anyone interested.
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