We are living through an unprecedented time of hatred of the workless, a group that used to receive sympathy for the shock their finances and confidence received.
The government deliberately stokes this, whether through endless speeches highlighting statistically-insignificant benefit fraud, partnering with tabloid newspapers to ensure a constant stream of anti-claimant stories, and describing unlikely scenarios like unemployed people "sleeping away a life on benefits" as if their sanctions system ever allowed such a thing.
This is all in the service of populism, so how would the coalition deal with the star of Dr Who, one of the BBC's most-watched TV programmes, confessing not just to being unemployed but doing little to find work?
Peter Capaldi is on a world tour to promote his new role, and in an interview with the Sydney Morning Herald in Australia, talked of the time he spent a year out of work in 2005:
"I learned a valuable lesson because there was nothing that I did to change that situation," he said. "I didn't network people, I didn't go out chatting to people or write letters to people. It just changed and there was work around. Maybe I'd changed, I don't know. What I do know is in this profession it's largely out of your control."
So there we have it. If Dr Who was unemployed and claiming Jobseeker's Allowance (JSA) now, with the tightened sanctions regime introduced by the coalition, he would lose his benefits as quickly as he could say 'Tardis'.
The experience of unemployment used to be very different. It was understood that, as an insurance scheme into which you paid while you were working, JSA would be given to you as an obligation by your insurer, the state.
The change in status of unemployed people perpetrated by the government and media means the state is now able to default on its side of the deal regularly, taking benefits away for minor - or no - offences, including 'not doing enough to find work' which Capaldi would have fallen foul of.
The new Doctor understands better than the coalition how difficult being workless is, particularly the blow it gives to your perception of yourself and the way others see you:
"I don't know whether it was a mistake to mention the fact that I was unemployed from time to time and had periods when things weren't going well, because generally I think there's a sense that if you talk about failure it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy."
An understanding of the problems unemployment brings is not something that usually faces Doctor Who.
Peter Capaldi is right to speak up to help people understand how difficult it is.