Zusammenfassung der Ressource
Creating a Welfare State: Provisions
of Social Welfare
- Welfare provision in 1918
- Victorian Poor Law
- Liberal welfare
reforms early 20th c.
- Unemployment Insurance 1911
- 7 shillings a week
unemployment benefit up to 15
weeks - low payment, average
wage = twenty shillings/week
- Female workers &
wives of working men,
maternity allowance
- 10% total working male
population
- self financing
- pre 1914 = patchwork, victorian
view private charity best way of
dealing with poor
- Growth of welfare provision 1918-39
- Unemployment Insurance Act 1920
- NI: 4m workers 1919 →
11.4m 1921
- benefits increased: 75
unemployed men, 60p women
(avg. low paid job = £3)
- covered non-contributors
= state funded 'dole' & no
means test
- Why?
- massive
unemployment
- fears poverty
= revolution
- support soldiers
- Welfare in the 1930s
- National Economy Act 1931
- means test - limit
welfare bill
- exacerbated hardship
- Hunger Marches e.g. Jarrow 1936
- disqualified short
term workers
- affected men who worked odd days
in collieries/ship yards & welfare rest
of time
- unemployment more economic sense
than work = poverty trap
- claim 6 months & reapply
- Public Assistance Committees
investigate circumstances
- ALL household
income - children
move out
- MOST UNPOPULAR
PIECE OF LEGISLATION!
- Unemployment Act 1934
- built on 1931
- long & short term
unemployed
distinction
- reversed 10% cut to
short term
unemployed
- means testing for long term
unemployed stayed & payments
lower rate than those 1931-34
- PROTEST: 300,000 in
South Wales
- 1935 gov. standstill legislation
- popular pressure protecting
welfare
- unemployment 3m 1933 → 1.4m 1939
- 1930s = consensus that state had
significant role in providing
unemployment benefit
- Impact of WW2
- Evacuation
- 1939 - 1.5m children relocated
- Evacuation authorities didn't
cater for needs
- assumed private charity &
families would provide
- poor children often transported
without spare clothes, bedding,
food etc
- improved after - gov. provided with
essentials & social workers etc
- Rationing
- Began January 1940
- Bacon, butter, sugar
- 1942 - eggs, jam,
tea, meat
- Clothes - June 1941
- 66 coupons a year
- dress = 11
- pre-war clothing such
good quality, people
continued wearing it
- soap rations =
smelly clothes!
- Effect
- Black market
- price only
rich could
afford
- not big problem - rationing
welcomed during war
- Improved diet!
- unhealthy foods less
available
- pint of beer 1939 =
3p, 1942 = 7p
- Food Policy Committee
authorised subsidies milk &
fuel for mothers with small
children
- Beveridge Report 1942
- Post-war Britain,
conquer 5 evils
- Squalor
- Ignorance
- Want
- Idleness
- Disease
- William
Beveridge
- universal benefits -
flat rate contributions
& benefit
- REACTIONS
- VERY popular! sold sever
hundred thousand copies
- Propaganda to
British troops
- Ministry of Information found it
had universal support
- Supported by The Times & Telegraph
- adopted by all
parties to varying
degrees
- Labour Gov. &
Consensus 1939-64
- Work of Labour 1945-51 - CREATING
MODERN WELFARE STATE
- Family Allowances Act 1945
- child benefits for
1st time
- 25p/week for each child
- paid to mother rather
than father- economic
independence
- National Insurance Act 1946
- Unemployment &
sickness benefit
for all workers
- Creator James
Griffiths: "from
barrow boy to
field marshal"
- Same contribution =
higher proportion of
poor peoples wages
- State pension men
over 65 & women
60
- £1 single people,
£1.75 married
couples
- Industrial Injuries Act 1946
- Right to compensation paid
by Ministry of National
Insurance
- 2,,425 people killed per year in 40s
- National Assistance Act 1948
- Welfare to those not
covered by National
Insurance
- homeless, disabled, unmarried mums,
pensioners in poverty
- Consensus 1939-64
- Centre & left of Conservatives
saw it as vital part of modern
Britain
- Harold Macmillan early advocate
cons. welfarism
- The Middle Way 1938
- agreed there should be
no return to pre-war
poverty
- upper & middle classes
moral responsibility to
help poor
- Realised welfare
cuts would make
conservatives
unpopular &
unelectable
- some members e.g. Enoch
Powell advocated cuts -
though they were in minority
- HOWEVER, spent less on
welfare in 50s & 60s than
West Germany & France
- But welfare as % of GDP 3%
→ 4% (& further 3% on
pensions)
- Didn;t end poverty
- 1965 Child Poverty
Action Group →
720,000 children lived in
poverty
- Challenges to
State Welfare
Provision 1964-79
- Wilson gov. 1964
promised increased
welfare spending.
Chancellor James
Callaghan discovered
£800m debt → continued
with welfare → increase
in taxation → resentment
towards welfare cost
- 1970 National Insurance Act -
Heath (torie) seemed comitted to
welfare
- generous welfare package
- pension rights to
100,000 not covered by
1948 act
- Attendance
allowance for
those needed
long term care
at home
- invalidity benefit for disabled
- increase
child
benefit
- rent subsidies
for low income
families in
private
accomodation
- Right Wing Challenege
- Sir Kieth Joseph
- welfare limits
individual
freedom
- advocates assumed they
had right to take money
from citizens to improve
others lives
- Inspired by Austrian
economist, Friedrich
Hayek
- Welfare & Efficiency
- gov. would always
spend less
efficiently than
private business
- private business run for profit, gov
not → no need for efficiency
- Blamed post 1945
economic problems partly
on welfare
- Welfare & Inflation
- Welfare = gov. borrowing →
increased money in economy
without increasing goods
- Tackle inflation with
welfare spending =
more inflation!
- Welfare & Dependency
- welfare = dependency
culture
- economic delcine
- perpetuated relative poverty -
people living on smaller
amounts
- moral problems e.g. loss of self
respect gained from hard work
- no aspirations, goals,
self-respect, no contribution
- welfare payments
encouraged living off
benefits rather than jobs
- Heath lost 1974 election →
Thatcher is leader →
anti-welfare
- Criticised Wilson's
welfare policies e.g.
1975 universal child
benefit & 25% rise in
pension rates and
freezing council house
rents in 1974 budget
- IMF Cuts
- 1976 - gov. cut
spending in return
for $4bn loan
- £2.5bn cuts
→ housing
& education
cut
- Opponents of
Welfare
- Telegraph,
Times, FT
- critical of
excessive
spending
- younger people less
inclined to embrace
collectivist thinking that
emerged from
Depression & WW2
- Tories 1979 election
→ welfare bad for
economy, society &
burden on tax payer
- Aspirational working &
middle classes → less
sympathy for policies
that meant higher taxes