The Making of a Work-ready Individual: The Political Economy of Time in a Workfare Program in Israel

Abstract

A neoliberal policy ideal, workfare, aims to transform the long-term unemployed into “work-ready” individuals. Studies of workfare examine their use of technologies of agency and coercion, but do not sufficiently delve into the political economy of time’s role in these technologies. Based on 9 months of participant observation in an Israeli workfare program, this article analyzes how it exploited time and temporality to transform social assistance benefits into a “wage.” I argue that in calculating participants’ activities through “time accountancy,” workfare prepares the unemployed for precarious unemployment at the lower rungs of the labor market. Time accountancy disciplines the unemployed through the enforcement of time regularity and punctuality, under threat of loss of benefits, yet in the absence of time density. Workfare’s apparently incongruous training in efficient “time management” and contrasting “time-filling” practices find concordance in preparing the long-term unemployed for low-wage jobs requiring docility and obedience, for precarious flexible work where new forms of digital and biometric control proliferate.

Administrative Burden in Citizen-State Encounters: The Role of Waiting, Communication Breakdowns and Administrative Errors

“…Crucially, however, as our findings illusrate, the experience of waiting could potentialy be shaped by factors other than location (Goodsell, 1984), including uncertainty (Ryan and Valverde, 2006). Finally, waiting is Administrative Burden in Citizen-State Encounters embeded in unequal power realtions, and is often also being used strategically as an efficient technique of domination and regulation (Schwartz, 1974;Soss, 2002;Lipsky, 2010;Auyero, 2012;Holt and Vinopal, 2021; for the Israeli context, see Helman, 2021). In that sense, it is often the powerful segments of society that can escape the costs of waiting.…”

Glitches in the Aspirational Discourse: Between Enterprise and Compromise1

“…Such encouragement is manifested in the aspirational discourse which is allied with the growing spread of popular psychology and the therapeutic framework (Illouz 2008). The aspirational discourse is anchored in multiple institutions, including the democratic state (Helman 2021), the education system (Ecclestone and Brunila 2015;Mertanen et al 2022), and the institution of work (Pagis 2021). In these different spheres of inquiry, this discourse has been regarded as pushing people to maximize their "employment potential" (Smith 2010:280).…”

Social Integrative Enterprises and the Construction of an Impaired Lumpenproletariat – a Swedish Case Study

“…Neoliberal reforms and post-fordist transformations of work have led to a sharper distinction between short-term unemployed individuals and long-term unemployed individuals, that is, individuals who have been unemployed longer than one year (Bengtsson and Berglund, 2012; Helman, 2020). The increase in jobseekers who are coded as impaired is primarily found within the latter category.…”