Framework for renewing the welfare state
A revitalised system of social protection is needed that builds on the original post-war consensus, according to the Compass think tank. It has published a briefing sketching out the principles underlying a renewed social security system – as an alternative, it argues, to the one being created by coalition government policies.
Subjects: Welfare system
Work 'key' to anti-poverty strategy
The effectiveness of anti-poverty strategies depends heavily on boosting employment, argues a new policy paper. Policies that focus on income redistribution are not enough by themselves.
The paper is published jointly by the Centre for Labour and Social Studies and the Child Poverty Action Group. It examines why, 70 years after the Beveridge report, poverty in the UK continues to be so prevalent, and what a renewed attack on want might look like.
The welfare uprating bill penalises the poor, again
by Stewart Lansley
The coalition government's proposal to strip nearly £4 billion from the welfare bill by capping increases in benefit levels to 1%, well below inflation, marks another shift towards a welfare system that is no longer fit for its fundamental purpose of protecting those in need.
The move is a significant departure in the post-war history of welfare in the UK and is, indeed, unprecedented since the war. The last deliberate political move to lower the real incomes of the poorest members of society was more than eighty years ago in 1931. Then attempts to cut benefits for the unemployed split the cabinet and led to the collapse of the Labour government under Ramsey MacDonald. The uprating bill, before Parliament on January 8, 2013, raises a vital question: why should the poor pay the price for the failure of Britain's economic model to deliver enough jobs and decent wages.
Subjects: Benefits, Welfare system, Government policy
Steady decline in public support for welfare
Public support for the benefits system has been in steady decline in recent decades, according to a report from the polling organization Ipsos MORI. The report looks at contemporary public opinion towards the five 'giant evils' identified in the 1942 Beveridge report – want, idleness, ignorance, squalor and disease. It highlights the findings of its own recent work as well as referencing those of other studies.
Subjects: Welfare system, Poverty forecast, Benefits
Making the welfare system more contributory
by Graeme Cooke
Ed Miliband has argued that Labour's position on welfare should do more to demand responsibility and reward contribution, sparking a revival of interest in the notion of 'contributory welfare'. This can be traced to the coming together of two forces over the last couple of years. On the one hand, the realisation that the welfare state offers minimal protection for those who have paid into the system at moments when disaster strikes. On the other, the hardening of attitudes towards those on welfare, in particular the widespread fear that the system offers a 'free ride' for people who do not work.
Subjects: Benefits, Welfare system
Welfare state 'becoming unsustainable'
The welfare state in its existing form will become unsustainable over the next few decades, according to a report by a Conservative MP. Writing for the right-of-centre Free Enterprise Group, Chris Skidmore calls for fundamental reform of the benefits system.
Subjects: Welfare system, Benefits, Means testing, National insurance
Austerity threatens 'social crises'
The combined impact of benefits reform and public sector cuts is putting huge strains on a welfare system already 'buckling' in the face of growing demand and underfunding, according to a think-tank report. The long-term result is that social crises are likely to build up – leading to unsustainable human, social and economic costs.
The report is the outcome of an 18-month project with people in some of the most deprived communities in Birmingham and Haringey (London), designed to explore their experiences of the government's austerity measures and its ambitions for building a 'Big Society'.
Subjects: Government cuts, Social policy, Welfare system, Charities
Heading back to the Poor Law?
by John Veit-Wilson
The UK public has increasingly negative views about 'welfare benefits' claimants, according to recent reports by the British Social Attitudes survey and Demos. Many seem to believe that welfare benefits for unemployed and disabled people are too high and claimants should have their expenditures monitored or even controlled by issuing vouchers or benefits in kind. Responses suggest that 'they', the claimants, are getting too much of 'our' money and spending it wastefully.
Welfare state 'needed to tackle European poverty'
The best-performing European countries in terms of social and economic outcomes have one thing in common – a large and active welfare state. That's the emerging policy conclusion of a major EU-funded research project on poverty and inequality.
Subjects: Europe, Welfare system, Social policy, Poverty forecast, Inequality
'Most households' now net recipients of state money
Most households now receive more in benefits than they pay in taxes, according to a think-tank report. The Centre for Policy Studies claims that, over the last 30 years, even middle-income households have moved from being significant net contributors to state funds to being significant net recipients.
Subjects: Benefits, Tax, Welfare system