Young people’s experiences of multiple benefit sanctions: secondary analysis of qualitative longitudinal data

Despite a broadening scope in youth studies, the topic of welfare conditionality and its disproportionate punitive impacts on young people remains underexplored. Benefit sanctions are a financial penalty placed on welfare claimants for non-compliance with behavioural conditions attached to the claim. Young people, aged 20–24, are twice as likely to experience a benefit sanction as those aged 30–34; a phenomenon underpinned by structural inequalities such as higher unemployment rates and restricted benefit entitlements for young people. This paper will explore young people’s perceptions of multiple benefit sanction experiences by drawing on qualitative longitudinal data from the Welfare Conditionality Project (2013–2019). The paper also contributes to methodological debates surrounding the re-use of qualitative data by demonstrating some opportunities and challenges within secondary analysis of big qual datasets. The analysis showed that young people often employed anger as a coping mechanism and some harnessed anger to move away from the welfare system. The findings indicate that multiple benefit sanctions can alienate young people from employment support services.