How successful were Liberal social reforms in dealing with poverty?

Extent of and causes of poverty 30% of urban population in poverty 1/3 of these in primary poverty Booth and Rowntree identified these causes: Large families Low pay Periods of being unpaid Old age

The 19 th century policy In 1834, the Poor Law Amendment Act had stated that all paupers had to enter the workhouse Families and old couples were separated Little education Little useful training No minimum wage or sickness and unemployment benefit No Old Age Pension No child benefit

How far did the Liberals improve on this situation? National Insurance Acts School meals and medical inspections Minimum wages, maximum hours and Labour exchanges Old Age Pensions Act But: All of these reforms were limited to certain groups The Poor Law was not abolished Education and housing not improved No specific help for large families

How successful were the reforms? For each reform look at: What it provided How many it helped What they actually received Is there evidence that it made a significant difference?

Royal Commission on the Poor Law It agreed that change was needed, but what? Local authority Public Assistance Committees to arrange help for poor in own homes? Or, a Ministry of Labour to co-ordinate policy nationally? Neither happened – the workhouses remained for those who did not qulify for any other help – though these people were fewer than in 1905

How successful? Was this the failure to provide a welfare state –that is, a complete scheme that covered the needs of all out of general taxation? Or a success - in providing a “lifebelt” for the poorest, partly out of taxation, but mostly out of insurance contributions and local authority rates?

A failure: Too incomplete to help any but the poorest They relied on the use of insurance rather than a redistribution of income through progressive taxation. Workers had to pay for their own benefits! Only the worker and not his family was covered for sickness benefits. Even the state funded pension was a small amount and not given to all old people Nowhere near “a welfare state”

Successful: “They took British society into an entirely new field of activity..” BB Gilbert, The Evolution of National Insurance “Real, if limited, achievement..” RC Birch, The shaping of the Welfare State, 1974 “The Welfare State is a much later concept..” so we shouldn’t judge them against it. D. Murphy, Britain,