a post by Hettie O'Brien for DEMOS
Government reports rarely become bestsellers. But large queues formed on the night before the publication of William Beveridge’s 300-page survey of social insurance. His report shaped the post-war consensus and laid the foundations for our modern welfare system. It invoked a simple premise: it was better to share risk across society.
The Beveridge report hastened a radical consensus around welfare provision for an age of male breadwinners, full employment and economic growth. Its designers could not foresee present-day challenges. Ageing populations, the rise in short-term employment contracts and in-work poverty have transfigured welfare needs. But modern governments have failed to deliver a radical agenda to parallel Beveridge’s vision.
The Conservative government and its predecessors promised transformation, yet their changes have amounted to little more than palliative tweaks. Universal credit and the replacement of incapacity benefit with ESA caused more harm than good. Poverty levels remain unacceptably high. The disability employment gap has not decreased. And a punitive regime of benefit conditionality has regularly left many people destitute.
Continue reading but I warn you that it is not comfortable reading.
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