welfare p-r-o-p-a-g-a-n-d-a

Why Tiffany, 24, knows how to get UK off benefits... Thanks to the Wisconsin workfare scheme David Cameron would love to emulate in Britain.

This is the comment I left:
Baffling.
The Mail has to go all the way to America to find one success story on how welfare-to-work is supposed to work. How much did it cost to send the journalist on that little trip? (Or was it just copied out of a press release?) So can we hope for a similar article set closer to home interviewing a few of the people of the 97% that the likes of A4e totally failed to help? I doubt it somehow.

As for the article itself - urgh. Propaganda covered in syrupy nonsense.

In just the first paragraph - "she now works as a bank teller"... mmmmm that'll work fine here then, oh no hang on... banks have been shedding staff here like crazy. And there's even more lay offs in the pipelines. Strike one.

'A miraculous change of fortune' - well, yes of course miracles happen every day... oh wait, no they don't. That's why they're called miracles. Definition of miraculous: Occurring through divine or supernatural intervention) So strike two. The Wisconsin programme isn't working then - is it. It's up to God and fairies.

Then it's blah-blah-blah, Cameron is a god amongst men, and single American mom's on welfare are a drain the US economy... sort of waffle.

then we get: "Britain currently has a voluntary Government-backed work experience scheme, which Mr Cameron’s proposals hope to build on."

That's voluntary as in 'you do this -or we stop all your 'benefits' including your rent - so you'll be homeless, begging in the street' -that sort of voluntary.

As the Wiscon Programme - well, funding has been cut on it already... (March 20, 2011) and oh, lookee here - it's being threatened with closure altogether in one place.

and I found this academic study:
'Wisconsin works'?: race, gender and accountability in the workfare era. which shows that there's a lot more to the programme than this fluffy-wuffy Daily Mail article.